Daily Archives: June 2, 2013

A Great Week with RMS and an Amazing President’s Letter

Tuesday we had the opportunity to have a First Lunch…that is four FFLM returned missionaries came over for lunch. We had a great time talking about the mission and what we were doing since we got home. On Thursday night we met three of them at the temple for a session. It was so wonderful to be in the temple with these dedicated young people who love the Lord so much. What a blessing it is to get to serve with them in the mission field and then also get to be with them once we are home.

Today, we had a chance to visit with a missionary we served with in Indonesia…Michael Cheney. He came into the mission just one week after we did and we served with him until his first transfer. He and his wife – she is from Taiwan and they met at BYU Hawaii – live in Salt Lake and it was wonderful to talk about what they have been doing since we last saw him some 5 years ago.

President Anderson’s letter this week contained two wonderful experiences. I would be very surprised if you can read the second one without getting a little choke up…I couldn’t. I should know how the gospel can so quickly change lives but when I read conversion stories like this one, the power of restored gospel still amazes me.

“I love your endurance to those whose heart you change with your testimony and Spirit. To endure with faith that they will respond:

“… We knocked on one last door. This older gentleman walked out and we asked if we could pray with him. He bluntly told us that he didn’t pray. We explained that we wanted to leave a blessing with him and it was for anything he was in need of at this time. He smartly replied ‘money, we all need money’, we asked if there was anything else and he replied ‘well I could always use a new car’. My companion said the prayer it was very short, powerful and to the point. When we got done we asked him how he felt and you could just see the change that the whole thing (blessing) had made on him. He was a lot nicer and responded with saying he felt good and so we invited him to be baptized and he said yes as well as coming to church!!…we set up a time to go see him the next day. We took a member with us and the lesson was awesome. We found out he hasn’t been to church, any church in over 20 years and he hasn’t prayed for about that long either. We taught him about how church is a commandment and the blessing and importance of it and our member gave an incredible testimony on how much Church service has blessed his life. We then asked him if he would give the closing prayer…he was astonished and again told us he doesn’t pray and doesn’t remember how…so we explained how simple it was and he said he would give it a shot. he started to cry as he said the prayer and then during the prayer he promised God that he was coming to church with us on Sunday, then cried some more after the prayer. We then shared with him how amazing his prayer was and you should have seen the smile on his face…Sunday came and he showed up to church WITH his wife an hour early, and waited for it to start!! He loved sacrament and his wife even expressed during the sacrament how much she loved how it felt. We went to see them that night and taught the restoration and gave him a Book of Mormon which he started reading before we even had left his house. He is preparing to be baptized next Sunday!!!”

I love how you endure with faith with all those you prepare to be baptized:

“My companion and I harvested (a wonderful couple) about 2 weeks ago- and after we shared the harvest blessing with them- we asked how they felt. He, slightly more reserved at first, quietly said he didn’t feel like he deserved it. She said she loved the peace of the prayer and she said that she’d been asking God for a chance to let Her Husband know that He (God) loves him. From there, it has been an incredible journey with this family. They have recently been considering getting divorced, she was on the verge of leaving- but she had been pleading with the Lord for direction- then next thing she knew, we were knocking at her door, offering to share a prayer. Throughout these amazing last 14 days, we have witnessed beautiful transformation within both of them! She said that she has been praying for years that her husband would soften his heart and make the decision to get baptized. It has been quite a long road for the both of them. Her husband made some choices in the past that he felt he would never be forgiven for- choices that directly affected his wife in one of the most heartbreaking ways possible. But as we taught about the power of the atonement of Christ- how through repentance, we are able to be forgiven for any and all of our mistakes, He started keeping the commitments we left with them. Before we met them, He had decided he wasn’t going to care about himself- he was at the point where he wanted to end his life- and he was smoking up to 2 packs of cigarettes a day. But he has been living the word of wisdom- completely cigarette free for over 8 days now! Their baptismal service was one of the most amazing, miraculous and tender experiences I have ever before seen. She went down into the font first, she’d been crying up until that point, and came back up so relieved, so refreshed- she had so much joy as she walked up to the steps. But the most amazing part was when her husband came up out of the water. He looked up at her with the most humble, hopeful, and pure of expressions. She walked to the edge of the font, again in tears, overflowing with joy, and as he came up, they embraced. I cannot do justice with words everything I felt in that moment. All the pain in the past, all the doubt, all the suffering- all of it had been washed away. They were both brand new. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life.”