MISSIONARY TRAINING CENTER, PROVO, UTAH
COMPANION: ELDER HURD
ZONE LEADER
Three Stories
1) There are these really amazing grapes in the cafeteria. End of story.
2) The Allegory of the Knuckles
"To invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and his atonement, baptism, receiving the gift of the holy ghost, and enduring to the end."
We're going to move quickly. Did I mention I got to teach a lesson in spanish last week? I may have. I got to teach a bit more. It was awesome. But that's off topic. The allegory of the knuckles.
It is dry here. Bone dry. My knuckles got dry. My companion suggested lotion. I ignored him. The situation worsened. My companion recommended vaseline. I ignored him. The situation deteriorated. The knuckles on both hands opened up. They bled perpetually. I could not clench my fists. Strangers gawked.
It was time for faith. Time to believe things could be different. Time to believe that there was something out there that could help me. Time to believe life didn't have to be this way. But that required repentance. My situation was dire, but no past is too great for the atonement. I did away with past stubbornness and habits, and went humbly before my companion and sought his advice. Next came baptism. I scrubbed the sweat and dirt and filth associated with untreated knuckes, too painful even to have washed for days, and they were left clean. Raw, but clean. And then the gift of the Neosporin(sp?) came. And let me tell you, baptism by fire was never a more appropriate phrase. It BURNED. And then, two days later, my hands were healed. Some dryness, some scabs, but I can pick stuff up again. No I have not been doing well in enduring to the end, and they have begun to bleed once more, but I know if I continue in the path that has been set for me, if I but endure, I can be as whole as ever I was.
A light-hearted analogy, but a true story and it fits will with the missionary purpose.
3) A commentary on the atonement that is a bit more serious before I close. It has been mentioned that the atonement is personal. I took some time this week to consider the possibilities of what that could mean. I'm not saying this is what happened, but I am saying it has helped me to better understand my relationship with my savior and just what he did for me, the value of it, and how much he wants me to partake of it no matter what. It has helped me and it may help others, so I will share the thought.
Christ has experienced the pain of all our sins. That's the redeeming power. He can help us achieve all good things, that is the enabling power. Logically it seems he may have acheived all good things as well as suffered for all bad things. Achievement can be as hard as the burden of sin sometimes. We also have agency, so it stands to reason he would have left that agency intact and not just suffered and achieved what we actually WOULD, but what we actually COULD. Our lives our long and the choices are many, so that is a lot. Also, he would have suffered the hypotheticals. If there was no atonement, we would have been separated from God forever. It stands to reason he felt and suffered that as well.
So he did EVERYTHING. He felt EVERYTHING. All that we did and COULD have done, he accomplished. Oh the strain. All that we have and COULD have suffered, he felt. Oh the pain.
Now how long did it take?
The Garden of Gethsemane experience, to Peter, was only a couple of hours perhaps. But time is measured differently to such beings as the Christ. Can you truly experience something if you gloss over it? Can you truly feel an eternity in an instant?
It has been posited that Christ spent a moment thinking about just YOU in that infinite, eternal sacrifice in Gethsemane. To me, it seems possible that he did not spend a moment. He spent an eon. He spent eternities. Somehow, he defied the fabric of space and time and lived your life a BILLION times in a BILLION ways. Perhaps more. Perhaps numbers I cannot even imagine were involved. The number of variables and choices in a human life seem to make that possible. And that is just human life. All of the afterlives, all of the eternities of separation. Permanent separation. He went through. It took him eternities.
That is how much he knows you. And me. That is how much it cost. That is how much he loves me. And you. That is how valuable the Atonement is. After all that, do you think he cares about our past? Do you think he is going to cast that all away because we committed a sin? Because of a moment, or a period, or even DECADES of weakness? WHAT IS THAT? What is that to the being who has known us for eternities? What is that to Him? He did all that for me. For you. All he asks is that we reach out, grab it, and be happy.
Maybe it was nothing like that. Almost definitely it was nothing like that. But I think it helps me. And I love Him more for it. I love Him so much. I'll talk to you from Jacksonville.
~Elder Jorgensen