COMPANION: ELDER COLLETT
This week we worked. We worked and then after we had worked we also worked, and when we were finished we worked some more. And oh it was wonderful. Oh it was fun.
After reading a bit of last week's letter, my companion laughed and said it sounded like a persuasive essay. I suppose it is a bit. A large part of why I write is that I desperately want everyone who is able, and particularly my younger siblings, to do whatever is necessary to serve a mission. So there's some persuasion going on there. I also want people to believe in Jesus Christ, in all that He is, did, and does. That's what this next segment is going to be about.
I was reading in the Book of Mormon this week pretty aggressively. That's a fun word to describe it. Yes, aggressively. I was hunting for more, hungry to learn In King Benjamin's speech there is a phrase (I won't tell you where, you must find it!) where that noble man tells his people that they are debtors to their God for all that they have (pretty standard stuff there) and are.
For all that they ARE. We are thought that we have existed forever. That we were with Father before this world was created and will continue in existence whether of happiness or misery, beyond the edge of time. How then is it that we rely upon Him for all that we ARE? Are we not independent? Are we not our own? Are there not attributes that are US, uniquely and completely?
Some of you know a bit of my story, others had the questionable opportunity to watch certain scenes play out before them. For those of you unfamiliar, I once had a very long list of things that defined "me," and oh how they made me glow with pride when I thought of them. I just thought I was the bee's knees, whatever that means, and strutted my way through life accordingly.
One day, after my symptoms had progressed significantly, I was lying on the carpet, utterly exhausted. I had hung Christmas lights on the walls, and the effort of unraveling the cord and turning on the light switch had knocked me to the floor. I could not move, I could not sleep, even blinking and breathing demanded concentrated effort. I stared listlessly at the twinkling lights, and there it was that I received a glorious blessing. I was given, for a moment, the capacity to think a thought that was beyond the limits of a mind which then struggled to recall even its own identity. And the thought was this: I am nothing.
Not I HAVE nothing. No no no, I had quite a bit actually. Wonderful friends, incredible family, books and a laptop and food and clothing and all sorts of modern conveniences. Never has there been a moment in my life when I was not richly blessed. But all of the things I had defined as ME, all of the things I would have described myself as, were gone. Long gone. No longer was I strong, or fast, or witty, or wise. Certainly I had lost the capacity for raped and precise thought which I valued so highly in myself. Gone was the discipline and capacity to endure that I had thought resided at the core of my being. Lost was even my sense of humor, my personality quirks, my flavor of creativity, even my memories. All that I was, or rather all that I believed myself to have been, had been withdrawn, and I was left for a little while, to contemplate what I really am. I am not BAD. I do not mean to give the impression that any sort of self-loathing or disdain did or ought to have entered my wandering heart at this time. Such feelings come from an evil and twisted source. I am not evil, I am just nothing, without my Savior and my God.
And so it is that I have a deep and a firm testimony of this particular Book of Mormon verse. So it is that I know, or have begun to know, not only who I am but WHAT I am. I am exactly what God chooses to make. There is nothing about this idea of "me" that is independent of Him, and I submit that there is noting about ANYONE that is independent of Him! He is at the center of every decision, of every moment, and of every soul. all that we are cones from our loving Heavenly Father.
Sigh. All that we are. I still am not much. I know it, and I know that God knows it. I don't mind it, and it seems that neither does He. We do a great work here, the two of us. Well, He does the work, but I get to watch. Sometimes I really do. Sometimes I'll be taking, and my mind will stop and listen to my mouth speak the words that come through it. They are some pretty great words. Every once in a while there are even some new ones! I like those.
I love the people here in Starke. We taught scores of lessons to dozens of incredible investigators. There simply isn't the time even to begin to relate all the miracles incident to such work as that in which we are engaged, but miracles do happen, and I love them. I love these people. I love to see the ways in which their spirits and souls are wrapped upon our Father. Every single one of them is. I pray that every single one of them will know it sooner rather than later. That's all we do here, is push towards sooner. Because one day every knee shall bow, even trembling knees like mine, and every tongue confess, through stutters and the shadows of old lisps and with inadequate language and perhaps even in a southern accent, that blessed Jesus is the Christ.
--Elder Jorgensen
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