One goal of my mission is to change every day. I want to be different out of a love of Jesus Christ and a more perfect brightness of hope in the future, and not from a place of self-loathing or contempt. The way I changed this week is to choose WILL, not can.
I have changed in a lot of ways. I am intensely positive and
enthusiastic. I am fanatically smiley. I am stamping out the vestiges of my argumentative nature and endless criticisms. I talk and think about different things. But this week, I changed in my favorite way.
It is easy to believe God CAN do something. God CAN work a miracle, He CAN answer a prayer, He CAN help us to baptize x number of people, He CAN redeem me, He CAN heal this person, etc. That is was I thought faith was! That was my understanding of my relationship with God. But I was corrected this week. I believe my Father WILL. He WILL work miracles and answer prayers and redeem and heal and enable me to achieve my goals. He WILL. I choose to believe it before I understand it, before I know it, before I see it. He WILL. These people that I work with and love WILL receive the saving ordinances, they WILL be baptized, and that is just how it WILL be! Will, not can.
Vicki continues to progress. We have her either in a lesson with us or at a church activity or studying the gospel online every single day. Her husband Nelson has caught the fire and they are both committed to be baptized on August 21! They have been to church twice and met half the ward and when we taught them the word of wisdom Nelson walked into the other room, spat out his tobacco, and came back in moments later beaming.
Tommy is an adventure! He has been taught by missionaries for over a year. Turns out, no one ever mentioned the word of wisdom or the law of Chastity! So we taught them both right there on the spot, in about 20 minutes standing in his kitchen! His huge family is looking to him, and he needs your prayers! Please pray for Tommy. Pray that he will gain a conviction of the truthfulness of the restored gospel by successfully living the laws that that gospel has established.
He will. They will! Will, not can.
One day his week while we were finding, we were walking a little aimlessly. It had been 120ish degrees on the heat index, I had been sick all night, we were out of miles and neither of us had bikes, our appointments had fallen through, it was the middle of the day, and we were a little adrift. As we walked, a man pulled over, and called out, "Hey! We just moved here from Seattle a few months ago. My wife is a member of the Church (he and their two teenage kids are not... Yet.), will you come by and see us tonight?
We met with them that night. Two days later we were back with the ward mission leader. In a matter of a few days, they had invites to half a dozen activities, visiting teachers, the sister missionaries and young women's presidency and relief society presidency were calling and visiting and we had their records moved in and corrected. That's what happens when you talk to the missionaries! What a fabulous ward. What incredible member missionaries we are blessed with here.
So yes. Changes, developments, stories, excitements. But here begins my thought for the week. My thought is not of missionary work or leadership or investigators. It is of love. There is only one kind of love that matters: love that shows. Jesus Christ says, "if ye love me, keep my commandments." Prove it. Show it. Evidence it. Work it. If faith is worthless without works, why would love be able to live on without that blessed breath of vitalizations action?
So a story, from a general conference talk entitled "Now Abideth Faith, Hope, and Charity", by Vaughn J. Featherstone. The story is lengthy. It is well worth the read:
“But ‘as for me and my house,’ the welfare program began in the Old Field west of Lehi on the Saratoga Road in the autumn of 1918, that terribly climactic year of World War I during which more than 14 million people died of that awful scourge ‘the black plague,’ or Spanish influenza.
“Winter came early that year and froze much of the sugar beet crop in the ground. My dad and brother Francis were desperately trying to get out of the frosty ground one load of beets each day which they would plow out of the ground, cut off the tops, and toss the beets, one at a time, into the huge red beet wagon and then haul the load off to the sugar factory. It was slow and tedious work due to the frost and the lack of farm help, since my brother Floyd and I were in the army and Francis, or Franz, as everybody called him, was too young for the military service.
“While they were thusly engaged in harvesting the family’s only cash crop and were having their evening meal one day, a phone call came through from our eldest brother, George Albert, superintendent of the State Industrial School in Ogden, bearing the tragic news that Kenneth, nine-year-old son of our brother Charles, the school farm manager, had been stricken with the dread ‘flu,’ and after only a few hours of violent sickness, had died on his father’s lap; and would dad please come to Ogden and bring the boy home and lay him away in the family plot in the Lehi Cemetery.
“My father cranked up his old flap-curtained Chevrolet and headed for Five Points in Ogden to bring his little grandson home for burial. When he arrived at the home he found ‘Charl’ sprawled across the cold form of his dear one, the ugly brown discharge of the black plague oozing from his ears and nose and virtually burning up with fever.
“‘Take my boy home,’ muttered the stricken young father, ‘and lay him away in the family lot and come back for me tomorrow.’
“Father brought Kenneth home, made a coffin in his carpenter shop, and mother and our sisters, Jennie, Emma, and Hazel, placed a cushion and a lining in it, and then dad went with Franz and two kind neighbors to dig the grave. So many were dying the families had to do the grave digging. A brief graveside service was all that was permitted.
“The folks had scarcely returned from the cemetery when the telephone rang again and George Albert (Bert) was on the line with another terrifying message: Charl had died and two of his beautiful little girls--Vesta, 7, and Elaine, 5--were critically ill, and two babies--Raeldon, 4, and Pauline, 3--had been stricken.
“Our good cousins, the Larkin undertaking people, were able to get a casket for Charl and they sent him home in a railroad baggage car. Father and young Franz brought the body from the railroad station and placed it on the front porch of our old country home for an impromptu neighborhood viewing but folks were afraid to come near the body of a black plague victim. Father and Francis meanwhile had gone with neighbors to get the grave ready and arrange a short service in which the great, noble spirit of Charles Hyrum Goates was commended into the keeping of his Maker.
“Next day my sturdy, unconquerable old dad was called on still another of his grim missions--this time to bring home Vesta, the smiling one with the raven hair and big blue eyes.
“When he arrived at the home he found Juliett, the grief-crazed mother, kneeling at the crib of darling little Elaine, the blue-eyed baby angel with the golden curls. Juliett was sobbing wearily and praying: ‘Oh, Father in heaven, not this one, please! Let me keep my baby! Do not take any more of my darlings from me!’
“Before father arrived home with Vesta the dread word had come again. Elaine had gone to join her daddy, brother Kenneth, and Sister Vesta. And so it was that father made another heartbreaking journey to bring home and lay away a fourth member of his family, all within the week.
“The telephone did not ring the evening of the day they laid away Elaine nor were there any more sad tidings of death the next morning. It was assumed that George A. and his courageous companion Della, although afflicted, had been able to save the little ones Raeldon and Pauline; and it was such a relief that Cousin Reba Munns, a nurse, had been able to come in and help.
“After breakfast dad said to Franz, ‘Well, son, we had better get down to the field and see if we can get another load of beets out of the ground before they get frozen in any tighter. Hitch up and let’s be on our way.’
“Francis drove the four-horse outfit down the driveway and dad climbed aboard. As they drove along the Saratoga Road, they passed wagon after wagon-load of beets being hauled to the factory and driven by neighborhood farmers. As they passed by, each driver would wave a greeting: ‘Hi ya, Uncle George,’ ‘Sure sorry, George,’ ‘Tough break,George,’ ‘You’ve got a lot of friends, George.’
“On the last wagon was the town comedian, freckled-faced Jasper Rolfe. He waved a cheery greeting and called out: ‘That’s all of ‘em, Uncle George.’
“My dad turned to Francis and said: ‘I wish it was all of ours.’
“When they arrived at the farm gate, Francis jumped down off the big red beet wagon and opened the gate as we drove onto the field. He pulled up, stopped the team, paused a moment and scanned the field, from left to right and back and forth--and lo and behold, there wasn’t a sugar beet on the whole field. Then it dawned upon him what Jasper Rolfe meant when he called out: ‘That’s all of ‘em, Uncle George!’
“Then dad got down off the wagon, picked up a handful of the rich, brown soil he loved so much, and then in his thumbless left hand a beet top, and he looked for a moment at these symbols of his labor, as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.
“Then father sat down on a pile of beet tops--this man who brought four of his loved ones home for burial in the course of only six days; made caskets, dug graves, and even helped with the burial clothing--this amazing man who never faltered, nor finched, nor wavered throughout this agonizing ordeal--sat down on a pile of beet tops and sobbed like a little child.
“Then he arose, wiped his eyes with his big, red bandanna handkerchief, looked up at the sky, and said: ‘Thanks, Father, for the elders of our ward.’”
Perhaps there has been enough of oration. Perhaps a different sort of preaching is in order. Perhaps there has been enough criticism.
Perhaps a different sort of leadership demands its time. Perhaps there has been enough of assertion. Perhaps a more tangible evidence is needed.
Whom do we love?
Oh such a beggar am I. That blessed King Benjamin certainly had my face in his mind as he discoursed on the unprofitable servant, on the wretched natural man. But I have him in my mind as well, and I dearly love that Master, that hope that we share. Perhaps He will make me more.
“ ’Twas battered and scarred, and the auctioneer
Thought it scarcely worth his while
To waste much time on the old violin,
But held it up with a smile:‘
What am I bidden, good folks,’ he cried,
‘Who’ll start the bidding for me?’
‘A dollar, a dollar’; then, ‘Two!’ ‘Only two?
Two dollars, and who’ll make it three?
Three dollars, once; three dollars, twice;
Going for three--’ But no,
From the room, far back, a gray-haired man
Came forward and picked up the bow;
Then, wiping the dust from the old violin,
And tightening the loose strings,
He played a melody pure and sweet
As sweet as a caroling angel sings.
“The music ceased, and the auctioneer,
With a voice that was quiet and low,
Said, ‘What am I bid for the old violin?’
And he held it up with the bow.
‘A thousand dollars, and who’ll make it two?
Two thousand! And who’ll make it three?
Three thousand, once, three thousand, twice,
And going, and gone!’ said he.
The people cheered, but some of them cried,
‘We do not quite understand
What changed its worth.’
Swift came the reply:
‘The touch of a master’s hand.’
“And many a man with life out of tune,
And battered and scarred with sin,
Is auctioned cheap to the thoughtless crowd,
Much like the old violin.
A ‘mess of pottage,’ a glass of wine;
A game--and he travels on.
He’s ‘going’ once, and ‘going’ twice,
He’s ‘going’ and almost ‘gone.’
But the Master comes, and the foolish crowd
Never can quite understand
The worth of a soul and the change that’s wrought
By the touch of the Master’s hand.”
(Myra Brooks Welch: "The Touch of the Master's Hand")
Let is be so for me. Let it be done through me. Let me love, in the
only way that matters: the way my Savior did, and does.
It WILL be.
~Elder Jorgensen
(Myra Brooks Welch: "The Touch of the Master's Hand")
Let is be so for me. Let it be done through me. Let me love, in the
only way that matters: the way my Savior did, and does.
It WILL be.
~Elder Jorgensen