People Make All of the Difference

Back home things are not happy. My dad has been in the hospital recuperating from two operations for a couple of months now. In his absence a simmering volcano exploded between one brother and another and his wife, all of whom have been staying with my parents. It is an unhappy situation there and a stark contrast to my fond memories of home for the past several decades.

As I think about that situation and many other similar situations that I have experienced in my life where each day is a pain to greet, I can’t help but wonder how I can be so happy here. I’m a long ways from home and everything I love, and I deal with problems and frustrations and bouts of home sickness almost every day. Yet, I can’t remember a time that I’ve been happier.

As I pondered that quandary, I realized that the biggest reason for my happiness is the people that Chrise and I work with every day. One example of this happened earlier this week. President Crickmore and his wife invited us to spend a day with them in Cuernavaca. We shopped in a Mexican bazaar, ate a tasty meal, and went for a hike in a beautiful park. All of which were great. But what made the day memorable was the two people we spent it with. These two people have dedicated their lives to the Lord not only for the three years they have been here in the mission but for years before. In those years of service they have developed many of the attributes of Christ—kindness, concern, etc. Being around them lifts my spirit.

I feel the same lifting influence when I spend time with the sisters and elders of the mission. And I realize that many are in the same situation as me, having the greatest experience in their lives because of what they are doing and because of the people that surround them. Is this a glimpse of what the millennium will be like?

Adversity

During the week, I talked to President Crickmore on the phone and he asked how we were doing. He was worried about us because we had both been quite sick. My response was, “President, I think we’ve had it too easy.”

Throughout my life, I’ve always known that adversity lurks just around the corner. In my early years, because of my hearing disability, I suffered a great deal of it. In those years before I became an active disciple of Jesus Christ, adversity traumatized and stigmatized me, and, kind of like a steam roller, it smashed my happiness and crushed my confidence. That began to change when, at the age of twenty, I came to know my Father in Heaven. Through Him I found hope and meaning to what was happening to me.

Adversity still follows me. I still have a hearing disability which makes it hard to communicate at times and which separates me from even my loved ones. I still get sick. I still have many set backs and disappointments, but in them all I can find the Lord’s hand in my life.

Let me explain by an example. I’ve always wanted to hear like a normal person. For that reason, I have asked for a number of blessing at different times in my life in the hopes that I would be healed and that this particular adversity would go away. Several years ago, I asked my bishop to give me a blessing. We prepared for it by fasting and he came to my house to give me the blessing. This bishop I had grown to love and to respect. By his hand, I had seen many small miracles through the experiences we had shared together, serving the youth of the ward. He laid his hands upon my head and paused for a very long time, and when he finally spoke he said something that has meant a great deal to me ever since than. He said that through this hearing problem the Lord had humbled me. He said that through this life long trial the Lord had brought me to where I was that day: a strong and active member of the His Church, happily married with a beautiful wife and four wonderful children.

The truth of his words spread like a light through my soul. I could suddenly see so many roads that I could have gone down which would have led me far away from where I was that day. I could see that this adversity was really a great blessing of love from my Father in Heaven.

Light and Darkness

I have had a few of brushes with the forces of darkness in my life. There are  some things in common with each of these experiences. First and foremost is intense fear. This fear is accompanied by just as intense feelings of  hopelessness and despair. Another is that they have always come in the darkness of night when there is little or no light present. Also there is a physical sensation of an unseen power pressing down upon me. Finally, they leave me quite shaken, sometimes for weeks after they have occurred. 

This morning before the first hints of sunrise had touched the skies, I had another such experience. I had just awoke and for some reason was thinking back to an experience that I had in my youth, perhaps when I was sixteen. It hit me suddenly. This memory, this experience was forever lost and would never be clear. My life had no meaning and death would erase me and all would be lost. These were more than thoughts, they were intense feeling filled with fear, hopelessness and despair and the sensation of something pressing down upon me.

A calm voice told me to open the scriptures. I read this verse of the Book of Mormon among others:

9  And it came to pass that he saw One descending out of the midst of heaven, and he beheld that his luster was above that of the sun at noon-day.
1 Nephi 1:9

It was like the rising of the sun in my soul, driving back the darkness, which slowly receded. At same time, a realization touched me that my fear and panic were based on lies. Every act, every moment of our lives is recorded in heaven. Even if our memories fail us, they are never lost and one day we will see them all clearly. God has spoken again upon this earth via living prophets and given us as evidence and hope of his existence the Book of Mormon. Everything does indeed have meaning and purpose.

Sacrifices for the Lord

Last week, we talked to Kate and the boys on Skype. I was hit with a giant case of homesickness as I talked to them and it lingered for a few days. I miss them. I remember when Elder Bednar blessed us just a month and a half after we arrived in the mission, and how he promised us that our grandchildren would be blessed for our sacrifice. Then I didn’t feel the loss nearly as keenly. Now I feel the sacrifice much more.

As I write this blog, I am still fasting. It has been a day of spiritual feasting. I bore my testimony in Sacrament Meeting and my wife said that the whole congregation went very quiet. As I told them I that I knew that this was the true Church of Jesus Christ and the only church that holds the saving ordinances which will carry us back to our Father in Heaven, the words came simply and powerfully. I used no emotion or adjectives to embellish the truth of what I was saying. I felt them being carried by the Spirit into every heart. Many came up to me after the meeting, and though they said nothing about my testimony, it was there on their faces, the gratitude for hearing it. I felt a gratitude for having been and instrument in the Lord’s hands.

As a small part of the baptisms of Issac, Sandra, Alain, and Andrea, I have a continuing and deep concern about them, like they were in some way my children. It gives me a great deal of joy when I see them or hear about them. I pray often that Father in Heaven will strengthen them and watch over them. I had a testimony when I was a young missionary many years ago, but it was nothing like the one that has now grown in my heart. The true Gospel of Jesus Christ brings such happiness and I want these special people and many others to know it and to feel it. My sacrifice is small. They are worth far more.