What is Truth?

We live in a world that believes that it has most of the answers to questions such as how life began and how big and old our universe is. Much of this truth has no room for God. Those advocating these truths portray themselves as rational and factual ones and those of us who strive to hang on to the old truths about God and religion are portrayed as deluded or living a fairy-tale.

Here in Mexico, doing the work of the Lord, I have come down a very different path. Daily experiences feeling the guiding hand of the Lord and sensing his Spirit as I serve his missionaries and his children have taught me that he exists. More than that, he is very actively involved in all our lives because of his patient and long-suffering love for us. He takes us as we are and loves as we are and gently tugs us down a path that will lead us to real happiness if only we will listen. He is a perfect Father, knowing exactly what is best for us, his children. He is not judgmental but kind and very attentive to each of us personally. I have felt this love in my own life. I have seen it in the lives of those I come into contact with. It is for me as undeniable as the rising of the sun in the morning. The unchanging and undeniable truth is that God exists.

For example, I prayed this morning that the Lord would help me to do the things that he wanted me to do and to say the things that he wanted me to say. My eyes and heart were opened as I sought to follow the words of my prayer. I gave four blessings today to people who were sick or who needed comfort and guidance. In each of these blessings the words that I was to say came to my mind clearly and as I pronounced them I felt the certainty of the Lord’s approbation through a feeling of joy or a burning in my heart. I had used his priesthood in accordance with his will. 

A Key to Accessing the Privileges of Being a Member of the Lord's Church

This week we said goodbye to Elder Alvarado. He welcomed us into our mission almost fourteen months ago and has been a huge help to me and my wife. He completed an honorable mission and one dedicated to the service of the Lord. I miss him a lot.

For the past two weeks we had the privilege to work with two wonderful young sister missionaries in our ward. The senior companion is from Guatemala and I don’t think she reaches four feet in height, but she is a giant of a missionary. She and the other sister from Brazil have done an incredible amount of work in a very short time. I am inspired and awestruck by them both. It has been several months since my wife and I had the opportunity to work in the field with the young missionaries. It is incredible to see the dedication of these young sisters to the Lord and his work.

The Lord has blessed us with the opportunity to teach a woman, a grandmother, aptly named Magdalena. We look forward to going over to her house. All of her children and grandchildren live in the same compound and it’s easy to see that they all love her and are greatly influenced by her. The more we have come to know Magdalena the more we love her. She was living the Gospel of Jesus Christ before we ever met her. She spends much of her time serving her children and grandchildren and neighbors. She is very intelligent and often sees deep meaning to the questions we ask her. She wants to be baptized, but wanted to wait to surprise her son, who was the first member of her family to be baptized, on his birthday. I think we have convinced her that she is ready to be baptized long before that. We will help her surprise him anyway.

Last night I spoke at a stake conference in Cuautla in President Crickmore’s place because he had  another commitment. My wife didn’t know that she was asked to speak too and neither did I until they announced her name. I told her that Heavenly Father would be with her, but I didn’t need to. She stood and gave her first talk in Mexico in a wonderful and heartfelt fashion. One of the things I told congregation was that I felt a great key for obtaining the privileges or power and blessings of being a member of the Lord’s Church is in doing missionary work. It is very important to Him and He is so willing to pour down blessings upon the heads of those who do this work. Nothing compares to this. We will be serving another mission. 

What We Can Learn from Mexico

To people for the most part are happy and friendly here. Missionaries rarely have a door slammed in their faces and most who they run into are willing to listen. As I think about why they are that way, it occurs to me that perhaps Mexico is the way we were in the United States many decades ago. The culture here has not bought into advances in technology and of buying goods nearly as much as we. Craftsman and small tiendas still reign supreme even in the large cities. Nor is there the same addictions to TV and the internet down here. They do watch TV and they do use the internet but significantly less, which leads to a lot more face to face interaction. When we need directions or to find someone, I am always amazed that people can tell not only who lives up and down their streets but for blocks around. The people love to socialize and at dances you never see empty dance floors. Multi-generations of families commonly live together.

The people here are very pragmatic. A janitor on the street and a salesman in a convenience store are honored as much as most other professions. People work where and at what they can get a job, and it doesn’t seem to matter if it is a step down from their education. There don´t seem to be a lot of entitlement programs nor are there many homeless. The rich live in the same neighborhoods with the poor here. Not out of any government program, but just because that is the way it is. Houses and roads are built provide what is necessary. You don’t see many cloverleaves on highways nor do the houses of even the rich have insulation, heat or air conditioning. There seem to be far fewer laws or they are not enforced. This particularly evident on the highways where people do pretty much what they want. But with this lack of law enforcement, drivers are far more aware of what is around them. I have seen a lot less accidents here even though there are a ton of cars.

Finally, the people of Mexico seem to be more religious and prone to decency and to help someone in need. I can’t say how many times someone has stopped what they are doing to even walk down the street with me to help me find my way. Many of the people I have taught have readily accepted the Gospel.

The Miracle of Conversion

Chrise and I are currently working with three very good investigators. Two of them we have been teaching for some time. They all have challenges. Two have addictions to alcohol or tobacco to overcome and one has a lot of opposition within her family. You also need to understand that we, Chrise and I, don’t claim to be the most powerful teachers to ever grace the mission field.

I’m going to talk first about a woman whom we’ve been teaching more a less since her daughter was baptized in December. As we taught her daughter the new member discussions, her mother would come and sit with us. She seemed to really like what we were teaching, but then we would not see her for a few weeks. Finally, we decided to make the visit explicitly to teach her. When we taught the Plan of Salvation, we sensed a wonderful change occurring. I felt inspired at the end of that discussion to show her the three-minute video which includes President Uchtdorf’s talk on who we really are and used the story of the Ugly Duckling. We could see this had really touched her and that she was accepting completely what we taught. She is a very intelligent and relatively wealthy woman and thinks and understands very deeply. Our biggest problem was getting her to come to Church. This was a problem because her oldest daughter, a strong Catholic, did everything in her power to dissuade her, but she believed and wanted to act upon those beliefs, so today for the first time she came to Church. We have a firm date to baptize her.

A few weeks ago a man his wife came to church. The members of our ward pointed us to him, saying that he was not a member. We met to have a discussion with him a few days later. At first, I thought that he was not going to be very interested, but I was wrong. There was a light in his eyes from the start and he readily accepted everything we were saying and embracing it. On our next discussion he talked about what we had talked about the time before and how he had meditated on it. We also discovered that he recently quit drinking and that he had had a problem for many years. That worried us and we have been praying that he will have the strength to continue. We have been teaching him for nearly a month and he has not fallen. Our hope is that in three weeks he will be ready to be baptized.

The third man we have been teaching since we arrived in this ward in October. He has a really bad smoking problem. We have talked to him many times and tried to fortify his faith. We even stopped teaching for a few weeks. Then suddenly there was a change very evident in his demeanor. He said that he was ready to move one. We have high hopes that he too will be baptized now.

What I have noted in each of these experiences is that the change has come because of our message and the Spirit that we carry. We are not selling them the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it is not us. We are only messengers and instruments in the hands of a loving Father in Heaven. We open our mouths and He does the rest.

What is the Difference?

Though I am far from being the prophet or the great man that Alma was, missionary work has a similar effect on me in wanting to be able to sing like an angel and convince all that I meet of the truth and power of what I teach. But I realize that is not the Lord’s way. He has given all of his children free agency to choose.

I am left wondering why some accept our message with glad hearts and let the Gospel of Jesus Christ work a mighty change in them while others may accept it for a time, but it does not work a change in them, rather other things get in way and soon they no longer want to hear it. I have seen it over and over again. Some advance farther and seem to come to a moment of truth in their lives—will they change or not, but in the end they are not yet ready to take the last step of faith.

In looking at my own humble beginnings, I marvel that I was willing and ready to make that change. 

I think the difference for me was that I was looking for it. Something within me drove me to find what I knew was out there. I knew there was a God even without knowing much about Him and I knew that God loved me. I think that knowledge led me to believe in and search for His truth and the path of happiness he had laid for me in this life. I knew it was there. I did not find it easily. Many things distracted me, most of my own making, but I kept looking.

Alone in my brother’s apartment after months of searching, I found a rather plain looking book on a coffee table. Something inside compelled me to pick up that book, and when I began reading it, I knew and recognized immediately it contained what I was looking for. I cried and laughed for joy and I willing let its power work a mighty change in me, so powerful that it still influences my life nearly forty-seven years later.

What is the difference? I know that we are all God’s children and that He is reaching out to all of us and loves us equally. Why did I look for it and embrace it and others cannot see it?