Christmas Day 2022

 

Today, Christmas Day, my heart is filled with love and gratitude. My wife and I live with other senior couples in duplexes just a few hundred yards from where the Smiths lived. We can see the Sacred Grove from our windows. The Smiths celebrated about twelve Christmases here. This is our second. I miss my family, my children, grandchildren, brothers, and friends very much, and I should be lonely, being so far away from them, but I’m not. Why? Because I’m serving my Father in Heaven and his Son, Jesus Christ at one of the most sacred places on earth, and their love fills this place. From here, 204 years ago this spring, that love began to pour out upon the whole earth. My wife and I feel so blessed to be here.

How did we get here? Being called on a mission as a senior couple in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a little different than when the young men or women are called on a mission. We are given the opportunity to list the places where we would like to go, and though it’s not certain that we will serve there, it is likely.

In the spring of 2021, Covid had finally lost some of its grip on the world and my wife and I decided to serve another mission. We began filling out the papers online. We were given the opportunity to list a maximum of 8 places where we would like to serve. This place, Palmyra, New York, was number one in both our hearts, but we felt selfish choosing the place we really wanted to go to. So, we placed it down the list and put areas with critical needs and where we had skills high on the list. Three weeks later, we got our call by email from President Nelson and the Missionary Department of the Church. Imagine our surprise and joy when we saw that we were called to serve here, at the New York and Pennsylvania Historic Sites. We were so amazed.

Now, nearly eighteen months after leaving on our mission, I’m a changed man. Though contention, anger, and polarization still fill the headlines of the online news, I feel none of it. My heart is drawn out with love to all of Heavenly Father’s children, my brothers and sisters. It does not matter if they are of my religion or even religious, I love them. Contention and anger are gone from my heart as well as fear and distrust. “How did that happen?” you might ask. There are many reasons, I’ve been praying for just these feelings, but more than anything else it comes from this place. We’re living just a stone throw from where God the Father and His Son appeared to a fourteen-year-old boy. There is still an incredible Spirit there. In the last eighteen months, I’ve had the opportunity to talk about these places with people from Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Guatemala, Honduras, England, China, Taiwan, Japan, Ukraine, Croatia, Germany, Australia, Tahiti, New Zealand, Tanzania, South Afrika, not to mention just about every state in the United States and every province in Canada, and the list goes on.  

With every single person that I’ve talked to, I’ve felt Heavenly Father’s love for them welling in my own heart. Is it any wonder that I’m a changed man?

On this Christmas Day, the world seems like a much smaller and warmer place to me. I’m not blind to the problems, but I know that everything is going to work out. What a wonderful place this world is going to be someday, when all of us feel the same, incredible love that now fills my heart.

A Stroll Down Stafford Road

 

My brother, Kris, reminded me that I hadn’t been writing in my blog, and I agreed with him that it is high time that I share the feelings and experiences of this place.

Today, we worked as tour guides at the Smith Farm. Although I have walked Stafford Road, which passes through the middle of the Farm, many times, I always sense the same, wonderful spirit as I walk down it through the farm fields, past the apple orchard, and to the heart of the farm. I know that I am walking where the Prophet Joseph Smith had walked countless times as a young man, and where his mother, father, brothers, sisters, and his wife also walked. The testimony of all those people seems to surround me, as I see the same sights they saw. I can almost hear their voices in the fields as they worked. The Smith family lived here for nearly 12 years, working together. They were a very close-knit family.

As I have learned the stories told about their time here by Lucy, the mother, and by others in the family, I have grown to sense their complete support for their son and brother, Joseph Smith Jr. They believed that he had seen the Father and the Son and that he was meeting with the Angel Moroni. They saw the covered golden plates and hefted them as they helped Joseph to protect them. His mother, father, brothers and sisters and also his wife, who knew him very well, were willing to sacrifice everything to follow him as he left the farm and followed the Lord’s directions.

That’s what I sense when I walk down Stafford Road, not just Joseph but his whole family confirming that it is all true.

Home Safely

One of my favorite movies is “Apollo Thirteen”. In that movie after Tom Hanks and his crew have landed safely, he sends a final broadcast to Houston telling them that they have landed and that help is at hand and then he signs off for the last time. As a viewer I always feel joy in that moment.

Our mission is now behind us. There are so many wonderful memories and friends. I am grateful beyond measure to my Father in Heaven for the experiences that He blessed us with and for the opportunities that he guided us to. My faith and testimony have grown immensely over the last 18 months. My love for my wife has grown. She is truly my eternal companion.

In our final week our ward, the Huehuecalco Ward, had a special family home evening for us. The bishop gave a talk in this meeting, thanking us for our service in his ward. He quoted this scripture:

Doctrine and Covenants 18:

15 And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!

 16 And now, if your joy will be great with one soul that you have brought unto me into the kingdom of my Father, how great will be your joy if you should bring many souls unto me!

Our joy is great.

Conclusions

Last night a wonderful thing occurred. In April of this year I wrote of a young teenager with strength that marveled me. She had lost her mother a few months before and her father was an alcoholic. Yet, when I went into her house it was beautiful, looking very much like a very well kept teenager’s bedroom. Xazmin is her name and though she was only seventeen years old, she was meeting her trials head on. You would never guess her strength at first knowing her. She is quite shy and timid in nature. Last night I baptized her into the Lord’s Church and today I was part of the circle that confirmed her. I told her as we parted today that she was an elect daughter of our Father-in-Heaven. Her father was there for baptism and for her confirmation. I told him what a blessed man he was to have such a daughter.

Last January I baptized a young man named Alain. Since that time, he has fallen into inactivity. I sent him a text this week, telling him that we were leaving and that we really wanted to see him. He came to Church to day. I was so happy to have him there. He asked me to give him a blessing tomorrow. I’m hoping that this will be time for renewal and rededication for him.

On Saturday, we turned the mission office over to the three elders that are taking our place. It was hard to leave a place in which we have had so many good memories and experiences. There were tears shed.

My experience here in Mexico has been far more wonderful than I would have ever imagined. I have loved so many people and felt their love. Above it all I have felt the love of my Heavenly Father as I spend my time serving his beloved children. He has blessed me with the assurance that it is all very true. This is His work and His glory to bring to pass the immortality of his children. It has been His presence through me and his Spirit that has so touched His children here and I have been deeply blessed to be a part of it. I love the young people that my wife and I have been called to serve with. What incredibly good men and women they are. And despite all of the troubles that discomfort our world my faith and hope are increased by all that I have experienced, known, and seen. Through Him there is great hope of everything ending well.

Our Next to the Last Week

I thought that I would share with you the busy week that we have just completed. On Monday after working at the office, we hosted our entire zone of more than twenty elders and sisters in a BBQ at our house. President and Sister Zapata and Doctor Ortiz and his family came too. We purchased a box of sixty hamburgers and not a single one remained. We love our missionaries, the Ortizs and the Zapatas so much. We are so blessed to be able to know them.

Tuesday we made an hour a half trip with two of the missionaries that are replacing us to Cuautla to show them the ropes down there. While there we had the chance to say goodbye (since this will be our last trip to Cuautla) to a few of our beloved missionaries.

Wednesday we took two families to the Mexico City Temple to do baptisms for the dead. This will be a beginning for both of them which will lead to their being sealed together as an eternal family in a year after the baptisms of the sisters. It was a very special and wonderful experience to share with them. I have no doubt they will return at the end of their year.

Thursday after work we went to Hermana Arenas house to have a delightful meal, this in preparation for my wife’s final visit to the dentist (Hermana Arenas is a dentist and very dear friend). After that we went to Chrise’s final piano class. My wife has taught and graduated many students in our time here. This was her last class and I think her best one. We felt so much love and gratitude from the students and their parents.

Friday, which is our day of rest, we went shopping in Amecameca. We found just about everything we were looking for and then had a splendid dinner at the Castle of the Deer (we didn’t eat venison).

Yesterday after work, we went to another wonderful dinner at Hermana Arenas’s house. After which we went to and equally wonderful baptism service. Elena, Hermana Areana’s daughter, had asked me to baptize her. We ended by going to Sara’s house in Ayapango. They were just about the first people that we taught when we arrived here in Mexico. Though they have yet to accept the Gospel, I have faith that they will. They are very dear friends and they invited us over to the birthday celebration of their granddaughter.

Perhaps you can see now why my wife and I feel so blessed here on our mission in Mexico. Check my wife's Facebook page for pictures. 

Bringing Families Together

Several months ago our former mission president, President Crickmore, transferred us to a ward called Huehuecalco. From the start we have felt the inspiration of that move. We’ve been able to help several people, with whom the Lord brought us together.

On Wednesday, we went to the Mexico City Temple with Magdalena and two sister missionaries. For a number of weeks, we had been preparing her by teaching her about the temple and helping her to find some ancestors for whom she could do the work. We found information for her to do two sets of grandparents. The tranquility and power of the temple touched her deeply as did the opportunity to perform baptisms and confirmations for her ancestors, beginning to the work of uniting an eternal family.

Last night we baptized a woman named Alma. She is the one that I talked about last week, who had resisted the efforts of missionaries for several years. Her husband spoke at the service and tears flowed freely as he told of his many years of prayers and hope for this moment when his family would now have the opportunity to be sealed in the temple for all eternity.

One of the prime efforts of our missionary work is bring families together.

On Dying and Living

In the mission there are many sayings to parallel life. When a young missionary comes into the field, they are born and their first senior companion is their father or mother. When a missionary leaves for home, he is said to have died and his last companion is like an undertaker, preparing him for death.

Chrise and I have about 3 and half weeks in the mission. Suddenly, there is not enough time to get everything done that we want to get done. So many people we want to see and investigators that we want see baptized. Its eerie to realize that practically everyone left in the mission will outlive us in a mission sense (and probably in a secular sense too). This week we began training our replacements in the office.  We will be replaced by three elders since there are no missionary couples available.

Even in our last weeks the Lord continues to bless us. We have been working with a young woman for several weeks. Her husband is a member and she has come to Church for several years, but has resisted the teachings of many missionaries. I started our discussion today by asking her what doubts she might have to prevent her from being baptized. She talked about her traditions learned in the Catholic Church since she was child. I told her that I love the Catholic Church and that there is a difference between beliefs and traditions. We are not here to take away the truths that she has, but to build upon them. I asked her if she believed that Joseph Smith was a prophet and he restored the Church of Jesus Christ to the earth. She said yes. I asked her if she believed there was a living prophet today upon the earth and to this she also said yes. She also affirmed that she was willing to obey all of the commandments. Finally, we read together the following verses from the Book of Mormon:

Mosiah 18

8 And it came to pass that he said unto them: Behold, here are the waters of Mormon (for thus were they called) and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light;

 9 Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life—

 10 Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you?

In response, tears wet her eyes and she said that is what she wanted. As we die in the mission field, someone will begin a new life. 

Friendship and Love

As I write this entry, my heart is full. There are so many people here in Mexico that I care about and want to continue to know. For example, there is a boy, named Victor, who we helped teach and baptize. He is very shy and gives the appearance of being angry. When he comes to Church he sits by himself at the very back. I’m always very glad to see him and let him know so. Today, while I was teaching a young mother, someone else that I have really come to care about, in the chapel, Victor came in. When he saw us he turned back through the door, but I called him to come back and gave him a hug. He went past us and sat down at the chapel piano and began playing some beautiful music, which I sure he made up. After I finished teaching, I went over and told him that I was going to try to arrange for him to have some lessons. He gave the closest thing that I’ve seen to a smile.

Today also Miguel came to Church. I wanted to jump up and down for joy. We’ve worked for so many months with him and his wife, trying to get them to come to Church. Miguel is an alcoholic. During the months that we have known him, he started on the wagon, fell off, and recently returned. I really want him to be baptized. I know it will be a big catalyst for change in his life. Both he and his wife are the same age is my older children. I’ve told them more than once that I think of them as my children.

Then there’s Dr. Ortiz and his family. This week they took us with them on a family trip. This is the second such trip. We went far to the south to some fantastic caverns and then to one of the prettiest towns in Mexico. On the way there and on the way back, his beautiful young daughters asked me to read them stories. Chrise and I have drawn so close to this family and feel so overwhelmed and undeserving of the love they have showered upon us.

Finally, I have to mention Hermana Arenas. She works in the office with us and has been a tremendous blessing in our lives. Yesterday, she took us on a trip to Mexico City. She wanted us to know the Mexico that she loves. We went to the National Museum of Anthropology and the ruins and museum of the Temple Mayor of the Aztecs, both were incredible, but not as incredible as the friendship of this young woman. After visiting the last museum, she took us to one of the best restaurants I have been to anywhere in the world. For an hour we sat and talked and laughed together.

The afterglow of this week and the love we have both given and felt is the reason my heart is so full and it is only the tip of the iceberg of what Chrise and I have experienced here in Mexico. 

History and Prophecy

Fields of very tall corn surround us for hundreds of miles in all directions. Corn has been the staple of the Mexican people’s diet for countless generations. It’s planting and harvest are a time for celebration. Though ears of corn are eaten, it is found more commonly in a range of foods from soups to tortillas and pastries. There are also a number of varieties of corn grown. Here in our own little lane, our neighbors have planted what they call black corn. The stalks are more than fifteen feet tall and its fruit are a delicacy used for making a deep blue colored tortilla.

We live in history. Villages, towns and cities all bear pre-Columbian names like Ozumba, Zentlapan, Zoyetzingo, Cuautla, and Xalco, to name just a few. Many of the people we meet have lived in the same area and even some in the same village for many generations. They still bring their products and crops to market every week like their ancestors did before them. When I talk to people about the ruins such as Teotihuacan, which is not too far from here, they politely show interest in what I’m saying, but to them it’s part of life, something that has always been there.

When I teach these people the gospel, I can’t help but think that I am looking into the faces of someone who could have the blood of those who witnessed Christ’s coming to the new world. If John Sorenson is right in his book, Mormon’s Codex, that event took place just a couple of hundred miles from here in southern Veracruz. Nephi, Jacob, Alma, and Mormon lived in this land and I’m part of fulfilling their prophecies, taking the restored gospel of Jesus Christ to their kindred. 

Ruins, Politics, and What Endures

A month ago, I went with Chrise, a sister from our office, and our mission president and his wife to see a striking ruin called Xochicalco. These ruins built about 650 AD are quite massive, but for all the work that it took to build them they were only inhabited for about 250 years. Ironically, today they are many kilometers from any major areas of population, visited only by tourists such as ourselves. Evidence points to a strong possibility that nobles who inhabited Xochicalco were forced to flee by a disgruntled populace. Most of this once great center of trade had fallen into…well, ruins. What we saw was mostly a reconstruction of it. There are many ruins like this one in Mexico and many other places throughout the world. Rome comes to mind. Places once filled with grandeur and power are now empty and crumbled with their inhabitants like those of Xochicalco unknown and forgotten.

The politics of today have echoes of those ancient times. Although we don’t call them nobles, there is still the drive for power and grandeur cloaked by the appearance of more noble purposes. Yet all the glory of the United States, Europe and China to name a few will one day end up in ruins. It is the nature of man made things. Ironically, those of us who live in current times think that it can never happen to us. I’m sure the nobles of Xochicalco felt the same way.

For me, real hope for something that endures lies in the people around me, much more than physical or worldly things. We are all children of our Heavenly Father, literally.  When I taught a young woman today, I could see my words carried by the Spirit awakening this eternal part of her. Last night I baptized two people. Both of them had grasped onto this same hope for something enduring many months ago, but it had taken them more than a year to finally reach the waters of baptism. They never gave up and that year of effort in my estimation was better than building a pyramid or a nation. The power of the ordinance that I performed last night will reach into the eternities.  

Help From Beyond the Veil

Many years ago, I went with my father to Ohio. There we visited many of the old homesteads and met many of his family. The main thrust of our journey was to gain help in the genealogy of our ancestors in Ohio. On one of the days we were there we were searching for one of our lines called Brandeberry or Brandenburg. Dad said he knew where their old homestead was, but we wandered around kind of lost until I felt impressed to say let’s turn down this road. Which if I remember correctly my dad resisted because I for sure didn’t know where I was going, but we finally did and came across a barn with the name “Brandeberry” in giant letters across its side. When we knocked on the door of a nearby house, the man who answered said he was not related to Brandeberrys and had just bought the farm, but he said that we might be very interested in what was under some nearby trees. There we found a family cemetery that began in 1812. There were dozens of names with birth and death dates. From this information I was able to have the ordinances of salvation performed in the temple for more than fifty people when I returned home. We would have never found the place without the help from the spirit world that I felt that day.

This last Wednesday Chrise and I were trying to help Magdalena find some of her ancestors so that she could be baptized and confirmed for them in the temple. We hit a brick wall. All of her parents and grandparents and uncles and aunts are dead and her older sister could remember no more than she could about when her grandparents were born or even where they were born. I felt a little discouraged until I felt an impression to do a search on Family Search for them. We had tried that before with zero success, but this time we searched on her paternal grandmother, who had a fairly unusual name of Maximina Jimenez. Three names down the search results she was listed, sourced from the Mexican National Census for 1930. When we went to the census we found enough information to do the ordinances for about ten people all from her paternal grandparent’s family. We were all ecstatic.

In my many years of doing genealogy work, I have felt help a number of times from my ancestors, reaching across the veil to help me find them or their family. If you want a testimony that there is life after death, genealogy is a great place to go.

Blindness

I had a long conversation with a man today. He was not a member of the Church, but had come with his daughter to attend our meetings.  One of the bishopric pointed him out to me as a potential investigator.  After the Gospel Essentials Class, I struck up a conversation with him. I learned that he is my age or sixty-five. From his blue eyes and fair complexion, I guessed that he was of European decent which he confirmed to be French, though he did not consider himself to be anything other than a Mexican. 

After talking to him for a while, it became very apparent that he had little interest in what I said in answer to his questions. He talked from a very worldly perspective about religion, saying that it was invented and that if there was a God he was the author of all the world’s religions from Buddhism to Muslim to Christianity. He considered Christ to be no more than a great philosopher and disbelieved the fact that he was the Son of God. Though much of his family had converted to the Church, he had no interest in reading the Book of Mormon or seeking any kind of ultimate truth. It was obvious that he was very content with his own perspective about our Father in Heaven. My testimony only caused him to reiterate points that he had already made. He did this many times in our discussion.

You need to understand that I never argued with the man nor strove to prove my points in an intellectual way. I very much wanted him to sense the truth and awaken his inner faculties, but he could not hear or understand the meaning of what I was offering him. We parted friendly, but with no meeting of spirits or minds. I had just witnessed free agency at work. I told him that we might have known each other in the preexistence and together looked forward to our short time on earth. We are of the same generation. He words reminded me of the philosophies I once used several decades ago until I found something so much better. 

Perspective

When I have some spare time I have been watching a group of videos on my IPAD called The Joseph Smith Papers. Taken from the writings of or about the first prophet of our modern dispensation, it talks about his life and revelations from an early age until his death. What is most apparent is the immediate and bitter persecution he endured from the time he began to relate his experiences and visions. Through time it grew worse and worse. The treatment of him and those who followed him, including some of my ancestors, in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois appalled me. Some were murdered others lost their property as they were driven repeatedly from their homes in the dead of winter. Joseph was imprisoned and falsely accused on several occasions. They found no one not even the President of the United States from whom they could receive support or redress for the crimes committed against them. It seemed so unreasonable and un-American. Even when Joseph knew he would be killed, he remained dedicated to building the Kingdom of God on earth, striving with every action to obey our Father in Heaven. He could have easily saved his life by stopping.

What strikes me about what happened to Joseph Smith as a modern day prophet is how similar it is to many stories in the Old and New Testaments, when prophets were rejected, persecuted and murdered. In almost every case, many of the words and works of those ancient prophets endured despite efforts to destroy them. Jesus Christ himself suffered severe and unending persecution seemingly for the great good he did, just as his servants, the prophets, had before him and as his servants would after him. Why are human beings so prone to hatred and bigotry? My feeling is that it is a terrible testimony of Satan his power over the hearts and minds of men.

Because of the dedication, suffering, and sacrifices that Joseph Smith and prophets before him willingly endured, I am here in Mexico on a mission. They prepared the way and opened the doors. Because of them my own life has been blessed. Through them I found enduring happiness. In my own lifetime I have seen the growth of the Kingdom of God on earth from a few million to nearly fifteen million. We serve the same God who brought Israel out of Egypt and who sacrificed himself as a willing lamb at the meridian of time. His hand has never slackened. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Calm and Hope in a Turbulent World

Today was Fast Sunday. For those of you who don’t know what that means, we fast once a month to strengthen the spirit and use the money from the two meals not eaten to pay into funds to help those in need. Fasting always draws me closer to my Father-in-Heaven and elevates my thoughts and feelings. We baptized a beautiful young woman last night. She looked so happy yesterday and today. The Spirit has deeply touched her. She is engaged to a returned missionary in our ward and they plan to wait until they can be sealed and married in the temple.

As I reflect on the smile and happy countenance of that young woman and her prospective husband, I feel hope. They have chosen a path which if they follow will lead them to happiness. Why do I feel that way? Because my wife and I found it when we were not much older than them. Life is not meant to be easy. That young couple will face many severe trials. The trials are part of the reason that we are here. I have seen those trials grind relationships both in and out of the Church into nothing. But if the couple are both equally committed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that will see them through. I know that from personal experience. Our relationship has grown and blossomed over the years. We are more in love now than we have ever been.

The principle of commitment to our Savior and his Gospel is just as true in our personal lives as it is in marriage. There is a wonderful power in it. Forgive me for using personal experience again as an example. I do not hold myself out as some kind of perfect being. For me, the Gospel speaks peace into my soul. Though I worry sometimes about the turbulence around me, I know that in the end everything will be all right. The Gospel of Jesus Christ gives meaning to it all. It will end with good overcoming evil and all things being made right. Our faith will be justified. Our hope will grow eternal. 

Change

I think that I’ve mentioned before that as beings born from a timeless world we are not used to change. I think of different periods in my life like when I was young and just going to college or when my children were little and how I thought that they would always be the same, but I got older and so did my children and it all happened way faster than I expected.

Change happens many times faster here in the mission but there is still that illusion that things will not change. When we arrived here in Mexico nearly fifteen months ago we thought for example that we would always have President Sister Crickmore with us. They leave in four days. What is even more scary is the end of our mission coming like the ground as if we´d jumped out a plane without a parachute. When we arrived here we thought we had all the time in the world.

Clearly part of the reason that our Heavenly Father fashioned this test that we call mortal life like he did was so that we could learn to understand and appreciate time. Living with Him in our premortal lives we probably had little or no concept of it. Change there must have been nearly imperceptible. We could expect the people we loved to be there today, tomorrow, and nearly forever. But that was an illusion too.

   

I’ve learned a little from these experiences. When I was with my young grandchildren I treasured every day, knowing that they would not last forever. On this mission, having learned from my last, I have kept a careful diary of what has happened to us here, treasuring our experiences for the future when I will not feel the Spirit so powerfully on a daily basis. Out of it all, I feel gratitude for the life my Heavenly Father has blessed me with and the knowledge that one day I will return to the timeless world and there the associations that have seemed far too fleeting in this life will be renewed and much more appreciated for the eternities to come. 

Life's Mission

Through much of my life I've had some misconceptions as to what my life’s mission was. Most of those misconceptions centered around my employment. Early in my life I thought I was supposed to be successful entrepreneur or possibly a great leader of the Church. I made changes in my career and locations where we lived with those ideas in mind. Later on, I decided I was supposed to be a writer. In the latter I did find a great deal of personal satisfaction and still do. It is a wonderful outlet, but I don’t know that is a life mission or purpose.

Two years ago my wife and I decided to go on a mission for the Church. As “matrimonios” we were allowed to choose where we would go and what we would do, but we decided to leave it in the Lord’s hands. He sent us to Mexico and to the Chalco Mission.

Last night we had a baptism for a very special woman named Magdalena. She is the matriarch of a family and a woman filled with goodness. Members of her family had been baptized, but she had resisted for more than five years.  She listened to us. While I watched her being baptized by her son, my heart burned within me. My heart burned throughout the baptism meeting, and I felt the Lord’s approbation. I knew I had accomplished part of what I had been sent here to Mexico to accomplish. A couple of weeks before her baptism, I told President Crickmore about her. He said that Magdalena was someone we had been sent here to find and to teach.

Maybe there are other things that I have to accomplish in my life, but I know by leaving it in the Lord’s hands, he has helped me to accomplish part of what I was sent here to do. I have helped Him bring his children unto Christ here in the Chalco Mission, just as I did in the Veracruz Mission forty-four years ago.

Securing Our Exaltation

As I’ve said in previous blogs, missionaries have a lot of spiritual experiences as we see our Father-in-Heaven working with his children. Because of these experiences our faith and knowledge, commonly known as testimony, grow too. The use of this new found testimony is important. The natural tendency is to think that it is you, and, wow, what a spiritual person I am. Look how many people I’ve baptized or taught. Of course, that would be a big mistake, and a quick way to lose our access to the Spirit.

Because of the daily experiences we have feeling the Spirit and seeing it work in others, it would also be easy to think that the Lord is really happy with us and we are the direct path to the Celestial Kingdom. While we do have to be living pretty righteous lives to be instruments in His hands, it does not mean that we have our callings and elections made sure or that we are becoming spiritual titans that cannot fail. I think I felt the latter forty years ago when I was a young missionary, finishing my first mission here in Mexico. But the forty intervening years have shown me that I am anything but an invulnerable titan. There were times in those years that I grasped on to the memory of those missionary experiences to keep me going as I struggled to stay on the path that had seemed so easy and sure. In normal life with so many non-spiritual tasks to perform and so many distractions, it is much harder to keep the Spirit that we become so accustom to here in the mission.

This mission has given me a very strong sense of the reality of the things that are to come. I know that there is life after death and that it will not be the same for everyone. I know too that it is by the grace of God through his Son, Jesus Christ, that I have any hope at all of obtaining the Celestial Kingdom and that I must be living worthily to receive that grace. In that sense, my works here in the mission matter little except as they reflect the state of my spirit and heart. My mission is an act of consecration, submitting my will to the will of my Lord through the consecration of my time and resources. If I can keep this course upon leaving, I will have hope of arriving in the Celestial Kingdom. It is this state of heart and spirit that matter more that the experiences we see or feel. That is why when the Lord did away with sacrifices of blood he asked instead for the sacrifice of a contrite spirit and a broken heart. 

An Answer to the Problems of the World

Last Monday we had a mission sports day. This was our third and last one. On one field were missionaries from a dozen different companies, all young, competitive, and full of energy. The competition and drive to win the prize for their zone should have been fierce. I´ve seen it before. I will have to admit that I was a little bit worried when some of the elders showed up wearing war paint on their faces, though it was, as I have said, half way expected for such a diverse group of young people who have spent weeks, months and years living under rigorous rules and regulations, looking for a way to let it all out. There were lots of young and beautiful sister missionaries, too, which means there should have been a lot of testosterone on display.

Instead of fierce competition, it was a truly wonderful day. Everywhere I sensed love and comradery no matter the zone. The young men were gentlemen and kind. There was no exaltation or thumping of chests at winning and a genuine desire to treat those without the athletic skills kindly. To be sure there were some arguments with refs about calls or lack of them but those were few. In fact, as a ref in the basketball games, I had many missionaries help me to make calls even though they hurt their team. A long-time athlete myself, I will have to say that I have never experienced anything like it, except maybe at the other two sports days.

What made this day so incredible? Everyone on that field was united by a common love of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. No matter the nationality or zone we were all truly brothers and sisters under Him. He blinded us to our differences and helped us through love to overcome that pride which is the root of evil and which leads to a desire for personal glory at the expense of others. Our bound under Him changed the situation.

The scripture below mirrors the feeling I felt on the field last Monday:

4 Nephi

15 And it came to pass that there was no contention in the land, because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people.

 16 And there were no envyings, nor strifes, nor tumults, nor whoredoms, nor lyings, nor murders, nor any manner of lasciviousness; and surely there could not be a happier people among all the people who had been created by the hand of God.

 17 There were no robbers, nor murderers, neither were there Lamanites, nor any manner of -ites; but they were one, the children of Christ, and heirs to the kingdom of God.

I believe with all my heart that the Gospel of Jesus Christ holds the answers to problems of our world.

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.