The feature film of life

SAN DIEGO — Happy Birthday, Juli and Dad, I hope your BBQ/ Birthday party was good.

I can’t believe football season has started. I can’t believe things are cooling off for you. I can’t believe summer is over. This is where time starts getting weird for me, because as the seasons change in Utah, things just stay hot here, and I feel like I am stuck in summer. Time is going by too fast though. I can’t believe it. It honestly makes my stomach hurt sometimes!

There is a song yesterday that Sister Miller and I were listening to. It was just an instrumental song, but one that was upbeat and you could easily feel the story it was trying to express through the notes (Me not being very good at music, I appreciated that I could visualize a story without it having to tell me the words). This tune made me have a flashback through my mission.

You know how in the movies, they have images flashing across the screen during a dramatic part, or when someone is remembering something and they have music playing telling the story instead of the actors saying anything? I felt like if my mission could be made into a feature film, I would want that tune playing while I flashbacked through over a year of experiences.

(Editor's Note: Here's a Church YouTube video with the "flashback" method.)

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FLASH: The first time I went up to a lady in the parking lot all by myself and street contacted her.

HR looking at Sister Nelson and I, after he told us he felt that he had been forgiven

Running away from the scary, frothing, monster of a dog, positive I was going to get my legs chomped off

Sitting in the living room at the Bryant's with Sister Kennington as the Spirit testified to Cameron of the Restoration

Painting sheds with Sister Tanner for a widow in our ward

Finding Ryan at the bus stop and asking if he would let us teach him

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The images kept flooding through my mind. I have a feeling that is what it will be like when we pass from this life.

FLASH: Easy Going years of childhood, playing, and imagining, and laughing

The many hours stuck in the library studying for exams and tests

Becoming parents

Memories of fun and laughs with our little kiddos

Helping the neighbor shovel her walk

Digging down deep and kneeling in prayer to get through yet another trial that life brought your way

Growing old and watching others take the same walk

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I’m grateful for these precious moments. Just the other day, I had one of those memories I am sure would be a flashback during my "feature film of my mission". Sister Miller and I sat in the church teaching Ryan the gospel lesson. It was a rough start, and I started praying that we could ask him the right question. I’m not sure what I asked, but his reply was that he wasn’t sure he wanted to ask if the Book of Mormon was true because he knew he would get an answer.

Sister Miller was so inspired and asked him to pray right then. The room was filled with an intense silence as we knelt in prayer. He started his prayer saying that he would have been too scared later to ask, but that he wanted to know right now if the Book of Mormon was the word of God. He ended the prayer and we sat there, neither of us wanting to move, to breathe, to interfere with the Holy Ghost teaching and answering Ryan’s prayer. 

He got up and started pacing and then sat back down holding his heart. I looked him in the eye and asked him what he felt. He said he didn’t know. I knew that was not true. He did know. He did feel the Spirit. God did answer him. As I told him that he knew the Book of Mormon was true, he shook his head and said, "Yeah, I do."

It was so amazing to see how God has guided Ryan to find the truth.

It is true that God is preparing people in our path who know not where to find the truth. Who is on your path?