Calloused

SAN DIEGO — It’s weird when fall hits, and the sun is still shining here as bright as ever. It messes me up sometimes!

This week, it has really hit me how urgent this work is. God really is hastening His work. We are gearing up for about 50-75 new missionaries come January. What an amazing work this is! I feel the urgency inside of me, my spirit is trying to sprint to the finish, it is all I can do to keep up the best I can. There is just so much work to be done. 

I can see how hard both forces are working in this world. It has been so evident this week how hard Satan is working to confuse, distract, and lead away the children of God. Many of our investigators have testified of the truth, yet they refuse to live the gospel. It has broken my heart. There comes a point when they have to choose — choose to follow God, or choose to turn away, to step back into the world they came from. A world of chaos, distraction, and loneliness. The hardest moments on my mission have been the times when I look at one of my investigators, someone I have come to love with all my heart, and they look me back in the eye and tell me they do not want the gospel in their lives.  

It is devastating. But the work will move on.

I have noticed on the streets, the world is getting harder, tougher, and more calloused. People we talk to on the street laugh and make fun of us. Some are kind, but refuse to believe that they have to live the gospel of Jesus Christ to return to live with God. They think that they can do it on their own. We are getting to the point where I feel like we are trudging through mud, trying hard as we might to find those that are prepared. Despite the difficulty, the work will move on.

I have had many experiences this week, but I would like to share with you an experience from the Mormon Battalion Historic Site I had while I was on shift.

November 3, 2012

I was finishing up a tour in gold panning, and a middle-aged gentleman walked up, looking around like he had just walked up to the historic site. I excused myself from the family I was helping and welcomed him to the Battalion and to Old Town. 

We talked for a minute and I asked if I could show him how to pan for gold. He agreed and we started panning. Over the past few weeks, I have had a few experiences talking with people at the Battalion or at the temple where a peace comes over my heart, and I am certain that they are a child of God that specifically has been guided at that time and at that moment to be healed by the message of the Restored Gospel. 

As I talked to him, I had that peace come over my heart. 

I looked at him and could feel the burden on his heart. I could see it in the sadness and darkness of his eyes. I hear it in the tone of his voice. I just told him that I could tell he had a burden on his heart, and wondered if he wanted to talk about it. 

He told me that he just didn’t like where he was at this point in his life. 

"I just go out on the weekends and drink, and party, and I don’t even know why I do it. I suppose because I am bored and I don’t know what else to do. I just want to change" 

I testified of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and the power it has to lift his burdens, to comfort his heart, and that through the gift of the Atonement, he had the power to change. We walked into the resource room and looked at the display of the Book of Mormon and of the Bible. How amazing it was to me to be able to testify of the Old and New Testament, and Another Testament of Jesus Christ. The books that contain the Gospel, the way to find peace and joy in this life. 

He looked at them for a while and then looked up at me with his sad eyes and told met that ' I just feel like I have calluses on my heart. I just can’t feel anymore." 

I asked him if he had ever felt the Spirit before. He said, "Once. When I was a young boy, I felt that I should go back to church. I knew God was speaking to me and I didn’t do it." 

We slowly walked to the lobby and sat on the couch. I testified that the missionaries could teach him how to get rid of the calluses on his heart and help him start over, completely change. I felt the Holy Ghost remind me of my missionary purpose — To invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the Restored Gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and his Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. How great is my calling!

I turned to him and asked him if he found that what I was teaching is true, would someone holding the priesthood authority of God baptize him. He looked at me and said, yes. He hadn’t prayed since he was little, so we went to the theater and knelt down in prayer. I prayed first and then he followed. His prayer was the most sincere prayer I have heard. I felt honored to be kneeling in a room where God's son — His little boy —was returning back to Him.

That moment will be one I never forget.

The lesson I learned through this is that, yes, things are hard, the world is bad, and Satan is loosing his chains over the whole earth. But GOD'S WORK WILL MOVE FORWARD. And we have the responsibility to be part of it. 

Are you joining the fight, or are you sitting on the sidelines? With or without you, His work will continue.

The Fourth Watch

SAN DIEGO — General Conference was amazing!

I sometimes think, "Oh how cool would it be to know Moses, Noah, even Lehi", and then I realize once again: I get to see the prophet of God here, now, TODAY! Do you realize how incredibly lucky we are?

When I teach people about the prophet, they are amazed, they are so excited and anxious to learn what he has to say. And then I hear members grumbling about "having" to watch conference. Don’t ever take that for granted!

Dad asked me what I thought about the new age limit for missionaries. I am so excited to add more troops to this war! The time is getting eerily close. You can see it in everything, especially being a missionary. I feel like I could place myself in the war chapters of the Book of Mormon sometimes. Right now, I feel that I am in Antipus' army. We are fighting with all our might and it seems like we might be overtaken, but now Heavenly Father has recruited the Stripling Warriors — his young ones with fire and faith and zeal to help us win the war. It gives me chills thinking about it.

Today I want to talk to you about "the fourth watch." I want to share with you something that Sister Clayton wrote to us as missionaries:

In the sixth chapter of Mark, after having fed the five thousand, the Savior sends his apostles down to the ship, and instructs them to push out to sea.

"And when he had sent them away, he departed into a mountain to pray. 

And when even was come, the ship was in the midst of the sea, and he alone on the land. 

And he saw them toiling in rowing for the wind was contrary unto them and about the fourth watch of the night, he cometh unto them, walking upon the sea"

 The Hebrew night was divided into four watches, each lasting three hours with the fourth watch taking place between three in the morning and sunrise. 

Brother Wilcox states: "I worship a fourth watch God. One who tends to feel that it is good to let His children toil in rowing against the wind to face a little opposition. My problem is that I am a first watch person. Now there is something inside of me that understands that it is good for me to toil in rowing against the wind. But certainly by the second watch He would come. And when the second watch has passed and He still has not come, sometimes I forget that... He is watching."

Brother Wilcox goes on to explain it is easy to make one dangerous assumptions about why He is not coming yet to us. One is that the Savior is just not there and that is why He is not responding. Second is that if He is there, He is not listening. Third is if He is there and He is listening He must not care. And the fourth — and most dangerous of all — is that if He is there, and if He is listening, and if He cares, we must not be worthy.

In all cases, these assumptions are false. He is there. He is listening. He cares. And even though we probably are not entirely worthy, He will always respond. If He has not yet come to us, it must be because we have not yet reached the fourth watch.

I, too, feel like a first watch person. This week has proven to test my faith. We had five investigator lessons cancel on us, and have not added anyone new for a few weeks now. It has been weighing heavily on me. 

I remember the other night, jokingly yelling at the ceiling during one of our nightly plannings, "Heavenly Father, please can this be our fourth watch?" 

To my surprise, the very next day the Elders gave us a referral of a girl they had been teaching that was Young Single Adult age. Then yesterday, we were able to find a few people for the other missionaries to teach. How humbling it is to know that God does hear us. He does know us and He does care.

I’m not saying you can yell at the ceiling for the fourth watch to come. Sometimes it is far off, sometimes it is close. But I want you to know that it will come. I know with each of you, you are going through hard times. I hear about it, and I want you to know I think and pray about you. Don’t give up. Please don’t give up. It just might not be the time of the forth watch.

P.S: Just got transfer calls. They are splitting me and Sister Miller. I’m training in Helix, probably to the end of my mission as training takes two transfers and that’s all I have left. Can you believe 11 out of 13 transfers in a singles ward? Whew! CRAZY!