Happy New Year!
So, recently, we've been looking to answer a certain question: Why Am I Here? As we discussed
in the last entry, part of the answer deals with why there's missionaries at all and what we're doing. But, there's a more personal aspect as well.
Let me explain a bit, using my own experiences. Having grown up in the church, all my life I'd heard about missions and missionary work. I heard that it was a Priesthood duty; I heard many people call it "the best two years" of their life. I also heard them say that it was very, very difficult.
As time went on and the time to go on a mission drew nearer and nearer, I found myself asking myself if I really wanted to serve or not. And, I found I did, but my reason wasn't too personal. I wanted to serve a mission because I felt it would be the right thing to do, what was expected of me. So, I made the necessary preparations and started my mission on June 27th, 2012.
Then, in my first few weeks of missionary training, I found out for myself something that I'd heard all my life: missionary work is
hard. It was hard in ways I'd never anticipated. I found very quickly that if my reason for doing the work was just that I felt it was the right thing to do, I wasn't going to last very long. The work needed more from me than that.
So, a big part of my mission became finding a personal reason for keeping myself engaged and doing the work. I needed a motivation that would keep me going, no matter how difficult things got.
I needed to know Why I'm Here.
I prayed a lot for this reason. And, as usually happens with answers to prayers, the reason came, but not exactly when I wanted it to. I didn't find it in the Missionary Training Center; I kept searching and pondering as I entered the mission field and began the process of actually trying to bring souls to Christ. It was hard, but I kept going. And, after about two months, I found an answer.
It came after a rather hard blow to my determination to keep serving. We'd been invited to attend a "Welcome Home" get-together for a member of the Church that had just finished his mission. As I looked at all of the pictures of his mission, then saw him happy with his family, it seemed to suck the energy out of me. I still had about 20 months of service left, and at that moment they seemed to stretch endlessly in front of me. I didn't know how I was going to do it.
Later on that night, I discussed how I was feeling with my Trainer, Elder Jones. To my surprise, he couldn't really understand where I was coming from. Elder Jones was coming to the end of his mission, but, unlike many other missionaries, he wasn't thinking about returning home at all. He explained that, as he saw it, he had been called to Florida (originally Georgia) because there were people here that needed his help. And, he wasn't going to stop looking for those people until the day he was released as a missionary. That was his drive.
I was thinking about what he'd told me as I went to bed that night. I had a dream that I was in a party, similar to the one I'd attended earlier that day. In the dream, there was an open window, and a woman was yelling something outside. Suddenly, I woke up and found that it wasn't just a dream; there really was a woman standing below our apartment window and trying to yell something up to us. She was saying the same thing over and over again, but I couldn't make it out. It sounded like she was calling out someone named Lauren.
After a while, she changed up the line, and started calling herself something not very decent (it was 4:15 a.m., and it was pretty obvious that she was drunk). Soon after, it sounded like one of her friends came to calm her down. The yelling stopped, and Elder Jones and I got back to sleeping.\
In the morning, I discussed what had happened with Elder Jones. I mentioned that I hadn't understood what she saying.
"Was she calling out to someone named Lauren or something?"
Elder Jones shook his head.
"No. She was saying 'mormons.' She was yelling 'Save me, mormons!' over and over again."
Save me, mormons.
The words echoed again and again in my head.
Save me, mormons.
She didn't sound mocking or rude; in spite of likely being intoxicated, she sounded sincere.
Save me, mormons.
She knew who we were (Elder Jones suspected she was a fellow tenant he'd talked to before).
Save me, mormons.
She believed we could save her.
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And that is how I came to discover Why I'm Here. After that day, I realized that there were countless other people in the world like that woman, crying out for help. And we have exactly what they need.
As Church President Ezra Taft Benson put it:
“We are commanded by God to take this gospel to all the world. That is the cause that must unite us today. Only the gospel will save the world from the calamity of its own self-destruction. Only the gospel will unite men of all races and nationalities in peace. Only the gospel will bring joy, happiness, and salvation to the human family” (The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson [1988], 167). (As quoted in Preach My Gospel, Chapter 1)
Since I've come on my mission, numerous people have stated that, what with my thick, black glasses and my suit and tie, I look awfully like Clark Kent. And, as I think about it, I realize that I have something else in common with him:
I'm Here to Save the World.
I can't do it all by myself. Luckily, I stand shoulder to shoulder with a force of 80,000 other missionaries. That may seem small compared to a world of approximately 7 billion people, but that doesn't daunt me at all. As Joseph Smith, the first prophet, prophesied (at a time when there were even fewer members of our church):
"The Standard of Truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; … the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done." (Joseph Smith, as quoted in "The Standard of Truth Has Been Erected" by Boyd K. Packer)
I testify that God loves us and that He has restored His church and His Gospel to this earth. I also testify that this Gospel has the power to save all of us from our sorrows and our sins. I know that what I'm teaching is true, and I know that it can help everyone. And that is Why I'm Here.
Until next time,
-Elder Richmond
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| Photo Courtesy of LDS.org |
