As all of you know, you have been sent to the greatest
mission in the world. This calling is
not be chance, circumstance or happenstance; it is from God as delivered to his
holy prophets. Your ability to accept,
follow and fulfill your calling as a missionary is a sign of your faithfulness
and a prediction of how you will behave regarding spiritual matters in the
future. Having faith requires that you
live a faithful life as shown by your actions, thoughts, behavior, attitudes
and attributes.
Several years ago after just having received my driver’s
license to operate a car, I went surfing with my brother and the two of us went
by ourselves. My brother was younger
than me and had a mind of his own, but being his older brother I could control
his actions and behavior in most instances.
After a few hours of surfing, I told my brother that it was time for us
to leave as I needed to go home and prepare for my very first date with a young
girl. His reply did not startle me as he
remarked: “You go on without me; I want
to stay and surf”. I knew that this was
a ploy to get me to stay longer; however, I was really excited about my first
date so I exited the water and left my brother chasing behind me. That will teach him a lesson I thought.
After returning home without my brother, my father remarked
“where is your brother”? Now I was only
16 years old at the time and my gospel scholarship was still weak at best so I
mustered up the best scripture that I could recall and said: “Am I my brother’s keeper”? My father without hesitation replied, “Yes
you are, where is your brother”?
Unimpressed by my scriptural wizardry, and knowing that asking a question
would not be the appropriate response in such an occasion, I remarked: “I left
him at the beach because he would not get out of the water”. I could have lied. I could have made up a story. I could have been less than truthful with my
father, but it’s never been in my nature to be so. My father commanded me to return to the beach
to find my brother and as Jacob said to his father Isaac: “I obeyed”.
To this day my father recounts this story often to others indicating
that the moral of the story is that when pressed for an answer, I told the
truth. Its never been in my nature to be
less than truthful, less than faithful, less than what the Lord would expect of
me (and by the way, Sister Bruce is the same way if not more so).
I am very fond of the words spoken by Adam in the Pearl of
Great Price (Moses 4: 6) when he has the following encounter with an Angel:
6: And after many days
an angel of the Lord appeared unto Adam, saying: Why dost thou offer sacrifices unto the
Lord? And Adam said unto him: I know
not, save the Lord commanded me.
Oh the faithfulness of Adam!
Look at the previous verse (5) where it states that “Adam was obedient
unto the commandments of the Lord”. Many
may think that Adam was merely being blindly obedient to the Lord and
oftentimes as missionaries we feel as though we too must be blindly obedient to
the words of our Mission President, Preach My Gospel, Missionary Manual,
schedule, etc. in order to witness the blessings that the Lord may deliver to
us. I would suggest to you that the
action taken by Adam when he stated that “I know not, save the Lord commanded
me” was anything but blind obedience.
They had walked and talked with God in the garden, knew his voice even
after their expulsion from Eden and retained in their memory a knowledge of
their close association with their Heavenly Father before the Fall. They knew God, and they had chosen to obey
him. Like Adam, you are gaining in
testimony, gaining in gospel scholarship, gaining in relationships with people,
making a difference not only in your own life, but in the lives of countless
others. You may not have all of the
answers but I witness to you that your obedience is anything but blind
obedience. We obey because the Lord
commands us to obey!
The story of Nephi sheds forth great doctrine on this
principle of following obediently and how we can exercise faith in the words of
prophets and leaders to receive the blessings awaiting us. In 1 Nephi 11 we have the account where Nephi
desires to “know the things that my father had seen”. In verse 1 we learn many aspects of gaining a
testimony. Desire, belief, pondering,
and the influence of spirit. Nephi then
begins his testimonial journey with the spirit as he is questioned several
times over and begins to receive confirmation of his feelings on certain
aspects of his testimony. The most
marvelous words to me are found in verse 17 after which he is asked about the
“condescension of God”. He remarks: “I do not know the meaning of all
things”. The humility, power and
truthfulness of these words are very powerful to me personally. I often find myself saying, “I do not know
the meaning of all things” but my nature is one to have all answers, at all
times, this very instant! I often hear
from many of you such questions as: Why
am I in this sector? Or, why did the
Lord send me here? Or, why do I have the
companion that I have? Or, how can I
help my companion? Or, what does the
Lord expect of me? Don’t be offended if I have captured one of your
questions! I get all of these questions
from every missionary, all the time! Nephi’s example seems to be the pattern of
learning for the prophets and it is my witness that this same form of
scriptural learning applies to all of us as well. We do not know the meaning of all things but
like Adam we will obey even though we “know not” why!
Remember the interaction between Joseph Smith and Sidney
Rigdon as they knelt at the window in John Johnson’s farm house whereupon they
received the Vision of eternities knows as Section 76 of our Doctrine and
Covenants. Sidney would say: “this is what I see” and Joseph would
reply: “I see the same”. In this continuous revelation of over an
hour, Joseph and Sidney received an answer to their question about eternal life
which was a response to their question about John 5:29 as they translated the
New Testament. Witnesses say that Joseph
“wore black clothes, but at the same time seemed to be dressed in an element of
glorious white, and his face shone as if it were transparent. Joseph seemed as strong as a lion, but Sidney
seemed as weak as water”. The prophetic
process of receiving revelation, questioning and answering, a constant search
and confirmation of things eternal was the same pattern as described by Nephi.
Think of Brigham Young and his reaction to this same vision
seen by Joseph and Sidney. This vision
of the degrees of glory in Celestial worlds whereby the sons and daughters of
God may be saved from their sins. Quite
easy for us to accept but think of Brigham having grown up in a Protestant
home, schooled in the tenets of Christianity and a strong belief in a simple
concept of Heaven and hell as found in John 5:29. How did Brigham respond to such a vision? His
response is a testimony of faithfulness, devotion, acceptance and discipleship.
He said:
“It was a vision contrary to my beliefs.
However, I did not reject it but I could not understand it. Joseph continued to receive revelation upon
revelation, ordinance upon ordinance, truth upon truth, until he obtained all
that was necessary for the salvation of the human family”. What a great example of patience, wisdom,
followership and obedience. And we all
know what a great prophet and leader Brigham went on to become. Again the words, “I know not save the Lord
commanded me” come to my mind.
Elders and Sisters, you may find a day when you don’t know
why you wake up on time, why you work the hours that you do, why you are
required to follow the President exactly in all of his counsel, why you are in
the city you are in, why some of your investigators don’t progress, why your
companion says the things that he or she may say, why you don’t feel the spirit
at every moment of every day. But I
promise you that as you follow the pattern of learning as shown by the prophets
that the Lord, in his time, will bless you with divine power and shed forth
blessings that you may not fully comprehend.
My counsel today and for the past several months is to find, visit,
reconvert and activate the less active members in your ward or branch. Through this activity, you will find the
blessings of baptisms and bringing new souls and souls once again to the
blessings of the eternal gospel. You may
not yet have the same vision that I have, but that is fine! Remember the words of Adam, “I know not, save
the Lord commanded me”. Let us be like
Adam, Nephi, Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and all others that have faithfully
followed without first knowing the final outcome of their decisions. It is not blind obedience. It is faithful obedience as shown by faithful
followers of the true and living God.
