Hey guys how's it going? Welcome to probably the fastest email I've scrawled yet hahaaaa! I didn't think I would have time to write one today but I felt like I really needed to make time to put this one out fast.FASTING AND PRAYER WORK GUYS. Fasting is this thing people sometimes do, it's kind of like a prayer except you don't eat for a period of time too. Honestly up to now I still didn't totally understand how not eating somehow made your prayer stronger or like, what exactly fasting was supposed to do as opposed to a regular ol' heartfelt prayer. But this week I was feeling pretty down about the work because we weren't teaching anyone new and gosh dangit when you're a missionary with a gospel as awesome as this you just want to share it with EVERYONE man and when you aren't teaching lessons to new people it feels like a big hole in your life. At least to me, that's how I felt. So on Sunday I fasted for our work and wrote down some specific things I wanted help accomplishing this week. I fasted for a new person to teach. I fasted for help being more patient and loving even with people who don't reciprocate that. I fasted for a lot of other things too, mostly involved with progressing the work in our area and just general self-improvement type stuff in areas I felt I was lacking in. But I wrote them all down and got serious with it, all right.
And then things started happening. Monday night Elder Cattani and I came home at 8:30 and instead of winding down or eating our dinner we got on facebook and started messaging random people. And on a jeep group my companion was in, he found someone who wanted to meet us in person. We were freaking out!! It's literally the last 5 minutes of our proselyting hours by this time, time which would have been easy to spend doing something else but when we chose to use it to do the Lord's work he blessed us. Boom. We set up a time to meet him at the church on Friday and THIS GUY WAS SO COOL!!
When we met with him I thought we would just talk to gauge his interest and then setup another time to actually teach him a lesson but our conversation just naturally turned into a deep discussion about the nature of our Heavenly Father, Christ's church, the purpose of baptism... And then we started talking about the restoration. And then when we got to the part where we usually share the First Vision Elder Cattani looked at me and stopped talking.
I was like a deer in headlights man, I have NEVER shared the first vision account in English with someone else before. For those of you confused right now, the "First Vision" thing I'm talking about is this account which Joseph Smith wrote, where in his own words he describes the experience he had seeing God and Jesus Christ appear to him. Us missionaries like to memorize a passage from his account word for word because it's more powerful to say, "this is what he said in HIS words" than to try and paraphrase such an incident on our own.
And when I needed it most, I suddenly couldn't remember a single word. I couldn't even remember how it started. I just sat there and tried to hide the panic I felt inside for what felt like an eternity. I thought a silent prayer in my mind at the top of my brain lungs,
"HELPMEOHMYGOSHLORDHELPMEPLEASEILITERALLYCANTREMEMBERANYTHING I'M GOING TO OPEN MY MOUTH NOW PLEASE PUT SOMETHING IN IT."
So I did. I opened my mouth and started speaking.
And as I spoke, the words came to me.
"I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me. When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other, 'This is my beloved son. Hear him!'"
There really is nothing quite like what I experienced then. All the air seemed to get sucked from the room into a single point between us and everything became very still. The person we were talking to held my gaze and I saw his eyes gradually get more and more shiny. I felt the Spirit like a warm hug in my chest. Like he was gently wrapping his arms around my heart.
We continued to tell him about the Book of Mormon and how it's a witness that God still speaks to us today. He asked if he could see it, and we gave him a copy (which he was shocked by, like seriously you guys are just GIVING this to me?!). And the dude wound up coming to church the next day. We will be meeting with him again this week.
I know I still have so much to learn but man it just amazes me how God makes every lesson we give. It really isn't about us, we are only vessels for His spirit and when we're honestly fixing our best effort there is nothing I nor my companion can do to frustrate the work of the Lord.
It's incredible.
I love you and your Heavenly Father REALLY loves you. Completely, absolutely, with his whole immortal heart.
Keep on praying because there's so much you two have to catch up on.
Love,
Elder Johnson
1. On our way to wreck some nerds in volleyball with my onesie on p-day
2. Some kind of african tortise named Raf. His owner says he came from the internet.
3. Cattani turned 20!
4. Getting vaxed
5. Elder Dunn is left for his OG assignment in Chile so I made this tribute vid for him. The music is original, sung mostly by him as we were making up tunes on the piano in the church after a heated district nerf war.
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