Wowowow! It's soo good to be an Elder!!!! Why does it have to end!?? I really feel like the Lord has held in reserve some of his richest blessings for me in these last few weeks that I have in the field. I have been feeling the Spirit stronger than ever....I am seeing the Lord's hand more clearly and plainly than in any other time of my life. It's as if everything in my mission is turning into a big huge "replay". I'm seeing how all of this (the difficulties, the miracles, the heartaches, the stress, the prayers, the faith) ties into my Heavenly Father's plan for me. You get to a point where you look back at all the blessings of your mission, and you feel so grateful for all of the things that the Lord has done for you, that you almost want to cry with happiness and gratitude....then your perspective opens up a little bit more and you see that you've been permitted to help countless people at the same time along the way.
Shoot. If I'd have come all this way and gone through everything that I have without having been able to have helped a single person besides myself, I'd be the happiest 20 year old boy in the whole world....and then to think of all of the special, blessed people that I've been allowed to teach, serve, love, and help during these 2 years (many of whom who are in turn doing the same to others around them)....well folks, thinking about all of this, King Benjamin's words come to my mind,
"And now I ask, can ye say aught of yourselves? I answer you, Nay. Ye cannot say that ye are even as much as the dust of the earth; yet ye were created of the dust of the earth; but behold, it belongeth to him who created you. (Mosiah 2:25)
I feel so UNWORTHY of it all! My mortal mind just can't wrap around the idea...this same question repeatedly has come to my mind during these past 2 years "What did I do to deserve all of this???" I honestly don't think I do deserve it....not even a tenth of it do I deserve. It has really helped me to understand just what the Prophets meant when they teach us that "the Lord thy God is a merciful God" (Deuteronomy 4:31). It helps even more to understand just what is mercy: "Mercy is the compassionate treatment of a person greater than what is deserved" (Topical Guide). What a powerful lesson this is. The Lord is MERCIFUL. He is LOVING. He is GENEROUS. He gives us much, much, much more than we deserve. Pathetic words do nothing to describe my feelings [funny how everything as a missionary relates to the scriptures....I understand so well now what Moroni meant when he said, "And only a few have I written, because of my weakness in writing." (Ether 12:40)]. I love the Lord for everything he has done for me. Once I asked my mission president what was the most important thing I could learn on my mission. "Love God", he responded. I can say that I feel that I've take a few good steps to understand that essential and oh so important lesson.
Shoot. If I'd have come all this way and gone through everything that I have without having been able to have helped a single person besides myself, I'd be the happiest 20 year old boy in the whole world....and then to think of all of the special, blessed people that I've been allowed to teach, serve, love, and help during these 2 years (many of whom who are in turn doing the same to others around them)....well folks, thinking about all of this, King Benjamin's words come to my mind,
"And now I ask, can ye say aught of yourselves? I answer you, Nay. Ye cannot say that ye are even as much as the dust of the earth; yet ye were created of the dust of the earth; but behold, it belongeth to him who created you. (Mosiah 2:25)
I feel so UNWORTHY of it all! My mortal mind just can't wrap around the idea...this same question repeatedly has come to my mind during these past 2 years "What did I do to deserve all of this???" I honestly don't think I do deserve it....not even a tenth of it do I deserve. It has really helped me to understand just what the Prophets meant when they teach us that "the Lord thy God is a merciful God" (Deuteronomy 4:31). It helps even more to understand just what is mercy: "Mercy is the compassionate treatment of a person greater than what is deserved" (Topical Guide). What a powerful lesson this is. The Lord is MERCIFUL. He is LOVING. He is GENEROUS. He gives us much, much, much more than we deserve. Pathetic words do nothing to describe my feelings [funny how everything as a missionary relates to the scriptures....I understand so well now what Moroni meant when he said, "And only a few have I written, because of my weakness in writing." (Ether 12:40)]. I love the Lord for everything he has done for me. Once I asked my mission president what was the most important thing I could learn on my mission. "Love God", he responded. I can say that I feel that I've take a few good steps to understand that essential and oh so important lesson.
We had Neide's baptism this week. It was a marvelous experience for me. I saw how the Lord hand prepares his elect children to enter into his Kingdom here on earth. We did little or almost nothing in comparison to the spiritual preparation that she has been going through since long before I was born. That's what the Lord means when he says the "field is white, already for the harvest". Our job is not complicated, but is incredibly sacred and special. As she climbed the stairs out of the baptismal font, I heard her say "que água boa" or "what great water that was!". Her son is serving a mission in Campinas, Brazil. I can only imagine how he must have felt to receive the news that his mom was baptized....it's going to be even better on the day that he finds out that his Dad was baptized too! Batista, Neide's husband, has been going through a transformation. It's like watching a time-lapse of Mosiah 3:19 before me eyes...
"For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father."
He said a prayer at the end of one of our lessons that almost brought me to tears. I can't believe how much these people are changing. It's all the testimony that I need that this work is true. The Lord is the Head of this work. He leads us. He changes us. We just need to do as he instructs, or in other words, we need to "submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit". The work is true. I bear my witness of it.
Until next time,
Elder McKinley
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