August 14, 2012
Week 8! 2 months into it!
I got your box! Thank you SOOOO MUCH!
I loved hearing from you on the tape, too. Wow do I love y'all! CONGRATS
ON THE MOVING PARTY! Thanks to all those who have helped my family out SO much
with all of the process!
(By the way I asked our mission president and he
is totally fine with me having a violin! So send it on! :) Thanks soooo much!)The weeks here are so full, it's like a month crammed into 7 days separated by naps. I don't know how we do it! But we are not alone because we're on the Lord's team, so that's probably how. My body is now finally adjusting to our schedule, and I feel rested even, and full of energy during the day. My prayers pleading for a blessing on my body (and thanks to all of yours too!) really have been answered with me feeling a lot more settled. This is the most insanely busy part of the year for us here at Temple Square (besides Christmas and Conference...) and President Gillette knows it too. We had a mission meeting last night where he told us that starting next week, our weekly P-Days will last all day long and that we will be able to sleep in as late as we want, all because too many sisters are sick. That's got to be the first time in all of Mission history :) But seriously, I'm doing much much better. As my Dad said in his letter this week to me: "That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task has changed, but that our capacity to do so has increased." That's seriously what has happened. I know that it really is from the help of the Lord though. It didn't happen all at once. In fact, every morning it's still a challenge to get out of bed and do everything to get out on the Square and start the day, but as I exercise my faith and do it anyway, I have been blessed and I am so happy when I am there.
We had an awesome Zone Conference yesterday where we toured the Utah State Capitol Building and then talked all about being a consecrated missionary. It was really great. It was how to be even more cheerfully obedient. There's a story we discussed about a stake president in... Russia(?) who had this really poor sister come and ask him if she too had to pay tithing. He looked at her and lovingly said, "If it were up to me and if it was my church, I would say that you don't have to, sister. But this is the Lord's church and being obedient to this principle is what blessings are predicated on." It is so true. The Lord BLESSES us as we are obedient, especially when we don't understand the reason or when it is particularly hard or difficult to sacrifice to do so. Often times the blessing is the change in us. The change to become more like God or to put Him first by sacrificing our other needs wishes or desires.
We also spoke in a Sacrament Meeting
this Sunday. A ward invited me and three other sisters from Temple
Square to come and speak to them. My topic was on the Worth of Souls.
I've included it at the bottom of the email for those interested.
It really impacted how I think about and do missionary work. All of
us, every single person on the earth, has the potential to become like our
Father. That is our value as an individual! Wow. What a thought!
We taught 45 Iranians
(from Iran!) yesterday (along with tons of other people that I just have
no time to write about). We're not allowed to proselyte because they are Muslim,
but they did notice and ask many many questions! One lady was really
touched and told us "you are so beautiful on the inside and on the
outside!" and another lady from Iran told us she has been here many times.
When we asked her what her favorite part was, she said, "All of the
wonderful people who believe this faith." It was a very neat
experience.
As for some cultural
funnies... I always forget to include these, because being culturally
diverse happens to me all day long every single day.
Here's your Australian lesson for the
day:Lollies = candy. Bubbler = water fountain. "oi" = hey. Corn syrup is of the devil. "Sistah Fisha" = Sisterrr Fisherrrr. Heaps and Heaps = lots and lots. 'zeds' = z's. Biscuit = cookie. The bin = the trash can. The loo = the bathroom.
We are teaching on the phone this man
who is from Liberia. When we asked him for his address to send the
missionaries to, he told us "Oh, it's the first left on the only Coca Cola
plant in the Republic!" When we asked him for an apartment number he
responded "Oh just ask for Henry and I will be there!"
Italian for kleenex means = face bed.
My Singaporean roommate almost had a
heart attack the other day because the sink was overflowing and
she didn't know about the disposal! She kept telling us, "There's
a flood, a flood!" :) We just smiled and smiled and smiled all night.
So how did the challenge to adopt a
new Christ-like attribute this week work out? How did family scripture study
each day and family prayer work?We challenged L to pray and read with her boys every day this week and this is what she told us last night.
"When we pray and read together,
it's something beautiful. The peace is amazing. It's that peace that
comes to your heart as you pray. Reading together and praying together have
really helped my boys through this difficult time. I really believe that
when I pray and read, my family who has passed on is here with me, almost like
they want me to read out loud to them. I feel this peace that I haven't found
in a very long time!"
It was amazing. She also
attended church yesterday and really liked it and wants to bring her boys next
week. The Lord's work moves on. We have so many people we teach that I'm
unable to tell about, but I can testify about what great good the Gospel does in
people's lives. L told us last night that she is fine with "submitting her
will to her Heavenly Father and letting go and being okay with His will."
That's exactly what I told her a month ago my second day in the field
talking to her for the first time on the phone. She now believes it! And
lives it!
Do you all want a new challenge? I
know that the Gospel will bless your family's lives and your friend's lives.
It will bring more hope, direction, purpose, peace and vision. Is
there someone that could really use this message in their life? We would love
to talk to them on the phone here at Temple Square and teach them these truths
that will bless them and bring them hope! Just send my mom an email and
she will pass on their information to me, and we can call them and teach them!
Send me: their name and yours, their
phone number and your phone number to fisherfamilymail@gmail.com
I know that it will bless them so
much. This Gospel is true and works. I love it! It changes and transforms
lives!
Love,Sister Fisher
P.S. Here's my Sacrament Meeting talk I just gave about each
one of our worth:
===================================================
The Importance of the One
Elder Hillam of the First Quorum of the Seventy recounts an experience he had in his talk entitled The Worth of Souls :
"One of the talks that has had an everlasting impression on me is one given in a Saturday evening session of a stake conference years ago. The talk was given by a young mother.
Here’s what she said:
“I have been doing the genealogy of my great-grandfather. He and his large family of sons and daughters were members of the Church.
“My great-grandfather,” she said, “left church one Sunday with his family, and they never returned—no indication why.”
She then said, “In my research, I have found that my great-grandfather has over 1,000 descendants.”
And then she said, and this is the part I have not been able to forget, “Of those 1,000 descendants, I am the only one active in the Church today.”
As she said these words, I found myself thinking, “Is it only 1,000, or could it be more?”
The answer is apparent. The spiritual influence that family might have had on their neighbors and friends did not happen. None of his sons nor any of his daughters served as missionaries, and those they would have touched with their testimonies were not baptized, and those who were not baptized did not go on missions. Yes, there are probably many thousands who are not in the Church today, and not in this very meeting, because of that great-grandfather’s decision.”
UNQUOTE
What one person can do, what one person can be, and what effect can one person have on thousands of others? The effects of one can be limitless.
The value of a soul is in whatever potential it has to become.
The value of a caterpillar is to become a magnificent butterfly.
I recently received a letter from a lady in my ward at home where she described motherhood as“raising a parent”. She was not referring to her children as the current state they were in, like “raising a child” but instead, referring to what they could and will become.
President George Q. Cannon (1827–1901) so beautifully put it: “There was a period when we, with Jesus and others, basked in the light of the presence of God and enjoyed His smiles. We are the children of God, and as His children there is no attribute we ascribe to Him that we do not possess, though they may be dormant or in embryo. The mission of the Gospel is to develop these powers and make us like our Heavenly Parent.”
Each and every human being living now, living before, and soon to be living, has the worth of their potential--- the worth of a God. This worth is priceless, or unable to define a price.
While we are priceless to our Father in Heaven, there was however a price that was paid for us through Jesus Christ to allow us to achieve this ultimate potential.
This sacrifice of the perfect Son, the sacrificial lamb, helps us to recognize our worth in the eyes of the Father. If there was but one person on earth that needed Christ to buy them back from the bondage of sin, He still would have drunken the Bitter Cup, sacrificed all, and be crucified, all for that one child.
So what does that mean for us?
In D&C 18:10-11 and 15-16 it says:
“Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God;
For, behold, the Lord your Redeemer suffered death in the flesh; wherefore he suffered the pain of all men that all men might repent and come unto him.
And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!...
And now, if your joy will be great with one soul that you have brought unto me into the kingdom of my Father, how great will be your joy if you should bring many souls unto me!”
These souls are those
· who have not found the truth yet, and
· that do not know where to find it,
· those who were given the truth but haven’t found the joy in it yet,
· or those who have found the truth but have lost the way for whatever reason,
Also known as all those called our ‘nonmember’ ‘less active’ or ‘inactive’ friends.
They may have lost the way because, as the Savior put it in Luke 15,
They, like Sheep in a fold of 100, just get lost, having wandered away from the fold and the Shepherd. They didn’t mean to get lost, there were just so many sheep, and the grass looked very green in the other meadow. Despite how naïve or harmless the intentions were, the member wandered away from the church, forgetting the truth they had in the fold, getting lost in the wilderness or the world’s strange paths, snares, and false attractions.
OR
They may be like the lost Silver Coin. The woman in Luke 15 lost one of her 10 pieces of silver, back then worth a full day’s wage. It was important to her, it was worth a lot, but maybe due to a lack of carefulness, inattentiveness to detail or just laziness, she lost that precious coin. This may be a lot like our friends who have just lost those things once precious to them due to a lack of attentiveness to do the little things, such as daily sincere prayer, or daily sincere scripture study, or following carefully the counsel of the Prophet. My Dad back at home, told me that during in his experience as a Bishop, not one of the members who committed a grievous sin (he never told their names) had said their prayers that morning, and had not read their scriptures. Their inattentiveness to detail, or carelessness is what led to them getting lost. I don’t believe they intended to get lost. They didn’t want to leave the fold of the Shepherd, it just kind of happened because they weren’t paying attention.
OR our friends might be much like Prodigal Son. He had tried it his father’s way; he had obeyed the teachings of the church, and thought he knew better. He believed that there was an easier way, or a way that he could have the thrills of the world and still keep his inheritance, or his blessings from the church. We all know how that story ended up however. He lost all that he had. His worth which had started as Pride, or believing he knew better than God, ended in him believing he was only worth as much as livestock, feeding on the very trough that pigs eat from. He felt that he couldn’t return to his father, for he was not worthy of being in His presence. Or, he was not worthy to repent, to accept his own intentional rebellion against God and come back into his church, to start anew, and to find those blessings again.
But I believe that the verses Luke ends with are key:
" And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.
And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.
And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.
And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!
I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,
And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.
And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.
But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet:
And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found."
We not just need to, we MUST rescue the one. No matter how awkward, inconvenient, costing or timely it may be.
We need to leave the ninety and nine and go after the lost sheep, or light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently for the silver coin, and search for, love and persuade the Prodigal Son to return home.
And once they have found the flock again, we must embrace them, or call our family and friends together and rejoice for we have found that which was lost. We must kill the fatted calf and rejoice with compassion. For Christ did say “that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.”
Invite your nonmember friends who are searching for truth. Love those who do not understand our beliefs, or those so called ‘anti’s. Invite them all to visit Temple Square or to visit mormon.org, or have the missionaries over and talk with them. Invite them to Family Home Evening or to dinner. Search for the one in your Young Women’s class or Teacher’s Quorum, in the Elder’s Quorum or Relief Society who have lost the way.
That person who you have been thinking of as I have been speaking--- they are who the Lord wants you to rescue again and wants to welcome back into the Shepherd’s fold.
A crinkled up $100 bill is still worth $100 to us. Surely a crinkled up soul is still worth the same amount in potential to God.
They should be worth the same amount to us.
I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment