Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Subject: Transfer 12, Week 5: T, R, Tender mercies at the Christus, and The Lord Works in Mysterious Ways
Dear Family and Friends,
I sure love y'all.
We've had some amazing miracles that I'd like to share with
you today.
1. Our Ordained Southern Baptist Minister friend T
He called in for the first time just over a week ago and
spoke to his first Mormon missionary- me. We talked about how he had just
gotten back from his counselor and that his counselor (on his lunch break in a
non-professional position) said he should go and talk with the Mormons, because
of his current situation/feelings towards religion and the religious world. He
suffers from depression and was in a rough patch. He stopped pastor-ing in
churches because he just couldn't stand the hypocrisy, and how many of his
colleagues would rather not offend their congregations with God's truth to not
offend their paychecks. He was frustrated that the people in his churches
weren't a family- that they didn't support, love and respect each other and
just plain 'old care about one another. He now says "I know that God led
me to Sister Fisher and that it wasn't a coincidence that she was the one to
answer the phone." When we talked, he told me all about his concerns with
religion, and I just listened. I told him that I did care that he couldn't
remember the last time he felt happy, and told him about my battle with
depression and how scripture reading, prayer and focusing on lifting others
around him could help. I shared a Book of Mormon scripture and we talked for a
long time. He told us that if his other minister friends knew he was talking to
the Mormons that "they'd be so surprised that they'd be the first men on
the planet to have babies!"(He's hysterical and uses metaphors similar to
that one all the time!)
We helped him find the local Bishop's phone number and he
spoke with the Bishop a long time, and got in touch with three sister
missionaries who started teaching him twice already this week. T will be
attending for the first time in his life the Mormon church this Sunday. He now
owns a copy of the Book of Mormon and we read in Mosiah about King Benjamin,
one of the most Christ-like leaders who wasn't afraid of offending but sharing
truth. T told Sister M and I, " You don't know how much better I
feel talking with y'all, than I have felt in a long time."
In our most recent phone call he ended up defending the Book
of Mormon and Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and saying that of the little bits
he has read from the Book of Mormon, and the talks we sent him of the Apostles
that he believes what they say!
It's been so neat to be able to help someone find what they
are searching for.
She called in about a month ago and requested a Book of
Mormon for her and her husband. And I happened to be the one to answer the
phone, once again!
She happens to live just 20 minutes from my home in Texas! And very
close to my Grandma. So neat! She's just delightful. Recently she told me that
they love the Elders and believe everything that they have shared with them
about a Prophet on the earth today. She will have a church tour this week and
hopefully will attend church this weekend!!!!
She's studied religion all her life, and both her husband
and her were raised Baptist. She was so grateful that my Grandmother actually
called her and shared about her experience changing churches.
She
said that this just feels so comfortable with and believes so perfectly. She
believes with all her heart that there's a Prophet on the earth. She said it
just all seems to be working out for the good and the right time. She said that
she's read about all other religions. She doesn't like "til death do you
part." She likes her husband and loves him and wants to be with him
forever. She's
been married to him for almost 50 years. And it's just not long enough.
"I'm just so pleased that I called you that day. Everything has happened for
a reason."
I'll
have to visit that Ward when I get back in a few weeks and meet her there
for church! So neat!
3.
Tender Mercies at the Christus
We
were wandering around during our Temple Square Contacting time this week and it
was about 15 minutes until Dinner, and nothing much was happening around, not
many people to talk with so we were debating going and having dinner early or
just spending the next 15 minutes where we had planned to be. But Sister
M said- "Let's go to the Christus." And that's what we did.
Expecting to get up there and see only a few people and to just say hi, and
then play the Word of Christ recording and leave, I went straight to play the
recording. When I came back from the other side of the room, I saw Sister M
with a young woman and her newborn talking with both of them. The beautiful
young baby girl had tiny little hearing aids, and Sister M knew a little
about the deaf culture and started to speak with the woman. Mom and Dad were
both hearing, and yet this tiny 6 week old was born deaf. The young woman
started to share with us the confusion but great love that she had right now,
wondering what to do with this tiny baby--- raise her signing, or raise her
speaking or both or what. She had three other little boys at home, all with no
hearing problems. Eventually, she began to just open her heavy heart and told us
that she and her husband left their home for a weekend with this precious
daughter, and to come away to ponder and pray at the Temple and get strength.
She told us the hard things about having three little mischievous boys at home,
the humor and the horror. And at one point, I was just listening to her, and I
just started to open my mouth and told her, "I know this is probably
strange to say, but thank you for choosing to be a mother." I had never
told anyone that before. It had never occurred to me to be a choice or really a
thought that I had thought about. She looked down and I started to mumble some
sort of response or excuse why I would say that, but she just looked up and had
these gigantic tears in her eyes that dribbled down her face as she smiled. The
Spirit just bore witness to me, there at the Christus statue, that God knows each one
of us. He knows us. He loves us. Christ has felt everything that we would go
through before we would. And really, truly, when we open our hearts enough to
care, and our mouths open, He will fill it with the answers to someone else's
prayers.
This
is my number one thing I am grateful for in this month of gratitude- those
wonderful people who choose to be mothers and fathers, even though it's hard.
Even though it's not what they expect. Even when it's the hardest thing they
have ever done. As a missionary, we are constantly teaching and trying to
repair the effects of people whose parents were not there.
So
here's to you: thank you. Thank you for choosing to be a mother. Thank you for
choosing to be a father. Thank you for choosing to be a brother and a sister.
It's not an association, or genetics or DNA obligation, it's a choice.
4.
The Lord Works in Mysterious Ways
Another
time on the Square this week, we passed a young man who was sitting on the
planters in the middle of the Square just looking at the Temple with his
journal, clearly with nothing to write, pondering. We said hi and started a
conversation. He was from Florida, deep southern young man, and just sold
everything and was basically a modern-day pioneer was just led here to Utah by
the Spirit. He didn't know why. Nothing was working out. He missed home, the
culture he knew, his family, the friends he had the job he had, everything. I
started to share about my own parent's stories of following the Spirit and
being led to BYU, my mother in particular, who quit her job and moved up to
Provo in the middle of the semester, and somehow found another job, and found a
place to live in the very middle of the semester. She, I'm sure, was wondering
all of the same things this young man did as well. But then I told him the end
of the story, how it all worked out, and how my mom ended up meeting my father
and etc. etc. I just told him that life was like a Tetris game: that sometimes
we have it all planned out, and we're getting ready for the next block to be
released but it's not the block we expected, and we're frustrated because it
messes up everything and then we realize when we see the following piece, that
God was just setting us up for the next play.
Trust
in the Lord. He knows. He has a plan for you. As we walked away we saw him
feverishly writing down everything that just happened and knew that we were
there at the right time and in the right place. We never saw him again, but
both Sister M and I will never look at that particular cement planter the
same way.
There's
always some sort of summing up idea of my letters, and this is the one for this week:
Open your hearts to love someone new. Open your mouths to let that love shine
through. Be good boys and good girls, and follow the thoughts God will give, to
help someone around you absolutely know, that God does live.
John
9:1-3
And
his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man,
or his parents, that he was born blind?
[Basically,
why would this man have this challenge, unless it as his, or someone else’s
fault?]
Jesus
answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of
God should be made manifest in him.”
Why do we
have challenges and trials and imperfections?
So that God can heal us.
So
we can feel His love change us and make us new. So we can experience a miracle.
So we can humbly love and rely on our Savior's miraculous power.
I want to
testify, with all the molecules of my testimony, that being healed by God is
100,000 x more influential and wonderful and amazing than just being whole and
challenge-free from the start. That being a broken vessel and being mended by
the Atonement of Christ is 100,000 x better than never feeling dark or down.
My
cousin, Elder Tenney, in a hard part of His mission, mentioned in his letter this
week that it is through others that God answers prayers. I testify that that is
true. I have seen it. I know that "we are His hands." I also know
that the reason why we go through trials is so that God can heal us. The reason
why we don't know everything, is so we can trust. The reason why we must ask,
is so we can be answered. And the reason why God works through others, is
so we will all become a stronger family---- brothers and sisters.
I
love you all, my fellow brothers and sisters.
Someone
needs you--- your smile, your love, your testimony, your experiences and your
light.
Sister Jessica Fisher
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