The Grand Motive

September 27, 2010

Well the rainy season has officially begun, its rained every day for the last couple weeks now, and its beginning to rain pretty hard. It's not too bad though, most of the time it's still pretty warm outside, and sometimes it's just misting. But, I doubt that I will actually be privelaged to see the sun for a while. I got your letter today, Mom, sounds like things are going pretty good. I will probably continue my friendships with companions afterwards, especially since Elder Isham is planning on transfering to BYU. I realized the other day that after you've been around someone for 4 1/2 months 24/7, you can pretty much figure out what they are thinking and what they might say next. We sometimes have long discussions about doctrine or theory or culture and we are pretty darn close to having the same perspective on life. I've been blessed to have some really good companions for the last 8 months. Well anyways, I hope you guys get better from all the sicknesses, one of the baptisms last weekend had to be postponed to next week because of sickness so I've had my share of frustration with sickess.

Anyways, regardless of the postponed baptism, we saw a lot of miracles last week. We spent the entire week doing everything we could to try and get everyone to church for ward conference. We focused on less-actives, recent converts, and especially investigators and left fliers, reminders, messages on phones, text messages via the Hixon phone, and a lot of solid commitments. Of course there was a little dissapointment as always but just as the Bishop says, "will we be disappointed? yes, but discouraged? never!" All in all, the overflow was opened, chairs were set up, and there were more people there than there has been in a very long time, even with all the twilighters that came in the summer. The Bishop gave a powerful talk that I wont forget and then the Stake President gave a good, but not as good, talk and everyone there was very inspired. Before church, we gave a church tour to 4 new investigators and we had about 11 investigators at Sacrament. After church we went over to a less-active family that I've been working with since I got here, and she told us how she finally has realized she needs to start coming back to church and how she talked to her non-member husband who finally agreed to come to church next week. Her 13 yr-old daughter still needs to be baptized and she said she is thinking about it yesterday. Talking to her about that has brought to me a great amount of joy because I'm seeying all the effort put into visiting that family begin to pay-off. In fact, there were a lot of returning less-actives there yesterday. It's not like we get any money or anything out of having a lot of people at church, but there is a certain satisfaction as a missionary in seeying people recieve peace and happiness because of an active testimony of the gospel, whether through baptism or reactivation. What I think some people don't understand, is that it's not for us missionaries, it's for them. The gospel has nothing to do with anyone except you and God. Whether you want to have an active testimony has nothing to do with what your friends might think of you, what your family might say, what the missionaries or the Bishop thinks, but has only to do with what you think of your Heavenly Father and what He wants you to do - and you can be sure the only reason He wants you to be in church is because He loves you, and your family. Although the Bishop and the missionaries should have the same motive, and hopefully your family and friends as well. Love is the grand motive of every great and noble action ever performed, most importantly the infinite and atoning sacrifice of the Savior. I've learned as a missionary that the only way to fulfill your calling is to love the people whom you teach, and the only way for them to understand the gospel is by first understanding the love Heavenly Father has for them.

So one of the members in Forks, Samuel, is preparing to go on his mission, and he truly loved his friend Steven so when Steven moved back to Forks a couple weeks ago he did everything he could to get Steven to come to church with him and learn from the missionaries. Steven has had a rough past but he saw the transformation that Samuel undertook when Samuel became active in the church and he decided he needed to follow that example. And yesterday, we hiked down to second beach, and Samuel baptized his friend in the ocean. Me and Elder Butler rolled up our pant legs to go out with them and witness, but we got wet up to our waists anyways. After the baptism, Steven sat on a log on the beach while we laid our hands on him and Brother Schostak confirmed him a member of the church and gave him the gift of the holy ghost. It was quite an inspiring experience, and 4 of our investigators made it to the baptism, one of them commited to be baptized next Sunday and another the week after that. So yeah, lots of miracles last weekend that "nothing save the power of God" in this work could explain. The church is true, love you guys!

Elder Burgess