I've been thinking lately, and I think I've really come to something. It hit me hard during training from President on Thursday. We were talking about how one becomes a consecrated missionary. There was a couple missionaries who had just been killing themselves over feeling like they weren't perfect. Too often, I think the concept of a consecrated missionary is skewed. Whenever somebody uses the phrase, we get pictures in our minds of someone who is perfect, doesn't struggle with anything, baptizes hundreds of people, and knows the answers to everybody's questions and concerns. Then, when we look, there isn't a missionary in he world that is just like that. Assuming consecration is perfection is shooting for a goal that nobody will ever reach. It's impossible. Shooting for something that is impossible to reach is just stupidity. Consecration is so much more than what we picture it to be. We were talking one time about when to drop investigators if they aren't making progress, and the comment was made, 'Our investigator doesn't read the scriptures, pray, or come to church without us nagging him to do it. Why should we keep teaching him?' Sister Kohler shot right back and in essence said, 'How long did it take you to do the small things like reading in the scriptures or going to church on your own? Did your parents ever give up on you?' Now here's something I can relate with. I was a tough nut to crack as a teenager, and I remember often thinking, 'I'm being forced to go to church, but if I were on my own, I wouldn't do it.' I never really voiced those thoughts, so I might be surprising my parents here hahaha, but that's okay. I always wanted to go on a mission, but going to church was just super boring for me. It took me a little while to start doing the small things on my own, without push from other people to do them. If we refuse to push people for a little while, then they'll never do the small things on their own. The point I'm trying to make is a developing of a self-inspired motivation to do things.
There's a talk that every missionary
references about becoming consecrated, and the one sentence that I take from
it, is this. "A consecrated missionary pushes forward, not because it's
easy, but because he knows it's the only smart thing to do." A consecrated
missionary has developed that self-inspired motivation to do the things that
are hard, because he knows who he is, and when it comes down to it, he is a son
of God who wants to become what God wants him to become. A consecrated
missionary is NOT a perfect missionary. He struggles with his fair share of
homesickness, he misses the girl he loves at home, he sometimes doesn't want to
wake up in the morning, and sometimes he would rather stay in the apartment instead
of going out in 100 degree weather to hit the streets for 9 hours, but he pushes
forward because it's the only smart thing to do. Personally, I've noticed a
change in myself lately. I don't want to put myself on a high horse or
anything, but from the beginning of my mission to the point I'm at now, I see
differences that I didn't think were possible. I sat at
church back at home listening to missionary after missionary after missionary
come home and say, 'I found myself on my mission.' I would sit back and say,
'Yeah alright, sounds good. I'll serve my two years, come home, marry, start a
family, and live life to the fullest.' I was absolutely willing to serve, but
doubted that I would become a completely changed person from it. I was dead
wrong. I came on my mission and went through the motions and started to panic because
I started to see that going through the motions like I had done my entire life,
was not going to work this time around. I went back to the drawing board, and
dug through Preach My Gospel to learn the Christlike Attributes and develop
them. I started talking to every single person I came into contact with even
though that was shattering comfort zones. I started obeying every single little
rule, no matter how stupid I thought it was, because I saw that the more
obedient I was, the more obedient my investigators would be to their
commitments. Much like people become investigators, I became Heavenly Fathers investigator,
and watched Him mold me in His powerful, gentle hands. I kept my commitments
and started watching Him fulfill His missionary purpose, bringing me closer to
His Son, Jesus Christ. That doesn't mean it has been easy to change, it's been
very difficult, and it's still in process. But, it's worth it. Without a shadow
of a doubt. I feel myself doing the things a missionary does because I want to
do them with all of my heart. Not because it's expected of me, or because I
have nothing better to do, but because I understand who I am, and who I want to
become. I understand where I stand in God's plan. I know that there are hands
with my name figuratively written on them, and that because of that, there's a
bond between He and I that cannot be broken. In essence, I've felt the same
power Moses felt when God said to him, 'Moses, thou art my son.... And I have a
work for thee to do.' I know that the same goes for me. He has a work for me to
do, and I need to become what He wants me to become. Moses never looked back from
that point, and those are my intentions as well.
I don't know how many of you
have seen the LIFT video on Mormon Channel. It's about the Ward with all the
men who go help this woman with a disease into bed every night for 7 years, and
along the way learn something about service. A couple quotes from there stand
out to me. 1.Service heals the soul 2.When we serve, we find ourselves, because
there's so much more of us to find. I can honestly put my voice with all those
other missionaries I have heard say, 'I found myself on my mission.' I'm
beginning to find who I truly am, and I can't begin to describe the new levels
my mission has taken me to. I'm sure many of you haven't missed the kid driving
down 800 West in the middle of the Ward boundaries, speeding and blasting music
with all the windows down, and not a care in the world for anyone but himself.
I understand, and that's quite alright. I don't much miss that kid either. Keep that in mind. When we start to do things
because we know who we want to become, and we begin to understand the WHY
behind everything we do, that's when we are blessed with the vision of who we
are and from that comes consecration. To me, THAT is a consecrated missionary.
I
listened to an Elder Holland talk from a BYU graduation and he said, 'In this
generation, we need members who understand WHO they are, and never give that up
for anything.' There's my challenge for all of you. Look behind why you do the
things you do, and change where you need to, because it's blessed me immeasurably.
Thanks for listening to my rant, love you all. Have a nice week!
Elder Sam Hadfield
Kirche Jesu Christi HLT
Lommelstraße 7
81479 München
Deutschland
mormon.org
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