Abi has a few more days of classes then she flies out on Thursday morning. I think the only thing she still needs/wants is a few more garments, so I'm going to go get those when I can. There are a lot of things she still wants to do, so we'll see what we can fit in before Thursday!
Abi's talk:
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Hello I am Hermana Wride, and I have been called to serve in the Panama, Panama City mission speaking Spanish. I have been a missionary for less than two weeks now and I have already cried like 3 times because of the language, so I fear the next few weeks aren’t looking too good for me. Despite my struggle to understand what I'm supposed to be learning, online MTC has been a great experience as I have gotten to know my district and meet my companion Hermana MartÃnez. Just by her last name, I knew I would have to lock in if I wanted to keep up with her Spanish and I was right. As I have been sitting in class, I have had a lot of time to contemplate my decision to serve a mission, and something that has been on my mind a lot has been that I honestly don’t know what I'm doing, but I believe that God sees my effort, he sees how hard I am trying to learn and he can make the little things I do have a bigger impact than I could do on my own. It is honestly crazy that we as a church send out our barely adult kids into dangerous, dirty and often poor parts of the world to teach about God. I will be talking in Spanish at about the same language level as my four year old sister does in English - at best. So how is it that these barely out of high school teens who often don’t speak the language are able to touch the hearts and minds of someone who hardly understands them? I really think the only logical answer is because the spirit touches their hearts and sends them a message and a peace that we as missionaries cannot give them with our words alone. It’s the Holy Ghost that truly converts.
God doesn’t need us to be perfect to do His work; he just asks us to be willing.
I learned this last summer when I had the opportunity to live solo in Brasil with some family friends for about two weeks. I practically became a member of the family as I joined them on camping trips where I swam in a lake with piranhas, scuba diving and feeding fishes in Rio de Janeiro, and I was even able to attend a week of school where I was paraded to each classroom by the English teacher so everyone could meet a real English speaking American.
I was asked to both give a talk and play the flute my last Sunday there - I didn’t want to do either. But with a lot of help, I prepared something to say in Portuguese. I remember shaking so much just before speaking that my host mom (seeing my vulnerability) had to saved me with words of encouragement. After speaking I played the flute. I had been told this was a rare occurrence in brasil, so I felt a lot of pressure to not mess up. I don’t even remember what song I did, but after church, many ward members approached me and thanked me for playing, including an old man who told me he had been a convert to the church for just over 10 years, and had never felt the presence of the spirit as strong as he did when I performed.
The New Testament has the story of Jesus when he fed the 5,000. In this story Jesus Christ and his 12 apostles were walking to a quiet place near the Sea of Galilee when thousands of people followed, and Jesus continued to teach and heal the people there for three days. It reached a point where the 5,000 needed to eat but if they left they would pass out of hunger on the journey.
In John 6:5 Jesus asked his apostles what they should do to feed the masses, quote “he saith unto Philip, whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” But then right next to that in verse 6 it says “and this he said to prove him, but he himself knew what he would do.” Jesus knew beforehand what he would do to feed the 5,000, but still asked his apostle what they thought they should do.
When the apostles go into the crowd searching for food, they come back with just a young boy saying, “ there is a lad here, which has five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many?” The key question here is “what are they among so many?” Because it’s true, this was enough food to feed maybe three people, what could it do for 5,000? But still, the boy offered what he had, two small fishes and five loaves of bread. He gave all he had and Jesus miraculously multiplied his sacrifice enough to feed all the 5,000 followers until they were completely full.
Our job as saints and as missionaries isn't to feed the multitude or perform the miracles. Our job is to make our small contribution and leave it to the Lord to magnify and multiply our simple efforts.
As the church has grown to nearly 18 million members with over 114 thousand missionaries, we should remember that in 1831, with only a handful of church members the Lord declared: “The weak things of the world shall come forth and break down the mighty and strong ones, that man should not … trust in the arm of the flesh - but that every man might speak in the name of God the Lord… the fullness of my gospel might be proclaimed by the weak and the simple unto the ends of the world, and before kings and rulers.”
Last story I would like to share is of a young man named Carl who was 17 years old when he was first called to serve as a full-time missionary in his home country of Sweden. The practice of the time was to go house-to-house without purse or script – relying on the kindness of strangers for food and a place to stay. Carl wrote “(quote) I accepted the call with gladness, but when I thought about my situation, it was disheartening – no clothes to meet the winter with, no knowledge to use for the advancement of the mission, shy and backward, besides ten crowns in debt, and a poor aging very sickly mother, and a sister who was age fourteen, therefore very childish and playful (quote)”.
Seven widows and their children, who made up most of the membership of the branch, took up a collection to buy him a coat and boots and his train ticket – and he was off. During that train ride he was nagged with doubts writing “You have left an old helpless mother and you must go out in the world as an outcast from house to house and in the evening you must ask in the most humble way for a night’s lodging”. Days later while distributing pamphlets alone, he knocked on a door of a cottage in a remote wooded are. The woman of the house listened to his message. What she saw was a pitiful-looking, stammering hunchbacked boy, bent to one side from carrying sacks of sawdust at the mill.
Finally, she told him that there was nothing he could do for her, but she could do something for him if he would follow her advice. He was to keep a smooth round stone under his tongue except when he ate or slept, and several times a day stand as tall as possible with his back pressed against a tree or a door frame and hit his shoulders alternatively with his fists. Carl did as she suggested and overcame his handicaps, poor speech and bad posture. This was a turning point in his life.
Carl is my great-great-great-grandfather. Later in his life he immigrated to Utah and raised a family in the Salt Lake Valley. Carl was called twice to return to Sweden as a missionary, including as a mission president, and did a great work in building the church in that country over several years.
During one Carl’s later missions back to Sweden there was a movement to banish the missionaries from the country. To protest the unfair treatment, Carl eventually met with King Gustav (the 5th) of Sweden to discuss allowing missionaries in the country. The morning he arrived at the King’s castle he knelt in humble prayer to ask the Lord to prepare the way before them, and to inspire them so they could properly represent “the Kingdom of God”.
However, their visit did not seem to change the king’s opposition. After hearing their plea, the king said: “You must understand that I do not sympathize with you or your work here. You are ill spoken of everywhere; in Germany your elders are being banished and everywhere people seem to feel that they would rather not have you among them, so why should not the Swedish people also take a stand against you? I feel that you are not doing any good here and, under those circumstances, you cannot ask any help or interference from me in this matter. I would rather you were not proselyting in my country and feel it is no more than right that I do inform you.”
Despite the poor meeting between My great, great, great, grandfather and the king of Sweden, he felt that they had left a good impression and had done some form of good.
Carl later wrote in his journal about his visit with King Gustav 5th: (quote)
“In shaking the king by the hand and looking him in the face, I did not feel that I stood in the presence of a great man, but rather that I looked upon a weak and inferior person, one who did not possess a mind of his own. And when he spoke to us, he impressed me the same way.” (quote).
Foreign missionaries specifically were no longer offered visas in to Sweden in 1920, however this act ended in 1924, allowing Mormon missionaries the same regulations as applied to all foreigners, and allowing my Grandpa Wride who is here today to serve the same mission in Sweden years later.
I do believe that through God, weak things can become strong, and that we do not need to be perfect to complete his work, but have “a heart and a willing mind” and just like with the loaves and fishes, God can magnify our efforts.
Testimony - As sad and sacred as I am... I know that the message of Christ bring hope and peace that nothing in the world can provide
I don't know yet, but I believe
Name of Jesus Christ, amen
