An Evening with the Missionaries

So you know, I'm not out serving my mission yet. And I'm sure it's going to be SUPER hard. I'm praying that I will have the strength to just put the hard stuff aside and get to work. Anyway, in all my preparing (which by the way, simply never feels like enough, and I'm thinking that's a good thing, because it keeps you humble, and focused on the fact that this is truly the Lord's work and the most success will come from his help)... but in all my preparing I've been keeping in touch with the Sister Missionaries in the area. They're sweet girls. And they invite me to come with them sometimes. I've mostly just gone with them to actual teaching appointments which are always uplifting and fun. It's pretty easy to just show up at a door with the Missionaries, who have already met the family and set up an appointment. Ta-da! Instant missionary experience. But tonight... I got to go with them for three hours of the really discouraging stuff... Contacting. So actually, here in Utah it's probably less of a bad experience, because most people are either members, inactive or completely uninterested, but very much accustomed to Missionaries and Mormons no matter what. I didn't get any doors slammed in my face, and no one said anything rude to me. I'm sure I'll get to experience that once I'm out in Arizona with a name tag... but today was just a glimpse of contacting. The sisters pulled out a Map of the area, with the members, in-actives and non-members all color coded on a chart. Then we started driving around to visit the people they already knew. Lots of people pretend they're not home. Haha. I can see how that gets discouraging after a while. Then, we went to visit this older man and his wife. He was from Scotland and his wife was from New Orleans. They had lived EVERYWHERE haha. He was so fun to talk to and visit with. He asked us all about our homes and what it was like growing up. We talked to him for a long time and then shared a scripture with him. He asked us where it came from and we explained that it was from the Book of Mormon. He listened to us explain a little bit about the Book of Mormon and then he talked to us about the scripture again. It was a scripture about Faith in Christ and how our prayers can be answered by God when we pray in Faith because he loves us. The man looked at us and said "You know...that's almost exactly what I... well... you know... that's true! If you believe it then you know it's true too! I have learned that God will help us and answer our prayers. I know that. I have lived all over the place, I've been to the Church of England, and the Baptist Church and a Church in Arkansas where we were just Christians and every time I have ever prayed to God with Faith, I have felt that He loved me. And he loves everyone. I've not met bad people yet. I know there are some, but the people I know, no matter where they were from or what they believed I knew that God loved them, because God loves us all. There's a saying my dad used to say it's in a different language but it just means "We are all children of God, and he loves us." And you know... that's true. It is."
This man spent a lot of time getting to know us and talking to us. He hugged us all and kissed us on the cheek as we left. That was rather unexpected... but you really could tell that that man had a love for all people and an understanding that we are all God's children. Sometimes I realize that though I know I have the truth in its fullness as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints, I can still learn so much simply by seeing the Faith and the beliefs of others. It just testifies more strongly to me that this Church is true, and that God loves every single one of his Children.

Remember to smile, because you are a child of God.