OUTSIDE OF THESE WALLS . . .

The depth of one's commitment to the gospel is found outside these walls

A number of years ago at the conclusion of Sunday services, I was standing in the foyer at Church having a conversation with J. Mitchel Scott who was then serving as our stake president. As we observed Church members passing each other in the hallway and then moving out the door on their way home, President Scott suggested, "It's easy for people to keep the commandments of God inside this building on Sunday, but it's what goes on outside of these walls during the rest of the week that determines the depth of their commitment to living the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

Knowing as I do that the Church is filled with imperfect people, it is still important to acknowledge that our ability to keep the commandments between Sundays as we interact with family members, neighbors, and work associates has everything to do with how we choose to live our lives on a day to day basis throughout the week as we deal with our many individual weaknesses and shortcomings.

Who are we striving to become? Just as the Church building itself is made structurally sound by correct architectural design, proper engineering, and the integrity of quality construction (including those walls spoken of by President Scott), so also has each child of Heavenly Father been created in the image and likeness of God with a marvelous body that is divinely designed to house the spirit of man who has the potential to dwell with and to become like Heavenly Father through righteous living patterned after the example of the Savior.

Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:  In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22)

Our Church leaders take great care to build each of our meeting houses on solid ground; so also we must be cautious about where we choose to build our house by seeking to live sound doctrine in an otherwise corrupt and dying world.

Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:  and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it. (Matthew 7:24-27)

After we have done all that we can do and having fallen far short of the mark, we will be saved by grace through the atonement of the Redeemer of the World, even Jesus Christ Our Lord.

SUGAR BEETS & LESS-ACTIVE CHURCH MEMBERS

Sugar beets being loaded onto an open-bed truck

The story is told about a farmer driving a large open-bed truck filled with sugar beets en route to the sugar refinery in the western part of the United States. As the farmer drives along a bumpy dirt road, some of the sugar beets bounce from the truck and are strewn along the roadside. When he realizes he has lost some of the beets, he instructs his helpers, “There’s just as much sugar in those which have slipped off. Let’s go back and get them!”

While recalling this story some years ago, Thomas S. Monson who is President of the Church suggested that we might consider that truck full of sugar beets to represent all of the members of this Church; and those that have fallen out of the truck are those men and women, youth and children who, for whatever reason, have fallen from the path of activity.  

As missionaries responsible for member and leadership support, we believe that the souls of those who are less-active members are as precious to our Father in Heaven as those who remain fully involved with the Church. We have been called to bring souls to Christ; so using the analogy of the farmer and his load of sugar beets: “There’s just as much value in those who have slipped off. Let’s go back and get them!”

The work of finding, motivating, and teaching less-active members of the Church who have fallen away is both challenging and rewarding. It is important for anyone who is earnestly seeking a closer relationship with the Lord by being affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to understand that embracing the fullness of the gospel represents a lifestyle rather than just coming to services on Sunday. For some, the lifestyle that they have been living for a long period of time may be far removed from the standards of the restored gospel; however, people can change if the individual has a sincere desire to move in the direction of God's plan for his life.

It takes faith, determination, and a firm commitment to give up the things of the world and to let Jesus Christ become the central focus of your life. It also requires that other active members be there to offer love and encouragement for that person who is trying to become fully involved in the Church. Fellowshipping among Church members is an essential part of missionary work, too. 

The Lord emphasized the worth of each man or woman, youth or child when He declared that the worth of souls is great in the sight of God . . .

“And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father! And now, if your joy will be great with one soul that you have brought unto me into the kingdom of my Father, how great will be your joy if you should bring many souls unto me!” (D&C18:15-16)

Rescuing those who need our help and our love is truly the Lord's work. We have a responsibility, even a solemn duty, to reach out to all of those whose lives we have been called to touch. President Monson reminds us that the mantle of leadership in bringing souls home to God is not the cloak of comfort but rather the robe of responsibility. Not everyone that we seek after in order to reactivate them into the Church will stay the course; but even so, we must do all that we can to love them for who they are . . . the sons and daughters of Our Heavenly Father.

THE HEALING OF THE SICK

Blessings are administered by priesthood authority

Unlike other Christian denominations, priesthood in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the authority to act and speak for God rather than the person who is ordained to a paid leadership position such as a minister, pastor, or priest. In our Church we have a lay ministry which is not financially compensated for the services that they provide. The 5th Article of Faith, among the basic tenets of our religion, defines how worthy men are called to the ministry and receive this priesthood authority:

We believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.

Among the many duties of those who have this priesthood authority is the sacred responsibility to give blessings of comfort in times of distress and blessings of healing when sickness occurs as described in the New Testament of the Bible: 

Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord (James 5:14)

James E. Faust (1920 - 2007), a former member of the First Presidency of the Church, taught that a priesthood blessing is sacred. It can be a holy and inspired statement of our wants and needs. If we are in tune spiritually, we can receive a confirming witness of the truth of the promised blessings. Priesthood blessings can help us in the small and great decisions of our lives. If, through our priesthood blessings, we could perceive only a small part of the person God intends us to be, we would lose our fear and never doubt again.

As a full time missionary and priesthood holder, I am frequently asked by Church members to administer a priesthood blessing, which is a humbling experience. Blessings require both the faith of the priesthood holder that Heavenly Father will speak through him as well as the faith of the individual who receives the blessing that God can and does express His mind and will to His children by the voice of priesthood authority. The blessing ordinance, which involves having the priesthood holders laying their hands upon the head of the person who is sick, contains two parts: the anointing (using pure olive oil that has been consecrated for this purpose) and the sealing (with its attendant words of blessing). Blessings of comfort do not include an anointing. The words offered in blessings are never rehearsed or prepared in advance, but they are spoken in harmony with spiritual impressions at the moment.

In these latter days of this final dispensation of time prior to the Second Coming of the Lord, the spiritual gifts associated with the Church that Christ established during His mortal ministry have not been diminished . . . only men's understanding and acceptance of such manifestations of the fruit of the gospel have been reduced by unbelief. Believing is seeing!

NO PLACE TO GO

Entire blocks of vacant houses exist in the city

It has been difficult for us to accept the harsh reality that there are so many abandoned residential buildings in Baltimore especially in the inner city neighborhoods. This urban blight typically begins with a single dwelling in a block of row houses when it is confiscated by city officials after a drug bust or another major crime occurs. Sometimes, a landlord decides that it isn't worth it to make the repairs to a building after a fire or some other catastrophe causes significant damage to the structure.

It is fairly common to see occupied family dwellings side by side with several boarded up former residences either next door or just down the street. In such an environment of urban decay, neglect and unsafe living conditions, crime is rampant. The police department directs the utility company to install bright blue lights on top of the light poles along the city streets where major crimes have occurred. These blue lights are visible 24 hours a day and serve as warnings to residents and others driving through the area that this is not a safe place.

As Sister Lindsay and I drive in Baltimore City, we have seen as many as four or five blue lights visible from a single location. It is one thing for us to exercise caution while passing through such places in the car, but there are parents with children living in these neighborhoods who have no other place to go. Individuals and families trapped in such a hostile environment may wish to have a better way to live; but in their day to day world, it is a struggle just to survive.

Through less-active Church members whom we are trying to encourage and teach the gospel, we have come in direct contact with a number of other people who seem to have no place to go with their lives. These individuals are trapped in a downward spiral of substance abuse, low self-esteem, financial poverty, and spiritual destitution. We seek ways to reach through their hopelessness and show them a way to a better life, but our efforts to assist them can only begin when an individual reaches a low enough point in his life that he can admit he can't solve his problems by himself. God desires for all of His children to act rather than be acted upon in mortality; and to do this, we must turn to Him for help on a daily basis.

Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles reminds us that asking for and receiving daily bread at God’s hand plays a vital part in learning to trust Him and in enduring life’s challenges. "We also need a daily portion of divine bread to become what we must become. To repent, improve, and eventually reach the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ," he tells us, "is a step-by-step process. Incorporating new and wholesome habits into our character or overcoming bad habits or addictions often means an effort today followed by another tomorrow and then another, perhaps for many days, even months and years, until we achieve victory. But we can do it because we can appeal to God for our daily bread, for the help we need each day."

There is an addiction recovery group sponsored by the Church that meets in our building every week, and we have encouraged both Church members and non-members to participate in this program in order to help them overcome addiction issues that are keeping them from making improvements in their lives. In this aspect of our missionary service, we must be willing to talk with a person when they need to talk even if it is 2:30 in the morning. As servants of the Lord, we must be willing to be available when the help is needed not when it is convenient

Each Church congregation has a ward council of local ward leaders that meets regularly to discuss how we can best help members find solutions to difficult problems that they are facing. Information shared in such meetings is held in strict confidence, so those being helped can maintain their trust in the leadership. The objective is to assist members in becoming more self-reliant while maintaining their self-respect rather than making families more dependent upon the Church to do things for them.

THE AMISH WAY OF LIFE

Sister Lindsay and I had occasion to spend a day in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania this past week with three other senior missionaries. We were authorized by the mission president to take this field trip to honor a senior sister who is completing 18 months of service later this month as a member of the mission office staff.

The beautiful farmlands of the Pennsylvania Dutch in Lancaster County  are recognized as some of the most productive in the nation. For many generations these orderly farms have been owned and operated by Amish and Mennonite families, sometimes also known as the "Plain People". Originally from Germany and Switzerland, the Plain People trace their origin back to the Protestant Reformation in Europe, where there was an emphasis on returning to the purity of the New Testament church.

One group of reformers rejected the popular concept of infant baptism, and became known as Anabaptists. The Anabaptists believed that only adults who had confessed their faith should be baptized, and that they should remain separate from the larger society. Persecuted for their religious beliefs, many of the Mennonite groups accepted William Penn's offer of religious freedom as part of Penn's "holy experiment" of religious tolerance. They settled in what later became known as Pennsylvania. The followers of  Jacob Amman split with the Mennonites in 1693. This group became known as Amish, and the first sizable group of them arrived in Lancaster County in the 1720's or 1730's.

Sister Lindsay's early paternal ancestors, the Ladermanns (Leatherman), were Mennonites who originally settled in Bucks County north of Philadelphia. The Mennonite and Amish settlement in and around Lancaster County is their second largest in America. Because of their large families, the total Amish population has more than doubled since 1960 to over 85,000. Very few of their children leave the church. The Amish and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints share a common emphasis on the importance of families as well as a belief that religious faith is directly related to the way we live our daily lives.

Continuing the plain traditions of past generations

We had a wonderful day in Lancaster County visiting the Amish Farm & House Museum, Bird-in-Hand Farmers Market, Hershey Farm Smorgasbord Restaurant, Strasburg Rail Road (scenic train ride behind a steam engine through Amish farm country), and a pleasant drive through the countryside looking at farms and covered bridges (there are 25 of them in Lancaster County).

And as a separate adventure, we also visited the Harley-Davidson Motorcycle plant in nearby York, Pennsylvania, which represented a little bit of a contrast with the simple lifestyle of the Amish and Mennonite farming community.

MOTHER'S DAY IN THE MISSION

Sister Lindsay, missionary "grandmother"

This past Sunday Sister Lindsay and I were reminded of the occasional telephone calls from far away places that we received in years past from each of our sons and daughters while they served as full time missionaries. Now as senior missionaries ourselves, we have been able to observe firsthand what it is like when the young adults with whom we serve are calling home to speak with their parents.  

Mother's Day and Christmas are the only two days during the year when young full time missionaries are collectively authorized to communicate by telephone with their families back home. For most of these young people being on an 18 month (sisters) or 24 month (elders) mission represents the longest continuous period of time in their young lives that they have ever been away from their parents and siblings.

To say the least, calling home on these special occasions is a big deal for everyone involved, and it requires some orchestration and planning to make it work well. First, the missionary needs to find a Church family that is willing to allow them the free use of their telephone for up to an hour; and since missionaries work together in pairs, that really means up to two hours of talking time. Since Mother's Day is always on a Sunday, the available time for making these calls is further compressed due to the hours spent involved with missionary responsibilities at Church.

Now add into this equation the probability that the families who invite the elders and sisters into their homes may also have telephone calls to either make themselves to a mother who lives far away or incoming calls to receive from their own adult children or grandchildren who are living or working somewhere else than here. And, of course, these missionaries have to match their available schedule to initiate the call home to their family with whatever might be going on at home revolving around other people's schedules. Just for good measure, throw in a time zone difference of a couple of hours or more (we actually have an elder whose family lives in Alaska, which is a time zone difference of  4 hours from Baltimore).

For us personally on this Mother's Day, we ended up feeding dinner to six missionaries; and then afterwards, providing telephone time for two of them to call home to Idaho and Utah. Our eight sons and daughters were greatly challenged in their efforts to speak with Sister Lindsay, because the phone was always busy. Seven of them were ultimately successful by the time we finally went to bed, and our eldest daughter (who told us that she gave up on Sunday night) called in early on Monday morning.

SOME THINGS MISSIONARIES CANNOT DO . . .

There are some things that full time missionaries cannot do. We are strongly counseled to make every effort to avoid becoming involved in domestic family disputes. That responsibility rightfully resides with locally sustained Church leaders led by the ward bishop who is a lay minister in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Our primary role as missionaries is to bring souls to Christ by teaching the gospel to Church investigators and by strengthening the testimonies of less-active members. As a senior missionary couple, we are also tasked with providing member and leadership support at the direction of the bishop in the unit where we are assigned.

An example of what can happen occurred one evening this week when we received a frantic telephone call from a Church member who claimed that terrible violent things were happening in their household and asked for help. Knowing that there are several very young children in the family and not being able to discern the actual conditions without being there, we sensed that there was an urgent need to immediately respond to this request for assistance in order to protect the little ones in case they were in any real danger. So we promised the person on the phone that we would come right away and then left our apartment. Enroute, we called another mature member and his wife and asked them to join us there as soon as possible.

Upon arrival, we quickly recognized the need for the bishop to be the person in charge of helping this family resolve their difficulties, so I placed a second telephone call requesting the bishop to come immediately. Sister Lindsay and I stayed in the home with the other couple who had joined us while we encouraged the husband and wife to be calm until the bishop arrived about 15 minutes later. And then we quietly left as the bishop negotiated the details of a workable solution for this troubled family. It is essential that missionary couples like us not take sides in such issues.

Kindly Heaven smiles above when there's love at home

Gordon B. Hinckley (1910-1995), former President of the Church, wisely taught that we seldom get into trouble when we speak softly. It is only when we raise our voices that the sparks fly and tiny molehills become great mountains of contention. He also noted that men and women should enter into marriage with their eyes wide open and half-closed thereafter.

Harshness, physical and verbal abuse, uncontrolled anger, and disloyalty between a father and a mother within the walls of their home is a terrible teacher for the children of such a relationship. Little children soon grow into adults; and in large measure, their own lives will become an extension and a reflection of what they have observed and experienced through the example of their parents.

As missionaries, we do our best to help people understand that more than a religion, the principles associated with the fullness of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ constitute the way that God wants his sons and daughter to live together in harmony and peace. It is only when there is love at home that children can learn firsthand the sweet and positive lessons of forgiveness, respect, consideration, kindness, mercy, and compassion. Without exception, the greatest thing that a father can ever do for his children is to love their mother! And keeping the Savior in the middle of a marriage relationship is key to family happiness in this life.