The Other Side

For the last 18 months, I have had the opportunity to talk to people about the Gospel, about my beliefs, about the Church, along with helping people to improve their relationship with God.  Throughout the course of my mission we taught several hundreds of investigators.  But this week, it was my turn to be the investigator.

Tuesday, there was a knock on our door.  The Jehovah's Witnesses had come to visit us.  They were two really cute girls from San Diego, probably about 21 years old.  I had had several encounters with Jehovah's Witnesses on my mission, so I was somewhat intrigued by what they had to say.  They quickly shared a scripture from Psalms with us and then left us a book called What the Bible Really Teaches.  I had seen/skimmed through it in Spanish in Peru.  It's the same in English.  While I really appreciate what these young women were trying to do in helping other people, my heart ached for them, because they are missing parts of the Gospel (parts that are essential for every child of God, aka everyone!)  But I was nice and listened like a good investigator, because, hey, I've been there.

The next day, I was on the receiving end again. But this time, the missionaries were at Temple Square.  We had our weekly temple trip and this week we headed up to the Salt Lake Temple, which was AMAZING!!!! You could really feel the Spirit in the temple.  Afterwards, we wandered around City Creek (because I hadn't been there since I got back from my mission), and then headed back to Temple Square to look around.  As we entered into the South Visitor's Center, a sister missionary from Mongolia approached us.  We introduced ourselves, told her that we had just come to the temple, and then just looking around.  She talked to us a little bit about our missions as well, about some of the awesome things about the mission but some of the hard things as well.  She then told me that she felt like she wanted to share a scripture from The Book of Mormon with me.  As I read the scripture in Moroni 10:10-12, I really felt like those words were speaking to me.  I knew it was talking about gifts of the Spirit, but I had never really felt that any of those particular ones applied to me.  But as I read, I could feel the Spirit, and I realized that the Lord was answering one of my prayers.  She also told me that she was sure that I touched the lives of many people on my mission (which is something that Satan tries to make me doubt a lot). She left each of us with an individual commitment (like an awesome missionary does!), and we said goodbye.   But I was so grateful for this sister missionary, who the Lord sent all the way over to the states from Mongolia, and for her inspired words meant for me.  Just talking to her for those 10 minutes on Wednesday made my week, and she probably has no idea.  That left me pondering on my own mission, and made me think about how many people I may have touched that I have no idea about.  I hope to one day see the fruits of my labors.

Missionary work is awesome.