Weighing Our Willingness to Serve

We have a new senior sister in the office.  Sister Smith just finished her training in the MTC last week, and flew from Salt Lake City to Raleigh, having shipped her car from Utah to N.C. previously. Part of me thinks "Why didn't I think of that?" because saving mileage on a car and avoiding a long drive sounds like a good thing. I could have skipped those long, dreary, windy and dusty landscapes of Nebraska.  But most of me is glad that I had the experience of driving with Denise.  I knew that she is wonderful, of course, but I reached a whole new level of appreciation for her on that long drive. What a sacrifice she made to make sure I reached my mission safely! Without her I never would have visited Nauvoo and Carthage.  I'll be forever grateful to Denise.

[This just in: What Sister Ambrose REALLY did on her trip to Nauvoo with Denise. ;) ]

In the MTC, Sister Smith got the general office training on IMOS, Word and Excel, preparing newsletters, entering baptismal records, requesting travel, etc.  They didn't teach her anything about finance or cars because those are typically male assignments.  But they reckoned without President James's penchant for thinking outside the box.  She has indeed been assigned to take over responsibility for cars and phones, because Elder Porter, who has been doing that assignment for several months, and his wife Sister Porter, who has been the housing coordinator, are being given an MLS assignment in Leland. We will have a local, part-time service elder doing the housing coordinator work.  Both of them have been training this week, and will take over those responsibilities when Elder and Sister Porter leave.

Just goes to show that you never know where your service will be required.  When you raise your hand to say "I am willing to serve the Lord," you should be prepared for surprises.  Elder and Sister Burke, from my home ward in Sandy, served their mission in the office of the Houston Texas Mission, and they were the only two full-time missionaries there.  They had sporadic help from part-time service missionaries, but they had to learn to do all of the office functions because someone had to do them.  See, I really could be busier.

And sometimes the plan we make for ourselves has to be changed in mid-course.  Elder and Sister Haas, from Washington State, have been faithfully serving a records preservation assignment for many months.  Recently Sister Haas has experienced some health reverses, including hospitalization, and they will be returning home this week, several months early.  It must be disappointing, but she feels she will recover more quickly with help from friends and family at home.  They have been regularly attending our Seniors FHE each Monday night, and we will miss them!

The options and textures of missionary work are so much more varied than I ever imagined. For instance, who knew I would be a weightlifter?  Last Tuesday, all the office staff except me attended a zone conference in Durham.  I stayed behind because the previous week I had ordered a large quantity of supplies, and knew somebody had to be in the office to receive them, whenever they arrived.  So the female FedEx truck driver came into the office and said, "Do you have any young men here?"  She told me that the last time she delivered supplies to the office it was a transfer day and there were lots of young men around to help carry in the boxes.

Sadly, no elders were in the office (and the office elders, as I explained earlier, were gone).  We did have a sturdy dolly (not the fabric kind with painted eyes), which the two truck drivers, one woman and one man, used to haul in 58 boxes of Books of Mormon, media bibles, and pamphlets, pass-along cards, etc. After they unloaded them in the hallway, I got to position them in the storage closet and unload the boxes of pamphlets and other supplies onto the conference room shelves.

[In the far corner are soft cover Books of Mormon in English; under the white buckets are Spanish Books of Mormon; and closest to the door are Media Bibles.]

I didn't have a scale to weigh the load, but I am confident I hefted at least two tons of boxes that day. At least.  In a skirt. You should feel my biceps! [But I do wish Mark were here to give me a backrub!!]

The next day I did get to attend the Raleigh Zone Conference, as it was being held at the stake center our mission office is attached to, and I want to share a story told by Elder Shearer one of the Assistants.

He told of a day when he and Elder Barlow were out tracting and all their carefully prepared plans fell through.  They prayed and asked what they should do, and felt they should just start driving. They both knew where to turn at each corner, and pulled up to a specific home.  They were grateful that the Lord had led them to some new investigators, and confidently knocked on the door.

The man of the house smiled when he saw them, and immediately invited them in.  But the elders were confused.  They saw Ensigns on the table, pictures of temples on the wall, and realized they'd reached a home of a member family, though they didn't recognize them from church. But they sat with the family for a while, and when they observed them with their spiritual eyes they saw the family was in desperate need of help.  As they talked, the mother started crying.  She told the elders that the family had, that very day, been trying to decide if they should leave the Church.  They had been silently screaming for help, and the Lord had heard their cry and sent the elders with the help they needed.

So this is what missionary work is about.  We serve in our various callings, doing a wide variety of things, and it's all necessary because the Lord loves his children.  He wants each of his children to have the best chance possible of coming back to Him, no matter what the direction of their lives has been, no matter their weaknesses and failings, their doubts or their fears.  He needs them (us all) to know of his love.  And if I have to heft 58 heavy boxes every six weeks, well I will do it.  Because I do want to serve the Lord, in whatever way He wants me to do it.  Am looking into gym membership as a way to prepare for the next round of supplies.

Every Member A -- oh no, you can't seriously expect that of ME

Every member a missionary is a well-known slogan of the Church.  Every member, not just those called on fixed-duration missions and sent away from their homes.  Every one of us.  Yet, many of us act like Scrooge McDuck, sitting on our pile of golden truth, enjoying our comfortable perch, but unwilling to share it with anyone.  Unwilling, unsure of ourselves, or just apathetic.  All is well in Zion, after all, right?

Okay, so I'm just describing myself. Graham and I attended member missionary classes, and while he was enthusiastic and eager to get out and find people, I shrank back and squirmed in my seat.  I always blamed shyness.  I couldn't imagine bringing up the subject of religion with friends or colleagues of other faiths for fear they'd be offended, or uninterested, or some other negative thing. As if my ego was the important thing. And friends who used to come to church and didn't any more -- well they must have had a good reason not to come, and how was that any of my business?

While I was at the MTC in April of this year, the first Tuesday fireside I attended was given by the brother of the MTC President.  For some reason I failed to write anything in my journal about it, but what he said has stuck with me.  He was, I believe, the area authority over the Russian missions.  As you know, Russia has outlawed missionaries, and while the Church is still functioning there, the missionaries now call themselves "volunteers."  They are not allowed to tract or openly proselyte.

In the MTC, with other senior missionaries

Now you would think that would put a serious damper on missionary efforts.  You would think that the numbers of baptisms would take a sharp downturn under these restrictions.

The opposite has been true.  Now the "volunteers" teach the gospel exclusively in member generated lessons (MGLs), usually in members' homes, and the number of baptisms is even higher than it was before the restrictions were imposed.

In this North Carolina mission, the missionaries who walk the sidewalks and knock on doors in the heat and humidity would love to get more good referrals from members, so they can have more MGLs.  More teaching time, fewer doors slammed in their faces, less sweat expended. With a trusted friend who is a member in the teaching situation, an investigator is so much more likely to listen and understand and accept the message of the gospel.

Tonight I attended a Mission President's Fireside at the Mission Home.  Those attending were missionaries, newly baptized members, and investigators still progressing toward making the commitment to be baptized.  A very touching part of the evening was when the non-missionaries stood and told their stories of meeting the missionaries, their path to conversion, their thought processes, and their testimonies.

One newly baptized sister told some sad details of her early life and said she had felt lost.  Until the missionaries found her and she found a home in the Church.  A man said he felt that he had found a new family in the Church; that he felt welcomed and accepted and at peace for the first time in his life. Another man told of serving in the military, and said that he used to boast of not having a religious bone in his body -- until the missionaries found him and taught him the gospel. Another sister simply told us how much she loved reading the Book of Mormon.

Those of us who have been in the Church all our lives just take the many blessings of church membership for granted.  We don't even notice the feeling of peace we have, because we've never experienced the chaos that comes from living a life contrary to the commandments of God.  The veil of familiarity clouds our vision, and we many times fail to be thankful for this wonderful Church.

I encourage all of us to be bold; to pray for and seek for opportunities to share this wonderful gospel with our friends and associates of other faiths or of no faith.  The truth of the gospel is too precious to keep to ourselves.

Sister Grandma Ambrose
Full-time Office Missionary, North Carolina Raleigh Mission

Fayetteville Zone Conference