Endurance

This post is going out a day late because I had the wonderful opportunity to have my local missionaries, Elder King and Elder Beames, skype their families yesterday at my apartment for Mother's Day. I had my friend Matt over, so that the missionaries could enter my apartment. It was great to see the love and joy come over the missionaries faces as they got to reconnect with their loved ones. For those of you who don't know, missionaries are allowed to email their loved ones once a week, and call/skype twice a year (Mother's Day and Christmas).

The end of last week was really hard on me. I was missing a dear friend of mine exceedingly, missing the missionaries that had taught me my lessons, that were present at my baptism, and just struggling in general. It was really starting to get me all frazzled and upset. On Saturday morning, I received a text from Elder Beames, asking me if I could contact his mom to figure out what time would work best to skype the family. As I called him back to get the specifics, I broke down on the phone to him. I didn't like how I was feeling, had prayed about it, and wasn't quite sure what to do. Elder Beames, bless him, gave me some really sage advice. He told me to pray before I read my Scriptures (which I normally do), but this time to pray and ask God to guide me to where I should be reading. Elder Beames told me that an Apostle had once said that when we want to talk to God, we pray; when we want God to talk back to us, we read our Scriptures. So, I did what he suggested to do. I honestly didn't think it would work, but I thought I would humor him. I really need to have stronger faith.

After I prayed, I randomly opened up my Scriptures, and it opened up to the Topical Guide, and on the right hand side was the word "Endure", followed by a ton of references. I immediately thought, Wow, that is exactly what I need to work on: enduring, enduring through the hard times, enduring through the good times, enduring until I return back to my Heavenly Father. As it is stated in the 13th Article of Faith, "We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul-We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things" (emphasis added). A couple other references that stood out as I was flipping back and forth from the guide to them were, 3 Nephi 15:9, "Behold, I am the law, and the light. Look unto me, and endure to the end, and ye shall live; for unto him that endureth to the end will I give eternal life" and James 5:11, "Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy." As I was reading, one of the times I overshot the page for "endure" and hit the topic of "love". When I read that word, and realized that God was, once again, reminding me of how much He loves me, I was overwhelmed with the Spirit.

God spoke to me, through His Holy Word. I should never have doubted that He could do that. Elder Beames reminded me of an important lesson that originally Elder Colvin and Elder O'Laughlin had taught me. Life will not always be easy, life will be very hard, in fact at times, but how we act during the difficult times, really does matter. As they taught me, Christ's resurrection provided a bridge over my inevitable physical death. But then, since "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God", the sin is what is keeps me from quickly overcoming Spiritual Death. Thankfully, God, in His infinite mercy, provided saving ordinances to allow us to return back to Him. These are: faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. It is important that all of endure, and that we endure life well, that we may be able to be an example to those around us.