Love One Another

Another great example for me was a stake missionary in my second area.  This brother had been afflicted with a disease which led to the loss of motor skills, coordination and strength.  He was confined to a wheel chair and had difficulty speaking.  Even worse, his wife had divorced him because she couldn’t handle his situation, and he lived in a shack behind his daughter’s home.  Yet this brother was the most positive person I have ever met.

One night I went on team-ups with the ward mission leader and we went to visit with member family.  While we were chatting, the ward mission leader mentioned this stake missionary I mentioned above and how he should be an example to us, with how active he was with his condition.  “He has been hit with this disease, and his wife divorced him and yet he is fighting it with all he has got to keep going strong.  Here he is, a stake missionary, single adult representative, he works in the clerk’s office each Sunday putting the tithing records on the computer, he takes his son to school each morning (his son had recently moved in with him) and then is there to watch football practice and pick him up.  Here is a man who could easily give up, but he refuses to do so.  With all his fighting he has slowed the affects of his disease some.  This brother is an example to those of us who do not have such a handicap.  But then, we all have a handicap of some sort.”

A few days later this stake missionary invited my companion and I over for lunch, and he fixed us salami sandwiches.  He asked me to bless the food and as I prayed I felt inspired to ask for a special blessing on this good brother.  I said that we were grateful for him and his hospitality and then I asked that a blessing of peace and happiness would follow him wherever he went.  After I closed the prayer I looked up to see tears in this man’s eyes.  He said how much he appreciated us and what a blessing it was for him to be associated with us and to be a stake missionary.  Then he said that he loved us and we told him how much we loved him.  As I ate the sandwich, such simple fare, it was like manna to my taste.

That night I lay in bed amidst a jumble of thoughts.  I thought about love and what it means to love and serve others.  I felt the spirit strongly and was taught by it about love.  One of the most important lessons a missionary can learn is how to love and serve others.  I believe this was one of the great lessons of my mission.  Everything we did was out of love and with sincerity.  We worked hard because we loved God and the people in the area we served.  We taught them the gospel because we loved them.

Many months later I was asked to give a talk in sacrament meeting in a different area.  I spoke on love and service and told the story of that lunch experience with that stake missionary.  “I have had many other good experiences since.  As I have reflected on them I have been impressed by how much the gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of service.

"By modern revelation we know that God’s work and glory is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.  God’s greatest glory comes from serving us and what was the greatest act of service ever performed?  It was the Atonement of Christ.  He gave his life for us so that we can overcome the affects of sin and death.

“We are commanded to love God with all of our heart, might, mind and strength, and also to love our neighbor as ourselves.  We are commanded to serve God and our fellowman.  We do this in three ways:

1. By perfecting the saints.  By fellowshipping and strengthening each other in keeping the commandments.
2. By proclaiming the gospel.  By sharing the knowledge we have and the joy we have found with our friends and others.  This is one of the reasons I am on a mission, to share the joy that I have found with others.
3. By redeeming the dead.  By extending the blessings of the gospel to those beyond the veil.”

I read the words to the hymn A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief noting the blessings the narrator enjoyed when he served others.  Then I expressed my love and desire to serve them.  I concluded by bearing my testimony.