Into Every Life Rain Must Fall . . . or, Lost in Paradox . . . or, Compelled to be Humble

After eight months in my stake's missionary prep program, I thought I was so prepared that I would take the mission field by storm.  My three weeks in the MTC seemed to reinforce my expectations as much of the teaching in class was on the first two discussions which I had already learned and taught in mock discussions.  While I tried to help the elders in my district, I think that I may have been a bit overbearing at times.  I once passed a note to my companion, as he was teaching, telling him to sit on the edge of his seat as I had been taught to do; never mind that because of his rather large girth this might not have been feasible for him.

While I was very confident about doing missionary work, I didn't have much confidence in anything else.  I could play the part well, I thought, but off stage I still had the same doubts about myself that I had in high school.  I tried to be outgoing in the MTC, to get a long with my companion, but things went badly wrong as I demonstrated my lack of social skill.  I said something terrible to a sister missionary, as an attempt at playful humor, because I just didn't have a clue.  But the biggest mistake I made was disagreeing with my companion in front of other people.

My companion was called after the first week to be an acting district leader for a new group of missionaries.  As his companion I went to the same meetings he went to, and knew what he knew.  When we met the new missionaries and he briefed them on what to expect, he said that their MTC district was named for the city which would be their first area in the mission field.  I didn't know where that came from, and suddenly shy, quiet Elder Cox burst out with “No it won't.”

This was an example of a curious paradox.  I was shy and quiet, and yet occasionally I would blurt something out -- I could point to several examples from my school days.  Now I had done it again, but this was worse because I had contradicted him in front of others, I had embarrassed him.  Later he confronted me and the only thing I could think to do was explain why he was wrong.  Still later he approached me to apologize, and by then I had realized what I had done, but though I should have been the one to apologize I suddenly could say nothing.  My companion then gave up on the companionship.
 

After the MTC I was no doubt even more reserved than usual when I arrived in my first area.  I wasn't outgoing at all, and my trainer had a big problem with that.  I was more than willing to work, in fact I was quite eager to do so, but I didn't say much outside of the door approaches I did when we were tracting – we didn't have anyone to teach, so he never had a chance to see me teach.  Then my trainer got sick and the work fell off.   To top it off, I allowed myself to feel intimidated by my trainer.

In one companionship inventory I asked if my quiet personality was a problem and my trainer went off on me.  He said that if I was quiet and didn’t talk to members that they would think I was not excited about the gospel and didn’t want to teach and therefore members wouldn’t want me to teach their friends.  But he was just getting started.  He said that if we didn't love ourselves we were sinning; he said that we were supposed to think that we were the greatest person in the world

He said that leaders had asked him how things were going and he would say that he didn't know because he didn't get any feedback from me.  He then said that his only good companion had been his trainer, that the three or four since had all been bad.  He said a lot of things -- I had to be this, this and this, period -- but this should give you an idea of what he was ranting about.

As I noted above, I was probably being even more reserved than usual because of what happened in the MTC, and I have to admit I didn't give detailed answers when he asked how I was doing those rare times we were out working.  I tried to say that I was doing the best I could, in the face of my trainer's charges against me but, honestly, I probably wasn't doing the best I could.  The simple reality was that I was not a talker, and I wasn't going to become one in the next few weeks.

I had issues, no doubt, but I strongly questioned much of what my trainer said. Specifically, the idea of thinking we were the greatest person in the world was a bit over the top. While we should love ourselves and have self confidence, he seemed to be taking it too far -- into the area of pride President Ezra Taft Benson would warn about in an upcoming General Conference talk. My trainer didn't have a very good attitude; as noted he felt most of his companions had been bad, and now he had problems with me.  Additionally, he was stuck in a very slow area; we didn't have anyone to teach because he had baptized the one person he had been teaching just before my arrival.

As for me, I think the Lord had decided I needed to be humbled.  Things didn't get better when, after two months, my trainer was transferred.  At first it seemed that my next companion and I would get along, but the slowness of our area quickly took its toll on him.  After a couple of weeks he suddenly discovered this need to "find" himself.  Of course, the best way to find yourself on a mission is to forget yourself and go to work.  At other times on my mission I was able to take full advantage of losing myself in the work, but while still in my first area my companion had other ideas.

The Lord, meanwhile, clearly had other things on the agenda than teaching and baptizing.  At the end of four months I finally had the opportunity to teach a full discussion, and the next week I got transferred. My second area would be better, but there were still challenges ahead.  Some companions are blessings, but others are trials.  Sometimes it is we ourselves that need to be taught and converted. Missions are not easy, but they get better or worse depending completely on our attitude  -- whatever we do, don't be a Wally complaining geek.

I should note here, however, that around Christmas time my trainer sent me a card in which he apologized and said that he had learned some things from our two months together and I would later tell him that I had been holding back.  While I was still in my first area, I sent a note to my MTC companion, finally apologizing for all I had done. Meanwhile, my "lost" companion would eventually find himself and finish his mission as an assistant to the mission president.  In the end I became friends with each of these companions.

 

KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid

When I went on my mission, I thought I was well prepared in certain areas.  I thought I had learned a lot of things while still in high school, but it turned out that there were some lessons I had to go on a mission to learn.

I have always had a quiet personality -- in the age old nature vs nurture debate I actually think it was a bit of both.  I was born quiet, in fact my mother told me more than once that I was so quiet in the womb (in the days before ultrasound technology) that she thought I would be girl.  But my quiet personality was reinforced by experiences I had growing up; it often seemed safer to keep my mouth shut.  I did not have many friends growing up, and I was often made fun of.

I know what it is like to feel like an outcast, but I also know what it is like to have many wonderful friends.  Starting with my junior year in high school I was blessed with many friends.  I had wanted so badly to be accepted -- and I was! Yet I doubted myself; I doubted that I was really anything special, that I was anything but plain, quiet and even boring. Friends have told me that I was a “nice guy,” that I was thoughtful and kind, with a sense of humor and a smile for others when they needed one.  I was viewed as a person of value, even great value, and I was loved, yet still I doubted myself.

A month before graduation, I started attending a missionary prep program put on by my stake.  I would attend this program for eight months with meetings on Sunday mornings and Tuesday nights, plus many opportunities to teach mock discussions to members.  My older brother was one of the teachers, which was a great blessing to me.

In August (after three months), however, I faced a bit of a crisis.  The adversary was hitting me pretty hard, trying to discourage me from serving a mission, and many times I left Missionary Prep discouraged.  I wasn't sure if I had the spirit with me as I taught those mock discussions and I was also having a hard time putting into practice what I was learning.

At one Tuesday night meeting, my brother raised a particular objection and I fumbled through an answer that had previously been taught to us.  When I finished, my brother said “Excuse me?”  That was a definite hit on my struggling confidence.

A friend who was in the program with me, and with whom I had taught a few mock discussions, told me that I taught so much with the spirit.  But I still wasn't sure, in fact I was in awe of how well he taught.  This guy had such a command of the first two discussions that he had many thoughts of his own to add to the principles being taught.

When my brother served his mission, the discussions were tightly scripted.  The missionaries had to read the presentation word for word, and they were even directed at certain points to "look up and smile."  New discussions were introduced by the time I was in Missionary Prep that allowed the missionaries a significant amount of flexibility.  As long as we covered the principles of the discussion we could put them in our own words and even expand on them, within reason.  Of course, we could also just repeat the principles word for word if we chose.  My understanding is that Preach My Gospel encourages even more flexibility.

In any case, I was making the mistake of comparing myself to someone else.  While I taught the principles more simply, that did not get in the way of having the spirit.  Sometimes simplicity is a good thing, hence the KISS principle: Keep It Simple Stupid.  In the final analysis, it is not flowery language or in-depth discussion that converts, it is the spirit.  As a missionary I viewed myself simply as a conduit to information, and I specifically told my investigators not to take my word for anything; instead they should ask God in prayer if what we taught them was true.
 
My pre-mission crisis ended at the first Tuesday night meeting in September.  As we were being taught that night, the spirit entered the room and I felt a mighty change come over me. I felt a calm assurance that I was learning and progressing and that all would be well if I continued to work hard.  The clouds parted and the sun shined through, it was such a wonderful feeling. 
 
Several weeks later, at another Tuesday night meeting, my brother raised the same objection that I had stumbled in answering back in August.  This time I did not fumble through the answer.  Instead I was clear and concise and even my brother was impressed.  But now I was starting to have another problem, I was becoming too confident.  In a few weeks I would be entering the MTC, and three weeks after that I expected to take the mission field by storm.

"Oh, it's hard to be humble, when you're perfect in every way."

When you start feeling that confident, duck.
 

On Being Called to Leadership . . . Or Not

On my first Friday night in the MTC, my companion and one of the other elders in our room stayed up late talking about girls and popularity.  I had gone to bed at 10:30 as per the rules, but their talking kept me awake.  Then on Sunday morning, my companion and the other elders the room slept in; we did not have anything to do until our branch meeting at 8:40 and, of course, breakfast is not served on Sunday, at least it wasn't then.  Still, I had chosen to obey the rules and get out of bed at 6:00.

At our branch meeting, my companion was called to be an acting district leader for a new district arriving the following Wednesday.  After the branch meeting, we had Sacrament Meeting, during which I had trouble staying awake.  I confess to feeling a little bit disillusioned; I wrote in my journal that everything seemed backwards, and that I was “suffering bad.”

Then I remembered something my older brother had said in a  missionary prep class -- he was one of the teachers.  Sometimes things go this way, with the missionaries who obey the rules struggling while other, less obedient missionaries have success.  In the long run, however, the more obedient missionaries will be more blessed.  I was still feeling down, however, so I took a moment to say a silent prayer.  I prayed with much strength for guidance and things got better after that.

After our meetings we went back to our room where my companion and I must have had the longest companionship inventory ever.  We got to conflict resolution and just talked and talked, getting to know each other better.  As it would turn out, however, this was probably the high point of the three week companionship.  Still, I was doing better since I had prayed for guidance.  When in doubt, pray.

I suppose that I had some expectation of being called to leadership as I had held leadership positions in my Aaronic priesthood quorums.  I was secretary when a deacon, second counselor when a teacher, and first assistant when a priest.  But on my mission, I was never called into leadership; the highest position I attained was senior companion.  I was asked to give a talk once at a zone conference near the end of my mission and as I talked about working with unwearyingness, I mentioned that I had never been a district leader, a zone leader, or an A.P., and then I said, “Thank heavens.”  By then my perspective had changed; being a regular missionary allowed me to focus on the work without having to do the administrative stuff that goes along with leading a district or zone.

I had a zone leader once who argued that we should not measure success by leadership positions or even by how hard we worked, much less by baptisms.  Rather, we should measure success on a mission by the strength of our relationship with the Savior – which, by the way, can only be helped by hard work.  Consider that “when ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God” and “how knoweth a man a master whom he hath not served.”  Missionaries have a wonderful opportunity to come to know their Savior as they serve him.

I had some wonderful leaders on my mission, and they helped me to become the best missionary that I could be.  The Lord has need of leaders, and if you are ever called to leadership it is because He sees the qualities of leadership, or at least  the potential for them, within you.  What it does not mean is that you are better, more obedient, or more successful than other missionaries.  Leadership is a responsibility rather than a validation.

Many great missionaries are never called to leadership; there are, after all, only so many leadership slots.  There were quite a few elders in my mission who I thought could have made great district, zone leaders or assistants to the president, but who were never called to those positions.  At one point my mission president created the position of traveling A.P., because he felt that he had four elders who would make great assistants but only two regular assistant positions (each of my first three zone leaders were called as A.P or traveling A.P.).

There were also some elders in my mission who were junior companions throughout their entire two years.  Some lacked a certain level of maturity while others were just lazy and disobedient.  I had one companion who fit the former profile -- I sent him home as his last comp.  He was a good guy and was willing to work as hard as his companions wanted to, but in some ways he was still twelve years old.  He managed to finish reading the Book of Mormon just once in his two years – when we found out we were near each other in book we bet a 2 liter bottle of soda on who could finish first.  I think he was a successful missionary and, while limited in some ways, he went home a better person.

For awhile on my mission I worried that I might not make senior companion, and I did end up taking longer than others.  But that was probably my fault as I waited several months before passing off the 60 odd scriptures we were supposed to memorize.  Don't do what I did, pass of the discussions in your first two months, memorize and pass off any scriptures you have to memorize, and do anything else you are required to do as quickly as you can – within your first four to six months at most.  Dot your “I”s and cross your “T”s early.

Numbers vs People

My nephew was challenged on his mission to have 30 teaching appointments in one week.  This struck me as a daunting task, but my nephew succeeded.  Such an impressive achievement requires a good sized teaching pool, something I never had. When you don't have much of a teaching pool, planning becomes rather simple: what streets are we going to tract, and how long are we going to be out tracting?

One companion and I talked about going an extra hour every day, which would add five hours to our weekly total of hours of teaching and tracting (mostly tracting).  We had been getting the mission standard of 25 hours somewhat easily and decided to stretch ourselves to do more.  After doing that one week, we decided to do it again the next.  Any teaching appointments we had were extra.

No matter what their weekly goals are, missionaries should always be striving to be exactly obedient; they should exercise faith, and remember to be humble, and good things will happen – if it is the Lord's will.  Why wouldn't it be?  Well, sometimes the Lord has something else on the agenda, something to teach lessons that a missionary needs to learn.  Sometimes a refining fire is on the agenda, rather than teaching and baptizing.  Of course, it is possible to have a refining fire and still teach and baptize, depending on the area, the mission, or any number of other factors.

It is good to set and reach goals, but sometimes missionaries give it their all and fall short because of factors beyond their control.  I have written before about the gap between reality and the ideal; how we often fall short because of our personal weaknesses and inadequacies, and how we can humble ourselves and have faith and be lifted by the grace of Christ.  I did not mention that we are not operating in a vacuum, that there are other people around us that also have weaknesses and inadequacies who are making choices that can have an impact on us.  Even when we fall short because of choices made by others, we can still be lifted by grace.

Some missionaries, and I might have been one of them, don't really like the focus on numbers.  Sometimes, it seems, missionaries get so caught up in reaching goals for high numbers that they forget that it’s not about the numbers, it’s about the investigators.  My nephew wrote about six steps to having 30 teaching appointments in a week, including having a large teaching pool, setting daily goals, intense planning, being exactly obedient and so on.  Well, I cringed just a little at the last part of his step 3: “Also, make each appointment and plan for each appointment to be 45 minutes or less.”

Most of the time “45 minutes or less” might make sense -- it is apparently recommended by Preach My Gospel -- but sometimes an investigator might need a little more time to understand the principles being taught in the lesson, and to have any other questions they might have answered.  If our focus is too much on reaching a goal for a high number of appointments, we might not give the investigator the time and attention that they need.  Sometimes we might set a goal and miss it because of the needs of the investigator.

Often during his ministry, Jesus would reach the end of his lesson and start moving on to the next thing, only to find that his listeners needed more.  When he visited the Nephites he taught them a discussion similar to the Sermon on the Mount found in the Gospel of Matthew; when he finished that, and a few other principles, he said it was time for him to go, but that he would return the next day.  But he stopped and looked at the people and saw that they were not ready for him to leave, so he decided to extend his stay
 
Missionaries should always be striving to be in tune with the spirit that they may have his direction.  You might think it is time to move on to the next appointment, or to get out and do some finding, but the spirit might tell you otherwise.  Too much focus on numbers may deny us the flexibility we need to listen to the spirit and give the investigators the time and attention that they need.  People are not numbers, and by taking the time for seemingly small and simple things we might feel we do not have time for, great things can be brought to pass.

On the other hand, some missionaries might extend an appointment longer than is necessary -- hence the 45 minute guideline.  They might do this to pad the number of hours they have teaching in a week, or to avoid tracting, which can often be discouraging.  One more hour teaching is one less hour knocking on doors.  But if missionaries have accomplished everything that is needed in an appointment, and they could be somewhere else, knocking on the door of someone who might be interested in their message, shouldn't they be on that doorstep?  Sure, they will get to that door soon enough, but they might miss the window of opportunity as that person is no longer home when they finally get there.

Too much focus on numbers can lead us to hurry too much the things that we do.  Slowing down can sometimes pay dividends.  In my second area we were out tracting one day and knocked on a door, despite a "no soliciting" sign.  When no one had answered the door after a reasonable period of time we started off for the next house.  My companion hurried off, but I stopped to close the gate to this yard.  Perhaps I could have done that faster, but if I had and had hurried to catch up with my companion, I likely would have not seen that the lady of the house had finally answered the door.

For whatever reason, I did not hurry, and I did see her answer the door.  I looked for my companion who was crossing a cross street and who suddenly realized I was not behind him.  He looked at me and I pointed to the lady who had answered the door, who I had already motioned at to wait.  Long story short, we taught her the first discussion that day, but we also taught her about priesthood blessings and offered to give her one as she had mentioned some health issues she was having.  A week later we called her to set up an appointment and asked her if she had been reading the copy of the Book of Mormon we had given to her; she said that she had and that she knew it was true.  A few weeks later she was baptized.

Now, let me be clear, I am not suggesting that missionaries should not accept the challenges of their mission's leadership.  They are the leaders and missionaries should always follow their counsel.  Missionaries should have faith that their leaders are inspired by the Lord in the counsel that they give.  If they issue a challenge to teach 30 appointments in one week, then the missionaries should indeed set a goal to do so and then give it everything they have to achieve it.  And maybe the week after reaching 30, they should try for 35.  I would simply add the caveat that missionaries should not focus so much on numbers that they forget the people and their needs.

25 Hours Teaching and Tracting and 100 Baptisms

Readers of this blog may have noticed references to 25 hours teaching and tracting.  Here is the story behind it.

My mission had earned a reputation as a party mission long before I or my mission president got there.  In fact, my mission president's predecessor, a retired Air Force colonel, had been sent to the California San Jose mission specifically to clean it up.  President Homer sent so many elders home that they called him “Send'emhomer.”  Things were better when my mission president arrived, but there was still a lot of work to do.  This was complicated somewhat by moving Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties from the Fresno mission to the San Jose mission.  A lot of missionaries woke up one morning to find themselves in a different mission with a different president and some new, stricter rules.

My mission president set a mission goal for 100 baptisms a month when the average was closer to 60, and after setting the goal the best the mission did was 80.  President Douglas worked long and hard to push the mission to reach 100, but nothing seemed to be working.  Then one night, while sleeping, he suddenly awoke with a start.  The impression which awoke him was to set a minimum standard of 25 hours of teaching and tracting a week.

Twenty-five hours was a standard that most missionaries should have been able to meet.  I knew some elders who would say that you could be a bucket (lazy) and still get 25 hours of teaching and tracting a week.  Some missionaries did that rather easily week in and week out, but for other missionaries it took everything they had to get those hours, and there were still others who, giving it their all, could not quite get to 25 hours.  The point, though, was that they were giving it their all, not whether they actually got those 25 hours; and for those who were getting them easily, it was time to stretch themselves to do even more.

Even with the new standard, introduced in the spring of 1988, not long after my arrival, it still took until September to reach the mission goal of 100 baptisms for the month.  That month we had a mission-wide 24 hour fast to help us reach that goal.  For my mission 100 baptisms a month was our “brick wall in the sky” and getting there was actually more difficult for us than it was for Chuck Yeager to break the sound barrier in the Bell X-1.  I actually used that analogy in a testimony I bore at a zone conference, calling 100 baptisms our “brick wall in the font.”

Well, that was California San Jose in the late 1980s.  Every mission is unique and the 21st Century may present different challenges.  Since I came home from my mission, the church has raised the bar on qualifying to serve a mission, so as a group the missionaries in 21st century will probably be of a better caliber than those I served with in California.  I knew and served with some fantastic missionaries, but I also served with a lot of not-so-fantastic elders, as well.  By raising the bar, maybe more missionaries now are serving for the right reasons and are thus better disposed to give it their all.

In another post I quoted Elder Jeffry R.  Holland who said that a mission is not Burger King where you can have it your way.  Missionaries are there to serve the Lord “every hour, every day, every minute, all the way.”  I agreed with Elder Holland, whole heartedly, but added this:


"I feel that I should point out that missionaries are not machines, and they are not all the same.  In my mission, there were missionaries for whom it took everything they had to get 25 hours of teaching and tracting each week, there were others for whom 25 hours wasn’t really a challenge, and still others who easily did more.  It is that middle group that I would focus on; if 25 hours was not a challenge, they probably should have asked themselves if they could have done more, and then they should have stretched themselves to do more. . . .

"In the end, the numbers may not matter as much as the effort that is behind them.  You are on a mission to serve the Lord 'all the way.'  What matters is that you are giving it your all, not how many hours you tracted, how many doors you knocked on, or how many people you approached on the street.  You will not be standing before the judgment bar of God auditing your numbers from the mission field.  Instead, In my humble opinion, I think you will be asked a simple question like 'could you have done more?' and you will have a perfect knowledge of whether you really could have done more."

Missionaries should follow the counsel given by their leaders, they should have faith that their leaders are inspired by the Lord in the counsel that they give.  My leaders set a minimum standard for 25 hours of teaching and tracting in a week.  Leaders in other missions will set their own standards; if they set a standard of 30 hours teaching and tracting, or encourage a goal of 30 teaching appointments in a week, then the missionaries should indeed set those goals and then give everything they have to achieving them.

Humble -- Meek -- Submissive

To make an analogy, I read some time ago about a U.S. Navy dive bomber pilot from World War II.  A dive bomber, of course, attacks its target by making a steep dive and dropping its bomb between 1,000 and 2,000 feet; this has the affect of turning an ordinary dumb bomb into a smart bomb as the pilot can place his bomb on the target with great accuracy.  On the particular mission I was reading about, the pilot was attacking an airfield when his wing was hit by antiaircraft fire.  The pilot held his dive and hit his target, and when he pulled up the fire in his wing was out.  Concerned that he might not make it back to his aircraft carrier, he considered ditching in the ocean to be picked up by a friendly submarine, but his rear gunner said he was injured and that he didn’t think he could deploy the raft after ditching.  So the pilot flew back to the carrier.

Since his plane was damaged, the pilot was forced to circle the ship until all the planes from the strike had landed.  If he had crashed on the deck during his landing, he would have fouled the deck preventing other planes from landing, so he had to wait.  Finally it was his turn.

Carrier landings during the pre-jet age were accomplished by flying around the ship and taking directions from a man with paddles standing near the stern of the ship, the Landing Signal Officer (LSO).  This was done to allow the pilot to see the LSO and his signals which would have been blocked from the pilot’s vision by the nose and wings of the aircraft in a longer, straighter approach.  While flying down the port (left) side of the carrier, the pilot is reading the signals from the LSO before making the final turn.  At the proper moment the LSO gives the cut signal, the pilot chops power and the plane falls to the deck where its hook catches a cable.

However the pilot in this story, instead of getting the cut signal got the wave off signal, meaning come back around and do it again.  After getting waved off a second time, the ship radioed that he should make a bigger circle and turn in from farther out, because he was approaching too fast for the normal procedure.  The pilot had to approach at a faster speed because of the damage to his wing.  A big hole in the wing meant less lift, which meant a faster stall speed.  Go too slow and the plane stalls and falls into the sea.

Around he comes, this time making the turn from farther out, and the LSO gives him the cut signal while he is farther from the deck than in a normal approach.  “Normally,” the pilot would write later, “when you come aboard, you’re almost over the end of the carrier deck and he gives you the cut . . . you’re right there: bang, bang!  But this time he gave me a cut way out, and I could see the stern of the ship!”  The danger here was that if he cut too soon, he would slam into the stern.

Still, when the LSO gave the cut signal, the pilot pulled the throttle back to zero and the roar of the engine faded.  “Oh, I had to trust him,” he said -- in other words, he had to have faith in the LSO – “I can’t do anything else.  I just got to do what he tells me.  He knows what he’s doing, that's what he’s there for.”  The aircraft, with its damaged wing, glided in and the hook caught an arresting gear cable.  The cut had been timed perfectly.

You are the pilot and God is the LSO.  It is His work and He knows what he is doing.  He knows where His sheep are, and where you need to go to find them.  You have to trust Him and exercise faith.  If you have faith, then you must have hope, and what is it that you should hope for?  Eternal Life through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  If you have faith and hope, then you must have charity.  If you do not have one, then you don’t have the other two.  So pray to be filled with charity.  One of the things that charity is is being humble.

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf echoed President Ezra Taft Benson in General Conference a few years ago in warning against pride.  Believing that you are a better missionary than others because you are working harder than others is fraught with danger.  Believing that you are better than anyone for any reason is to place yourself in the hands of the devil as he seeks to lead you carefully down to hell through flattery and deceit.  Avoid these dangers at all costs by humbling yourself and praying to be filled with charity.

Missionaries should always be striving to humble themselves and exercise faith in the Father, whose work this is.  On on particular morning while on my mission I tired to do just that; I prayed to God that He would guide me and my companion in what streets we should tract that day.  After praying we looked at the map of our area and focused on a few streets.  We then prayed again, saying that we felt directed to these streets by the spirit and asking if we were right, and we felt a confirming spirit.  We went and tracted those streets, and found a woman who was baptized within two months.

This woman said she had been baptized in Hawaii when she was much younger, but a diligent search could not find her records.  While the search for her records was ongoing I prayed that they would be found, even though that would cost me a baptism.  I wanted to put the will of the Lord ahead of my own desires; I wanted to be humble, meek and submissive.  As it turned out, her records were not found (back in the day some wards did not always do a good job of sending records of new members to Salt Lake City) and we had a baptism.  But more importantly, this woman was one of the Lord's sheep, He always knew where she was, and she was found by us because we humbled ourselves and asked for His direction.  Oh, we had to trust Him, we could not do anything else.


Source: Ambrose, H. (2010). The Pacific. New York: Penguin Group (USA).

The Miracle of Forgiveness

On April 18, 1942, then Lt. Colonel Jimmy Doolittle led sixteen B-25s in an attack on Tokyo and other Japanese cities.  The unique thing about this raid is that the bombers took off from the deck of an aircraft carrier. Eight of the Doolittle Raiders were captured by the Japanese: Dean Hallmark, Bob Meder, Chase Nielsen (from Hyrum, Utah), Bill Farrow, Bob Hite, George Barr, Harold Spatz, and Jake DeShazer. Three of the raiders, Hallmark, Farrow and Spatz, were executed by the Japanese. Bob Meder would die of starvation during captivity, and George Barr was so close to death when he was liberated that his mental and physical recovery would take two years.

After Meder's death, Hite wrote the governor of the prison protesting the treatment of the prisoners.  Hite then asked "will you please give us the Holy Bible to read?"  Meder's death must have caused the Japanese some trouble because changes were made, among them that the prisoners were allowed to share a few English books, including the bible.

"It was the first time that I had ever -- and I think any of us -- the first time any of us had really read the Bible from cover to cover," said Hite. "I was sort of like a man being in the desert and finding a cool pool." Hite went on to say, "Instead of hating the enemy that we had such hate for, we began to feel sorry for them. . . . It was almost a miracle to realize the sort of thing that happened to us . . . we were no longer afraid to the extent that we had been . . . we no longer had the hatred."

Jake DeShazer's story would be the most remarkable.  One day he was cleaning his cell when a guard looked in and yelled Hayaku! (hurry up). DaShazer responded by telling the guard to "Go jump in a lake." The next thing he knew, DeShazer was knocked on the head by the guard's fist. The Raider kicked the guard in the stomach, and the guard hit back with the steel scabbard for his sword. Jake then threw some dirty mop water at the guard, which had the affect of cooling the guard off. Still, DeShazer was surprised that the guard had not cut his head off.

After the incident with the guard, DeShazer, who described himself as an agnostic, turned to the Bible and the experience would end up turning his life upside-down.  Jake felt that he needed some sign of God's existence, and as he read the Bible he felt that God was indeed present, reaching out for someone so abandoned, mistreated and hopeless as he was.  When he read for a second time Romans 10:9 "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" Jake started praying. "Lord, though I am far from home and though I am in prison, I must have forgiveness."

As he continued to study the Bible and pray his heart was filled with joy. "I wouldn't have traded places with anyone at that time," he would later say. "Oh, what a great joy it was to know that I was saved, that God had forgiven me my sins." DeShazer went on to say that "Hunger, starvation, and a freezing prison cell no longer had horrors for me. They would only be for a passing moment. Even death could hold no threat when I knew that God had saved me. Death is just one more trial that I must go through before I can enjoy the pleasures of eternal life. There will be no pain, no suffering, no loneliness in heaven. Everything will be perfect with joy forever."
 
The more DeShazer read, the more he knew that he had to change. He especially loved reading 1 Corinthians 13:

"Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth. . . ."

 DeShazer felt that his sins had been forgiven through Jesus Christ, and that he, too, would have to forgive.  He had another run in with a guard one day.  The impatient guard slapped Jake on the back, yelling "Hayaku, hayaku!, shoving him into his cell and slamming the door on his bare heel.  The guard kicked his foot until DeShazer was able to free himself.  "The pain in my foot was severe, and I thought some bones were broken. But as I sat on my stool in great pain, I felt as if God was testing me somehow."

DeShazer was tempted to take revenge the next day when the guard came on duty, but instead he called out "Ohayo gozaimasu!" (good morning). This drew a strange look from the guard. The next day, however, Jake gave the same friendly greeting to the guard. This went on morning after morning until the guard came over and spoke to the Raider. Jake, using what little Japanese he had managed to pick up while a prisoner, asked the guard about his family.

Not long after this conversation, Jake saw the guard pacing with his head bowed and hands folded in prayer. The guard explained that he was talking to his mother, who had died when he was a little boy. From that moment on the guard treated DeShazer well, never shouting at him and never beating him. "One morning he opened the slot [in the cell door] and handed in a boiled sweet potato," said Jake. "I was surprised, and thanked him profusely. Later he gave me some batter-fried fish and candy. I knew then that God's way will work if we really try, no matter what the circumstances." He concluded, "How easy it was to make a friend out of an enemy because I had just tried."

The examples of DeShazer and his fellow prisoners stand out to those who have suffered far less than they but who still struggle to forgive.