Last night a very good friend called me up out of the blue and asked me about my mission. Knowing her, I knew that she wasn’t just asking out of curiosity, but because she was thinking about serving a mission herself and wanted to know how I felt about the gospel and about spiritual impressions in general.
So I talked with her for almost two straight hours last night. We had a very deep conversation about the Church, about the Lord, about righteous living. We laughed, we cried a lot, and even though we were far apart, I felt so close to her and to the Savior. Both our hearts were so full.
It was a moment I’ll never forget, and at the back of my mind during the whole thing was this thought, “I’m so glad I’ve remembered all this.”
I’m grateful that even though it’s been almost two full years since I left Paraguay, the feelings and impressions I received as a missionary are so fresh on my mind, that recalling them on command seems as easy as finding my favorite scenes in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
But I know it won’t always be that way. I know that the Lord was specifically setting me up for this conversation with my friend, because on Saturday I felt a strong need to gather my old mission journals, put them in chronological order, and start reading them again. It was already on the forefront of my mind when my friend called.
I feel strongly that I need to keep reminding myself of my mission, and about the gospel in general. These last two days, that has been a repeated message.
Earlier in church yesterday, we had a Sunday School lesson about remembrance. We talked about Deuteronomy 4, where the Lord commands us to keep His Word "between our eyes" and on the doorposts. The Jews take that to literally mean wearing little rolled-up scripture scrolls on a band between your eyes, or in an ornament on their doorposts (which is a pretty cool tradition, I must say). But basically, it means that we just need to always be remembering Him and His teachings.
Then, just this morning, I flipped to a random part of the scriptures and found myself in Mosiah 2. I read from verse 19 to the end of the chapter. And the very last thing that chapter says is, "O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it."
Now all I can think about is “Remember, remember, the 5th of November” and “Remember who you are. You are my son, and the one true king. Remember, who you are….(Father! Wait! Don’t leave me!)”
*Ahem* Anyways. The point is, remembrance is important.
We don’t read the scriptures every day just because it shows the Lord that we’re thinking of Him. We do it to also “feast upon the words of Christ”, so that when we need guidance, we can remember back on those scriptures and know “all things what ye should do” (2 Nephi 32:3).
One of the most important things my dad taught me before my mission was that the knowledge we accumulate is like tools in a toolbelt. When something breaks in your house, you want sharp, unrusted tools to help you fix it. Similarly, when we are faced with a spiritual (or even temporal) crisis, we want our memories of spiritual knowledge gained from scriptures and from personal revelation to be sharp and well-used. We need to constantly be studying and pondering and praying to keep our memories fresh--to keep adding and maintaining the tools in our belts.
Remember your past experiences. “If ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?” (Alma 5:26). Remember what it took for you to feel close to the Lord in the past, and apply those same principles to the present so you can continue to be happy in the future.
And remember who you are--a child of God and an heir to His kingdom.
(“Remember….who you are…”)
I need to watch Lion King now.
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