Mission Update: April 6, 2005
Hello!
Wow this week has passed by so fast…I wish things…well time would slow down just a bit so I can catch my breath. I can’t believe transfers are next week…it seems like we just went through that a few days ago.
Had a wonderful General Conference this past weekend. It is so wonderful to hear the General Authorities, including the Prophet and Apostles. We missed the Saturday morning session though due to a service project that we were asked to help with. A member in our area had between 3-5 tons of rock delivered Saturday morning and needed help placing it in her back yard. I remember saying, “I’m a computer geek from Virginia Beach…I don’t know anything about rocks!” It didn’t take long to figure out that the project wasn’t about knowing anything, but just getting down and doing it. I think a lot of things in life are that way. Sometimes it don’t take knowledge and experience, it takes a willingness to just help.
I offer my condolences to my Catholic friends and family over the death of Pope John Paul II. He passed away shortly before the afternoon session of General Conference on Saturday. President Gordon B. Hinckley, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, opened the session by offering condolences to the world’s Catholics over the death of Pope John Paul II, calling him a courageous man of faith, vision and intellect. “The Pope’s voice remained firm in defense of freedom, family, and Christianity,” President Hinckley said, “On matters of principle and morality, he was uncompromising. On his compassion for the world’s poor, he has been unwavering.”
[Thought for the Week]: I was asked the other day where my testimony was, if it was in my heart or in my mind. After thinking about the question for a moment I answered that it was in my very being. Some things you just know with knowledge deeper than what you can learn out of books, even the best books. I remember a time where I only believed that Jesus Christ was my Savior. I believed this because of what I read in the Bible, and was taught at church. I remember when this belief turned into knowledge and I knew that Jesus Christ was my Savior with all of my being and I could not deny Him as such. Later as I was reading and praying to know if the LDS Church was the Lord’s Church on the earth, I began to believe as the Spirit bore witness to me. Eventually I came to a point where I knew that Joseph Smith was a Prophet and that the LDS Church is the Lord’s Church on earth today. I cannot deny these things either. This latter knowledge strengthened my knowledge of Jesus Christ as well. The Prophet Alma in the Book of Mormon taught, “Therefore, blessed are they who humble themselves without being compelled to be humble; or rather, in other words, blessed is he that believeth in the word of God, and is baptized without stubbornness of heart, yea, without being brought to know the word, or even compelled to know, before they will believe” (Alma 32:16). I have not seen Christ, not did I witness Joseph Smith’s vision of God the Father and Jesus Christ. I have not seen the golden plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated. But I have a firm testimony that these things are true and happened. Yes, my testimony is built into my very being, and I know them to be true.
God Bless,
- Elder Joel A. McDonald Jr.
Colorado Colorado Springs Mission
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