My Testimony

please turn down the radio, or turn off the TV, sit down and read this somewhere reverently, for this is my Testimony of the Savior of the World.

This week President Baker gave a challenge to all the missionaries to commit one more investigator to baptism by November 7th. In the past several weeks I have been blessed with a great testimony of the sacred and true calling of President Baker. I know he is called by God to lead us here in this mission, and so his challenge was not a suggestion from Mr. Baker, but an invitation from the Lord.

I spent several days thinking about this challenge--Could we really find another investigator, or change the hearts of one of our former investigators? I could feel in my heart that I did not yet believe-- I was not yet committed to this challenge, so I began to pray to gain a greater testimony of my mission president, and to gain a testimony that this challenge was really from the Lord.

God answers prayers in a way to intricate to describe. Maybe it could be captured in a sacred song, I think. So perfectly, so beautifully, God understand the deepest parts of my doubt, and His spirit can penetrate even my deepest fear. Tuesday afternoon, I sat in Zone training, focused again on applying the spirit in the conversion of our investigators, and I pondered on the hardness of my heart. Why couldn't I just believe?!

One of the zone leaders, Elder Amundsen shared a story about how they had set a baptismal date in a lesson just a few days before. He described the power of the spirit that worked on their investigator as they read together from the Book of Mormon.

And then, like warm rain, the Spirit poured over me. I knew that we could find someone. I knew the Lord would guide us, and I knew that our president was only asking us to rise to the Lord's challenge: "And speak freely to all; yeah, preach, exhort, declare the truth, even with a loud voice, with a sound of rejoicing, crying-- Hosanna, hosanna, blessed be the name of the Lord God!" (D&C 19:37).

That afternoon, we had an appointment with "April." She recently married a less-active in our ward, and though she had shown some interested in learning about the Gospel several months ago, we had never been able to really sit down and teach her. Sister Clark and I talk about it, and we felt that "April" might be prepared to be baptized, but only if we could apply all that we had learned about teaching with the spirit and listening and asking questions.

That incredible spirit I had felt in the meeting seemed to hover around me for the rest of the day, and as we sat down to begin teaching "April," I felt calm and confident that everything would be fine. We introduced our purpose, to teach her about the restoration of Christ's church, and we began to teach her the first lesson.

I have taught this lesson so many times, but each time the spirit guides us to say it little differently, to use different scriptures, to focus a little more on this principle of that, so I tried to tune out the 7 year old who was running around yelling, and I tried to tune out the fans that were trying to cool down her little house, and I tried to teach her the way the Savior would teach her.

And here is where I ran into a little trouble. I didn't really feel like I knew any of the right things to say. I asked questions, and shared scriptures, but this was supposed to be OUR MIRACLE Lesson! There were no amazing insights, no incredible moments of aha! for our investigator. Sister Clark and I did our best to follow the little nudging of the Spirit, but this lesson didn't seem any different from any of the hundreds of lesson 1s I'd taught in the months and months behind me.

"Heavenly Father! Where is the Miracle?! I don't feel like this lesson is anything special, I haven't taught well, I haven't felt inspired with insight! How will she ever want to get baptized?"

And then, so lovingly, the Lord instructed me, "Who's lesson are you teaching?"

I felt the Spirit pour over me again and just as Sister Clark finished relating the Joseph Smith story, I turned to April and asked, "How do you feel about that?"

"Well, I feel good. That feels good." She smiled, "I know it's true."

The Spirit filled the room, (had He ever really left?) and we invited April to follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized.

We explained our purpose to help guide her to prepare, and the importance of growing her own testimony, and we talked about helping her husband come back to church so he could baptize her, and she accepted a baptismal date for the first of the new year.

I am humbled to think that Christ suffered for my sins of pride and selfishness so He could know perfectly how to teach me to overcome. I am humbled by the inspired questions he asks me to help me to better serve His children.

I am so grateful to be serving Him here. This is His work. This is His gospel, and His children, and how great are His blessings