The "Incomprehensible Joy" of a Mission - Part 1 - Meeting Tops Girl

In Doctrine and Covenants Section 4 - a classic for missionaries - it teaches that anyone who embarks in serving the Lord, if he does so "with his might," then he "layeth up in store that he perisheth not."

When looking at the footnotes for this phrase, I noticed once that it referred to the story of Joseph in Egypt. Think through this story with me: The inspired Joseph lead Egypt in saving food for seven years. It probably seemed a silly thing to do. Times were great! There was so much food! Why save it? But, sure enough, a famine came. This food storage saved Egypt.

When embarking in the service of God, we create something of a spiritual food storage. As a missionary I have see miracles. Without question, I have seen more miracles in the past 18 months than in the 19 years prior. These become my "store." Eventually, the spiritual famine will come. It always does. It will be then that I can draw from the food storage I've been accumulating during this bounteous spiritual harvest of a mission. The short teaching of King Benjamin stands out to me: "Remember, and perish not" (Mosiah 4:30).

I have been pondering a lot over Alma 28:8 lately. It reads (with my own emphasis clearly added):

"And this is the account of Ammon and his brethren, their journeyings in the land of Nephi, their sufferings in the land, their sorrows, and their afflictions, and their INCOMPREHENSIBLE JOY."

In the next series of posts, I would like to share some of my favorite stories from my mission. No question about, there's been a lot of tough spots. But I don't think it's by mistake that this verse describes "sufferings," "sorrows," and "afflictions" - three synonyms for "really crappy time" - and only one word for "really good time." There's a lot of really crappy times out here. However, I absolutely refuse to believe that it was by accident that the good times as much more powerful language than the bland words for crappy times. The joys of a mission truly are incomprehensible.

For the sake of those who I talk about, I will be changing the names of everyone but myself.


I have found that most of my greatest stories occur when our plans fall through. Why is that? I have no clue. It's frustrating sometimes, but it really always turns out for the best.

This story is one of those times.

I was serving in Warsaw, a small town of about 5,000-6,000 people where every person is glad to tell you that they have more cows than people. Elder Bradford and I had a night nicely planned out. In fact, it was set to be an over-crowded night. When the first appointment fell through, it wasn't a big deal. When the second and third fell through, it became a bigger issue. By the late afternoon, our evening was empty.

After thinking of things we could do for a while, we decided our best bet was to go to the church and just use their computers for some internet proselyting. By the time we walked there, though, we found out that no one was there and the computers were locked in a room we didn't have access to. We sat in the chapel, trying to come up with something we could do to keep ourselves busy.

Eventually, we came up with an idea: We would just go through our phone and call any contacts we didn't recognize. Really, it seemed pretty silly. The phone had been in Warsaw for years; who knows who could be in our contacts. But, we went ahead with it. Most of the numbers were disconnected; the rest went to answering machines. After a couple dozen calls, though (we started a Z and worked our way up!), we came to the contact "Tops Girl." (Haha, that name isn't changed. It's REALLY what she was saved as!)

Tops is a grocery store that's really popular out here in New York. A contact that has a name like

"Tops Girl" is not the most promising. I was about to skip over it, when I decided it was as promising as anyone else; who knows, it might even still be a connected number.

Not only was it still in service, but someone answered! I introduced myself and said I was a missionary for the LDS Church. I asked if she remembered meeting with the missionaries. Apparently three years ago, she worked at Tops and the missionaries had got her number... and never got ahold of her. I asked if she would be interested in meeting up sometimes, and to my amazement, she said yes! Not just halfheartedly, she said, "Yeah... I'd like that actually!"

We talked a little more about the basics of LDS theology and her own religious background. What she said next, I will never forget:

"You know, it's weird that you called today. I was raised Christian, but I kind of fell away as a teenager, and my life's been going downhill. I feel like I'm pretty much at rock bottom now. But, this morning, I said a prayer for the first time in years and just asked God for a way out. A couple hours later, you guys called."

I assured her that this was no coincidence. Elder Bradford and I proceeded to meet regularly with "Tops Girl." (By this point, we knew her name, but it's easier to use this than create a pseudonym!)

Throughout our lessons, it was phenomenal to watch as Tops Girl sought answers. She would spend hours bouncing from the Book of Mormon to the Bible. She would be thrilled at a connection that she had found between the Old Testament and the New Testament, only to be blown away by a connection we could show to the Book of Mormon or Doctrine and Covenants. She definitely didn't take everything on our word. She really struggled with the idea of pre-mortal life and the spirit world. However, she never forgot what lead to our first conversation and the miracle that our friendship really was. She's still meeting with the missionaries now!

It's experiences like these that make it easy for me to agree with President Uchtdorf, who said:

"It has been my experience that some of the most powerful promptings we receive are not only for our own benefit but also for the benefit of others. If we are thinking only of ourselves, we may miss some of the most powerful spiritual experiences and profound revelations of our lives."

Meeting Tops Girl changed my mission and changed my life. A simple - and seemingly pointless phone call - has been added to my "food storage." I cannot describe how humbling it is to be used by the Lord to answer the prayer of one of His beloved daughters. The joy of meeting her, answering her prayer, and watching her grow while growing alongside her, can only be described as "incomprehensible."