The "Incomprehensible Joy" of a Mission - Part 2 - Let's Go Street Contacting...

This is Part Two of a series. While not necessary to understand this post, if you are interested in the first post, click here.

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.

Let's Go Street Contacting

I said in my previous post that most of my best stories take place when all of our appointments fall through. I mean it. Most missionaries get down when all their appointments fall through. I'm not saying that I don't get flustered by it, but there's always this little idea in the back of my mind that says, "Ah man!! We're going to find this crazy-perfect prepared person right now!!" 98% of the time, we don't. But this story is about one of the 2% instances.

Our area essentially took up that big open area
that doesn't have any towns in it big enough
for a dot...

I was serving in the Freedom area. Last post I talked about how small Warsaw was. Well, Freedom is even more rural. When appointments fall through in Freedom, you're really in a bind, because it's not like there's a neighborhood to go tracting in or a member of the Church right around the block.

But, alas, one night they did fall through. My companion and I were at home eating dinner when we got call after call cancelling on us. I'll admit, I don't pray as much as I should. I'm a fairly prideful guy, and quite often have to remind myself to humble down a bit. This night, though, we did pray. My companion and I knelt down and asked what the Lord thought we should do with our time. Almost instantly, I told my companion, "We have to go street contacting!"

The look on my companion's face was completely justified. Essentially, it said, "You're an idiot. We live in Freedom." Street contacting (which is exactly what it sounds like: contacting people on the street), works in big cities where people are bustling around, not in farmland.

Still, we didn't have any other ideas, so off we went! We drove out to Delevan, which was a little more of a community. We started walking around, it was nighttime and probably around 35 degrees so we weren't exactly comfortable, and lo and behold.... we saw no one. We walked a good hour, and still saw no one. Finally, frustrated, I decided that we would just walk to the gas station so I could buy a Dr. Pepper then call it quits. (Lesson learned: ALWAYS get a Dr. Pepper. Haha that's not really the lesson here... But I do like Dr. Pepper a lot.)

So you can fully understand the street that we were on, here is a screen shot from Google Maps:

Tiny.

Well, we walked to the gas station, and still saw no one. We got my Dr. Pepper, and were the only ones in the gas station. Then we walked out into the parking lot... and someone was walking towards us! 

As we walked up to him, I just extended my hand and said, "Hi, I'm Elder Allen!" To my surprise (in all honesty, even when people are outside, street contacting isn't too effective) he shook my hand and said, "Jerry Miner." 

"Do you know who we are?"

"Yeah, you're Mormons!" (I realize that when reading this, it could sound rude. It wasn't. He was a gruffer guy, but definitely had an intrigued voice.)

Disclaimer: This isn't me. Or Jerry. And it wasn't bright and
happy and green outside. But it shows missionaries
randomly contacting someone, so it works.

"Have you ever talked with us before?"

"No, I can't say I have."

"Well... would you like to?"

"Sure, how about tomorrow at 11:00?"

Anyone who has ever served a mission know that that sort of thing doesn't happen. People rarely invite us over, especially when the conversation is as void of substance as ours.

We went over that day, not really sure if Jerry would even be there. Sure enough, he was! We started talking to him outside, and he explained that he'd actually trained to be a pastor at one point, but got frustrated when one of the first books they handed out was about how to do the church's accounting. "You know," he said, "I sometimes don't even know if Christ's church was around after people killed Him and the apostles!"

For those unfamiliar with the LDS doctrine of the Great Apostasy, click here. For those of you who are familiar with it, you understand why that will grab a missionary's attention.

He continued, "In the Bible, people always had prophets to keep things together. We need a prophet!"

Again, if you aren't familiar with why my jaw was dropped as far as my sternum, click here.

We started teaching Jerry a little about the Restoration and about Joseph Smith. He was liking what he was hearing, when he interrupted: "You know the problem with a lot of these churches is that they aren't teaching out of the Bible anymore. They all have their own books now." My heart sank a little, because I thought for sure this was the end of our conversation. Latter-day Saints use the Book of Mormon and other modern scriptures as a companion to the Bible. Before I could even approach the subject, though, he continued, "But, actually, there's a scripture in the Book of John, I think it is the tenth chapter, that talks about 'other sheep.' Some people say that's the Gentiles, but Jesus never called the Gentiles 'His sheep'! ....that might give a little validity to your Book of Mormon, wouldn't it?"

I was convinced that this man was a member of the Church and was pulling our leg. But nope. He was just prepared by the Lord. We met with him for many months after that. It was incredible how often we would be reading from the Book of Mormon together, only to have him chime in, "My wife and I were just asking about this yesterday!" or "I'd always been confused about that!" One time in particular, we were reading 2 Nephi 2, and he said, "My daughter and I were talking about this last week. We figured Eve had to be a dumb blonde to eat the fruit. I mean, who eats fruit given to you by a snake? But... I guess she needed to, didn't she?"

Jerry has been in and out of the hospital the past few months, so he hasn't been able to progress as much as he'd otherwise be capable. Still, the missionaries are teaching his family and all have agreed to get baptized as soon as everyone is healthy enough to do so!

God truly is preparing people, and is very aware of where they are. If we'll humble ourselves enough to listen, we'll find those "who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it" (Doctrine and Covenants 123:12).