"Commitment is doing the thing you said you would do, long after the mood you said it in has left you." George R. Zalucki
The Power of Godliness is Manifest
Doctrine and Covenants 84:20 "Therefore, in the ordinances thereof, the power of godliness is manifest." It is a miracle when the spirit touches someone's heart and confirms to them the truthfulness of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Often this happens when people are present during priesthood ordinances like blessings, baptisms, the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, and during the blessing and passing of the Sacrament.
This is a letter from Elder Chance Pebley about one of these types of miracles:
So this last Tuesday, a lady was baptized. She is the sister of Melinda Powell who used to be heavily involved with the Calvary Baptist Church. She even started the Awana program for those guys. I am pretty sure that is like a mutual thing-only for all ages. Anyways, she met with Elder Johnson and I when I first came here in June. She had always taught about Christ, but she told us she always also taught to stay away from the Mormons and their church.
So after we taught her she felt bad, because she knew she was leading people away from the truth and didn't feel she could be forgiven of doing those things. So we bore testimony to her about the atonement and left her with Alma 36 to read. She came back the next week on fire and willing to do whatever it took to get baptized. She knew that The Book of Mormon was true. There are more miracles in that story that I could talk about, too! Anyways she was baptized and her sister who attended Calvary with her attended her baptism. She hadn't yet read from The Book of Mormon or met with missionaries. Anyways, she was present for her baptism and felt the spirit there. Then this Tuesday she was baptized. From the single experience of being present at Melinda's baptism, she felt the spirit so powerfully that she couldn't deny that what her sister was doing was true and right. At her baptism, I asked her what her experience was like meeting with the missionaries and reading The Book of Mormon. She related back to Melinda's baptism and said, "I knew it was true before I even opened The Book of Mormon." She has two daughters that she wants the missionaries to start teaching in Taylor and to get baptized when they know it is true.
They too, go to Calvary just like their mom and aunt did.
Here are some pics of Melinda and her sister Kristine. Melinda is the one with Elder Coffman and I.
The other is Kristine and her two daughters.
The onyl time I had seen Kristine was at Melinda's baptism, and I didn't have a chance to talk to her because she was surrounded by members, but she asked me to baptize her. It was an INCREDIBLE experience! Have a great week!
When I was 14 or 15, I had a teacher that prided himself on being a thinker. We had some enlightening discussions in his classroom. He helped me ask some great questions that led to tremendous answers that still guide me today. We agreed on many things, but were at odds on a few. One of them was religion. I had a lot of respect for this man, but it amazed me that someone who claimed to be open minded was blind to just how closed minded he was when it came to God. He was always challenging my faith. He considered my beliefs to be a sign of my weakness. His claim was that unless it could be acknowledged by the 5 senses, there was no proof that God existed. I struggled as a young person to help him understand that he was limiting his understanding to what he had personally experienced, cutting himself off from other possibilities. The best that I could do was to try and help him understand how I knew; that things of the spirit could only be understood and perceived by the spirit. Years later, I still don't have a better answer to this one fundamental question, but I face the same dilemma. This blog is dedicated to preserving stories and experiences of missionaries in the Arizona Mesa Mission both during and after their formal missions. Some stories are fun and light hearted, but others are of a spiritual nature. The blog forum is so convenient, yet the format is limiting. There is more to these words than letters on a page. To truly understand the messages requires not only an open mind, but a soft heart.
After all, "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, else what's a Heaven for?- Robert Browning"
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