It was announced yesterday in Sacrament Meeting that I am in the single digits for how long I have left here in Pennsylvania. I hyperventilated a bit and then some more as they asked me to give a "5-7 minute" departing testimony.
It's weird. It doesn't feel like I'm going home. Honestly having Aaron's baptism scheduled for this Friday and Zach's baptism scheduled for this Sunday, it's kept me pretty focused and immersed in helping them the best that I can. It kinda just feels like I'm getting transferred again, which I kind of am, but to the Spirit World. o.O
It just so happened that it was our Zone Conference this week as well. It comes for every missionary where he must also give his "departing testimony" to the missionaries as well. Lots of missionaries plan what they'll say their whole mission, they see those missionaries get up and talk about how it all flew by and how much it changed them, wondering if their time would ever come. But the day came for me, as it always does, and the feelings of a departing missionary were awakened within me, they always do. I, on the other hand, had no idea what I wanted to say. I stood up there for what seemed like eternity before I mustered up words to say. All I could think of was the quiet testimony my trainer had expressed almost two years ago in Zone Conference. I echoed those words but they came from my heart. My simple testimony was the truthfulness of everything I had learned and taught for the past 22 years of my life. I quickly sat down among my fellow departing missionaries while they one by one gave eloquent farewells. President Topham then got up and expressed thanks for the wonderful spirit in that testimony meeting. He then talked about how he came out with a lot of the missionaries who just gave their testimonies. He talked about his first week, feeling like an inadequate mission president and one of his first duties was to travel to somewhere called Bedford, PA. There was me, being trained by Elder Zaleski. His reminiscence brought tears to my eyes as I've seen how much we've grown together.
And now it's back full circle. Elder West is doing great, definitely a lot better than I was doing when Elder Zaleski was leaving. Aaron actually asked Elder West to baptize him and I think he's becoming more and more aware of the calling and power he has. He will be a great missionary and will continue to blow things up in Dover without me. Yesterday I watched him go around the chapel completely independent of me, greeting many members and investigators of his own accord. He's definitely grown as well.
There's a family up in Dillsburg that we've been working with for a while now. The father has problems with tithing and that has been the supposed reason they haven't been to the temple the whole time they've been members of the Church. As we've started to teach them the missionary discussions again, their testimonies have been slowly growing and their love for the church and the missionaries began to be reignited. We thought that this week would be the week we would battle their concerns head on. We led into a temples by way of the Plan of Salvation, speaking of the essential need for ordinance work for the dead. They agreed and our conversation turned in a direction I hadn't expected, they began to bring up what they felt were their own inadequacies of why they felt impure, unprepared, and unworthy. They acknowledged the importance of going for themselves, but the process of becoming who they wanted to be seemed long and hard. I tried to resolve their concerns, telling them that the Lord looketh not on the outward appearance but on the heart and that to see the fulfillment of those promises and blessings, they needed to take steps of faith first. We committed this good brother to paying his tithing this Sunday. Silence enveloped the room and the Spirit was thick. Then finally, he said, I'm just not ready yet. Another, more awkward, silence filled the room. I just had no words to say. Here was this man, unwilling to take the first steps toward the greatest blessing in his life and I could do nothing to help him see the importance of it. Here I've been isolated from the temple from 2 years, and believe me I've learned to appreciate it, and he was just procrastinating the things he needed to do to experience the true peace of the gospel. It was heartbreaking.
I've seen many successes this week and I glory in my Heavenly Father for those tender mercies, especially that Aaron and Zach have been so prepared for these moments, but I've also seen many disappointments. All I can do is carry on and eventually those disappointments are all swallowed up in the grandeur of true gospel joy. For "weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." (Psalm 30:5)
Elder Low
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