June 2, 2019

 

There are many people we meet whose stories break our hearts. Friday we were in Godua visiting with a man who has been a member for a year whose wife left him with 2 sons and moved back to the big city.  She did not want anything to do with the church.  Tom spent half an hour talking to him about eternal families.  He told the brother about how my Dad met his second wife and quoted D&C 82 :10   “ I the Lord am bound when you do what I say “.  We encouraged him to come to church and to be a patient father.  He asked a profound question - how do I become a Christian? (see more below).  He did come to the meetings today!

The young missionary we were with today is from a part of the Congo that has an ebola outbreak at the moment.  He joined the church in his late teens and 3 years later was called to serve in Cote d’Ivoire.  He told us that his mother had died and when he joined the church his family kicked him out (fists were involved).  However his mother appeared to him in a dream and told him that he was doing the right thing and to continue.  He has no family or friends to go back to and is trying to decide what to do and where to go when his service is over in July.

I have been doing floor exercises since Wed. when I injured my heel.  I had been walking about a mile when I took a step and pain shot through my heel.  Tried to phone Tom but he had left for his run.  I hobbled home and sat outside our gate reading scriptures on my phone until he arrived.  We iced it and started me on Ibuprofen.  Most of the week, I have been lying in bed reading, listening to conference talks, and trying not to put weight on it.  Ben, I have never had an injury before so found it hard to relate.  It is frustrating but I did walk over 90 miles in the month of May.   Perhaps tomorrow I will make it down to the rice fields and back.

Sunrise at a lake Sue walks by almost daily

Today is my mother’s 112th  birthday.   I have not seen her for 56 years.  One of the things I am most looking forward to in the next life is meeting with her, adult to adult, and comparing experiences and personalities.  She was probably smarter than I but I still feel we will have a lot in common.

This is Tom, responding to the question in the first paragraph above.  Without writing a book to answer it, this will of necessity be incomplete.  The shortest answer is that we become a Christian when we take upon ourselves the name of Christ.  I thought about my own family name, and what a blessing it is that my father was an honorable man who went about doing good.  It is a responsibility to bear well his name and pass it onto the next generations so that it is respected and honored.  Even more significant is to become a son or daughter of Christ, as King Benjamin explained in Mosiah 5:7.  We renew the covenant of baptism in our hearts weekly and take the sacrament as a sign that we have done so, to take His name on us, remember Him, and keep his commandments.  How do we bring honor to His name so that it is revered and respected because of our example?

Ultimately we become a Christian as we grow from grace to grace to become more and more like Jesus Christ.  Continually striving to acquire His characteristics and qualities is an eternal pursuit.  It is the path of the disciple and ultimately the path of eternal life.  What steps do I take today to move along that path?  Who can I help?  What would the Savior do if He were here? 

I love questions like the one the brother asked which help focus our thoughts and efforts on the things that are most important.  Have a very blessed week!

Girls at the market

Bath time

 

Members of the Saioua Branch with a new baby