This week at seminary we were studying John 10 in which Jesus is spoken of as the good Shepherd. While we discussed verse 4 where the sheep know His voice, we heard a unique story told by Eli about the value of knowing the voice to follow. During WWII, a ship was sinking and another ship was alongside to remove the men from the sinking ship. The ships were both rocking furiously, but at exact opposite frequency—that is, at one point their sides would be together and the other point their sides would be far apart. The rocking frequency was such that in order to make the jump from one ship to the other the seaman would have to make his jump when the vessels sides were farthest apart; then while the person was in the air the vessels sides would rock together and he would safely land on the deck of the rescue ship. If they jumped when the vessels sides were next to each other the gap between the ships would open while the seaman was in midair, and he would fall in between the ships and be crushed and drowned in the ocean below. Many of the men being rescued knew and trusted the man who was commanding them when to jump. While it was difficult to implicitly trust his command to jump when the ships sides were farthest apart, those that did so were saved. So it is with our faith in the good shepherd, we make the leap of faith at the command of the good shepherd trusting that the outcome is according to his will. Sister Johnsen likes the saying she found in the book The Artist’s Way which says, “Leap and the net will appear.”
We had one of those trusting experiences on Tuesday night when we opened up our CES inservice lesson to all the branch leaders and teachers. Elder Johnsen’s lesson was about teaching after the manner of the spirit. After laying the groundwork by reading D&C 50: 13-22 and using Matthew O. Richardson’s October 2011 conference talk on the subject of “teaching after the manner of the spirit”, not in front of, not behind, but BY the spirit, we divided the attendees into teams of two. Each team used Teaching No Greater Call (teaching by the spirit section) to create a list of things we can do to teach by the spirit. After their reports EJ concluded with ideas from Richardson’s talk where he suggested that we must teach as the Holy Ghost teaches. He “teaches what we must know and do so we may become what we must be” and secondly “the Holy Ghost teaches by inviting, prompting, encouraging and inspiring us to act. Christ assured us that we come to the truth when we live doctrine and act accordingly.” Our final section was to have each person individually answer out loud the question, “How can you use this material to teach by the spirit.” Each person found at least one thing (from our long list on the board) that they committed to do so their teaching would be BY the spirit. Sister J made rice crispy squares for a treat—the meeting couldn’t have gone better. After it was over EJ received a text from the Elder’s Quorum President, “I really enjoyed attending in-service. I learned a lot and felt the spirit. Thanks.” For us it was a leap of faith to invite the busiest people in the branch to ANOTHER meeting, but it was gratifying that the good Shepherd would send the comforter so the instruction would model the lesson we were trying to teach.
On Tuesday morning we were up at the church doing service. We actually had two project choices. We could put a second coat of paint on the new doors on the BP and FHC (which some of you will remember were destroyed during our church break-in about a month ago), paint the back of the shed, and do some other deep cleaning work, or we could go and move some dirt at Diane’s place on Dead Dog road. (That’s our name for the road that Diane lives on because the day we found her house there was a dead dog on the road). We finally decided to split up and do both. We feel very happy that we made that decision. As we were concluding our work and the Koror elders had come back to the church, a guy from the Czech Republic stopped by the church and visited for a while with EJ. He was just walking to the crocodile farm, saw our church sign which said that visitors were welcome, and just stopped in to see what the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was all about. He was actually surprised to learn that the church has a presence in the Czech Republic (which we knew because of our friends, the Hrncirik's served a mission there).
Elder Fullmer and Gubler actually had a “real” discussion with him, gave him a Book of Mormon and later that day had a follow-up meeting where they gave him more church literature. Talk about divine positioning. He’s been here in Palau for a month. This is the first time he’s stopped at the church, and this is the only Tuesday we’ve been at the church doing service this month. He took the leap of faith as prompted by the spirit, and missionaries were at the church to answer his questions. Coincidence? We don’t think so!
We just can’t stop bragging on our awesome Palau missionaries. This week the elders in Meyuns, Elder Fullmer and Pauga taught 51 lessons and Elder’s Gubler and Dopp taught 61. These are not just lessons for the sake of numbers, these are lessons taught to real people who are making and keeping commitments. The elders have taken the leap of faith which resulted from recent training, and we are astounded by the way the work of the Good Shepherd is going forward. Elder Gubler also celebrated his 20th birthday this past week, but he was in Guam on his actual birthday, so we celebrated it a week late. When we asked him what he wanted he said, a German chocolate cake. We were impressed to find the cake and the frosting in the store here…it’s the little miracles!
We’ve also continued our work this week with our 5 bright and dedicated Koror Elementary spelling bee students. Since we were only called in to help beginning January 24, and the island wide Spelling Bee is this coming Saturday (February 16th) our students have had much less preparation than did our Meyuns students last year. Nevertheless, they’ve been working hard and also taking a leap of faith that the extra hour they spend with us each day after school will pay dividends in a better spelling bee performance.
Ralph Waldo Emerson says, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters, compared to what lies within us.” As we look inside of ourselves for our own faith, we are able to move forward in ways that we didn’t previously think possible. Every day we can practice our own special “leap” of faith!
This past Wednesday Elder’s Fullmer, Gubler, and Johnsen worked at Sister Paz’s home cutting and installing six inch baseboards around the edge of her bedroom and her living room. She had been having problems with rodents (of unusual size) entering her house and making themselves at home. After we put up the baseboards, Sister Paz called us the next morning and said that she got her first good night sleep in over a year because she knew she had no worries about the rodents.
That got us thinking about movie quotes from the Princess Bride.
Inconceivable! (You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means) But Elder Early made his departure from Palau and safely boarded the plane for Guam with his final destination in California. His Micronesia Guam mission has come to an end, but with his amazing knowledge of the scriptures, his leadership abilities, and his testimony we know he will have many more opportunities for service. Because the flights leave at 2:10 A.M. we all stay up and take the departing missionary to the airport. We didn’t get to bed until 1:30 A.M that night!
As we were leaving to take Elder Early to the airport, Sister Johnsen saw an apparition in the heavens that night—there was an unusually bright object near the constellation of Orion. While the rest of the missionaries only saw a bright white light, she saw a pulsing red ball surrounded by green rectangular rays. Later that night when we arrived back at the apartment, she again spotted the object and also found six more similarly bright and colorful orbs in the midnight sky. Since none of the Elders could discern what she clearly reported, all that they could say was: “Inconceivable!”
Thursday we got a lot of extra work done because we didn’t have our regular district meeting. We visited Malee so Elder Johnsen could ask her to speak in church next week. We got to see her new baby fruit bat that was hanging on an old diaper, and sucking food from a cotton ball. (Sister Johnsen is not that comfortable around bats, babies or not).
But Sister Johnsen was happy to finally see the twins girls that our member, Pauline Jerry, had a few months ago. Here she is pictured with one of them. Pauline was grateful for the box of baby clothes that Jocelyn shared from our storage area at home and had mailed to Palau.
We also managed to hand out balloons to some cute little girls in a neighborhood where we were searching for a branch member. They were just too cute not to get a picture.
Later on Thursday the elders got a call that Elder Marshall was indeed returning to Palau after being away for 8 months. We also found out that he would be our new Zone Leader. The elders went to the airport at 8:30 P.M and then found out that the flights now come in at 9:10 P.M. Then they found out the flight had been delayed and it was around 11: 00 PM when it finally arrive. By the time Elder Marshall had collected his bags and come out it was about 11:30, and the elders had been at the airport for three hours. We have a tradition of welcoming the new elder to Palau, but it was so late, and we already knew Elder Marshall, so we had to decide whether to have the elders stop up at our apartment for a few minutes when they dropped Elder Marshall and Elder Pauga off. We thought we better stick with tradition and we since also had some left over poke and pour cake (Elder Early’s favorite-from the night before) we had then come up and we visited for a few minutes and then said goodnight. We got to bed at 12:30 that night!
Sunday morning the branch had their annual primary program. President Kesolie leaned over and suggested that Elder Johnsen be prepared to speak because they had always needed to speak at these programs. Elder Johnsen assured President Kesolie that neither one of them would have to speak because Sister Johnsen had helped the primary write the program, and it was long enough this year. It was so long that 3 of the scheduled adults didn’t even speak. The children (about 8 of them) loved singing the songs and doing their parts. We were very proud of the entire effort.
After the program Elder and Sister Johnsen parted ways to teach the gospel doctrine lesson to their respective classes. The lesson this week was “How could you have departed from the ways of the Lord?” and has the quote by Mormon, “O ye fair ones…” Sister Johnsen got a particularly interesting insight as she retired to bed the night before with the question on her mind, “Why would the Lord require two righteous men, Mormon and Moroni, to live in such a wicked environment. Why didn’t he protect them? Why did they have to see the entire destruction of their civilization? “ She awoke feeling like she may have the answer: “The Lord needed witnesses to testify of what they had seen.” It’s interesting how some of our best insights come in answer to questions.
Elder Johnsen got some good discussion as his youth SS class discussed Mormon 5: 18 “But now, behold they are led about by Satan, even as chaff is driven before the wind, or as a vessel is tossed about upon the waves, without sail or anchor, or without anything wherewith to steer her; and even as she is, so are they.” Our students in Palau know quite a bit about boats and wind, having power or being adrift in rough sea without an anchor. For example, the students knew that boats drift sideways and can be in danger of swamping in heavy sea but a sea anchor will cause the bow to swing into the wind greatly lessening the danger of capsizing. So it is in life we are much safer sailing in the turbulent sea of life under power (with sail) and able seaman at the helm (steering) and with an anchor handy if power and steering are lost. Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me over life’s tempestuous seas!
Inigo Montoya: You know, Fezzik, you finally did something right!
Fezzik: Don’t worry. I won’t let it go to my head.
We feel like we might have done something right this week too, and we promise, we won’t let it go to our heads either!
Let’s start at the end this time. Saturday night Elder Johnsen was putting the finishing touches on his Sunday School lesson, and Sister Johnsen was working on music and they heard a creaking and crunching sound. Elder Johnsen jumped up to see what was happening outside. (Earthquake?) To his dismay the kitchen floor INSIDE was rising. He called Sister Johnsen in and they watched their tile rise and their grout break apart. Unless one wants to stub ones toe or risk breaking the partially loosened tiles which are sticking up about ½ inch from level, one has to develop new traffic patterns in our apartment. Apparently this is not a new affliction to the apartment building where we live, and can be fixed! How firm a foundation, indeed.
Friday night a gale force storm blew in; talk about rain and wind! We thought we understood RAIN in Texas, but no, this is even more amazing! So, our big Saturday youth conference to Peliliu had to be postponed until next week because no boats were going to be running on Saturday. It is too dangerous for boats to travel in this wind, even inside the reef there was very choppy water. Later in the day the weather cleared up, but it was too late for our trip. Another in-firm-ity!
We had our last summer party with the kids 8-12; they felt sad to see Friday Fun come to an end. We don’t know if it’s sad that the parties are ending, or just that school is starting on August 6th! So lest anyone at home feel badly about when our schools start in the states, think of these kids. They don’t get out until the end of May either.
Senior missionaries are able to set their own schedules, and do the work they feel needs to be done. They are uniquely in a position to be “….anxiously engaged in a good cause and do many things of their own free will.” Because we want to be doing many good things, we have been working on painting the chapel, the shed, and other buildings in the church yard. Apparently our work is not yet finished. Elder Johnsen happened to notice a beautiful little fern growing…out of the trim of the building. We think it is time to climb the ladder and scrap and repaint the trim on the building. Have you ever noticed that when you start a project it seems to grow in magnitude—the untouched portions seem to cry out, “What about me? I want to look new too!”
This week we thought we would quickly paint the storage shed/bathrooms but discovered that we had to do major scrapping to prepare the surface. Elder Johnsen scrapped right through one wire brush, so we purchased another one. President Kesolie thinks our painting job looks so good they might cancel the refurbishing project they have planned for next year. We think that by next year it will definitely need to be done again.
We got permission to take out 4 poles that were set up just outside the entrance to our chapel. They were supposed to be like a trellis and have flowering vines growing around them but not one flower has adorned these poles since we got here over 9 months ago. When we started to take them out, they just slid out of the holes because they were FILLED with termites. The Elders helped us and just literally lifted them out. We have been given permission to paint the free standing steeple, but have been told to be careful because termites have also taken up residence there. In-firm-ity all around.
Elder Johnsen shared the following excerpts as a handout with his youth Sunday School class. It is from an article in Meridian Magazine. They studied Alma chapter 36 in the Book of Mormon this past Sunday, and this is where Alma the Younger recounts his conversion experience to his son, Helaman:
“We credit John W. Welch, a prominent gospel scholar, with the discovery of a beautiful poetic pattern that underlies the chapter. Brother Welch noted years ago that the entire chapter is an impressive chiasm, a carefully structured pattern of mirror-image repetition used by Hebrew and Classic Greek poets in ancient times. In the first half of the chapter, he recounts what his life was like before coming to Christ. As an arrogant young man, he “exalted himself,” persecuting the church and becoming the “vilest of sinners” (Mosiah 28:4). He fought against the Lord until, struck down by an angel, he awakened to a sense of what he had done and became “racked with eternal torment” (Alma 36:12).
By magnificent contrast, in the second half of the chapter he describes his deliverance from torment: “there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy” (v. 21).
At the heart of the chapter is his appeal to Jesus Christ, and the relief that he felt when he called upon the Savior and was “born of God” (v. 18, 23).
Here is a mirror-image outline of this great discourse, as described by John Welch. Each element of the chapter is designed by a letter of the alphabet, with the mirroring verses indicated by a superscript ‘. The verse numbers are in parentheses.
A Mirror-Image Outline of Alma 36
(a) My son, give ear to my WORDS (1)
(b)KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS of God and ye shall PROSPER IN THE LAND (2)
(c)DO AS I HAVE DONE (2)
(d) in REMEMBERING THE CAPTIVITY of our fathers (2);
(e) for they were in BONDAGE (2)
(f) he surely did DELIVER them (2)
(g) TRUST in God (3)
(h) supported in their TRIALS, and TROUBLES, and AFFLICTIONS (3)
(i) shall be lifted up at the LAST DAY (3)
(j) I KNOW this not of myself but of GOD (4)
(k) BORN OF GOD (5)
(l) I sought to destroy the church of God (6-9)
(m) MY LIMBS were paralyzed (10)
(n) Fear of being in the PRESENCE OF GOD (14-15)
(o) PAINS of a damned soul (16)
(p) HARROWED UP BY THE MEMORY OF SINS (17)
(q) I remembered JESUS CHRIST, SON OF GOD (17)
(q') I cried, JESUS, SON OF GOD (18)
(p') HARROWED UP BY THE MEMORY OF SINS no more (19)
(o') Joy as exceeding as was the PAIN (20)
(n') Long to be in the PRESENCE OF GOD (22)
(m') My LIMBS received their strength again (23)
(l') I labored to bring souls to repentance (24)
(k') BORN OF GOD (26)
(j') Therefore MY KNOWLEDGE IS OF GOD (26)
(h') Supported under TRIALS, TROUBLES, and AFFLICTIONS (27)
(g') TRUST in him (27)
(f') He will deliver me (27)
(i') and RAISE ME UP AT THE LAST DAY (28)
(e') As God brought our fathers out of BONDAGE and captivity (28-29)
(d') Retain in REMEMBRANCE THEIR CAPTIVITY (28-29)
(c') KNOW AS I DO KNOW (30)
(b') KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS and ye shall PROSPER IN THE LAND (30)
(a') This is according to his WORD (30).
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Is the Center of Our Faith
The remarkable symmetry between the opposing elements of the chapter testifies to the great care Alma took in composing this message. His themes are captivity and deliverance, spiritual death and rebirth, paralysis and renewed strength, arrogance and humility, exquisite pain and exquisite joy.
But the focal point of this grand symphony of opposition is the figure of the Lord Jesus Christ. Brother Welch observes, “I am especially impressed with the repetition of the name ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God’ at the very center of the chapter. . . . the structure of the chapter powerfully communicates Alma’s personal experience, for the central turning point of his conversion came precisely when he called upon the name of Jesus Christ and asked for mercy.”
In this passage we understand what it means to pass from corruption to perfection, from death to life, and it is entirely due to the merits of Jesus Christ.”
And so it is with us, the Lord Jesus Christ is the center of what we do and the sure foundation in every situation (Hymn 85) and keeps us working and moving forward in Palau every day!
