First Observe, Then Serve (#59)

Linda K Burton, the General Relief Society President, quoted words from President Monson in her Sunday Morning conference address: “We are surrounded by those in need of our attention, our encouragement, our support, our comfort, our kindness.  We are the Lord’s hands here upon the earth, with the mandate to serve and to lift His children. He is dependent upon each of us.”

She went on to say, “Did you hear it—the invitation to love one another? For some, serving or ministering one by one, following the Savior’s example doesn’t come easily. But with practice, each of us can become more like the Savior as we serve God’s children. To help us better love one another, I would like to suggest four words to remember: “First observe, then serve.”  We found that this was definitely a observe and serve week!

Last Sunday we listened to conference in the Koror Branch. We had special visitors from Lehi, Utah with us,  Rob and Cindy Andra.  After the meeting was over they talked to President Kesolei and said that they had reserved a little time and money from their vacation in Palau to do a little service.  President Kesolei asked Elder Johnsen to work with them and come up with a project.  Elder and Sister Johnsen quickly thought of a widow in the branch rearing two young sons, with a daughter who just returned home from a mission to Australia.  We knew that their kitchen floor was on the verge of caving in.  After clearing the project with the family Elder Johnsen contacted Rob and Cindy and made final arrangements for the project.  On Wednesday we inspected the job site, acquired and delivered the materials, and made arrangements for the tools.  Meanwhile, the family began the arduous process of obtaining a permit for us to do the work.

On Friday, our work day, the sky was cloud free; it was a perfect day for our project.  Of course, rather than just overlay the kitchen floor our project expanded to also include replacing the siding on the back of the kitchen and replacing the cabinet doors.   At 8:00 all the full-time missionaries as well as Rob and Cindy were in place, and you should have seen the sawdust fly.  By 1:00 we were done with as much as we could do, and were eating a celebratory pizza with the family.  As we dropped Rob and Cindy off at their hotel we felt so blessed to have been a part of their commitment to first observe, then serve.   Incidentally, the arduous permit still hadn’t been issued by the time we drove away.  

That wasn’t the only service in which we were engaged; on Tuesday, we were at the church with the Elders painting exterior doors and the bathrooms of our building.  With the parking lot lines finished the week before, the building is looking very fresh and nice.  

On Wednesday Elder Johnsen and Brother Thing spent all morning gathering materials for a roofing project for another one of our widow women in the branch.  We hope to have time to actually do the work on her house later this week.  By the end of the week Elder Johnsen thought he’d spent more time in his work clothes than he had spent wearing his white shirt.  

We were all back in missionary attire on Saturday morning for our Zone conference with President and Sister Mecham who had come to visit us from Guam.  We learned some great new phrases like “Bust the crust” off  our investigators, and “revelations come with role playing”.  We were there until 4 p.m. and then came home and began some of our preparations for feeding 9 people on Sunday.

The Elders Role-Playing

For Sacrament meeting our little choir of 8 sang, “Let Virtue Garnish All My Thoughts Unceasingly” and it was our best performance so far.  Both Elder and Sister Johnsen had to teach Sunday School, one to the adults and one to the youth. Then Elder Johnsen had to stay to help with other responsibilities, and Sister Johnsen went home to eat lunch and work on dinner.

We had the best time during dinner with all four Elders and President and Sister Mecham. President Mecham told us several stories about his very cold mission in Quebec, Canada; hearing that made us so happy to be in Micronesia. He also told us that the new office couple, the Princes from St. George Utah listened to Elder Bednar speak while they were in the MTC, and he said the new policies for missionaries have definitely occurred because the Lord is hastening his work.

Elder Johnsen still wasn’t done when everyone left at 6:00 P.M. He had to go out to Airai and see how many families he could home teach.  He and Rodney visited 13 families who were home, and left a message for 4 others—not a bad night home teaching.

We feel that we have tried to observe and serve A LOT this week; we definitely were ready for our day off on Monday!

Becoming as little children! (#55)

Studying with our Sunday school class in 3 Nephi has been a great experience for us. We have learned so much and we hope that the youth have too.  We have talked about the Savior’s teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. Each principle brings us to a higher and higher level. We want to become more like the Savior, and we know we have to start somewhere. We like the idea of becoming like little children.  “Except you become as little children, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

We love the little children here in Palau. They are so beautiful, sweet, and innocent. How can we be more like they are?

One of the ways is by turning our will over to our Heavenly Father. This quote says it very well: “Yielding one’s heart to God signals the last stage in our spiritual development.  Only then are we beginning to be fully useful to God! It is only by yielding to God that we can begin to realize His will for us. And if we truly trust God, why not yield to His loving omniscience? After all, He knows us and our possibilities much better than we do.” (Willing to Submit, May 1985 Neal A. Maxwell)  Elder Johnsen told his Sunday School class this week that he thought “blessed are the meek” meant “blessed are those who defer to the will of God”.  President Gordon B. Hinckley said, “Meekness implies a spirit of gratitude and opposed to an attitude of self-sufficiency, an acknowledgment of a greater power beyond oneself, a recognition of God, and an acceptance of his commandments.”  

This is our one year mark in the mission field, and to be perfectly honest, we have learned serving a mission for 18 months with no breaks is HARD work.  At ExxonMobil Elder Johnsen had 6 weeks of vacation, 10 holidays with nights and weekends off every year, and they paid him a salary.  On a mission we’re up at 6:00 a.m. and fall exhausted in bed every night at 10:00. It is a relentless schedule, seven days a week, and we pay for the privilege to serve.  

This last week we were facing some personal challenges, and had questions about how to handle those problems, so we opened a fast on Saturday night. We were seeking to know the Lord’s will about our mission here in Palau. We went to church with one very strong opinion, hoping the Lord would validate that. Instead, he showed us in very interesting ways what He wanted us to do.

Sister Johnsen was teaching about how the Nephites heard a sound, but they had to hear it three times before they “Opened their ears to hear it.” (3 Nephi 11:5) Sister Johnsen and the class decided that opening our ears meant listening with our hearts. She felt that maybe she was being reminded that she needed to open her heart as well.

Then Sister Johnsen went into Relief Society, and Elder Johnsen went into Priesthood. Both groups were studying the talk by Elder Holland, called “Laborers in the Vineyard”. Sister Johnsen had prepared the opening song a month in advance, so as she lead and sang the song, she was surprised to hear the words as though the Lord had spoken to her. “The time is far spent, there is little remaining, to publish glad tidings, by sea and by land. Then hasten ye heralds, go forward proclaiming: Repent for the kingdom of heaven’s at hand. Shrink not from your duty, however unpleasant, but follow the Savior, your pattern and friend. Our little afflictions tho painful at present, Ere long, with the righteous, in glory will end. Be fixed in your purpose, for Satan will try you; the weight of your calling he perfectly knows. Your path may be thorny, but Jesus is nigh you. His arm is sufficient, tho demons oppose.” (The Time is Far Spent, Hymn #266)

Elder Johnsen was listening to the lesson in Priesthood, but was beginning to feel a little drowsy (as High Priests are sometimes known to be) and felt as though someone shook him and said, “Pay attention. You need to hear this:  “The formula of faith is to hold on, work on, see it through, and let the distress of earlier hours-real or imagined-fall away in the abundance of the final reward.” (Labor’s in the Vineyard, Jeffrey R. Holland, Ensign May, 2012. Pg. 32.)

When we came home to talk and pray and break our fast, we felt we knew what the Lord wanted us to do, and we just needed to align our will with His to accomplish the work that he sent us to Palau to do. We felt grateful for the opportunity to know what He wanted us to do, and are praying for the strength to do it.

Sometimes we have to learn this lesson of deferring to the will of God over and over again. It is not usually a one and done situation. Just as little children have to try and fail sometimes several times, we also need to develop these attributes over time. This is advanced discipleship! These things seldom are accomplished in a straight line.

Speaking of straight lines, you should see the work we did in the parking lot of the church this week. To paint a truly straight line we had to tape every line first and then we could paint. It was hard work and hot. But we finished all the yellow lines and curb markings in one morning. Surprisingly the Elders were sorer from the stooping and kneeling than were the old timers.

 In addition to painting, Elder Johnsen and Fullmer hung a bulletin board in our primary nursery.

We are grateful to be reminded that we need to become as little children and that we can trust the Lord-- He always knows the right thing to do!