This past week has been quite the whirlwind. It has been
nonstop action from start to finish.
Let me tell you a bit about Elder Dedrick. I've
had 16 companions, so I've had a wide variety of personalities, interests,
testimonies, and work ethics. Elder Dedrick is probablythe hardest
working that I've ever had. He is unbelievably diligent, bold, and full of
faith. We have seen so many miracles because of his desire to work. He is a
very effective missionary, and obedient, too. I have taken him to be an answer
to prayer from Heavenly Father: I want to work as hard as I possibly can for
the remainder of my mission, so He's paired me with Elder Dedrick so
that I can relearn what it means to have faith, work hard, and serve well. I am so grateful
for him.
Last Monday Elder Dedrick had put his iPad on the
shopping cart at Walmart and forget it there when we took off. When we realized
this an hour later we rushed back to the store and went to Customer's Service.
Thankfully some honest employee had found the iPad while retrieving carts and
turned it in. When we asked for it, the bored-looking worker went into the back
room and brought it out.
"What's the background picture?" he asked.
"Jesus Christ, sir," Elder Dedrick
replied. The other people waiting in line cheered.
And it was one of those moments when it's amazing being a
missionary.
***
I could tell you more about what I did this week, but I
would rather share my testimony as a result of something that happened. You may
consider it overly dramatic, but such are the thoughts that came to my heart.
As our very last stop of the night before going home one
day, Elder Dedrick and I went to go visit a certain household. As we
pulled up near to the door, we heard two people screaming at each other at the
top of their lungs. Literally every other word was an obscenity. We stood there
for a minute or two, listening, and I must admit that it made me afraid to
listen to it. For whatever reasons, we didn't knock on the door, and after a
while we pulled away from the house.
Elder Dedrick was ready to go home, but I could not. I
had a bad feeling in my heart and I couldn't end the night on that note. I
motioned him to follow me and I walked over to a nearby streetlamp. There,
inside its little circle of light, I opened up my scriptures and read a verse
from the eighth chapter of Ether.
Before I share them, I want to say that they are the words
of Moroni. There is perhaps no other scriptural figure who has captured my
imagination as much as he has, which is probably why I talk about him so often.
He witnessed the society he grew up in grow ever more wicked and depraved. He
saw his family, friends, and fellow church members get killed and his entire
civilization get destroyed. On the run for his life because he would not deny
the Christ, he watched as the Lamanites turned inward to war against themselves
in an endless cycle of violence.
And I can see him, all alone, trying his best to finish the
monumental and difficult work before him of completing the Book of Mormon, with
all of these horrible things still fresh in his mind, writing these incredible
words:
"Wherefore, I, Moroni, am commanded to write these
things that evil may be done away, and that the time may come that Satan
may have no power upon the hearts of the children of men, but that they
may be persuaded to do good continually, that they may come unto the fountain
of all righteousness and be saved." - Ether 8:26
Maybe in his day, the bad guys had won. But far in
the future, there would be a time that the good guys would win, and evil would
be done away with, forever.
Elder Dedrick showed me a video one of our first days
together. I'd seen one like it before, so it was nothing new, but it still
brought me to tears. Here's the link for it:
When the Church was first founded, no one could have
possibly thought that it would have survived. But it did. Despite the
persecution and the death of the Prophet, it did. And led by living
prophets, it has spread, and will continue to spread, to cover the whole earth.
As I read that scripture to Elder Dedrick in the
light of the streetlamp, having just walked away from the terrible argument and
darkness going on inside the house, we had it brought to our hearts that it is
to get rid of things like that that the Lord has sent out
missionaries in this, the last dispensation. The Book of Mormon was
written and protected so that, thousands of years later, it could be our weapon
in the great battle for the happiness of mankind. No longer are the members of
the Church on the run; now they are advancing. No longer is the Church
dwindling; now it is growing. This is the day when the good guys will
win. This is the time when the filth, the war, and the broken
families will finally be gone. This is the age when the Master will
return and evil will be defeated forever. And we get to be a part of it.
The Work is true. It is my honor to be serve, so that evil
may be done away, and that the time may come that Satan may have no power upon
the hearts of the children of men, but that they may come unto Christ and be saved.
Hurrah for Israel!
Elder Fisher
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