1/27/14 "That they might have joy"

"Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy." - 2 Nephi 2:25

Missionaries frequently come up with games to make the work more interesting on slow days. Elder Mejia and I tried one such game this past week. One of us picks a word and we have to find a way to fit that word into the conversation the next time we talk with somebody without sounding strange. Words like "dog" or "gold" are fairly easy. Words like "diabetes" are a bit harder. I'm currently two points ahead of Elder Mejia.

***

Men are, that they might have joy...

I got a little taste of what joy was like this Sunday. We had nine people that we were working with come to church from six different households, five of them being investigators. I personally have never gotten such a good turnout on my mission, but that's not the story. 

There is one man in particular, a recent convert, who I have been working on for the last 5 months. He always kept telling us that he was coming to church but just never showed up. I love him to death but after several months of this we told him that we had to move on and help other people.

This past Sunday I was talking to people at church when all of a sudden I looked down the hall, and who should I see but this tiny little man walking towards me with an enormous smile on his face. I was taken completely by surprise, like perhaps at no other time in my life. I immediately ran up to him and gave him a big hug, and, seeing as the top of his head is about an inch or two below my shoulders, I enveloped the little guy entirely.

I think, at that moment, I knew complete joy.

For the rest of church I sat next to this small older man and couldn't keep myself from grinning the whole time. It was the best feeling in the world. I was so glad that he had come, after months and months of working with him, without us even asking him to.

I'm thankful that the Lord gave me that experience because now I know what I'll be looking for in the future when I'm trying to find pure joy again.

Experience number two...

We were over at a member home for dinner. Both parents had served missions, so all four of us were swapping mission stories. We, the two elders, were entertaining their three little kids by proving to them that putting bacon on a chocolate cake can make it even more delicious. (And it was.) After the dinner we showed them the Mormon Message "Earthly Father, Heavenly Father," which is an awesome video, and it successfully reduced the mom to tears.

This sister, who is expecting her fourth child, then shared with us that the world simply doesn't understand why LDS people have so many kids. She said it was because LDS parents understand that children bring so much happiness to their life. She talked about how much she loved her children, and even then -- even after all that she does for them -- her love is nothing compared to Heavenly Father's.

***

I once asked a nonmember during a street conversation why we, humans, were on the earth. He replied, "To glorify God." I'm glad that we, as followers of the restored Gospel, understand that God has much more planned for us than His own gratification. We are here so that we might have joy.

I shared these two experiences above because they helped illustrate this principle to me this past week.

When I first went through the temple and saw my family waiting for me in the Celestial Room, I was totally happy. When I saw my friend walking toward me in the church building and I ran and embraced him, I was totally happy. But it blows my mind to think that, as happy as I was on those occasions, that feeling of love and joy is nothing compared to what our Heavenly Father feels for us -- and what He will give us.

Some people say that they go to the temple to escape the troubles of the "real world." If you think about it, however, the temple is the real world -- it's as close to heaven as we can get. This other place, where we are living now, is not really our home. Our true home is back where our Heavenly Father lives and waits for us. We can only get little snippets now and then of the happiness we fully enjoyed there.

What a wonderful day it will be, not too far away from now at all, when we will look down a light-filled hallway and see, quite to our complete surprise, the Savior standing there, waiting for us with open arms and a smiling face. Will we run to Him, I wonder? Will we fall to our knees? Will we weep? Will we sing?

What a glorious day that will be, when we finally discover what real joy is like.

I think Enos put it best:

"..And I rejoice in the day when my mortal shall put on immortality, and shall stand before him; then shall I see his face with pleasure, and he will say unto me: Come unto me, ye blessed, there is a place prepared for you in the mansions of my Father. Amen."

I love you all. Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Fisher

1/20/14 "Come unto Christ"

"Yea, come unto Christ..and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind, and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you." - Moroni 10:32

At zone conference last Thursday President Craven reversed his previous stand on checking email. We are now, again, only allowed to check our emails on Monday. No more checking during the week.

Also at this last zone conference we had all been asked to prepare a 5-minute talk about Christlike attributes using Moroni 10:32-33. President would then pick several missionaries to speak. I was asked by the assistants to sing in a musical number beforehand and then, wouldn't you know it, I was also asked to give my talk. Thankfully I'd prepared a good amount of material so I didn't make a fool of myself.

This week we had one of our investigators call us up and invite us to the Martin Luther King Jr. parade. They were going to be selling Girl Scout cookies and suggested that we set up a table to talk to people and hand out material. And we did. It was a fun finding opportunity, almost as exciting as seeing Ronald McDonald in an enormous shoe passing by us in the parade.

The Spanish elders were also there, as were the sisters. I suggested all seven of us getting in a line and marching in the parade as if we were a part of it and seeing if anybody cheered for us, but this was vetoed. Lame...

***

One thing about Elder Mejia that I'm very grateful for is that he is a good listener. He and I are able to have good conversations with each other about the gospel, about life, about the mission, about anything. I greatly appreciate this.

The Moroni 10 scripture was one such thing we talked about. We're both near the last quarter of our missions and so I was reviewing my time so far. I realized that I need to be far more grateful.

I concluded that there's about 4 kinds of mission experiences:

1) A missionary gets tons of success and their mission is a wonderful experience for them.

2) A missionary gets little success and their mission is a wonderful experience for them.

3) A missionary gets tons of success and their mission means nothing to them.

4) A missionary gets little success and their mission means nothing to them.

It's all about if you've changed or not, and change only comes through hard work and obedience. Change -- personal conversion -- is the true measure of a person's "success" on their mission. The numbers can actually mean very little when the two years are up.

So, reviewing my mission thus far, I would consider it successful because of how much I have changed. My objective now in the six months I have remaining is to change into the man I need to become by the end of my mission. It's a scary prospect, but I still have time.

I am just so grateful for all the wonderful blessings my Heavenly Father has given me while out here in North Carolina. I am amazed at what He has allowed me to become.

Love you all. Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Fisher

1/13/14 "Ask, and it shall be given unto you"

"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

"For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." --Matthew 7:7-8

One of our investigators was set to leave for Iowa to accept a job offer there. We had, of course, been praying that she would be able to progress ever since we had started teaching her. Her going out of state would prevent us from coming to see her and we were hoping that, though in a different place, she would be prompted to keep reading and meet with missionaries again once she returned.

On Thursday this investigator told us that her job offer had cancelled, so she would be staying in North Carolina for a while yet. This allowed us to continue teaching her and get her to church.

Essentially: we prayed her job away.

These sorts of things sometimes happen with missionaries.

So we often have to be careful what sort of blessings we call down on people when we pray.

***

This week had a lot of extreme weather that made working on bicycles difficult. There were times when we simply had to just call it a day and wait for things to clear up or get warmer. On Saturday we got caught out in such heavy rain that we had to take cover for about an hour until it calmed down enough to resume biking. I don't mind rain that much, though.

***

The best stories about this week actually came from church this past Sunday. The woman I delivered the Book of Mormon to last week came to church and got swarmed by members, who did such a great job of welcoming her that she had a wonderful experience. It also helped that all of the speakers in sacrament meeting did a fantastic job.

For a missionary, Sunday is Game Day. And you really hope that your investigators show up for the game and that your team, the members, do a good job. Fast Sundays are a terror for missionaries.

The story I'd like to share was a story by one of the members, a convert to the church in his adulthood and with an incredible conversion experience. Growing up in New York years ago without a father, as a teenager he dropped out of school and joined a gang. One day a group of his friends got killed in a drive-by shooting by a rival gang. 

When all that his "friends" wanted to do in response to the shooting was get the other gang back, this youth realized that he didn't really want to be a part of the gang life anymore and got out of it. He made new friends with a better crowd and started working harder in school.

Once, at a party with these non-LDS friends of his, they stopped in the middle of what they were doing to have a short Bible study and read the Sermon on the Mount. This member explained that it was the first time in his life that he had ever heard the words of Jesus Christ, and he immediately knew that the man who was speaking had to be the Son of God and that he must become a Christian. So deep was the impression this event had on him that he later studied to be a minister and, years later, came into contact with LDS missionaries, joined the Church, and served a mission.

It was incredible to see this well-spoken, well-mannered and well-dressed man tell such an incredible story. His actual conversion story is possibly even cooler, but there is no time to tell it here...

One of the things that the Savior taught in the Sermon on the Mount was that if we ask in prayer, we will receive. I know that this promise is true. Just be careful that you don't pray down some intense blessings on people.

I love you all. Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Fisher

1/6/14 "Shafts in the whirlwind"

"...When the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall."

- Helaman 5:12

Missionary info for the uninitiated:

Each missionary companionship is assigned an "area," generally a ward's geographic boundaries. (Though when I was in Pineville, I got the eastern half of my ward and the Zone Leaders got the western half. And the car.) A minimum of three areas is generally grouped as a "district," sometimes more, and a "zone" corresponds to a stake. My zone has about 30 missionaries in the about thirteen wards and branches of the High Point stake.

So, I am in the same district as the sister missionaries of the Lakefield ward, usually referred to just as "the sisters," and the Gate City Spanish branch elders, referred to by me as "Spanish," "The Spaniards" or "The Conquistadors," to make a district of 7 missionaries among three companionships. We all go to the same church building on Sunday.

Our district is what we call a "tri-share," which means we all share two cars among three companionships. We each get a car for two weeks and are on bikes for one week. Last week the Lakefield Elders, which areElder Mejia and myself, were on bikes.

Every once and so often we get a text message from Higher Up which has a referral from Mormon.org, meaning that someone had gone on the website and requested something, like a Book of Mormon, a Bible, or a missionary visit. It is then our duty to contact that person within twenty-four hours.

***

On Thursday we got one such referral, a person asking for a Book of Mormon. I checked the address and discovered that it was eight miles away, which is a decent bike ride there and back but nothing too major.

We looked out the window to see a sky overcast with light grey clouds.

Elder Mejia: "Do you think it's going to rain today, Elder?"

Elder Fisher: "Nah, I don't think so. Wrong color of clouds."

...Five hours later, after one lesson and three-and-a-half hours of biking in the pouring rain, we returned home, badly needing a new change of clothes and pretty confident that we had earned our salt that day.

It is at times like these that one just breaks down and makes himself a double-decker Nutella sandwich.

Thankfully it was a pretty good lesson which we had with the woman who wanted the Book of Mormon. She was extremely impressed that we would bike that far for that long in that kind of weather just to deliver a book to her. She'd darn well better read the blasted thing.

***

We realized this week that the majority of people we are actively teaching are either Spanish or have Spanish family members. So, after thinking this through and considering what would be best for the investigators, we had to man up and hand over about 11 people to los Conquistadores, reducing our teaching pool to a grand total of 1 person. Thankfully that one person isn't going to go anywhere anytime soon...

Finally, I wish to inform you that one of my favorite things about North Carolina is that it gets very foggy here. We've had thick fog almost all day every day the whole time we've been on bikes. I think it's the coolest thing ever. My imagination has a field-day with it.

Love you all. The Church is true. Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Fisher

12/30/13 "Things I have learned on my mission"

"Yea, and as often as my people repent will I forgive them their trespasses against me." - Mosiah 26:30

In case you didn't notice, #72 does not exist. This was because we had to skip off to a Christmas devotional last Monday which caused me to miss my email time.

Just so you know...missionaries are now allowed to read their email on days other than Monday, but we cannot respond to our emails besides Preparation Day. So, please, send me all the email you want, whenever you want. I love to hear how you are doing.

While in the Skype conversation with my family on Christmas Day, I shared with them a list of things I've learned while on my mission. I might just share them with you, in no particular order:

25 things I've learned on my mission:

1. Elders can go anywhere. We can go in the most hood of hood places, where other people would get mugged and cops would only go when in force, and not get touched. 'Cuz we's Jesus people.

2. Family is so so important. I cannot stress enough just how important it is to have a husband and wife married to each other to raise their kids. No other form of relationship between men, women, and children works. It is crucial to have a man and a woman who love each other and respect each other, working together to nurture the kids. SO important.

3. Priesthood power is real. I have complete confidence in the power of a priesthood blessing. I am always certain that they will help a person who is in need. Faith + missionary mantle = miracle, every time.

4. Mormons really stand out in the world. No, really, we stick out like a sore thumb. And I'm referring to the general members of the church here, not missionaries. There have been numerous times where I've accidentally knocked into members that I've never met before, and I'm usually able to tell within seconds that they're LDS -- assuming that they don't immediately say "Oh, hello, Elders!" or something like that. But Mormons really are set apart from the world, in how we act, help others, and live our lives. People generally trust us and are impressed with us, even if they might think we're weird and may be afraid we'll try to convert them.

5. Miracles don't have to be big to be miracles. When people think of a miracle, they might think of an incredible healing or a check for $10,000 showing up out of nowhere after one pays his tithing. But this does not have to be the case. A missionary knows the thousands of little things that go wrong or get changed throughout the week that end up getting him in the right place at the right time with the right experiences under his belt to make a difference.

6. Everyone is a child of God. Some of the most profound conversations I've had my entire mission have been talking with drug-dealers on a rickety front porch. All of these people are children of God. All of them have the Light of Christ inside of them, urging them to do God. He loves them just as much as He loves us, the faithful members. He goes to great lengths to get us to meet them, so that they have an opportunity to accept the Gospel and come home.

7. The Holy Ghost does all the converting. At the end of the day, if someone ends up joining the Church it is not because of anything the missionaries did. It is the Holy Ghost. People get converted because they choose to do so. Therefore, I don't have anything to boast about if they are making the right choices.

8. Nothing is certain. Even the seemingly most prepared individuals can drop off the face of the map. Even the most vile and disgusting of people can change. So many times I have been humbled because someone I thought for certain would not keep their commitments actually did.

9. Little things over a long time cause big things to happen. It is the little acts of kindness and persistent obedience that change us into children of Christ. Conversion does not come through one glorious experience, or in leaps and bounds -- it is a gradual growth, a lifelong process. Investigators do not become converted in a day.

10. God always rewards obedience. I have never had a 9:28 PM last-door-of-the-night experience, but that doesn't mean that God did not reward my obedience. It is a law of heaven: whenever we are obedient, we will be blessed. Those blessingswill come. We may be blessed in ways we would not expect as a result of things we did.

11. Teachability is the greatest virtue. I've come to believe that humility is where everything starts. If we are humble, and accept the truth presented to us, we can have faith. Faith leads to repentance. Repentance leads to sanctification. Repentances leads us to God.

(Wow...unintentionally ended up sounding like Yoda there.)

12. Members are awesome. Your missionaries love you. There seems to be no limit to what members are willing to do for missionaries. They, the "rank and file" members of the Church, are some of my greatest heroes.

I repeat: the greatest heroes of the church are the thousands of people who quietly go along, faithfully serving. The Church could not survive without all of these wonderful people.

13. Gratitude and thoughtfulness = awesomeness. Members are awesome because they love missionaries. They will love missionaries no matter what they do. Therefore, it is important to be thankful. Members really appreciate gratitude and thoughtfulness.

14. Some things are not worth arguing about...but some things are. There are things your companion does where it's just not worth the trouble trying to change it. But then again, there are times where you simply have to draw the line. The Spirit (and the mission president) can help you know where to draw that line.

15. Sometimes you do things just on principle. There are times on a mission where it seems like the Lord is testing you. It's pouring down rain and you just know that nobody's going to be home and nobody's going to listen. Do you go out and work, or stay home? Sometimes...you just do things for the principle of the thing. That's a sub-branch of the thing we call "faith."

16. Greater boldness, greater success. The more we open our mouth, the more opposition we might face, but the more success we will have.

17. People can and will feel the truth if only they're willing to try it. I completely rely on Moroni's promise. I am 100% certain that if people will simply read the Book with a halfway-open heart, they will know that it is true. They don't even have to read the whole thing. I firmly believe that if someone doesn't get a testimony of the Book of Mormon, they haven't read it. Moroni's promise works.

18. Tracting does not work. It just doesn't. I can give you several thousand examples of why.

19. Some people just won't accept the Gospel in this life. It's not that they're evil or that you're a bad missionary. Some people are just too good or too lazy to be able to receive the Gospel in this life. Such people you might just have to leave for Alma and Amulek in the Spirit World.

20. Leaving a good impression is often more important than getting in a door. Some people won't accept the Gospel the first time it comes knocking on their door. But leaving a good impression and helping them feel the Spirit can make sure that there's a second or a third time.

21. By their fruits ye shall know them. Words mean very little. People can say all they want about how touched they are or how excited they are to be baptized...but at the end of the day, what really shows their faith is if they keep the commitments.

22. You can relate anything to anything. Literally anything can be tied to the Gospel. Anything can be used as an object lesson. I have had so many strange parables and comparisons on my mission, trying to find a way to relate a concept to somebody.

23. It's better to leave with the Spirit than defend your position without it. Some people are jerks and mock what you hold sacred. There are times were it's simply better to let them get the last word and leave with the Spirit then defend your point but cause contention. I have had both experiences on my mission.

24. The Lord's way is to forgive. Always. I have come to know that the Lord's capacity to forgive is infinite. Mercy isalways extended on the condition of repentance. Because the Lord will always forgive, we must always forgive.

25. The Atonement is real. It is not some abstract concept we always talk about in Church and Sunday school. It is a real force with real power. I have had the privilege to see it work in other's lives all throughout my mission.

I love you all and wish you a happy New Year! Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Fisher

12/16/13 "Eye to eye"

"Yea, Lord, thy watchmen shall lift up their voice; with the voice together shall they sing; for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion." - Mosiah 15:29

This last week we finally got our iPads. During the training President Craven shared the scripture that is the title of this email and said that, by using iPads in these latter-days -- and Skype/Facetime -- we are now, indeed, able to talk eye-to-eye with people all over the world.

Mind blown.

Having never particularly been gifted in the technology department, the iPads have been a bit confusing for me to use at times. But when someone asks you why you don't believe in the Trinity, it is extremely handy to be able to readily whip out Elder Holland's thoughts on the subject.

iPads also allow us to check Facebook more frequently, not have to wait for library computers to open, and make it so that we don't have to bring scriptures and Preach My Gospel to meetings anymore. My man-purse is much lighter to carry now.

The only hitch is that we now must go through the process of taking the papers in our Area Book and putting them into the iPad's Area Book, a process which will continue to go on for the next few weeks. There are times when I'd much rather just write things down on paper.

***

We were in a lesson with an investigator who asked us why we needed the Book of Mormon. As this was a family we were teaching, I came up with an analogy that I will share with you.

When a couple gets married, they are happy just the two of them and don't feel a need for anything else. Then they have a child. Having the child teaches them things they didn't know before and brings them greater joy than they had just the two of them. But again, they don't feel a pressing need for a second child. When the second child comes, they again receive greater knowledge and increased happiness. The arrival of a second child doesn't make them love the first any less.

Finally, in a family with multiple children, it is clear that the parents love all of the kids equally. They were definitely happy just the two of them, and later they were happy with one kid. Nevertheless, they have experienced the greatest joy with multiple children and would not give any of them away. They are also much wiser than they were at the beginning.

Compare this to scripture. People are indeed happy with the Bible and learn a lot from it. They may feel that they don't need anything more. But God has given us another testament, the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon gives us increased knowledge and love of God, but does not cause us to respect the Bible any less than we did. 

Perhaps in those early days of the Church people were happy with just the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Getting the Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price does not make those first two books any less important. Collectively, we are able to learn so much more having all of them than we ever could have learned with just one of them. This deepened knowledge brings us greater comfort and reassurance. While we were indeed happy with just the Bible, we can get so much more with modern-day revelation.

And we're still looking forward to many more great revelations that Heavenly Father will see fit to give us in the future. Modern-day prophets are awesome.

***

I am excited for another transfer here in the Lakefield ward with Elder Mejia, my first companion in a long time to last longer than a transfer. I love you all, and I love this work. Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Fisher

12/9/13 "Stille Nacht"

Our ward had planned an activity before the Christmas devotional depicting the Christmas story. Featured among the cast were two of the children of some of our investigators, one as an angel and one as a shepherd, as well as our investigator progressing towards baptism, Benton, who was also a shepherd. Perhaps the most well-cast member of all was our bishop, who donned a crown and sat upon a throne to play King Herod. I hope he doesn't get any clever ideas from it.

As for me, I sang "Silent Night" in German with Brother Skipper, one of the Wise Men. I got this on video, thankfully, and will try and get it out to you soon.

This Sunday we also saw a less-active member who we've been working with come to church for the first time in 27 years. Awesome!

***

During the course of my mission I have come to possess a small little whiteboard that I now take with me everywhere I go. I use it all the time in lessons to illustrate my point, drawing out a picture or a diagram or whatever else comes to mind. It also comes in extremely handy for those rare times where I feel sleepy in a lesson, because I can doodle on it to stay awake.

I learned rather early on that, if writing out a diagram or a list or something, it is very distracting to write the words out and then turn the whiteboard so that other people can read them. So I started just writing stuff upside-down instead so that investigators can read my words without me having to flip the board around. I've gotten quite good at writing upside-down now, the sad part being that my handwriting is actually more legible writing upside-down than it is normally.

***

We had the opportunity to go and speak with a man, who has member parents but was not a member himself, who had lost his son. He had gone into his adult son's room Thanksgiving morning and found him dead. The autopsy results have not yet come back as to how his son died. 

While we spoke with this man, who was extremely depressed and distraught, interestingly the impression came to offer a blessing, not to him, but to his other son, the younger brother of the son who died. I had the thought this son was feeling a lot of guilt about not spending as much time with his brother as he could have, so during the blessing I felt prompted to give him as much reassurance as I could that his Father in Heaven loved him. I can only pray that it helped him.

***

I've had a lot of good thoughts this past week but perhaps the one that most stood out to me was one I heard at church:

Tithing is the only commandment that we can obey fully. All the others, like "Love thy neighbor," we can always improve on, but for tithing, we can be exactly obedient. 10% faithfully, every time. How kind of Heavenly Father to give His imperfect humans something it is possible for us to perfectly obey.

Love you all. Hope you are enjoying your Christmas season. Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Fisher