Light and Truth

One of the greatest, yet hardest, times of my life was a number of years ago while serving as a full-time missionary in the state of New York. This concoction, of course, provided for many learning moments orchestrated through divine design. One of the things I learned almost immediately upon entering the mission field was the important and irreplaceable role of the ward mission leader. It was rather obvious from the perspective of a full-time missionary that there was very little we could do to help strengthen each church unit if there wasn't a local member whose primary role was to serve as a connection between us and the rest of the church members there. As I served in Middletown, the Bronx, Manhattan, and the West Point military academy I was richly blessed to always have very kind and diligent ward mission leaders who helped in man y uncountable ways. Having rarely even heard of this role prior to being a missionary, I got very good first examples of fulfilling such a calling...

At the beginning of the year 2013 I was serving as a full-time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in The Bronx of New York City. As most people who serve in the capacity of a full-time missionary soon find out, it can be quite challenging almost all the time. The particular difficulty that my teaching companion and I faced at this time was retaining the religious investigators we found. It seemed as if no matter how much effort we put forth to pray for, stay in contact with, and prepare to teach the people who initially were interested in the restored gospel, it didn't seem to work. Within three weeks after initial contact, most of them would either not respond to phone calls nor texts, tell us they no longer had time to continue investigating, or inform us that they were no longer interested. Of course, this is nothing unusual as a missionary. And fortunately, I had learned at this point how to deal with disappointments like these. At this same time ...

In December of 2013 I returned home after two years of being a full-time missionary, most of that time spent in New York. And after the wonderful time I had for those two years of sharing the Lord's restored gospel with as many people as possible, I had full intentions to continue doing so. Little did I realize that in my very first week of attending the young single adult ward, I would be called to be a ward missionary. I was very excited for this, as it was right in line with my determination to continue spreading the gospel. But I came to learn very quickly that this would be much harder than when I was a full-time missionary. At the same time, I needed to start going to school again. I had chosen to go to The University of Utah and pursue a double-major in mathematics and physics, which was at least as much work as it probably sounds like it would be. I also had almost no money, and therefore needed to work. Fortunately, my brother Tayson found me a job at the same place he t...