Sunday 16 June 2024

THE REALITIES OF MISSIONARY SERVICE

 


Every time I study the Book of Mormon, I come across evidences that Joseph Smith could never have written this book. I am amazed by its historical complexities, its prophecies, its textual correctness, its overwhelming spirit. I save these discoveries not to prove to me that the Book of Mormon is true, because I know that with every fibre of my being, but because it reminds me of so many truths: that Joseph Smith was a prophet, that this book is indeed the second witness of Christ and that we are so blessed to have additional scripture that enhances the Bible and makes clear so many points of Christ’s doctrine.  

Take special note in the last paragraph of how Elder F. Burton Howard of the Seventy became convinced of the validity of the Book of Mormon:

“I was reading again the twenty-sixth chapter of Alma and the story of Ammon’s mission, I read out loud, as I sometimes do, trying to put myself in the position of the characters in the book, imagining that I was saying or hearing the words, that I was there. Once more I went over the report, and, with a clarity which cannot be described and which would be difficult to comprehend by one who has not experienced it. The Spirit spoke to my soul, saying, Did you notice? Everything that happened to Ammon happened to you?

“It was a totally unexpected sentiment. It was startling in its scope; it was a thought that had never occurred to me before. I quickly reread the story. Yes, there were time when my heart had been depressed and I had thought about going home. I too had gone to a foreign land to teach the gospel to the Lamanites. I had gone forth among them, had suffered hardships, had slept on the floor, endured the cold, gone without eating. I too had traveled from house to house, knocking on doors for months at a time without being invited in, relying on the mercies of God.

“There had been other times when we had entered houses and talked to people. We had taught them on their streets and on their hills. We had even preached in other churches. I remembered the time I had been spit upon. I remembered the time when I, as a young district leader assigned by the mission president to open up a new town, had entered, with three other elders, the main square of a city that had never had missionaries before. We went into the park, sang a hymn and a crowd gathered.

“Then the lot fell on me, as district leader, to preach. I stood upon a stone bench and spoke to the people. I told the story of the restoration of the gospel, of the boy Joseph going in to the grove and the appearance of the Father and the Son to him. I remembered well a group of teenage boys, in the evening shadows, throwing rocks at us. I remembered the concern about being hit or injured by those who did not want to hear the message.

“I remembered spending time in jail while my legal right to be a missionary in a certain country was decided by the police authorities. I didn’t spend enough time in prison to compare myself to Ammon, but I still remember the feeling I had when the door was closed and I was far away from home, alone, with only the mercies of the Lord to rely on for deliverance. I remembered enduring these things with a hope that ‘we might be the means of saving some soul’ (Alma 26:30).

“And then one day as I read, the Spirit testified to me again, and the words remain with me even today: No one but a missionary could have written this story. Joseph Smith could never have known what it was like to be a missionary to the Lamanites, for no one he knew had ever done such a thing before” (“Ammon: Reflections on Faith and Testimony,” in Heroes From the Book of Mormon [1995], 124, 125)

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Ammon Before Lamoni, Artist Unknown)

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