The Holy Ghost at Work

The Promises of the Holy Ghost

I was thinking this morning about the promises of the Holy Ghost and how they have come to pass while we have been serving as the mission nurse and member/leader support missionaries.

Nehemiah 9:20 “Thou gavest also thy good spirit to instruct them…”

When we were in the MTC and Mission training we learned so much about what the Lord wanted us to do as missionaries.  We learned the purpose of missionary work was to “Invite other to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and his Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the End.”  There were lots of instructions given.  The Holy Ghost helped us to understand the message we are to share and how to share it.  Armed with all that knowledge I wondered how we would be able to get it done.  After all, we are old.  Here are two scriptures whose message burned into my soul when we read them together.

Isaiah 40:28-31 “Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?  There is no searching of his understanding.

 He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.

 Even the youths all faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall;

 But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

Matthew 4:18-20  “And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishers.

And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.

And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.”

The Holy Ghost taught me through these scriptures that the Lord would be with me and give me the power to do the things I had to do.  I prepare myself spiritually, mentally and physically. Then all I have to is go and follow him.  He will make of me what he needs.

At the Medical training in Salt Lake the next week, this scripture added to my understanding of why it was so important to have my body and mind ready to serve and the importance of having the Holy Ghost as my constant companion.  This scripture took on a whole new meaning….

“What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?”  1 Corinthians 6:19

We as a church have built  lovely temples for Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ all over the world that we can go in and worship.  But where is the temple to the Holy Ghost?  According to this scripture it is our body.  We are the temple of the Holy Ghost and as such must keep ourselves worthy to have him dwell with us just as Heavenly Father promises when we are baptized and partake of the sacrament.  My assignment as mission nurse is to help the missionaries understand that keeping their bodies healthy is part of keeping the Holy Ghost with them so they can be good effective missionaries.  Missionaries maintain and preserve temples of the Holy Ghost as they share the gospel with others.

John 14:26 “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”

There are three promises here.  Comforter.  I felt his comfort even before we left.  Every time I would get panicked about leaving all the family and the familiar surroundings, all the things I love, a wonderful feeling of peace and comfort would come over me.  Even now I am here the same things occurs when I get worried about those I love at home.  I have not been “homesick”.  It took me two years to feel like Vancouver was home when we left Farmington, but I have not had those feelings here.  I know it is through the Holy Ghost that I have been comforted.

Teaching all things.  I continue to learn the job I am to do.  When I picked up the phone from Elder Steed that Friday morning I wondered how in the world I would be able to remember all the training and know what to say to the missionaries who call.  It has come to me what to do.  The Holy Ghost has taught me things to say and where to go to look for the answers.  He has sent thoughts to my mind that I know were not mine.  This is the Lord’s work and he is there all the way along to teach me and add to my understanding of situations, illnesses and the solution to the problems.

Bring things to your remembrance.  I have remembered things from my training that I have not thought about in years.  We had some Elders who had congestion in their lungs.  I taught them the breathing/cough technique we used to help people re-inflate their lungs and get rid of the mucous after they had been on the heart/lung machine for their open heart surgery.  Illnesses we have had in our family or friends and the treatments they have had that worked have come to my mind.  One girl called the other day with stomach pains that I knew because of what Amy went through was acid reflux.  The doctor who helps me agreed.  I received a strong witness my knowledge had come from Heavenly Father through the Holy Ghost. 

2 Nephi 32:5 “For behold, again I say unto you that if ye will enter in by the way, and receive the Holy Ghost, it will show unto you all things what ye should do.”

Henry and I were out the other day looking for people whose records we have but they have not come to church.  We were to find out if they lived there and invite them to church.  We easily found the road and a mail box with their number on it, but no dwelling.  There was an old trailer house by the mailbox, but it had a different number on it.  We drove to the end of the road.  Where we found a house that was totally creepy (Holy Ghost again warning us to not go there).  We drove back toward the mailbox with the number on it.   To the side of the mailbox was what looked like a trail that might be a road.  I said to Henry, “That is a road.”  He said, “I don’t think so.”  I drove where I thought the road was and sure enough it was a road, a jeep road, but a road nonetheless.   When we got to the bottom of the road, there was a lovely little area with a manufactured home, a RV trailer and several sheds.  We knocked on the door and a man answered.  When we told him who we were he said his wife was the member.  She was in the shower and he did not know if she would be interested or not.  We got what information we could, thanked him and were driving away when out of the house came the daughter waving us down saying her mother wanted to talk to us.  Within a few minutes out came the mother.  Sure enough she did want to talk to us and she wanted her children to be taught the gospel.

Long story short we told the sister missionaries about them and I was blessed to be able to go when they had their first teaching appointment.  The mother and father had been praying and wondering which church to have their children go to.  The mother had been married to someone else whose family are very active and had joined the church.  She had loved the gospel and church, but gotten lost with the divorce and all that had happened.  She cried almost the whole time we were teaching her.  “Tears of Joy” she called them.  She bore testimony to us of the Holy Ghost bringing to her remembrance the joy of the gospel as we talked with her. 

There is still some work to do there, but it is happening.

2 Nephi 33:1  “And Now I, Nephi cannot write all the things which were taught among my people; neither am I mighty in writing, like unto speaking; for when a man speaketh by the power of the Holy Ghost the power of the Holy Ghost carrieth it unto the hearts of the children of men.”

I went with the sisters to find a member whose sister they were teaching.  When we knocked on the door her 9 year old granddaughter answered the door.  The Lady called from inside the trailer, “Let them in.”  When we walked in she icily said, “Oh it’s missionaries.  Did my sister send you?”  She did not act too happy to have us there, but this is the south and they are nothing If not hospitable.  We began visiting with her and the subject came to scriptures.  The granddaughter said she read the Bible and loved the Psalm, The Lord is My Shepherd.  I said, “That has been written into a hymn. The sisters would like to sing it for you.”  (Surprise!)  They did not know the words, thank you LDS Library and I-phone, or the tune, but thank you Spirit they were able to wing it.  When they began to sing the Spirit filled the trailer.  The power of the Holy Ghost was brought unto the hearts of all present.  The singing was not perfect, but the spirit was.  The Grandmother and the granddaughter are now both being taught by the sisters.

Myriad are the scriptures that speak about the Holy Ghost testifying of the truthfulness of the things we are teaching.  One of my many favorites... 

 Moroni 10:4-5 “And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.”

We have been blessed to be the teachers of the new member lessons to 3 new members.  One of them is an African-American man who is 72 years old.  He was looking for a church to join when the sisters happened to walk past his house.  He had just  hung up the phone from telling his daughter he had not found a church yet. The rest is history.  It has been a witness of the power of the Holy Ghost as the old teachings of his life have been stripped away by the truths we have shared with him.  You can see the confusion turn to acceptance as the Spirit testifies to him.  He was able to get the priesthood last Sunday.  Henry ordained him to the office of a Priest.  It was a great experience for both of them.   His understanding of the priesthood, what it is and its power are being enhanced by the Spirit every time we meet.  He has gone from thinking the priesthood was something you went to college to get to having the real priesthood bestowed on him.

It is a thrill to watch the Holy Ghost in action.