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.
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.
