Getting Humbled In Yungay!

I would like to apologize in advance for the brevity of this letter, as a ''brief'' survey the mission asked us to fill out took more than 2/3 of our time and its still not done.

Wow, what a week! So much has happened, so much has changed, and so much is now being viewed in a completely different light that I feel that its a different mission now. A lot of things happened in this past week that my companion and I are still reeling just a bit, trying to prepare for the future. To sum it all up, it would definitely be described as a weeklong lesson in responsibility, humilty, and service.

To start with, I received a calling this last Sunday as the Second Counselor in the Rama of Yungay. This, combined with some fresh reminders of my missionary calling as Senior Companion, has given me a fresh view of the responsability that I have here. As servants, represantatives of Jesus Christ, we have this incredible opportunity to bless so many lives with our service. There are people being prepared every single day, all over the sectors that we work and all over the world in general, being personally led to the day when they will talk to us and see the light of the Gospel burning in our message. There is proof of this every moment of the work here, as we find new investigators and other individuals who are ready to listen to the Spirit testify. We have committed, made covenants that we will give our greatest efforts to help the work move along, which will only happen if we have our shoulders to the wheel.

Its a bit overwhelming at times. To say any less would probably be a bit of a fib. The combined responsabilities of working with less actives, the recent converts, the active members, the investigators, and those who don't quite fit on any of those lists quite yet, all just kind of build up. But it certainly is accomplishable. I have seen miraculous things.
The Lord will make His work a success if we are doing all that we can to accomplish it. Plans came through or people showed up in the exact moments that we needed them this week, and we were busier than ever. We are working harder and harder, and the work is progressing magnificently. 

One experience in particular really got to me. An investigator who is confined to his wheelchair has been struggling in the past to remove his last few doubts and make the full comitment to the church. We asked if there could be a service that we could do for him, and he admitted that there was a several times a week activity that we could do for him, but it would take a pretty hefty toll on our time during proselyting hours. We were a little wary, but the Spirit testified to us that if we accepted, we would receive many more blessings for our sacrifice. We did, and have seen that promise fulfilled in more ways than we can imagine. This last week, we found ten new investigators and taught more than 18 lessons.

In the past few months, I have seen more and more clearly that we are always trying to go at this with our own strength, in our own methods. But, when we're called to the Lord's work, we'll only find the greatest growth and success when we trust in Him and His ways. This struck very hard this last week, and really humbled my companion and I, who had been particualarly set in our ways about lessons and how we treat investigators. We had gotten very comfortable with a certain one-size-fits-all methodology, and made plans and goals based on what was easiest for us, even if we didn't realize thats what we were doing at the time. During a family home evening, a less active sister asked us plainly and clearly why we weren't doing for her investigator husband what her missionaries did for her, namely daily visits or calls and lots of personal attention, rather than general lessons and visits. 

It knocked us back a step, because she was clearly in the right. We hadn't been doing all that we could for that man, as an individual. We talk a lot about the many things we need to do, but we forget that the work is not with the multitude, but with the one. We are teaching individuals, who individually need our greatest work and attention. 

We simply can't accomplish this without Heavenly Father and a host of His servants. A great aid especially to me has been my fantastic companion, Elder Moore. This kind Canadian has been an incredible inspirtation for me with his plain and simple and powerful love and testimony. He truly devotes his all to the work, and leaves it all in the hands of Heavenly Father. I sometimes feel that he is teaching me more than I could ever teach him, even though I'm his senior comp. Heavenly Father has been very kind in pairing me up with Elder Moore. (P.S. He is essentially a long lost twin to one of my best friends from home, Craig Hendricks. It is awesome.)

Service, service, service. We talk about it all the time, and especially the need for it for these people. Missions are a service, as are individual callings. We share the scripture of being in the service of God and our fellow man, but do we really understand this term? I didn't, and I still have a lot to learn about it.
Service is charity. It is the pure love of God in action, and shows our willingness to sacrifice of our own self and put the needs of another first. Whether it be in time, money, or labors, our service will bring down the blessings of heaven on others and on our own heads as well. The Savior, who lived a life of devoted service to the people of Judea and through His later actions to the whole world, taught it the best in one of His final and most important teachings to His 12 Apostles. There is no individual that is too great to serve. In fact, one of the things that makes an individual great is his willingness to serve. 

Oh, how we need this in our lives! We focus so much on us, what we need to change, what we need to do, what is in our way, what is to be done by us, and what will be the end result for us. But when we change that us to them, when we focus on the needs and lives of others, our live takes on a whole new vivid vibrancy. There is far more joy in this journey, and far more love to be felt and blessings to be given. It amazes me how much we gain from serving others. The scriptures and lives of heroic individuals and God-like men and women are rife with examples of this simple principle.

I testify of these things for I have seen them all in my life. We have a grand responsability in our lives to bless the lives of others, but we do not have to be overwhelmed. God has prepared, and will always prepare the way for us to tread. Sometimes it is a bit harder than we first thought, but when we turn to Him in humility, we will overcome all that is in our ways. Our grandest responsability is to serve our fellow man, to bless the life of another, and do so through the incredible blessings only available in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When we do so, our lives will be so greatly enriched, we will not even begin to think that the sacrifice outweighed the reward. Remember, that the worth of even one soul is greater than all else in the sight of God. I share these things in the name of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.

With love,
Elder Richardson