Hey mom!
I just want
to begin by saying I read a phenomenal talk recently by C. Terry Warner, and I
strongly related to the following passage. It might be good to share. https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/c-terry-warner_honest-simple-solid-true/
Whether it is
felt in His breast or in ours, the Savior’s love can achieve what force cannot
because where force calls forth counterforce, love calls forth love. In the
human image of His divine sacrifice, we, too, can outlast and conquer
vengeance. I received a while ago a letter from a woman whose father had been
emotionally neglectful and whose husband turned out to be much the same way.
When she tried to talk about why he was distant, he said it was because she was
always angry. This angered her more, and she told him she was only angry
because of his lack of love, which made him more inclined to withdraw. They had
got themselves encircled in the bands of death and the chains of hell. She went
to the mountains alone, intent upon reading one of the contemporary self-help
books. She wrote later:
As the writer
began describing the intense need we each have for love, I began to feel more
and more deprived until I felt such a huge longing that I could barely breathe.
I decided to write all of this down for my husband to read, and enumerate the
many times I had felt emotionally deprived. I began to write furiously, to pour
it all out onto the paper. The longer I wrote, the more I began to have a
feeling come over me that what I was writing was false. The feeling continued
growing until I could no longer squelch it, and I knew intuitively that the
feeling was coming from God, that He was telling me that what I was writing was
false. “How could it be false?” I asked angrily. “I lived it. I know it was
there because I saw and felt it. How could it be false?” But the feeling became
so powerful and overwhelming that I could no longer deny it or fight against
it. So I tore up the pages I had written, threw myself down on my knees, and
began to pray, saying, “If it is false, show me how it could be false.” And
then a voice spoke to my mind and said, “If you had come unto Me, it all would
have been different.”
I was
astounded. I went to church. I read the scriptures often, I prayed pretty
regularly, I tried to obey the commandments. “What do you mean, ‘Come unto
You?’” I wondered. And then into my mind flashed pictures of me wanting to do
things my own way, of holding grudges, of not forgiving, of not loving as God
had loved us. I had wanted my husband to “pay” for my emotional suffering. I
had not let go of the past and had not loved God with all my heart. I loved my
own willful self more.
I was aghast.
I suddenly realized that I was responsible for my own suffering, for if I had
really come unto Him, as I outwardly thought I had done, it all would have been
different. As that horrible truth settled over me, I realized why the pages I
had written of my suffering had been false. I had allowed it to happen by not
truly coming unto God. That day I repented of not loving God, of not loving my
husband, of blaming, of finding fault, of thinking that others were responsible
for my misery.
I returned
home but did not mention to my husband anything of what had transpired. But I
gave up blaming, knowing that I was in large part responsible for the state of
our relationship. And I tried to come unto God with full purpose of heart. I
prayed more earnestly and listened to His Spirit. I read my scriptures and
tried to come to know Him better. Two months passed, and one morning my husband
awoke and turned to me in bed and said, “You know, we find fault too much with
each other. I am never going to find fault with my wife again.” I was
flabbergasted, for he had never admitted he had done anything wrong in our
relationship. He did stop finding fault, and he began to compliment me and show
sweet kindness. It was as if an icy glass wall between us had melted away.
Almost overnight our relationship became warm and sweet. Three years have
passed, and still it continues warmer and happier. We care deeply about one
another and share ideas and thoughts and feelings, something we had not done
for the first 16 years of marriage.
The Savior seems to say to us:
“Come unto me, and I will give you such assurance and hope and strength that
you cannot be taken hostage by anyone who seems to do you harm. I will liberate
you into love. And then you will no longer give anyone cause to resent or fear
you. Instead, they will respond to the love that I have bestowed upon you. By
abiding in me, you will do much good, bear much fruit.”
We had some various experiences recently
that weren´t too easy, and it has been difficult to find people in the area.
With one investigator we were teaching, an Adventist super focused on the Old
Testament, when we asked him to ask God if all this is true, he replied ´How
will God respond to me?!`-as if it were the most ridiculous thing in the world,
definitely not with an open here. It was at the point when I thought of when
Natalie says Ùm, bye!`haha, because he was just not progressing, and was
essentially just saying, you guys are good, and do good, but I ask that you
preach Adventist doctrine-um, no. That´s Apostasy.
We also had one person, Mateus is supposedly
his name, in potential who we thought was going to be great, said that The Book
of Mormon would change his life, was totally open to learning more, etc.-turns
out he gave false contact information-menino, he should be an actor. He outdid
all the people who lied to us in Jordao, Massaranduba, and Prazeres combined.
No easy feat, it made me lose a bit of my faith in people but also made me
appreciate the gems we find in our life of the friends, family members, and the
strangers sent on our paths that we can trust.
It made me think of this talk:https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/c-terry-warner_honest-simple-solid-true/
and this hymn:
1. Oh say, what is truth? 'Tis the fairest gem
That the riches of worlds
can produce,
And priceless the value of truth will be when
The proud monarch's
costliest diadem
Is counted but dross and refuse.
2. Yes, say, what is truth? 'Tis the
brightest prize
To which mortals or Gods can aspire.
Go search in the depths
where it glittering lies,
Or ascend in pursuit to the loftiest skies:
'Tis an
aim for the noblest desire.
3. The scepter may fall from the despot's grasp
When with winds of stern
justice, he copes.
But the pillar of truth will endure to the last,
And its
firm-rooted bulwarks outstand the rude blast
And the wreck of the fell tyrant's
hopes.
4. Then
say, what is truth? 'Tis the last and the first,
For the limits of time it
steps o'er.
Tho the heavens depart and the earth's fountains burst,
Truth, the
sum of existence, will weather the worst,
Eternal, unchanged, evermore.
A Dona Silvoneite is really progressing. She
asked for a little bit more time, in order to resolve the affairs in the local
parish, ´na maneira certa before she is baptized. She accepted a later date in
June, she really opened up to us crying, asking about authority, baptism,
eternal families, Jesus Christ, and why is it really necessary for her to be
baptized again. She calls us her ´netinhos!`-little grandsons haha, Also, we
had lunch with her and family (part member
family), and we started talking about music, In the background there were
different Brazilian people singing in English-one guy was awful, and another
girl was really good, and I commented, she managed to sing English well, and
she started to cry, saying Oh, ele falou ela conseguiou cantar bem o ingles!-
my father was musical like you!´And then told stories about his love for music,
the letters he wrote, etc. She loves to hear me play the piano in church.
Anyway, it´s quite fun teaching her with William, in her house filled with
crosses and crucifixes and pictures of Jesus suffering.
Another theme, that is pretty related to
truth, is the problem here of people thinking they can receive revelation for
their neighbor that their mother-in-law in Sao Paulo is going to die on
Good Friday, so to speak.
One recent convert who, who has had a very
fascinating, and a difficult life,
along with an incredible transformation,
told us of one time when somebody told her that they received a revelation, if
she continued smoking within the coming weeks or something she would end up in
the hospital, and another part I don´t remember. Beyond irritated, she puffed
smoke into this individual's face, and responded, If it comes from God, Éu
recebo´,/I receive it/, however, I know this is not from God, and got up and
went to knock her down, so to speak, however this individual fled the scene.
She also told us about how she didn´t live the relationships she had, not
keeping the commandments, before she ´knew the truth´, having had a Christian
background herself. She also said how in the Assembleia de Deus, she was put in
´castigo´because she could never speak in tongues (the false interpretation
that prevails here, that tongues are bizarre words that no one understands,
instead of the gift to make various peoples and cultures and languages
understand the gospel message) It was interesting that she commented, I lived
the way I did, and had all the problems I did, before Í knew the truth`, and
also commented that she needed to ´perserverar ate of fim`, that it really
doesn´t profit her or any of us to be strong in the church for 10 years and
then give it all up-it´s continual, forever.
Love, Elder Talentino
