Good Morning Brothers and Sisters! For those of you who
don’t know my name is Sister Elizabeth Armstrong (I have to say Sister still
because otherwise it feels weirdJ)
and I just returned from serving my mission in the Utah SLC Temple Square
Mission- surprisingly it is its own mission.
Before I continue I wanted to take just a few minutes to
share with you how things work on Temple Square. The reason being that it is
the most unique mission in the world and everyone always has questions… and
this way I can tell you all at onceJ So on Temple Square we do get the wonderful privilege of taking people on tours and teaching them the history and basic beliefs of the church. So, every tour taken on Temple Square is really what we call a walking lesson. When we are not on Temple Square giving walking lessons we have the wonderful opportunity to teach people all over the world over the phone. Yes you heard me right we teach people in Africa, Eruope, Russia, anywhere that has missionaries and we teach them over the phone. So, how do we find them? Well, there are a few ways but the ones that come to Temple Square while taking them on their walking lesson we invite them to meet with local missionaries when they get home from their vacation and if the say yes we start teaching them, over the phone, until the local missionaries get there. Once the local missionaries get there we kind of pass them off and call them weekly to give them support and to see what the missionaries taught them and if they are going to church and we continue to do this all the way to baptism. The other ways we find people is through chatting with people who come to mormon.org and taking the calls of those who call into the church and our biggest way of finding people to teach is from Member Referrals. So, as you can see there are many that are done on Temple Square and that gives you a little background as to what Temple Square is like.
Since I have been home….which has not been very long…. I have been thinking a lot of my mission and what my purpose was there but I have also been thinking about what my purpose is now and I realized that they are very much the same. The only difference is that I will not be wearing a name tag and won’t be able to be a Full time missionary, but my job and commitment as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will never change. I would like to talk a bit on what it means to be a member of this church and what are some things that will help us in that calling.
First and foremost to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints means that we are a part of the only true church of Jesus Christ on the earth. That original Church that He established when He was on the earth, the Church that Christ gave His authority to to be able to act in God’s name for the salvation of His children. Think about that for a second; you are or are wanting to be a part of the true Church of Jesus Christ. How amazing is that? To me it means everything and I would not give it up for anything.
When Christ established His church He called twelve apostles and gave them His authority so that they could help Him spread the good news of the gospel. Now when you were baptized or when you are baptized you take upon yourself the name of Chris and promise with all your heart that you will follow His example to the best of your ability, doing all you can to help others find that same path.
Well, of course we know that Christ was eventually crucified. After He was gone I think there was a lot of confusion even for the apostles as to what they should do. I would like to read to you some of Elder Holland’s talk from this last Conference entitled The First Great Commandment: This starts right after Christ dies and the apostles are discussing what they should do, Elder Holland says:
Then,
after such a short time to learn and even less time to prepare, the unthinkable
happened, the unbelievable is true. Their Lord and Master, their Counselor and
King, was crucified. His mortal ministry was over, and the struggling little
Church He had established seemed doomed to scorn and destined for extinction.
His Apostles did witness Him in His resurrected state, but that only added to
their bewilderment. As they surely must have wondered, “What do we do now?”
they turned for an answer to Peter, the senior Apostle.
Here
I ask your indulgence as I take some nonscriptural liberty in my portrayal of
this exchange. In effect, Peter said to his associates: “Brethren, it has been
a glorious three years. None of us could have imagined such a few short months
ago the miracles we have seen and the divinity we have enjoyed.
We
have talked with, prayed with, and labored with the very Son of God Himself. We
have walked with Him and wept with Him, and on the night of that horrible
ending, no one wept more bitterly than I. But that is over. He has finished His
work, and He has risen from the tomb. He has worked out His salvation and ours.
So you ask, ‘What do we do now?’ I don’t know more to tell you than to return
to your former life, rejoicing. I intend to ‘go a fishing.’” And at least six
of the ten other remaining Apostles said in agreement, “We also go with thee.”
John, who was one of them, writes, “They went forth, and entered into a ship
immediately.”3
But as they fished that evening they caught nothing and
early in the morning Christ appeared on the shore and again told them to cast
their nets on the right hand of the boat. When they realized that it was Christ
they went shore to meet Him. Peter being the first and Christ then asked him
three times if Peter loved Him. Elder Holland gives a great explanation of what
happened the third time Peter was asked:
To
which Jesus responded (and here again I acknowledge my nonscriptural
elaboration), perhaps saying something like: “Then Peter, why are you here? Why
are we back on this same shore, by these same nets, having this same
conversation? Wasn’t it obvious then and isn’t it obvious now that if I want
fish, I can get fish? What I need, Peter, are disciples—and I need them
forever. I need someone to feed my sheep and save my lambs. I need someone to preach my gospel and defend my faith. I
need someone who loves me, truly, truly loves me, and loves what our Father in
Heaven has commissioned me to do. Ours is not a feeble message. It is not a
fleeting task. It is not hapless; it is not hopeless; it is not to be consigned
to the ash heap of history. It is the work of Almighty God, and it is to change
the world. So, Peter, for the second and presumably the last time, I am asking
you to leave all this and to go teach and testify, labor and serve loyally
until the day in which they will do to you exactly what they did to me.”
Then,
turning to all the Apostles, He might well have said something like: “Were you
as foolhardy as the scribes and Pharisees? As Herod and Pilate? Did you, like
they, think that this work could be killed simply by killing me? Did you, like
they, think the cross and the nails and the tomb were the end of it all and
each could blissfully go back to being whatever you were before? Children, did
not my life and my love touch your hearts more deeply than this?”
Think
about that for a minute.
I
would like to share with you a story of a man I taught on my mission. During my
mission as part of the Temple Square mission we get the opportunity to serve in
another mission in the States for three to four months. I got the privilege of
going to San Antonio Texas for three months. There I got to meet a wonderful
man named Michael Evans. When I met him he was 69 years old, has tattoos all
down his arms, a very long beard’ long hair and earrings in both ears. But, one
day we got a call from the mission office telling us that a man had called them
and would like to meet with missionaries. Of course I immediately called him
and set up a time to meet with him the next day. When we got there the next day
we had learned that he had met with missionaries before but was never really
interested but felt like he should give it another try. Well, as time went on
we learned that Michael was a part of another faith where their job is to study
other faiths and figure out how they work and so forth. He told us that was his
intentions but I felt that there was something more. So, we invited him to
church and finally after some pushing he came. That night after church he told
us that going to church had changed his life. That he had felt something that
he was not expecting. So, our next lesson was at the Temple, he lost his wife 5
years ago and wanted to learn more about Temples. When he arrived his tattoos
were covered, his earrings were gone and so was his beard and long hair and he
also told us that he has flushed his coffee and cigarettes down the toilet.
Michael
understood Christ’s question to Peter “Do you love me? If you do keep my
commandments.” Michael knew that he had to make changes in his life because he
had received a witness that this truly was Christ’s Church he was willing to do
whatever it took to be a part of it and never look back, never go back to what
he was before.
Well,
to go on Michael committed to be baptized that day at the Temple. Later that
week we had another lesson with him and found out some interesting news. We
were talking to him about something…now mind you everyone in Texas LOVES to
talk…so Michael was going on and said something, something when I was baptized
something, something. Of course I had to stop him and ask him which church he
was baptized in and he told me he thinks he was baptized in this one. At that
moment I was a little devastated, I wanted nothing more than to see him enter
the waters of baptism and take upon him Christ’s name. Well, we checked it out
and sure enough he was baptized 32 years ago and amongst his stroke, motorcycle
accident, and his wife dying he could not remember. When we told him that he
had been baptized he said that when he met with missionaries before he was only
in it to figure out the church and how it worked but this time something
happened and he felt the Holy Spirit touch his heart.
At
that moment I understood Christ’s answer to Peter “then feed my sheep” Christ
did not call me to baptize anyone, He called me to invite others to come unto
Him and help them use His atonement.
Well,
needless to say Michael is still going to church today and preparing to go to
the Temple and before I left Texas to go back to Temple Square I got the
special privilege to see him partake of the Sacrament. I was able to see that
he had used the atonement, he had faith in the Lord and new that if he repented
of past mistakes that he could be made clean.
So,
as members or soon to be members of Christ Church we must follow Elder Holland’s
advice:
“If ye love me, keep my commandments,”14 Jesus said. So we have
neighbors to bless, children to protect, the poor to lift up, and the truth to
defend. We have wrongs to make right, truths to share, and good to do. In
short, we have a life of devoted discipleship to give in demonstrating our love
of the Lord. We can’t quit and we can’t go back. After an encounter with the
living Son of the living God, nothing is ever again to be as it was before. The
Crucifixion, Atonement, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ mark the
beginning of a Christian life, not the end of it. It was this truth, this
reality, that allowed a handful of Galilean fishermen-turned-again-Apostles
without “a single synagogue or sword”15 to leave those nets a second
time and go on to shape the history of the world in which we now live.
We must follow Christ’s command to His apostles in
Matthew 10:6-8. We have been called to a great work and the things that will
help us in that great work is to first use the Atonement we have been given to
make things right or to help us through the hurts of others. And then we must
head the counsel of the Prophets and Apostles we have been given today. It is
our privilege to have general conference every 6 months to receive guidance and
directions for our lives to help us head the command of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ to freely give and feed His sheep.
I know that this truly is His work and you don’t have to
be wearing a name tag to be a part of it. I would invite you to truly look deep
down and ask yourself why you are here, why you were baptized or why you want
to be baptized and ask yourself if you are truly ready and willing to follow
His counsel and example. I promise that if this is something you want it is not
going to be easy, because it wasn’t easy for the Savior, but I can guarantee
that it will be worth it. As conference comes listen to the words and find the message that Heavenly Father has for you and I promise you it will be there. I can promise you that because I have seen the miracles come from conference as I have served there and seen the results of wonderful people letting us call their family and friends to share this amazing gospel with them. Share story of Karen Riggs if time permits.
I would like to share a story of a miracle that came from conference. It is about a lady named Karen Riggs. So, during conference the Sisters on Temple Square do a lot of preparing for the members that will be coming to the square. We have many district meetings and zone meetings to help us learn to uplift the members. Well, my companion and I at the time it was both of our fist conference on Temple Square and so we were not really sure what was going to happen we just knew that we were going to talk to as many people as we could. We ended up talking to the man named Ephraim. As we were talking to him and getting to know him better we of course asked him if there was anyone in his life that he would like to share the gospel with. Immediately, he thought of his aunt Karen. As he was telling us about her he told us that she has never really been to fond of the church in fact she was somewhat against the church but that maybe she has changed and he felt that we should call her. So, I got the special privilege to call her and of course as it happens many times she did not answer the phone.
Now I was going through a time in my mission that I was wondering if I was making a difference with all these people who never answer the phone, am I fulfilling my purpose? Well, a sister told me that I could use the How to Begin Teaching bullet points in Preach My Gospel to leave inspiring messages. Well, I decided to leave her one of those messages. I don't remember what I said but a few days later I got a all back from her which was very exciting because no one ever calls back and if they do they usually don't want us to call them again. Well, our voicemails were not working at the time so I had no idea if she wanted me to call her again or not but I felt so strongly that I should keep calling. Well, I never got a hold of her and since we only have so many times that we can call people so they don't think we are trying to stalk them I to leave my last message.
I then called her nephew Ephraim back to let him know that I was not able to get a hold of his aunt and that she had called back once but because our voicemails weren't working I wasn't sure what she said. I then asked if he had heard anything; he then said "Sister Armstrong I thought you knew?" I was very confused and asked him if I knew what and he said "my aunt got baptized two days ago!" I started crying because I could not believe my ears and then asked for the story! He told me that he thought I knew about it because she had been telling everyone that a Sister missionary from Temple Square had called her and left her a message and because of that she wanted to meet with missionaries.
Well, I finally got the opportunity to talk with Karen and hear her side of the story. She told me that at that time she had heard of conference and decided to watch it. She knew a little about the church because most of her family are members. While she was watching conference she realized that they were all talking of Jesus Christ and that she really didn't know anything about Him and she wanted to learn about Him. So, while she was watching conference her nephew, Ephraim, was prompted to ask us to call her. Then as I called her and left that message I told her that I would teach her of Jesus Christ and that it would be the most important message she would hear in her life. That made her want to call me and see what i had to say but something happened with her phone and we could never connect. So, she decided to go and seek the missionaries on her own and 5 weeks after I called her she was baptized.
That is one big miracle that came from conference on Temple Square but I know of many more that have occurred.
I am so happy to have had the opportunity to speak to you today and I would love to leave you with my Testimony.
