Dear Family and Friends.
Well, I think it's time to accept the fact that this is my last sermon. ...
If you want to call it that.
First things first, my friends, I want you to know how much I have loved
telling you stories throughout my mission. It has given me so much joy
and helped me in recognizing just how good life is. Just how good my mission
was. Just how good the Lord is.
Ew. Using past tense about my mission is going to be hard. Bear with
me.
The Bible tells us that life has times and seasons (my 5th grade choir solo
would also suggest the same, but in a falsetto that still rings in that
elementary school's walls today.)
Ecclesiastes 3:
"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the
heaven:"
Let's talk about this chapter a little in relevance to finishing a
mission.
"A time to be born, and a time to die;" - There is a time to start
your mission, and inevitably... as missionary slang would say, "a time to
die".
"A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;" -
This could be related to two things: 1. Transfers - You settle and you unsettle
or 2. Harvesting from the white field. Whether or not we know it, we are
planting seeds all the time. The time of the harvest, or the time to pluck up,
is now.
"A time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a
time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to keep
silence, and a time to speak; a time of war, and a time of
peace. " Missionary life. All the time.
Roller-coastering.
" A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast
away;" - Finding investigators, dropping investigators..
"A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;" With
missionaries in retrospect, that one is kind of funny. Arms length,
people.
But something interesting is what comes after all these "times and seasons"
-- it's this line right here:
"What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he
laboureth?"
...Why? Why do we have all these up's and down's and back and forth's and
changes and switches and transfers and opposites?
The answer lies a few verses down:
"And also that every man should enjoy the good of all his labour, it
is the gift of God."
We work and we play and we live so that we may one day rest in the peace of
knowing we did all we could.
I suppose you could say that I am feeling a mixture of all of these "times"
and actually don't know where to categorize "a time to go home".
I feel peace in knowing that I gave it my all. I fought the good fight. My
poor body could barely keep up with my spirit sometimes. ... Almost all the
time. I feel like I've been camping for a year and a half, and as I said to my
sweet mother: "Prepare some shampoo-- I may be taking the longest shower of my
young life!"
Somehow there's something in me that is having a hard time understanding
that I really don't get to buy sticky rice off the street anymore. Or get away
with all the cultural rules I break. The "see you soon's" are a little surreal.
It's all just a little.... bittersweet.
"In light of what we know about our eternal destiny, is it any wonder that
whenever we face the bitter endings of life, they seem unacceptable to us? There
seems to be something inside of us that resists endings.
Why is this? Because we are made of the stuff of eternity. We are eternal
beings, children of the Almighty God, whose name is Endless and who promises
eternal blessings without number. Endings are not our destiny."
The same applies to missionary work. Regardless of a release, when you are
once a missionary, you are always a missionary. The change that happened in me
is indefinite and unending. Why? Because I have seen too much and felt too much
to ever reject the fact that a life of member missionary work is
essential.
If I were to write a book about my mission, it would include various
chapters of life with different lessons learned. These would be some of the
titles.
Prologue: "I am Ready Now"
1. Faith into Miracles
2. Reality of the Name Badge
3. Joseph Smith's Own Words
4. Charity Never Faileth: Church Organization
5. Wrong Roads
6. Rise
7. Above and Below the Water
8. Remember Lot's Wife
9. God's 4-Dimensional Chess
10. Choose to be Happy
11. Envision Optimism
12."Led to a Better Land"
13. The Higher Law vs. the Law of Moses
14. Because of Him
15. The Rescue
16. Lost and Found: Cornelius
Epilogue: Moroni's Weakness in Writing
I want you to know that everything I have ever written home has been true.
It's all been real. It really did happen to me.
And more than that, it really did change me. My mission changed everything.
Down to the most minute habits.
So as my last sermon requires-- I better tell you my last story. We will
call it "the Rescue". Or better yet, the "Dress-cue".
The story begins with a photo.
My companion Sister Jackson came on her mission with a picture of three
thai members that were baptized by her friend in France. She came with the
request to find them and make sure they were still okay. Two of those people, we
came to learn, were living in Asoke-- a place we never dreamed we would
land in.
I moved to Asoke for my last three weeks of my mission... for seemingly no
reason. But when Sis Jackson pulled out this picture and told me the story, I
knew we had one more big job.
We were going to find a lost Branch President.
On my mission, there have been several things I have come to learn, as you
have seen from my book of life up there. But one that stands out among the rest
is the one that I will be nurturing for the rest of my life: the Rescue.
We made plans to find this man, and when we brought the idea to our mission
leader in our branch, he looked at us in total surprise. "You want to go find
him?" As if nobody had ever wanted to take the task up.
Well, we did.
We got directions. We came to his wife's shop.... empty. Moved. Gone. We
ask an old man passing if we know who we're looking for. Oddly enough, and with
perfect timing, he does! We are led to a smaller tent, and there she was.
"Sisters! You're here!"
His wife let us in. She sat us down. It was slow warming but that evening
charity did not fail. Before we knew it, she was telling us everything.
Things people had tried to pry in the past unsuccessfully. She trusted us
because we loved her, because the spirit said her comments were safe.
We simply listened. "If any man have an ear, let him hear." She said that
all this man had needed was warmth from people who cared to come find him.
By the end of that visit, she was in tears. Determination was set. We were
going to help each other to help her husband. Faith was once more built.
We left her that night and began our walk back. We both got the distinct
prompting not 5 feet from the tent entrance as we left that we needed to return
immediately and buy two of her dresses she was selling.
....But neither of us had ANY money.
We followed it just as immediately as the inspiration came and we ran to an
ATM as fast as we could. As luck would have it, the month's money had just come
in only hours before.
We ran back. It hadn't been more than 4 minutes, and almost all of her
merchandise was being packed up. We saw the dresses-- the very last items to be
taken off her rack on the wall.
"Wait! Excuse me---" we said.
The man taking down the dresses turned. It was the Branch President, having
just arrived, not 2 minutes before.
His smile was glowing despite his confusion. His wife said, "See! They were
just here!"
Sister Jackson and I introduced ourselves. It was all very warm. We were
instant friends.
And then Sister Jackson brought out the picture. She said, "This is
you."
He took the picture and his eyes began to well up with tears as he turned
it over to see the message written on the back from the missionary who had
baptized him 7 years before:
It had their names, the date, ending with: "Please find them. I love
these people." - Elder Edwards.
Sister Jackson said, "I want you to have it."
He looked up with the most gratitude. "B-but, it's yours. ... Are you sure?
Can I? Please?"
That night I learned what it meant to immediately follow promptings. That
night I knew how precious each minute was in preparation for us to be there when
we were. But most of all-- I learned how much God values his children and will
do whatever He can, however loudly or subtlely to get there, to bring those
children back to the follow.
To bring them back home. That is, afterall, our destination in the
end.
Home.
I love you all. I will see you there.
Sister Painter
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