Paglilingkod means service. It's fairly universal right? from helping an old man across the street, to bringing over a casserole when someone is sick, or serving a mission. Tomato tahmahtoh right?
I guess it all depends on the service God calls you to do.
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| Well Chef Preston... |
Had I not given the workshop (referred to in my last epistle) and learned the valuable lesson I
did from analyzing this survey, I would be seriously seriously
struggling here in the office as an assistant to the President. It has
been three weeks now...since I have taught an investigator. It has been
over three weeks since I have attended a district meeting. It has been three
weeks since I have sweat from laboring in the vineyard. For me it feels
like it has been three weeks of no food. But alas, this is selfish. This
is wrong. In these past three weeks I have given six workshops in
six separate zones. I have prepared and helped the success of three
separate zone conferences that included the whole mission. I have moved
houses, I have cleaned out places, I have emergency transferred
missionaries, I have run to the medical rescue of some, I have provided service to
those who are not capable because of their current callings. From
something as small as buying fresh milk for the peeps who live in the
boonies without, to traveling 450+ miles in three days to reach the mission
and invite them to Christ and His work, it is all service. My journal is
chalk full of adventures and experiences in just three weeks time.
Things that people or other missionaries will never experience perhaps
in their lives. I have met so many people, who offer so much to those
willing to listen. I have witnessed so much more intimately the raw
potential that one person has in affecting the lives of everyone they
come in contact with. I have gained an understanding as to how the
Savior could, with tireless preaching, interact with the hundreds and
thousands he came in contact with, because it was the service He was
called to render.
Whenever someone asks me "so...how do you like being AP?" I usually
just make an uncertain face. It's impossible really to try and
describe. Especially because of the insane schedule that will free up in
the weeks to come, but as of now. I blink back my three to four hours of sleep
every night and swallow a mountain dew and ask myself that which
President Eyering so wisely said, "Choose this day, whom you will
serve." In that talk, he speaks about not being able to accomplish grand
acts of service, but rather pleading with the Lord humbly, asking for a
chance to serve in someway, in some small way, to lift another,
everyday, and taking advantage of every opportunity to serve. My father
wrote me an email exhorting me to always be on the lookout to preach,
invite, teach, and call others to repentance in order to be doubly
effective. We can only be as effective as the Lord provides us to be,
and it is up to us to fulfill that potential. I have given away books of Mormon and pamphlets to gas station workers, waiters, etc. I have no
idea what will happen. Its a one in a billion chance that I will ever hear
the fruit of that service...but that...is not why I serve. I realize
now I serve my fellow man to serve my God. To accomplish His designs,
not mine. Not my expectations, not what I want my service to be, not
what I think should or shouldn't be the most beneficial service to
mankind.
I have a very close friend who has been stricken with many
sicknesses and very very difficult areas on her mission. Two of which
were closed after her being there and then pulled out. None of it was
her fault. She was not to be of blame, and yet she would become so
frustrated. So bothered by the fact that powers outside of her control
were taking away from what she expected missionary work or rather
missionary success should be. It wasn't until recently, as she is about
to return home now, that she has passed by a mirror, and seen that even
though she came to serve others and be a servant for God; she walked
away with the greatest change, the greatest service was rendered to her,
and she will carry this throughout her life, and be able to serve those
around her for the next sixty or so years, instead of the eighteen months that God
"requested" of her. Can you see the connection with the basement?
I understand now that every calling is important, because it is
what God has called you to do. Elder Olsen told me a story of a bunch of
servants of Christ walking through life carrying the cross that God had
selected them to carry. The burdens and trials they were called to go
through. Some carried them in strength, hope, and glorying in the fact
they were given to do so much for the Lord. Others were sad, suffering,
seemingly unable to carry that which the Lord had selected for them to
bear through their life. None of these men could see the cross they
carried, and they varied in size and weight. One particular man
collapsed on the road side, and bent down on his knees and plead with the
Lord saying, "I can't carry this weight. It is to much, please Lord let
me carry a lighter cross".
God appeared and took the cross from his
shoulders and pointed to a field covered in crosses of all sizes and
instructed the man to go and select a cross to carry that he felt he was
capable of. The man passed by the larger ones, felt the medium sized
ones and decided against those to. He lifted a small cross, and decided,
that he was probably incapable of carrying that one as well. He finally
found an extra small cross, and throwing it on his shoulders, he
thanked the Lord for His mercy in letting him select a different cross,
but the Lord was confused and asked, "Did I not ask you to select a
different cross than the one I gave you?" God really is understanding of
what everyone is capable of. He knows how to help all His children in
the most effective manner. And if God feels that taking me from the
field into the office to provide another form of service here, then I
know with all my heart that this calling is fetching important, because
there is no greater work than that of crying repentance. This gives me
hope, but more specifically, it gives me desire and drive to take
advantage, not for granted, this chance I have to serve in this
capacity. And so it is and should be with a task as seemingly small as
preparing sacrament, to that of the prophet leading the church.
So when people ask, how do you feel about going AP? I rarely have
the time to explain all of this to them. Everyday is different, so I
cant really provide a good synopsis of a day to day life of an AP. Its
needless to say, it's service. The same thing I provided as a trainee in
Rosario to Zone Leader in Marinduque/Lopez. It's the same thing you
provide when you visit your neighbor, its the same thing you do when you
prepare food for others. It is the same thing you do through home
teaching, church-going, prayer, scripture study, a kind word, a sincere
smile, a helping hand. I love to serve.
called to serve is not just a missionary hymn.
with much love and sincerity,
-Elder Charles Mace
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