Consistency in our desires

October 6, 2013

Elder Ford is going home this week, so I'll have a new companion in a few days. It's crazy thinking that I'm next. I've thought a lot about the type of person I want to be when I return. What type of better person I can be for the rest of my life. There is so much I can do to contribute to the building up of God's kingdom, and I think that has a lot to do with how I decide to live the rest of my life.

And I can testify to the power of member missionary work. This week was pretty slow in Victoria II, our every day branch, and so we figured we'd be pretty low in our goals at the end of the week. Until we went to Peninsula 3rd Branch for Sunday. Zeny, who was baptized last week and who I had the opportunity to confirm this week, brought 3 friends with her to church. THREE. Single-handedly. And then another member, Sister Eunice, not only brought back one of her referrals from a few weeks before who is now reading and loving the Book of Mormon, but also 2 more friends. Then two other members came up to us later introducing us to the friend that they brought, saying it was their first time at church. If the math isn't quite clear yet, that totals out to be 8 people at church yesterday without us doing ANYTHING. Needless to say, we reached our goals. However, I should make it clear that I don't believe those blessings came because Elder Ford and I sat around and waited for it to happen. I know that God sees the work, hears the prayers and knows the burdens of every one of His servants. Our obedience and consistency in calling upon the Lord directly influenced the blessings that we received.

Liza was baptized this week. She's faced a lot of challenges here in Hong Kong, and it was a blessing for her to finally enter the waters of baptism and be confirmed a member of the Lord's true church. Her faith has been inspiring. She always says that she'll never lose her faith in God, no matter what happens.

I know that there is power in consistency. I've noticed on my mission that every time I pursue any righteous desire or attempt to increase my faith, it seems that I am suddenly faced with greater opposition of some form. Whenever a force for good begins to grow stronger, Satan will always push back. That is the nature of things, and I've learned that countless times from my own experience. The key is that we trust in the Lord, make sure that our desires are righteous, and remain consistent in pursuing them even when we can't see exactly how things are going to turn out. But that's what faith is, right? "A hope for things which are not seen, which are true." (Alma 32:21). I've told you all about our recent convert, Myla, who has been so filled with faith ever since her baptism. Her husband, Rene, up until now, had always been pretty resistant to us missionaries. I decided after meeting him that I really wanted to teach him the gospel, and to teach their family. I've been praying to find and teach families my entire mission. So I've been praying specifically for Rene and Myla every single day. They are currently travelling in the Philippines for the next month, and the members yesterday said that Rene attended church with his wife there. Coincidence?

We must remain consistent and true to the desires of our hearts in order to warrant the powers of Heaven to bless our efforts. If we give up at the first sign of opposition, then I believe we can reasonably conclude our either our desire isn't true, or we don't have enough faith in God. And the best times to build our faith are in the quiet moments, when everything is going fine, and when the opposition is at its trough. Our faith isn't meant to be built by the test, it's meant to be used during the test. So do your homework, and be consistent.

I love God's work.

Elder Hazen

Open your mouths, and they shall be filled

From: Garrett Hazen 
Date: Sun, Sep 29, 2013 at 9:56 PM
Subject: Open your mouths, and they shall be filled

A busy week this week! 2 of our 3 scheduled baptisms this week went through, and one is postponed for this coming week because her employer didn't let her out. Lea Galima and Zeny Bacolbas are washed clean successfully, and they are each so happy how much the Lord has blessed them and guided them in finding the true restored church.

 

This morning I conducted my first baptismal interview to a chinese man from Tseung Kwan O. He's 25 and has a lot of faith, he's read the Book of Mormon all the way through and is in 2 Nephi for the second time already. That's about as much as he really had to say in my book to know that he was ready to be baptized. I found it interesting that he said at first he didn't really understand what he was reading, but as he kept reading and thinking about life's questions in context of what he read, he began to find answers throughout the stories and examples of the faithful throughout the Book of Mormon. He said that as he found personal answers to his own questions about life, his relationship with his family began to improve and he began to be happier. I told him that the Book of Mormon was the key to retaining his testimony of the Gospel for the rest of his life, and to never stop reading it. The world will throw anything and everything at us to try and convince us that Joseph Smith wasn't a prophet or that God doesn't exist or care about us, but I testify with Elder Holland that they cannot do so without climbing over, under or around the Book of Mormon. That book is from God and there is nowhere else it could have been conceived or written except by His power.

 

Mom, sorry, I didn't get a computer that has a USB, so I can't send any photos this week.

 

There's always so many things I could say to all of you, and discerning the best thing to share from the week for me is always a relatively tedious experience. Sometimes I just want to extract something deeply profound out of all my experiences and bear down in pure testimony and cause the earth to shake or something cool, but any time I consider that my mind goes blank. And that for good reason. The Lord expects us to open our mouths before they become filled. This week Elder Ford and I taught several lessons where I felt that the Lord enabled us to teach with great power and authority, especially to a certain investigator who was having issues in being faithful to a spouse. This work has to be done by faith and by the Spirit, because there's no way in any other work that a couple of 20 year olds with little life experience can face a woman, broken down in pitiful agony because of the guilt she feels from sin and wrong choices, and speak with such power that she can leave with a greater determination to change and to repent. We just opened the Book of Mormon and answered the questions of the soul to our Investigators, and the Lord has been with us and has filled our mouths and our hearts.

 

I was also blessed to confirm 3 members of the church this week, including Myla who was baptized two weeks ago (confirmation postponed a week because of the typhoon). It's very humbling to be a medium through which the Lord blesses His children, uniquely and differently according to their own needs and concerns.

 

I testify that this is God's work, and I am so blessed to be a part of it.

 

Elder Hazen

Hold Steadfast to what you know

September 22, 2013

We got typhoon'd yesterday, so Z.'s baptism will be postponed until next week. Tomorrow I'll have my first baptism in International that I personally found and pulled back to the church - L. She's super smart and a very thoughtful person. She grew up a Catholic and has a very strong relationship with her family, especially her mother. Her father passed away from cancer a few years ago, and she grew very close to her mother as they struggled through the family loss. She was always very strong in her religion and her family is rooted deep in Catholicism, but after reading the Book of Mormon thoroughly, sincerely, and every day like she promised, she gained a testimony for herself that it was true. When we finished teaching her the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we asked her if she believed everything she'd been taught, and she said, "Yeah of course I do, why do you think I keep coming here? This would all be a big joke if it weren't true." Ain't that the truth. Life would be a pretty big joke if all this weren't true. When L. told her mother she'd been meeting with us here in Hong Kong, she asked her how she felt about her being baptized. Her mother responded that if it were up to her, she'd say no, but she'd give Lea the choice to choose for herself if it was God's will that she get baptized. Lea passed her interview the following week, trusting that the Lord had answered her prayer that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I'm so excited for her.

I got a lot of emails today filled with long awaited updates from good friends and family. Thank you to all of you who wrote to me and shared with me your thoughts and the news, good and bad. Things seem so different from the way they used to be, especially because of the new lens of perspective my mission has given me to wear. I feel like I've learned so much, but one of the biggest things I've seemed to learn is just how little I really know or understand. My experiences, my emotions, my desires and my prayers all seem to point back to the basics, that God is there, He is wary of all of us, we are His children, Jesus Christ is the Savior, and we have a lot to do to learn and grow and make it back to Them. For those who struggle with their testimonies or their faith, do not be deceived because wickedness seems to be prevailing. The key to pulling the plug on that deceptive device is by expressing sincere gratitude to God for the things that are good -- and I testify with all my heart that this world has a lot more good working in it than it has evil, no matter what your television or local newspaper would have you believe. The things to be grateful for far outweigh the things to be depressed about.

The Spirit is real, my friends and family. If any of you think that I or any other sincere missionary say the things we do simply because we're too drawn out from the world and sheltered from reality, let me speak for myself at least and say that doubt, fear, and struggling with faith is just as hard or harder for me as for anyone else. Missionaries are the targets for all the anti-Mormon, anti-God and anti-good filth that exists in this world. If we don't struggle with faith sometimes, then we never have opportunity to let it strengthen. But we must hold fast to what we do know and what the Spirit has told us. There's always going to be tolerance in this existence for an enemy to tempt us, and the very definition of resistance requires that we exert effort, and that sometimes means an exhaustive amount. But no matter how much effort the Lord requires us to exert, no matter how powerful the force of the adversary, and no matter how much you feel like you don't know, if you are motivated by love, the truth you do know will pull you through.

The Spirit gives that truth to us. So I say again and emphatically the simple truths that I do know and that unfailingly pull me through: God lives. Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and the Savior of mankind. Joseph Smith was a prophet of God because the Book of Mormon is true, and the Book of Mormon is true because God said so, and He said so in my heart by the power of the Holy Ghost. I cannot deny that.

Hold steadfast to what you know.

Elder Hazen