Church Talks
GET PREPARED FOR YOUR SENIOR MISSION
[Talk presented by John E. Enslen to Stake General Priesthood Meeting
of Montgomery Alabama Stake on Thursday evening, June 26, 2008.]
I am thankful to be among friends. I am grateful for the assignment from our stake presidency to speak. I pray that my words to you will be the Lord’s words to you. I have entitled my remarks “Get Prepared For Your Senior Mission.”
I have come to the conclusion that there will hardly be a day to pass throughout the remainder of my life in which I do not think in some significant way about Sister Enslen’s and my mission to Cambodia. The wonderful people we came to know, and grew to love, are never very far from our hearts and minds.
Whenever we arrived at our church meetinghouse for sacrament meeting, Sister Enslen and I, while still in our vehicle, were immediately surrounded, almost celebrity-like, by the members who had arrived on their bikes and motos ahead of us. We were affectionately greeted by all with bowed heads, praying hands, and the words:
“Chum rip soo-ah nung swah-cume Loak Tah nung Loak Yea.” That is the formal Cambodian greeting and means “Hello and welcome Grandfather and Grandmother.”
There I was, both a fulltime missionary and a branch president, but I was never referred to at any time as “Elder Enslen” or “President Enslen” by any of the local members of the branch. Instead, I was called “Loak Tah” or “Grandfather.”
I personally felt honored and was not bothered in the least by this unexpected practice. I never had the slightest desire to “correct” them. I hoped that the mission president would not try to retrain the people, and he never did. Heavenly Father does not insist on our referring to Him by a priesthood title. Their affectionate reference to us as “grandfather” and “grandmother” motivated us to love them like good grandparents would love their own bloodline grandchildren.
Serving as a senior missionary was the most rewarding, the most spiritual, and the most enjoyable regular service I have ever performed. When you serve your senior mission, you will have your own special experiences. Sister Mary Ellen Edmunds who has worked in the MTC, training senior missionaries for many years, has said: “[M]issionary work can add years to your life and life to your years.”
Knowing that I could someday serve a fulltime mission for the Church, and preparing for that eventual blessing, played a major role in fostering a personal desire to keep my life headed in the right direction—focused on that which is of most worth to my soul. (See D & C 15:6)
I learned many important lessons while serving my mission in Cambodia. The lasting lessons are the ones wherein the Spirit bore witness of a truth—confirming some realization that was at that very moment slapping me in the face. One of those lessons was this: Being an effective and successful missionary consists of keeping yourself clean, and then willingly being where your priesthood leader wants you to be, when he wants you to be there. The Lord himself takes care of all the rest. The Lord only needs a willing, obedient, weak, simple, warm-bodied soul. (See D & C 1:23)
After merely “showing up,” I witnessed miracle after miracle in the combination of circumstances taking place before my almost-unbelieving eyes, circumstances which were definitely not the product of the exercise of my agency. I bear testimony that the Lord is personally in the work. Time after time we witnessed remarkable events that only He could have (1) planned through His foreknowledge, and (2) brought to pass by His power.
These “Godcidences” spoke directly to our hearts, telling us that He knew we were there; He knew exactly what we needed; and He was desirous of pouring out a blessing upon those we were serving.
We in this room have much for which to be grateful. We know all too little of deprivation, too little of abstinence, too little of material poverty. We know all too much of indulgence, too much of consumption, and too much of material plenty. There are certain aspects of genuine Christian living which our Cambodian friends practice to a degree which you and I will never experience.
Many of the people in Cambodia, whom I came to deeply admire, are like the people in the following report that Elder Holland has shared:
I learned from a mission president…that one of his young sister missionaries, nearing the end of her very faithful and successful mission, said through her tears that she must return home immediately. When he inquired as to the problem, she told him that money had become so difficult for her family that to continue her support, the family had rented [out] their home and were using the rental proceeds to pay her mission expenses. For living accommodations, they had moved into a storage locker. For water, they used a neighbor’s outdoor tap and hose; and for a bathroom they went to a nearby gasoline station.
My brothers and sisters, if you have felt stirrings to engage in this work, however quiet those feelings may be, do not procrastinate the day of your service. Now is the time to prepare; now is the time to be called, the time to sacrifice. Now is the time to share your gifts and talents, and now is the time to receive God’s blessings for you and your family. ‘There is a constant need for more couple missionaries.’ (President Gordon B. Hinckley) As this workrolls forward, that need is increasing. Let us, in our richest years of experience, maturity, wisdom, and most of all, our faith, rise to meet that need as only we can.