(Happy Mother's Day or literally 'You all will be happy in our time to
praise our mothers. They are pretty much the same...)
This has been another crazy week.. Last week I set up the foundation
of what the work is like. This week, however, I want to share what we
do, or really some of the people I have had the blessing to meet. I
want to talk about faith.
The people here have so much faith, it just blows me away. Last week
was fast and testimony meeting. There were 50 something people at
church and a good amount of them shared true and powerful testimonies.
One lady stood up and among other things said, 'I know that our living
prophet is a true prophet.' Then she went to say his name, but had no
idea. This lady testified of a prophet who she knows to be of God, but
she doesn't know his name and she probably has never seen him or heard
his words in any form. How is this possible? Faith. The faith of this
lady in some tiny forgotten isle of the sea surprised me and after she
was done I immediately got up and said thank you and bore my
testimony. Such simple but pure faith.
There is another lady, Ramira (Raw mirror), we meet with relatively
often. We teach her (currently rather unfaithful) daughter. Ramira
always sits in on the lessons so I asked her to share her testimony.
She said that when the Elders first came to the island (last year)
they asked if they could have lessons with her. She had no desire to
listen, but being polite she said yes. They would extend her
commitments to pray or to go to church and she would flat out refuse
them. One day they had just invited her to church and she said 'we'll
see' and then refused to say the closing prayer. So as one of the
elders was closing she heard a voice. She looked
around and didn't see anyone. It said that these were true elders.
From that moment she believed and never has doubted. That Sunday she
got up early and walked to church getting there before the Elders and
still comes today. She then told a story about how just a few weeks
ago she was drying copra (the coconut meat that sits out under the sun
until it is dry then sold. If it gets wet it has no value). She is an
old lady and had worked all day to cut it out of the shell and put it
under the sun. As soon as she was finished it started getting cloudy
and looked like it would rain. Straight away she said a prayer that
the rain wouldn't come and destroy her copra. All of her neighbors
were scurrying to gather and protect their copra, but she felt good
after her prayer so she just watched. She was tempted to do the same,
but thought 'no, I must not doubt' so did nothing. The rain didn't
come. Her simple prayer of faith was answered. Afterwards all of her
neighbors asked her why she didn't protect her copra. She said that
she knew it wouldn't rain because she prayed and she didn't doubt the
Lord. This little lady of faith was given a miracle so she could bear
her testimony to those around her.
Last story, and by far my favorite. There is an old lady that we visit
to teach her grand children, her name is Tearabi. She and her husband
were baptized forever ago, but her husband Reui is bed ridden. He has
some disease where he can't move or sit up. He can't talk, but he can
move one arm. He is aware, but can't do much. One day we asked if
there was any thing that we could do to help her she said that she
wanted us to give a blessing to her deaf and dumb daughter and her
lame husband. She had total faith that if we blessed them they would
be healed. The husband wanted to shower and prepare himself so set up
a time for the next week, and gave the daughter then. We gave the
daughter a blessing according to the faith of her and her
grandmother's faith that little by little she would be healed. Her
daughter used to be too shy to look at us and if we said anything she
wouldn't hear. Now we call her from the road and she waves to us. She
still isn't completely healed or have the ability to speak, but she has
been healed. Her mother hasn't seen the change as much yet, but that
hasn't shaken her faith. Last week we had the opportunity to bless
Reui. We gave him a blessing that in this life or the next we would
understand the reason for this problem and that he would be stronger
and feel so much joy because of it. We said that he probably won't be
healed, but he would have the strength to take the sacrament. So
yesterday (for us) everything fell through. All of our plans for
running church crumbled with the rain. So even though we were not able
to help everyone come to church, we were now able to have the time to
bring this family the sacrament. I could feel the spirit as soon as I
entered their house. It is another one of my most tender experiences
that I've had, giving the sacrament to this family that can't come to
church to receive it. This family that still is the most faithful that
I know, even though their prayer wasn't answered in the way that they
wanted. I love this work and my time here to work for our Savior. I
know this work is true and that if we have faith we will be blessed
and always have peace in our hearts,
Love,
Elder Morley
P.S. Sorry for my poor language and writing skills, it is getting
harder the longer that I am in these islands.
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