Simple things

Today's blog comes from Jeffersonville, Indiana, home of the Census National Processing Center. I'm out here conducting training all week, and so far it has been a very favorable experience. (Especially the part where we get to drive a hot little Eclipse. Not sure how that happened.) It's nice to be doing work that doesn't involve sitting at my desk, and it's nice to know that my boss trusts me enough to teach stuff to other people. And I have downtime for the blog, another plus.

Mom wanted me to share a recent experience I had with sharing my testimony. It was followed in a very timely manner by a lesson in Relief Society about testimony, and how much power there is in the sharing of even the most simple testimony with others (thank you, President Kimball). It’s nice when the Lord uses timing to really drill home a lesson we should be learning.

Some of you may have heard about my friend and co-worker, Justin Kydd. I’ve known him for some time, and over the past few months we’ve been playing outside of work. He is very familiar with the church – he’s been playing volleyball with members of the Suitland singles ward for the past two years, and he’s taken the discussions twice. But he has a very philosophical and well-trained mind, which I think has been a crutch for him when the Spirit has tried to teach him. I imagine many promptings have been rejected because he simply hasn’t been able to find any corresponding logical thought to accompany those feelings and promptings. He claims to be atheist, which I don’t fully believe – I think he just needs to let his mind catch up to what his heart already knows. (I loaned him Mere Christianity to give him some perspectives from another who was once also a self-proclaimed atheist.)

Justin and I often engage in very deep religious discussions. I used to always be very cautious about what I said about God and spiritual things that I knew to be true, because I knew that he didn’t believe in deity or personal revelation – I’d be justifying one thing he didn’t believe by providing another. I don’t know why I was so afraid – I guess I just thought that if I stuck to the doctrine and continued to provide answers to his philosophical logic, eventually things would sink in all by themselves. One day I just decided I wasn’t going to do that anymore. I wanted to just talk to him about things I very sincerely believe. And so I did. It was the simplest religious conversation we’d ever had, and it was one of the first where I could feel the Spirit’s presence. That was the very first time I felt like he was truly affected by anything I had to say.

Justin is starting to take a greater interest in things. He is more actively pursuing answers to the questions he still has, and he is becoming more willing to give voice to his feelings and to accept that said feelings may actually be from an outside source. I don’t know how much of a turning point that conversation was for him, but it was a big one for me, because it strengthened my own testimony and reminded me of what is most important and effective in our work as member missionaries. Our testimony really is our most powerful tool in sharing the Gospel. You can discuss Gospel topics all day long, without really affecting anyone. The real thing that brings people to God is sharing your testimony and creating an environment where the Spirit can also be present to speak to them.

I think this blog is sufficiently long. I love you all.

xo

Abby