Two Things

I guess this is a bit of a flip flop, because yesterday I walked away from skype calls with a joy that was so full I had a headache, but I also felt something odd. Kind of like the feeling when you're leaving the house and think you're forgetting something. It ate away at me. I kept asking myself what I was missing. Was it because I didn't have any success stories to share with you all on the call? No new investigators, no new baptisms or anything close to it? It felt like the biggest small talk session (from me) and the updates from you. Don't get me wrong, I was so happy. Loved every minute with you.

But I think there were 2 things that I neglected to do. I'm going to try and do some repentance and right that wrong, and maybe by next call I'll get it right.

1) I did tell you I love you, Mom, and wish you a Happy Mother's Day. But I've been thinking a lot about mothers the past few days more than the usual thinking about you, and I need to share those thoughts. 

Okay. So, because I like this story so much, I wanted to share a cool aspect of it. Back in the day, when Persia was in its prime and began the invasion of the Greek peninsula (Hellespont? my credibility is falling away as I forget details....it's been awhile..), Xerxes timed excellently his advance to be during a (week long?) religious festival which rendered all of the Greek city-states unable to mobilize in one force. The helpless situation, with the enemy reaching numbers of several hundred thousand, though at the time claimed to be in the millions, an 'innumerable host' indeed.  The obvious leader stepped forward from Lakedaemonia and led. This Leonidas, the wartime King of Sparta, assembled what they called an 'emergency 300 call up' which summons 300 of the finest (Peers?) warriors in Sparta. All know that the requirements for the call up are that those summoned have a living son to carry his name; this because their mission was simple. They were to stand and die.  They knew that the only hope that Greece had against Persia was more time. These in the call up, along with some (6,500 hoplite soldiers and their squire/slave/equipment helps) other from the other city states, making a near 7,000 total, were to go to the narrow pass, the Hot Gates of Thermopylae, and provide that time needed for the rest of Greece to mobilize.

King Leonidas, on the third or fourth day of the week-long battle, asked those Spartans still living,

"Do you know why you Spartans were chosen in this call up, this at the most important stand of our history? Why you were chosen to stand and die here?"

Answers varied and all were correct. These truly were the most willing and brave, and all had sons to keep their names and bring honor to their families. But once all had spoken, Leonidas told them the real reason why they were here, and others weren't.

"Because of your mothers, because of your women.  When we fail here, all of Greece will look to Sparta to see how to go forward. If Sparta mourns and crumbles at our loss, so too will Greece fall. But your wives and mothers will hold strong and steadfast. They are of the most noble created by the gods, their strength when we fall will be the anchor that will bring the rest of Greece together. It is because of your women that you are all here."

That is my favorite part of the story. Yes, we all know what happens. 7 days of grueling battle where the Persian armies were held off mercilessly on land and on sea.  The nobility of those Greeks who, in name of their Diety, Country, wives, children and mothers, stood and died, has been immortalized in every way. But we see that NONE of it would've happened had it not been fr their women.

In the Book of Mormon we read a similar account of mothers, those of the Stripling Warriors.  They feared not, "for they did not doubt, their mothers knew it," and they had been taught by their mothers that their God would preserve them. And it was these Stripling Warriors that provided the relief needed to win battle after battle.

And we see three instances, a least (off the top of my head, so don't quote me that it's just 3), that the Savior and Creator of the world was brought to action by mothers.  He who gave the commandment, "Honour thy father and thy mother," lived it in every way.  Jack R. Christanson says that commandment can be worded, "Bring honour to your father and mother."

And while it is obvious that everything the Savior did in His life, He did "those things which please my Father," we also see His ultimate reverence and honor for his earthly mother, and all mothers in respect for their Divine Nature and Calling.

Once upon entering the city of Nain, He saw an entourage carrying the body of the only son of a widowed mother, and He raised that boy from where he had lain, and "delivered him unto his mother."

And again, when at a wedding feast, Mary came to Jesus and said to him, "We're out of wine," and asked his help in providing more. Jesus initially tells her, "It isn't my time yet," referring, I think, to His moments of power and deliverance that were looming. She lovingly says, (paraphrasing slightly) "Dear, I'm you're Mother." And He fulfills her request, and by virtue of His power and in her honor, turns water to wine.

And finally, after the descent beneath all things in Gethsemane, and the ascent to yet another descent into the scourging chambers and the cross on Calvary, wherein He had lost so much blood that He found struggle bearing the cross he was to be nailed to, after all this, when the world trembled and shook and time stood still, He looked upon His grieving Mother, and in a way only He could understand now, cries out to His beloved disciple, (paraphrasing slightly) "Brother, behold thy Mother! Take care of her."

I won't even try to write about my mother here, I don't know how I could put into words the impact and strength in my life, or the love she has taught me.  Boyd K. Packer said, "There are few things more powerful than the prayers of a righteous mother," and to that I can attest. When I was home from my mission, I insisted on telling my mother that it was unlikely I returned back to the field before Christmas. She would gently remind me, "Jake, the Lord hears my prayers."  And what happens? I get a call one week before Christmas and the next day I'm on a plane.

With Abraham Lincoln, I say proudly, "All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother." 

2) The second thing I feel like I didn't do quite right I'll make brief here, but it is that I didn't fulfill my purpose. My purpose here is to invite others and teach them the Gospel of Jesus Christ, His doctrine of faith, repentance, baptism (or other ordinances like the sacrament), receiving and keeping the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end.

I can only do that here by bearing my testimony that I know that Jesus is the Christ, Christ being Greek for "the Anointed One" and Hebrew for "the Messiah." I know that, and I strive everyday to know Him better. Not just to know about Him, but to know Him. To push myself to my extremity and then seek His grace to make me more than I am.  I need His Atonement, everyday. I need it and partake of it more frequently on my mission, here, than I ever have before in my life. I need it's power to teach me, to change me into someone who does those things which please the Father.  I know that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God, that he restored the Preisthood to the Church that was reorganized and restored to the way it was when Christ organized it, and that by the power of God, he translated the Book of Mormon. And I know that because I have prayed and asked my loving Heavenly Father if those things are true, and by the power of the Holy Ghost I know they are. I have experimented reading the Book of Mormon everyday and finding answers to my problems in that book. I am a witness that it is the word of God, and that it works. It ALWAYS works. It has never let me down, even when I am sitting in a lesson with an investigator and an extremely difficult and emergency concern arises, and all I can do is offer a silent prayer to Father and then open the Book of Mormon to find an answer. It always works.

Chip, Simon, be good to your mother. I don't care what situations you come upon, or how strong you are or how how much you know. Don't hurt her heart, spare her pain by avoiding every appearance of evil. Be the men she has given her whole life into making you.  Don't do what is okay and right only, do those things which will please our father, and bring them honor. That is the first commandment with promise, that is how important it is.  Hannah, Arthur, be good to her too. Same invitations.

Lo and Cal, keep being the best.  You're doing it right. Learn early to make mom and dad happy, and to say your own prayers every morning and every night. Remember who you are talking to, truly you are TALKING in conversation with our Heavenly Father.

Remember who you are, and do all you can to be worthy to partake of the sacrament each week, and then to live the whole week so that the Spirit is with you. Here in Serbia, I don't ever fear the people I'm talking to or associating with, no matter how scary they look, how big they are, how many tattoos or cigarettes or profane words or yelling or anything. I really don't care in a fearful way. I'm not afraid of what happens back home anymore, either.  Am I still afraid of crocodiles and big spiders? Yes. But the only important thing I'm afraid of, and so afraid that some nights I plead and plead to the point of frustrated desperation, is that I won't have the Spirit. And I promise you, that as you seek the Spirit with desperation, you will learn to realize the power and comfort that attends when he is present. And you will come "to know His smiling face" better and better, and then will there be sunshine in our souls.

May we stand as firm as the Spartans and as reverent as the Savior in memory of our Mothers.

There, my soul is now at ease.

I love you all. I'll send some cool pictures later this afternoon from this week.

Love,

Jake