Because it's such a long time between P-days this time, I'm going to post Justin's Farewell talk that he gave in Oklahoma the week before he left.
This is sort of just to have it documented, but y'all can read it if'n ya want. (I'm talkin' OK now.)
Because I am about to leave on my mission and be
representative of Jesus Christ, I thought I would focus my talk on how I can
become like Christ. In Preach my Gospel, there is an entire chapter called
Christlike Attributes that is dedicated to help missionaries become like our
Savior.
After ripping out what hair I had left trying to decide
which attributes I wanted to talk about, I finally decided on a few.
Charity and Love, Patience, and Humility.
First, Charity and
love. Well, what is Charity? In Moroni 7:47, it says…
47 But charity is the pure love of
Christ, and it endureth forever;
and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.
A few months before I graduated, I was reading the same
Charity and love section in Preach my Gospel when I decided I was going work on
being more Charitable and Loving because when I really thought about it, I was
only charitable when I had to be and I most certainly had are hard time loving
everyone. I thought that all I had to do was just not hate anyone and that
would cover it.
After I finished reading this section, I prayed to my
Heavenly Father and asked for more opportunities to love and be charitable. The
next day, I was walking home from my school during a free period I had and
noticed that one of my neighbors, who was also a member of my ward, was in his
garage working.
I stopped for a second and looked across the street at him
and then had a very distinct feeling that I should go over and help him.
Instantly I started rationalizing and coming up with all the reasons that I
should not go over there.
“Aw, come on Heavenly Father, I don’t even know him very
well!”
“It’s weird to just approach people like that and ask them
if they need help”
“I want to go home and watch TV”
Finally, after coming up with about a million reasons to not
go over there, I decided to walk over there because I had asked Heavenly Father
for an opportunity like this. Not to mention that it was probably really weird
to see a teenage boy looking intently at a man working his garage from across
the street.
So I went over and asked if he needed any help in his
garage. I then found out that he was about to install a large steel cabinet on
the wall by himself. He is an older man, around 60 with Multiple Sclerosis so
installing a heavy steel cabinet on his own seemed crazy to me.
As we were installing
the cabinet, I was able to find out a lot about him. He told me about how he
had left the church and wanted nothing to do with it for a long time. He told
me that he had an extremely spiritual experience in which he was reactivated
into the church. The spirit was very strong as we continued to talk. What would
I have done if I didn’t go help him? Probably watched tv. I would’ve have done
nothing productive at all.
But because I asked for an opportunity to love and serve
another person, I was able to get to know a good man and become more like my
Savior.
The next attribute is
Patience.
Unfortunately, I do not have a really cool story about patience,
because, more often than not, I struggle with being patient.
So what is patience?
In Preach my Gospel it says, “Patience is the capacity to
endure delay, trouble, opposition, or suffering without becoming angry,
frustrated, or anxious.”
Our beloved Prophet Thomas S Monson said, “Life is full of
difficulties, some minor and others of a more serious nature. There seems to be
an unending supply of challenges for one and all. Our problem is that we often
expect instantaneous solutions to such challenges, forgetting that frequently
the heavenly virtue of patience is required.”
I know that it really is hard to be patient sometimes. I
mean, I’m the oldest of five kids, so I know what it’s like to need to be
patient.
But our Savior is very patient with me. I know that I
probably let Him down all the time but he’s never given up on me and he never
will.
The last virtue I’m
going to talk about is Humility.
This could also be called being Humble. What does it mean to
be humble?
In Mosiah 4:11-12 it says…
11 And again I say unto you as I have said before, that as
ye have come to the knowledge of the glory of God, or if ye have known of his
goodness and have tasted of his love, and have received
aremission of your sins, which causeth such exceedingly great joy in your
souls, even so I would that ye should remember, and always retain in
remembrance, the greatness of God, and your ownnothingness, and
his goodness and long-suffering towards you, unworthy creatures, and
humble yourselves even in the depths ofhumility, calling on the name
of the Lord daily, and standingsteadfastly in the faith of that which is
to come, which was spoken by the mouth of the angel.
12 And behold, I say unto you that if ye do this ye shall
always rejoice, and be filled with the love of God, and
always retain a remission of your sins; and ye shall grow in
the knowledge of the glory of him that created you, or in the
knowledge of that which is just and true.
Ammon, one of my favorite Book of Mormon prophets, gives a
good example of being humble in Alma 26:12, which says…
12 Yea, I
know that I am nothing; as to my
strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty
miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name
forever.
When I hear that Ammon said that, he went ten notches up on
the coolness scale. We know all of the amazing things that he did! He led to
the conversion of an entire nation and he still does not think of himself as a
mighty man. He gives the glory to his Heavenly Father and his savior Jesus
Christ.
Brothers and sisters, I know I’m not like Christ. But I know
that I can try to be like Him by following His example.
(close).
He closed with his testimony and talked about how he'd be wearing Christ's name on his heart via his missionary name tag and hoped to do so with worthiness and as a true witness and example.
It was a great talk!
