Gideon

You will see why the title of the post later.  But first Friday the prophet spoke to the world. Does that sentence seem incredible? Miraculous? Significant? It does to me. And it was. Last week there was an announcement on fb and Instagram saying that this Friday President Nelson would

deliver a message of hope and healing. I counted down the days. 

Friday came and we were having our work “Friendsgiving” (which was super fun) when the time finally came. I left and went to my desk. A couple of my friends came too. We listened together. 

I love our prophet and I felt the power of his words. He asked us to do two things for the next 7 days. First to flood social meeting with gratitude and second to pray fervent prayers of gratitude. Prayers have power, that power brings miracles. I felt as if he was Moses holding up the staff with the serpent on it, and we were the children of Israel. It’s an easy thing to do but will we have the faith to do it and to have the miracle? 

Friday night Jess and Isaiah came over. We had dinner together with Nana and Abba and Mom and Dad. It was delicious and nice to have everyone over. Maverick is tiny and sweet and Mak is adorable and chatty. 

Today was Ethan’s first p-day. We had to go get some shots for him, something we haven’t gotten to yet in our preparations. Then Ethan went to help at the missionaries car wash. After that he and Jackson went to Jeff’s to meet up with a bunch of the boys (including Ty and Connor just home from BYU) to play basketball. After basketball (and a shower) we went to Bonefish and had another delicious dinner. I think Bonefish is one of my favorite chains. 

When we got home we sat around the table and Ethan read to us in Spanish from the BOM while we followed along in English. The spirit was strong. 

I can testify to the special spirit of the MTC. Even home

MTC. It is powerful and palpable. You can feel that this is the Lord’s work and that He loves and lifts his missionaries.

While we were driving home (I was behind the wheel) Rob read an email out-loud to the car that he got from Ethan’s mission President. He writes to all the parents (idk how often) It was long and it was amazing and again the spirit just filled the car and testified that this is God’s work. 

One thing he said was:

We continue to face issues getting new missionaries into the country and there is no apparent relief on the near-term horizon. We sent 16 missionaries back to the states and we received only one, who arrived today from Belgium. All of this is to say that our numbers will continue to drop for the foreseeable future. We will be down to 100 missionaries by year’s end and we can only hope that the borders open soon, and Spain start processing visas. This has led many of my missionaries to start speculating on which areas we will close next or if they will be pulled from their areas. 

 

So, what is a Mission President and companion to do? We see we really only have two options, hunker down, close areas and ride this one out. Unfortunately, it just isn’t in our nature to do that. So, the only other option is to figure out how to work differently. Sister Bussey and I have been feeling for some time that if we are to move the work dramatically in Spain, we have to do things very different from how we currently share the gospel. I feel very strongly that the Lord is telling me that He is going to allow this virus to remain in play until we listen, follow His lead and change things to the way he wants us to be conducting the work.

About a month ago we started working on what we are calling the “Gideon Project”. Gideon was a prophet in the Old Testament who was charged with running the Midianites and Amalekites out of their lands. He started with an army of 32,000 but the Lord told him that was too many. So, Gideon told all those who were fearful and afraid to retreat. 22,000 fell back. With an army of 10,000 the Lord still said his army was too big, so now he put them to a test. I won’t go into the details of the selection process, but his army was reduced to a mere 300 soldiers (See where this is going?). This could be an issue considering the opposition’s army “lay along the valley like grasshoppers for multitude and their camels were without number.” 

 

The Lord then changed their battle plan. Instead of spears, swords and catapults, he armed the 300 with torches, trumpets and empty pitchers. They were given explicit instructions on how and when to use these tools and the result was their battle cry, breaking of the pitchers, blowing the trumpets and flaming their torches, created confusion and fear in the camp of their enemies and they retreated out of their land, giving Gideon the victory. The takeaways from this story that apply to our situation are:          1) It isn’t the size of the army that matters. What matters is the faith and commitment of the soldiers.   2) The Lord’s “Battle Plan” is different from man’s. To succeed we must follow His plan – not ours.                  3) Fear and Doubt are not ingredients of success.                                                                                                           4) God will magnify and multiply our efforts. The miracles will come, and the victory will be ours!

These missionaries, all these young men and young women who are courageously going out into an uncertain world, to an unexpected mission, they are this small army of hand picked soldiers. 

Wow, just wow!