Suffering – Latter-Day Saints

13 January, 2023

We are settling into our mission, learning the ropes and learning to love the people around us. There are several shops that we frequent, some of them recognize us from missionaries past, some are new friends. Even with my French language background, it is Catherine that communicates the best. They feel her friendship, her love and her enthusiasm and brighten each time she enters the shop. Our favorite is a small bakery just around the corner. When we shop, we hold off our bread purchases until we pass the shop the way home. At times, Catherine goes in for a baguette while I pop up to the apartment to unload groceries. She usually follows me in with an armful of bread, quiche and a sandwich or two.

There is a Saturday market at the corner that sells all manner of fruit, vegetables, meat and fish. I used to love the Saturday’s Market in Portland, but in recent years, it has become so commercialized with tourist trinkets and the like. I have yet to find a trinket at this market.

There is always a down side no matter where one ends up, and Catherine found an Ikea. I think the picture says it all.

Catherine has discovered the joy of French cooking and French meals. She found a Raclette on sale at the local Carrefour and we have fed investigators and missionaries alike. We cannot eat in true French style, taking three hours for a meal, but we have learned to slow down and enjoy the conversation around the table as watch those hungry missionaries devour Catherine’s cooking. Don’t worry, I am in the kitchen as well. I haven’t started up bread making, the bread here is too good and so inexpensive, but I do enjoy bouncing about our tiny kitchen with Catherine.

Next week, we are off to our first in person meeting with self-reliant specialists in Clermont-Ferrand. We are meeting with our ‘boss’ first, Momo Djemai, to go over training materials we are developing, then with the Membre’s to help plan some new self-reliance classes. As I study these programs and put together presentations to help leaders and specialists understand the courses the Church has developed, I can feel the power of the spirit that went into crafting these programs. The Lord is hastening his work in the last days, preparing his saints and seeking out the watchful.

In our last zone conference, the missionaries based their theme around the people of Alma; that the Lord did not lift their burdens when they covenanted to follow Him, but He lifted their hearts and their capacity to bear up under their ever increasing burdens with faith and joy. The missionaries have been teaching a young couple in our apartment, and after the last lesson, they had to scoot to their next appointment. This couple is going through some hardships at this time that seem to have no end. I turned to Mosiah to recount to them the faith of the People of Alma and we could see the Spirit bare powerful testimony to them that in spite of, and perhaps even because of their troubles, the Lord is mindful of every detail of their lives.

The story of the People of Alma is one of my favorite passages in the Book of Mormon. As I was reading it some years ago, I realized that in these passages, the Lord had set up, by modern standards, an excellent qualitative case study about how the Lord deals with his people based on their righteousness. I even wrote an article about it, which I posted on my website.

Most Memorable Scripture

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

The full time missionaries for our church stopped by for a visit this week. They are both new to the area and are introducing themselves to each family in our church congregation. One of the missionaries is waiting for his visa to France, where he was originally called to serve. We chatted for a few minutes in French, and he has done surprisingly well in learning the language, and in keeping it for the months he has been assigned to Portland, Oregon, a bastion of “Le monde francophone”.

As part of their visit, they asked me about my most influential scripture in the Book of Mormon. That of course changes for me depending on need and circumstance: King Benjamin, stories of the 2000 stripling warriors, the conversion of Alma the Younger, the Christ visiting the Nephites; and numerous other accounts in the Book of Mormon vie for my favorite. For the last few months, I have been contemplating the story of the Ammonites, or the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi who laid down their swords in advance of their fellow Lamanites bent on their utter destruction. They were cut down in the very act of supplicating the God who created them, and from Whom they were granted forgiveness and peace. They had no idea that their sacrifice would inspire thousands of their brethren to lay down their swords, and that their story would reverberate through the ages.

Whether scriptural, historical or personal accounts, we have all been touched by such stories. I am sure that the surviving members of the Willie and Martin hand cart companies were wondering why the Lord would require such sacrifice of them and were not thinking of the hundreds of thousands who would retrace their steps and emulate their faithfulness in the decades and centuries to come. The personal suffering and examples set during my wife’s passing have and continue to inspire her descendants, her relations and numerous friends and acquaintances.

In the years to come, we will face unprecedented persecution and hardship. The years leading up to His first coming as described in the Book of Mormon are but a type of the events that precede His second. The Lord, in His perfect wisdom and power, will transform each of the tragedies we suffer in His name to triumph. Not all however, will be suffering. As described in Alma 50, “But behold, there never was a happier time among the people of Nephi, since the days of Nephi, than in the days of Moroni”. This was the same Moroni who organized the people in a prolonged war for their very existence.

World events now transpiring will test the hearts and strength of even the very elect. The joy we feel personally depends solely on how we rejoice in Christ.