Part 2: The Lord's Blessings, The "Hard" Things

Brother Rowland did not end up having surgery. When he was first taken to the hospital a pace maker was put in and it seems that the pace maker is doing well. Brother and Sister Rowland felt that at this time the surgery is not needed to fix the problem with his heart, as it is a very risky procedure. My mom is Lena's (Brother Rowland's daughter) seminary teacher. My mom shared this with me regarding seminary this past week...
"I love that Lena likened it to D & C 82:3 (a scripture mastery) - "I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say, when ye do not what I say ye have no promise"  She said her dad's patriarchal blessing said he would live a long life if he followed the Lord.  This experience was a witness to that."

I have thought about Michael, Brother Rowland's oldest son, who is on a mission currently in Italy. I find it interesting that "hard" things seem to happen when missionaries are away from him. I am not sure if Michael is aware of what happened, but I think that maybe the Lord allows these things to happen while someone is serving Him and His children full-time so he can bless and help the family. Sometimes those blessings and help are not what we would desire or see as a blessing or help.

I think back to the "hard" things that happened in mine own family while I was serving and there are a few lessons that I learned.
Hard things:

*Help prove the faith of the one serving. To realize that the Lord is in control, and even though the missionary might think it is best to go home and help, that really there is nothing they can do to help and the best help is by being the Lord's hands so he can take care of the family.

*Teach the missionary to decide who is #1 in their life, the Lord or their family. Our goal ultimately is to return to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, if we live worthy for our family to be eternal than we will be with them later FOREVER, we need to prove now who we trust so we can accomplish an eternal family. I think of Elder Bednar's (one of the 12 apostles) triangle that he shared before. Even with our own spouse, the Lord is the tip of the triangle and the only way we will get closer in the triangle to our spouse is by getting closer to the Lord. When things happened to my family on the mission I created something to help remind me of this and sent it out on May 1, 2006.

*Allow us to give our will to the Lord. When Christ was on the cross he said, "Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done (Luke 22:42)." Christ always did the will of the Father, and we must become like Christ. The only thing we truly have to give is our will.

*Strengthens testimony. Something that hit me on my mission was when Elder Jeffrey R. Holland (one of the 12 apostles) came a few weeks before the end of my mission to speak to us as his best and oldest friend is my mission president. He asked us why serving a mission is so important. His answer was a surprise to me. He told us that it is great that we find souls looking for Christ and we baptize them, but ultimately the importance of a mission is that they, the Prophet and Apostles, truly care about saving our souls - the missionaries!!! I was astounded.

The scripture in D&C 18:15 is true: "And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!" That one soul is me, He cares about my soul first before I can go help save the souls of others. The whole goal of a mission was to truly convert me. Hard things help that conversion because you have to trust the Lord is in control. If you are not able to trust that then you are not truly converted.

*Sometimes cause us to question, "WHY?", when really we need to question, "What am I to learn from this?" This is still something that I sometimes struggle with the "hard" things that happen to me.