Hope and Motivation

October 16, 2016

To my friends and family,

This week was a super fast one. We had a ton of time to meet people, teach, and find people on the street. So it was a great week! The time where I have to spend the least amount of time in the house are always the best weeks, not because they are the easiest but because they are the most rewarding. Since I have to get to a bathhouse and go sit in a hot tub for the next two hours I will be brief in this email (yea, our mission can do that).

I have a friend that I saw for the last time this week. He is in the hospital and he is getting transferred to another hospital next week that is far away, so I will not get to see him again. He is about 40 years old and he has been paralyzed on one side for about 3 years now. When we meet with him, we try to share with him the message of the gospel, things like the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, and all of these things that are unique to our religion, but the longer I have taught him the more I have realized that these things aren't really important if we forget where they point us. Of course all things in our church point towards Christ; specifically how we can find joy, peace, and eventually salvation through his name. When I taught this man this week and invited him to learn more about our church when he moved, he said that he just didn't have the motivation or the faith to do it. It was definitely one of the sadder days of my mission, seeing someone that you have tried so hard to love and to serve, in the end decide to stop studying the gospel. 

This situation prompted me to think about my own experiences with the gospel and why and how I have found the motivation to do what I do. I found my answer in the Bible.

“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”

The reason why all of us are willing to pass through temporary sorrow is because we have the hope that the dawn will eventually break, or that we will eventually get out of the dark tunnel and into the light. I don't know why this man and other people like him suffer so much, and people like me and my family are blessed so much. I don't know why we lose family members and friends when they are young, or why there is so much sorrow in this world. But I do know that there will come a day when Christ will come again. And in that day there will be no more death, sorrow or crying. he will individually wipe away the tears from our eyes, succor us in our individual trials. I testify that having a hope for this day can support anyone in the midst of these trials of faith. I love you all and I pray for you all often by name.

Elder Coleman