Conferences
I have just realized this is the first time I have gotten around to updating my Blog this transfer! Things are going really well in Debrecen. I am having an awesome time in the Conveted City. There is an awesome teaching pool here and we are having a Baptism this Saturday. I am so excited for this young woman...she is going to be an amazing member of the church.Departing Testimonies
We had a busy week this week. On Friday we took a trip to Miskolc for Zone Conference. At the end of every Zone Conference, time is given at the end to the missionaries who will be leaving at the end of the transfer to bear their testimony. This was the occassion I have been dreading for 15 months, when my name was called as one of the missionaries to come to the stand and give their departing testimony.
I have seen many such missionaries give many such testimonies. I feel very strongly about what I feel a "testimony" is-and what it is not. Some of them take it as their free forum to say whatever they want, when what I feel it really should be is an opportunity to stand before one's peers and fulfill our sacred calling to stand as a witness of Christ.
For the first time dragging my feet to the podium, I stood before friends, commrades and respected fellow-laborers. With tears streaming down my face and a voice quavering with the emotion stirring within me, I did my best to do what I decided a long time ago I wanted to do: just bear pure testimony. No tangents about how fast the time has gone, no advise for the generation still coming up from behind, no stories, no frills-just pure testimony.
I told them that I know God is our Loving Heavenly Father. I told them many other simple truths that I have spent the past 18 months studying, reviewing and making my own that I might teach them to this people I have come to love so very much. I told them I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I told them that I have been called of God just as surely as Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Alma, Nephi, Moroni, Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and Gordon B. Hinckley. I told them it's true-all of it. Everthing we have learned and in turn taught is all true. But what is most amazing to me is the last thing I wanted to make sure I told them. That as I bore that testimony I stood before them, not merely as a witness of those truths, but as evidence of them.
I have known no privledge in my life to this point than to be associated with every level of people I have been with on my mission. My companions, the ward and branches where I have served, those I have taught, my fellow missionaries, the amazing mission presidents and their families, the mission as a whole, serving here in Europe, being a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and representing Christ Himself-it is such an honor.
As I approach the final couple of weeks I look back and take a self-evaluation...I am SO grateful that I came here. I don't think I will ever understand the reprecussions for good that came and are continuing to come because of it.
Spiritual Recharging of Batteries
As if Zone Conference weren't enough, we also were able to participate in General Conference this weekend. Twice a year the prophet and apostles and other leaders in the church address the entire membership of the church throughout the world via a conference held in Salt Lake City and broadcast to the far corners of the earth. It was the third occassion I have gathered in a small back room with a group of missionaries to feast upon the teaching and counsel in this country.
It is this time of year it really dawns on me that the church really is true. It is just as true here in Debrecen, Hungary as it is in Salt Lake City, Utah. As I scribbled down notes from the talks of the living prophet in the Relief Society room I was filled with awe to know that so many people I Love were doing exactly what I was doing somewhere else.
Only God Himself could organize something like that.
In short...
I am not sure how many posts there will be yet on The Work. Things are definitley coming to a close as a plane landing at 5:55pm Central Standard Time will bring me Home on April 19th.
It is rapidly approaching.
But until then, I am Loving you all and hope this finds all of my Dear Ones Happy, Safe and Well.
posted by Ashley @ 7:23 AM
