September 25th, 2012:
“The setting apart was very peaceful. I said good-bye to my
great-grandparents for maybe the last time. I hope not, but they’re getting
old. That was hard.”
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| (My great-grandpa and me) |
These somber words from my journal were written the night
before I left to serve a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints. I would guess a majority of the population has barely known
their great-grandparents, if at all, but I was fortunate to coexist with mine all
the way into my early adult years. My early memories are filled with my grandma
cooking breakfast for me as I watched the early morning news with my grandpa before they took to me to school. I
used to call my grandma the “grape” grandma because she always gave me grapes and
well, I didn’t quite understand the concept of what a great-grandparent was. I
vividly recall receiving a stern lecture from my grandpa after throwing a
baseball through my mom’s window. Even now, I can feel his penetrating expression
burn an everlasting hole in my conscience. It wasn’t anger, but it was genuine
concern and worry for what was to become of the 12-year old boy sitting in
front of him. My stepdad had just left, and my mom was struggling to figure out
how to raise my sister and me on her own. My grandparents knew someone had to
intervene and help us, and that’s exactly what they did. Along with many
others, they essentially helped raise us. Years later when I was baptized and
decided to serve a mission, my grandpa served as my escort through the Mesa
temple for the first time. Even though his health was failing, he refused to
take the elevator. He walked all the way up the grand staircase, right next to
me, out of breath the whole way. That’s just who he was, and my grandma was
much the same. Albeit blatantly stubborn sometimes, they taught pure and
virtuous principles, which they backed up with the lives of integrity they
lived. Their example and memory influence my life in meaningful ways to this
day, as I’m sure they do for all of their four children, eighteen
grandchildren, and fifty-two great-grandchildren. That night before I left, the
possibility that I’d never see them again was a daunting reality I felt I’d
soon be facing.
Once I was on my mission though, I didn’t think too much about
not seeing them again. With every month that passed it became less and less
likely that one of them would pass away while I was gone. By the beginning of
2014, a year and a half into my two year mission, I had chalked that journal
entry up to me just being dramatic (which is a far more common happening than I
care to admit). It was only reasonable to believe I’d be home in the fall and
everything was going to be just fine. Unfortunately, things didn’t turn out exactly
how I thought. They rarely do. In early
March I received word that my great grandpa was very ill. Although the doctor
gave him a month or two more to live, he passed away on March 19th,
2014, just six months before I came home. It was so much harder than I had
anticipated and I know my head was bursting with emotions at the time, but for
whatever reason my journal entries are scarce during this time period. I only
wrote about it once on March 5th, 2014:
”…on Monday I got some bad news. My great-grandpa is doing
really bad right now. They’ve only given [him] 6-8 weeks to live. It’s weird.
It obviously hasn’t been totally unexpected, he’s been sick for a long time.
But I’m having kind of a rough time. Really having to try and dig deep on my
testimonies of the Atonement and the Resurrection. I love him a lot, and he’s
been such an amazing example my whole life. I will of course miss him, and it
hurts that I may not get to see him again in this life. But that’s where the
gospel comes in 😊”
Losing a loved one is so hard, even when it is at least somewhat
expected due to their age or health. It’s unfathomable to me that people can
lose those closest to them in tragic and unexpected
ways. It feels impossible, yet it happens all the time. When tragedy
occurs, it is difficult for me to say that it was “part of God’s plan” or that “God
works in mysterious ways.” I believe those statements for the most part, but it
never feels good enough to me. It can’t be that simple, and it sure doesn’t help
those left behind feel any better. No, the grief and pain will most assuredly
come, no matter what we believe in. We are on this earth for a reason, and a
part of that reason is to learn from the trials and setbacks that are common in
mortality. Life is meant to be hard sometimes, and God will not spare us from that
pain because he knows what we can become if we endure our hardships faithfully.
Usually there isn’t a clear-cut answer or reason that can be given to explain
things, and that is extremely frustrating.
Knowing that God lets us suffer, it can be easy to feel that
God is impersonal, ambivalent, or doesn’t even exist at all. I know I’ve felt that
way before, but at the end of the day I know that God exists and that he loves
us. I know that he has given us an amazing opportunity in mortality to learn
and grow from our experiences, even from the ones that hurt us the most. He
knew from the beginning that we would pass through hardships, and he knew that
some of them would push us to our breaking points. He knew all of this, but he
never intended for our pain and suffering to be permanent. From the beginning
he set in motion a plan that would place his Son in between us and death.
Because of Jesus Christ, all of us can hope to live with and cherish our loved
ones again someday. He died and rose again in order to give every person that
has ever lived the power to come forth in resurrection, never to experience
physical death. Likewise, he took upon himself the sins of us all to give unto
us the power of redemption, or the chance to be completely clean and free of
guilt before him one day. The Atonement and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ
give us hope for the future. I know that he lives and that he has power
to make right everything that is wrong in our lives. I know that every
injustice or painful experience we confront in our lives will be laid at his
feet in a coming day. I know that we will be freed from the thorns of our flesh,
and that because of Jesus Christ we may hope for a better world.
I also know that God is deeply personal, as is Jesus Christ,
and that they know each of us individually. Knowing about the Atonement and
Resurrection is essential to having faith, but when tragedy actually strikes, the fulfillment of their promised blessings can seem too distant in the future
to provide any true solace. Heavenly Father and His Son know this, and I know
they will provide us with small blessings to help carry us through our hard
times right here and right now. We don’t have to wait until we get to heaven to
feel the power of heaven in our lives.
If we’ll look for it, we can find the evidence of God’s love and comfort all
around us. He will always give us something to hold on to, something to remind us
that we’re not alone. The Lord’s prophets have frequently referred to these
small blessings as “tender mercies.” I witnessed a tender mercy when my grandpa
passed away, and I hope that by sharing it I can help others to recognize similar tender mercies in their lives.
God’s help for me in my time of need began about two months
before my grandpa died, on January 24th, 2014. My companion Elder
Melaerts and I were attempting to visit a referral we had in a small town a few
miles outside of the city we were serving in. Neither of us had ever been to the
town, so we were pretty excited to have an experience different from the norm
and hopefully gain some new investigators. When we arrived, however, the woman
we were looking for wasn’t available, so like any good set of missionaries we
asked if there was anyone else who would be interested in our message. We were
informed that a woman down the street had just been diagnosed with cancer and
her family was having a hard time with it. Upon visiting the family, however, we
learned fairly quickly that the term “just been diagnosed” was used rather
liberally. The reality is I had never seen someone that close to death. We
walked into a room full of people crying and in obvious pain, everyone of which
looked at us with eyes that longed for some form of comfort. As we came further
into the room, we saw a severely emaciated woman lying on the bed, with her
head shaven and the most impossibly empty expression gliding across her face.
The family quickly ushered us in and allowed us to give her a blessing. I was
terrified when we went to place our hands on her head, but once my companion started to pronounce the blessing we felt peace come over us. He didn’t bless her that she
would live, I distinctly remember that, but the words he spoke emanated hope.
We knew whatever blessings he felt impressed to impart would most likely be
fulfilled in the next life. After the blessing concluded, we shared a very short
message about Jesus Christ, and the woman who was sick strained herself to softly
whisper “thank you.” Her attempt to speak was as powerful and inspiring as it
was painful and heartbreaking. The family thanked us also and we let ourselves
out, leaving them in peace. The woman passed away the next day on January 25th.
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| (Elder Melaerts and me the day after) |
I don’t think that either of us were really the same after
that night. It had put everything we did in a different perspective, and the
purpose behind our work felt much deeper and much more important than it had
before. Unfortunately, that wasn’t our last experience with death together. In
the next month I was confronted with more death than ever before in my life. Just a
couple days later we met and taught a woman who had been diagnosed with what was most
likely a terminal brain tumor. Also that week, I found out that one of our best
friends in the ward also had a terminal illness, and then just a little bit
later another member of the ward actually did pass away. We ended up being a part
of the funeral for the latter and the sister missionaries even had to help dress
the body. It was rather bizarre! We even came home one day and one of the dogs
that hung out in front of the house was dead in the driveway. It really felt
like we just couldn’t get away from death.
Running into so many encounters with the end of life must have
had me thinking about what happens after
death. I know it must have been heavily on my mind, because on February 28th
I thought more deeply about what we call the “plan of salvation” than I ever
had before. On that particular morning we were riding a bus to the city of Puebla
at five o’clock in the morning. It was too dark outside to see anything so I
couldn’t read, and it was too early in the morning for the bus driver to put a
movie on. I was literally left to my own thoughts. During this time of peace
and quiet, I decided I would ponder and recite the entire plan of salvation in
my head. Something very special happened that morning because in my mind I saw
and felt God’s plan for us so strongly that I could not deny it. In my thoughts
I journeyed through our premortal existence, the creation of the Earth, the fall
of Adam and Eve, the Atonement of Jesus Christ, death, the spirit world, the
resurrection, the final judgement, and the kingdoms of glory. It felt amazing,
and my thought process and feelings towards the plan of salvation completely
changed after that bus ride. It wasn’t just one of the lessons we taught anymore.
It was real, and it was the most important reason I wanted to teach others about
Jesus Christ.
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| (The second half of a plan of salvation drawing I used on my mission) |
Later that day, our mission president sat us down in front
of a painting in his living room in Puebla. He reminded us who we were and
where we had come from, or rather that we are Heavenly Father’s children and we
had come to Earth at this time as an important part of his plan. He quoted
section 138 of the Doctrine and Covenants and bore testimony that we were spiritually
much more than we could see right then. His words had a deep effect on me and I
felt even stronger about the plan of salvation than I had that morning. So much
so that when I returned home later that weekend I decided to dedicate my scripture study
to section 138, the same one President Reeves had shared with us. Section 138 is
a revelation received in 1918 by President Joseph F. Smith, the sixth president
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and it deals extensively
with what happens to our spirits after we die. I read the section, and I also
studied the footnotes at the bottom of the pages as I read. One of the footnotes
took me to Ezekiel chapter 37, a chapter I had never read before:
“1 The ahand
of the Lord was upon me,
and bcarried
me out in the cspirit
of the Lord, and set me
down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones,
2 And caused me to pass by
them round about: and, behold, there were
very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry.
3 And he said unto me, Son of
man, can these bones alive?
And I answered, O Lord God,
thou knowest.
4 Again he said unto me,
Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of
the Lord.
5 Thus saith the Lord God unto these
bones; Behold, I will cause abreath
to enter into you, and ye shall live:
6 And I will lay sinews upon
you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath
in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord.
7 So I prophesied as I was
commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and
the bones came together, abone
to his bone.
8 And when I beheld, lo, the
sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them.
9 Then said he unto me,
Prophesy unto the awind,
prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God; Come from
the four bwinds,
O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.
10 So I prophesied as he
commanded me, and the abreath
came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding
great army.
11 ¶ Then he said unto me, Son
of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones
are dried, and our hope is alost:
we are cut off for our parts.
12 Therefore prophesy and say
unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, O my people, I will open your agraves,
and cause you to bcome
up out of your graves, and cbring
you into the dland
of Israel.
13 And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your
graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves,
14 And shall put my aspirit
in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall
ye know that I the Lord
have spoken it, and performed
it, saith the Lord.”
-Ezekiel 37:1-14
Jesus
Christ gives all of us the power to live again. These verses struck me with power
and authority, and I knew that the resurrection was real and that I could take
comfort in that thought. According to my study journal, I found these verses on
March 2nd, 2014. On March 3rd my mom emailed me and
informed me that my great grandpa was sick. I was able to skype him and call
him twice before he passed away, which helped, but losing him tore a piece out
of me that’s never been replaced. My emotions are still so raw when I think
about it, but because of my experiences with scriptures in the days leading up to it all, I know that I will see him again. I know that he will have a perfect
body free of pain or illness and that, as Joseph Smith taught, we will enjoy
the same sociality that we enjoyed here, only it will be infinitely more
glorious and happy.
There
are some things that I only believe and others that I know. I know that the resurrection is real. I know
that because the Holy Ghost guided me through my experiences, my thoughts, and
the scriptures to be ready for my Grandpa’s passing. It was a tender mercy from
the Lord, and I will forever be grateful for it. Even after I found out about
my grandpa the Spirit continued to bless me with knowledge of God’s plan of salvation.
I’ll end with an excerpt from an email I sent on March 17th, 2014,
two days before my grandpa passed away:
“This week, my studies brought me to Ezekiel chapter 37. In this
chapter the prophet Ezekiel is shown a vision concerning the resurrection of
the dead. Ezekiel sees a valley full of dry bones, and the Lord asks him if the
bones will live again. Ezekiel says yes and the Lord tells him to prophesy to
the bones. As he does the bones come together, and it says that all the sinews
and flesh returned to the bones. Finally the lord "breathes" life
into the bodies so that may live again. Later in the book of Mormon Alma
chapter 40 through 42, the prophet Alma testifies of and explains the
resurrection even more. Later, in 1 Corinthians 15, the apostle Paul goes into
great detail about the resurrection and how it will be. Many many years later,
the prophet Joseph smith increased our understanding of the resurrection even
more through the temples and ordinances performed there.
The prophets and apostles
of old saw our day and rejoiced. We live in blessed times, when the priesthood
and temple ordinances that our performed through it are in full effect here on
the earth. The sacred ordinances performed in the temples are divine, and truly
seal us as family members forever. When one has been sealed in the temple to
their family, and they have been true to their covenants, death is sweet. They
can rest assured that the very same priesthood power that created the universe
and everything in it, will be binding them to their loved ones throughout all
eternity.
I know that's true. I know
you can know too. prayerfully read and study the scriptures I have shared
today, then pray and ask God if these things are true. The spirit will testify
to you with power through feelings of peace, surety, and warmth. I promise.
I love you all and hope you
have a great week.
Love,
Elder Wilson”
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| (My great-grandma and great-grandpa) |
In December 2017 we also lost my great-grandma. I know that they were reunited in love and glory, and I can't wait to see them again. I
know that Jesus Christ is the savior of the world. I know that the temples of The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints represent heaven on Earth and we
can be close to our loved ones when we participate in the ordinances there. Because of Christ’s authority given
to us through the Atonement that is used in the temples, we can live with our
families forever, and any pain we feel here will not be permanent.
May
we all find peace and joy through Jesus Christ this holiday season. If you are struggling with the loss of a loved one, please know that God loves you and you don't need to belong to any church or be perfect to feel that love. If you turn to him, I promise that Heavenly Father will provide his tender mercies to help you through the pain. With Him, all things are possible. You can and will overcome your grief with Jesus Christ by your side.
Merry
Christmas!
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| (The Mesa, Arizona temple at Christmas time) |
