Last night I got a call from two of the missionaries serving in our ward area, they asked me to help them teach a lesson to a person who has been investigating the church for a while now, I accepted, because I always have a great experience when I get the chance to go out with them to teach.
One of the things that I love about being a member of the church is the fact that we are constantly being asked to go out of our comfort zone, I am a naturally shy person and so when being asked to go and do things like this, I have a chance to break through some of my barriers and do things I would otherwise not have done. I value my membership in the church and the many things it has bought into my life, but I would have had a hard time telling people about it, if it had not been for the programs of the church which teach in a loving way the importance of sharing what we have with our fellow man. I also found through missionary service my fears grew smaller and my faith in Jesus Christ heightened, so that I am now able to say yes without fear, to things that would have been difficult to do otherwise.

We taught a man ( I’ll call him John, for privacy, this is not his real name) my age about prayer, and the importance it plays in our lives, we got to share experiences from our own lives with him, it was great to reflect on all the times that prayer has been a strength and help to me. I loved to listen to the missionaries as they talked about other principles like faith, and repentance, for their age it is always a wonder how powerfully they teach.

After a while John told us he had just recently discovered that a close relative had been diagnosed with a terminal illness, we consoled him and assured him he could take comfort in sincere prayer to our Father in Heaven, before we left John tonight, we asked if we could say a prayer together with him, he consented and then astonished me by asking if he could offer it, in all my experience with John, he had always been very vocal in his refusal to offer prayer out loud in our presence, and so with a little nervousness in his voice he gave a prayer in his native language, I did not understand a word of the prayer that was offered, but I could feel Johns concern for his relative come out in the way that he prayed to our Heavenly Father tonight, I know that his prayer was heard.

It has been many years now since I came home from my full time service as a missionary, but I still remember fondly hundreds of similar experiences as the one I had tonight, I’m pretty glad that I can continue doing missionary work, it brings me allot of joy, to share things that have helped me so much.