Colorado Fort Collins Mission

Homecoming Talk

Building a strong testimony

Good morning brothers and sisters!  It is good to see so many familiar faces! I am so happy to be with you today!  Last weekend I returned from the best 2 years of my life!  I am so grateful for that experience.  I’ve thought about why it has been the best 2 years of my life?  It is because I have been teaching people about Jesus Christ and His Church on the earth!  I know this is truly Christ’s Church on the earth!  I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, it has brought be so much happiness in my life!  I am grateful I have been asked to speak on one of my favorite things I’ve learned on my mission, that is how to build a strong testimony.  I wanted to begin with a scripture. 

-       In 2 Nephi 32:3 it states, “Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do.”

One of the Key Elements of Building a strong testimony:

1.     Studying the words of Christ/Studying The Book of Mormon daily

-Studying the Book of Mormon is so important!  This is something I have come to love on my mission!  I’ve felt the power of Christ’s words help me get through some of the toughest days.  Each day I’ve read from The Book of Mormon, I’ve felt so happy!  Happiness comes through the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ!  I can testify that each of you is a part of this wonderful plan that Heavenly Father has created for us.  You each have a purpose in this plan!  God has provided a way for us to be happy here on earth, and that is through the Gospel!  What an amazing gift!  To maintain and build a strong testimony, we must study The Book of Mormon; we must feast upon the words of Christ! 

-       I had the privilege to work with a man named Scott Saulnier up in Casper, Wyoming.  (Give a brief background about Scott).  He was a recent convert to the church, and right after he was baptized he struggled with studying The Book of Mormon daily.  He expressed to us how his days would just get “too busy” and he could never find time to study.  This is how the adversary works within our lives.  He makes us think we are “too busy” to study the scriptures, and keeps our priorities set on things not pertaining to our spiritual wellbeing.  Scott knew things needed to change, because he felt the spirit dwindling in his life.  The thing he changed was making his study of The Book of Mormon a priority in his life.  This is something that I’ve learned throughout my mission.  Studying The Book of Mormon is truly the key to inviting the spirit into our everyday lives!  Just as we need to eat food and drink water so we are not hungry, we must feast upon the words of Christ to nurture our spiritual needs. 

-Something we teach as missionaries almost every single day is The Gospel or Doctrine of Jesus Christ.  As a mission we did a “Book of Mormon reading challenge” and my mission President, President McMurray, asked us to focus on these five points.  Before my mission I knew these points vaguely.  But now they are engraved upon my heart!  These points are Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End.  It was amazing to study The Book of Mormon looking for these specific points, because they are absolutely everywhere!  That specific study helped me gain a strong testimony that The Book of Mormon truly testifies of our Savior Jesus Christ and His Gospel!

Faith:

-One of my favorite scriptures that talks about faith is Alma 32:21, which states,  “And now as I said concerning faith—faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.”  Studying The Book of Mormon builds our Faith upon Jesus Christ!  I have seen this countless times as a missionary.  The Book of Mormon changes lives, and helps us find our identity and purpose as sons and daughters of God! 

-       My last transfer up in Casper, Wyoming, my companion and I were blessed to meet a man named Ken and his wife Nicole.  Nicole was a returning member, and Ken was not a member!  We met them our second Sunday serving in the Casper 9th ward.  Our bishop came up to us after sacrament meeting and introduced them to us.  He said they wanted us to come and teach them. My companion and I had been talking just days before that we had never had someone come to us, be absolutely “Golden”, and want to be baptized.  This was a huge miracle that they came to us and were so prepared!  Throughout our time teaching them, we saw how Ken’s faith was recognized and strengthened through studying The Book of Mormon!  Ken had actually read The Book of Mormon twice before, but this time he expressed how he wanted to actually study it, and we encouraged him to do so.  Ken did not think he had a very strong faith in Christ and His Gospel, but as he shared his testimony with us, it was very evident that his faith was very strong!  The thing that strengthened Ken’s faith wasn’t just studying, but it was by his commitment, desire, and action upon his faith.  It talks about this aspect later in Alma 32, when it says to “experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith…” To strengthen our faith, we need to act upon the faith we have!

Repentance:

-The Doctrine of Christ is all about action!  First is Faith, and then this Faith we gain in Christ and His Gospel leads us to have a strong desire to repent.  This process is happening in all of our lives, constantly!  As a missionary I saw people gain this desire to repent through their sincerity!

-       I want to share another part of Ken’s conversion.  In one of our lessons with him and his wife Nicole, we taught him The Word of Wisdom.  We had a great discussion about it.  One thing he admitted to us was that he had been drinking coffee for most of his life, and that he would drink about a cup each morning.  He then told us how he was going to stop drinking coffee that very instant, and never drink it again.  This was incredible to us!  Ken stopped drinking coffee that day, and hasn’t looked back!  This is a perfect example that illustrates how powerful acting in faith truly is!  Ken’s faith lead to his action, it lead him to have a desire to change and repent.  I learned something about repentance on my mission that has changed me.  President McMurray always invited us to have daily repentance.  At the beginning of my mission I didn’t really understand this concept, but as I continued to learn and grow I learned how crucial this truly is!  Daily repentance means utilizing the Atonement of our Savior Jesus Christ every single day!  As I applied this, it helped refine my actions, and be more aware of the choices I make on a daily basis.  All of those little things that we do wrong each day truly add up!  Through Jesus Christ’s Atonement, we can all be forgiven not just on Sundays when we partake of the Sacrament, but each and every day.  Repentance is so essential to help us come closer to our Savior and our Heavenly Father. 

Baptism, Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost:

-When we are baptized, we make sacred covenants with our Heavenly Father.  We find these covenants in Moroni 4-5 when Moroni teaches us how the sacrament should be administered as he writes the sacramental prayers.  These covenants are that we will take upon us the name of Christ, always remember Him, and keep His commandments.  It is nice to know that God works the way that He does.  Every commandment we receive has blessings associated with it!  The blessing of living our baptismal covenants is that we will always have His spirit to be with us.  What an amazing promise!  After we are baptized we receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost!  In order to always retain this gift; we need to be living what we have covenanted to do.  Each week we have an opportunity to partake of the sacrament and renew our covenants with Heavenly Father.  This is how we can continuously live the Gospel of Jesus Christ!  The sacrament isn’t something we can only think about on the Sabbath Day, but we need to continuously remember those covenants we make each day, and I think that is how Daily Repentance ties back into everything!  As we learn to repent daily, we can truly remember that precious gift Jesus Christ has given to each of us, and have a greater sense of happiness and peace in our lives!

Enduring to the End:

-The last aspect of the Doctrine of Christ is Enduring to the End.  This is simply living the rest of the principles every day for the rest of our lives!  It is a simple concept, but it takes daily effort to accomplish the mighty task at hand! 

-       I have an experience from my mission that illustrates this very well.  My companion and I had a member bring her friend to church in Greeley Colorado.  His name was Tom Jenkins.  He seemed interested, and we set up a time to meet with him and teach him.  We had our very first lesson with him the very next Wednesday.  We taught him The Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and it was a very powerful lesson!  After our lesson he told us how he could feel the spirit as soon as we walked into his home.  It was a powerful but sweet feeling as we taught him that day.  Our next lesson with Tom went just as well.  We followed up with him about how his reading went, and he had read the first 14 chapters of The Book of Mormon in 3 days!  That is not very common; sometimes we were lucky to get someone to read 2 or 3 chapters between teaching appointments.  As we read with him and taught, you could see a fire in his eyes that he didn’t have before.  Tom continued to learn and became a strong faithful member of the church.  I know that Tom’s testimony came from studying The Book of Mormon sincerely.  It was an amazing thing to witness!  But the story doesn’t end there!  About 6 months later, my companion and I were performing baptisms for the dead in the Fort Collins Colorado Temple with a recent convert, Scott Saulnier, from the ward I was serving in currently.  This was Scott’s first time being in the temple performing ordinances!  After we finished, we were waiting and talking with Scott about how his experience had been being able to be baptized for his close family members, when I felt a hand on my left shoulder.  A man’s voice said “Hey their big guy!”  I turned around and it was Tom!  We had a great conversation, and he told me that he attends the temple twice a week!  It was so amazing to see him there.  I was talking with the ward mission leader from Tom’s ward the next day, and he said the ward is calling him “Tom the Baptist” because he attends the temple so much!  What an example to me of what Enduring to the End truly is!  It is the constant act of living The Gospel of Jesus Christ each and every day! This is the goal that we are all working towards, progressing on the covenant path!  As we live The Gospel of Jesus Christ, our testimonies will grow, we will be happier, and we will become fully converted to Jesus Christ and His Church!   

Brothers and Sisters, I have loved serving the Lord for the past 2 years!  I want to share a scripture that expresses my testimony of Jesus Christ and His gospel!  Alma 5:45-46 says,

“45 And this is not all. Do ye not suppose that I know of these things myself? Behold, I testify unto you that I do know that these things whereof I have spoken are true. And how do ye suppose that I know of their surety?

46 Behold, I say unto you they are made known unto me by the Holy Spirit of God. Behold, I have fasted and prayed many days that I might know these things of myself. And now I do know of myself that they are true; for the Lord God hath made them manifest unto me by his Holy Spirit; and this is the spirit of revelation which is in me.”

Bear testimony

Returned with Honor