Be not Afraid, Only Believe (Mark 5:36)

I am learning that the Lord will magnify us and our efforts if we accept his invitation to follow him and to serve others. Being a mission leader is challenging and I come face to face with my weaknesses daily. Fortunately, I often see that I am doing things that are beyond my capabilities.

A few weeks ago, I got an email asking me to say the opening prayer for our mission leader conference held in Cusco for the South America Northwest Area.  I immediately accepted the invitation and asked if it would be okay if I offered the prayer in English, since my Spanish is dismal.  The reply politely said no, and I was told that the prayer needs to be in Spanish. Oof, that made me quite disappointed and uncomfortable.  This was to be a formal event in front of an intimidating audience of more than 70 people. I only had a few days to prepare, and I could see from my schedule that there was just no time. I immediately prayed for help and then I quickly typed up a simple prayer and threw it into my translation app.  I then tried reading the prayer out loud to practice the pronunciation. I sounded like a robot as I stumbled over the words. I then practiced out loud to President Chipman a couple of times, and he corrected nearly every word I uttered. This did not help my confidence, but this would have to do.

So, a couple days later when the time arrived for the prayer, I made my way nervously up to the podium in the large room carrying the written prayer in my hands.   I was very self-conscious as I put on my reading glasses and bowed my head to begin. Always in these situations,  prayers are said with your eyes closed and words are spoken from the heart, not a piece of paper.  I then read the prayer slowly, trying to stay focused so that I could get through it without totally falling to pieces.  When it was finished, I made sure to avoid eye contact as I made my way back to my seat next to President Chipman and the meeting began.

I later learned that somehow, for reasons unexplained, that invocation had greatly impacted the audience.  As soon as the meeting ended, I started to get some compliments.  At first, I thought people were just being kind, but they kept coming. Over the next three days as the conference continued, dozens of people whom I had never met sought me out specifically to thank me for such a beautifully expressed prayer. Most were surprised that I don’t speak Spanish. No one seemed to notice that I read the prayer with my reading glasses on!  Even a week after, a Chilean woman told me that she had opened her eyes in surprise during it because she felt the spiritual power of my prayer. 

I have no explanation for this experience other than God must have made up the difference for my inability in a dramatic fashion.  I hadn’t even realized what had happened until days later when the complements kept coming. Mind you, this was for a two-minute prayer, not a keynote speaker!

Machu Picchu

In John chapter 6:5-14 we read about how the Savior fed 5,000 with only five loaves of bread and two small fishes.  This is an example of how Jesus was able to take an insignificant offering from a nameless boy and multiply it so that it could accomplish something truly amazing. Jesus did the same thing prior to this when he walked along the shores of Galilee and called out to two fishermen named Peter and Andrew.  He said, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men”.  As they did, they eventually became apostles who performed mighty miracles and helped to lay the groundwork for Christianity throughout the world.  

In Jacob 4:7 of The Book of Mormon it says: 

7 Nevertheless, the Lord God showeth us our weakness that we may know that it is by his grace, and his great condescensions unto the children of men, that we have power to do these things.

I know this is true because I see it every day as I watch these young missionaries accomplish remarkable things in the name of God.  They are courageous and show great faith as they try to do this work in spite of their personal weaknesses.  I am fortunate to see these miracles unfold daily.