Chopsticks in Heaven

This title does not have to do with my…call it obsession… with using chopsticks. Although while I am on my high stool I might as well just say, they are one of the most amazing inventions known to mankind. Anyways what this title is actually referring to is a story that a Taiwanese member in our relief society shared. It goes like this

A man had a dream where he saw heaven and hell. In Hell, everyone was seated around a table full to the brim of the most delicious looking food. The only way they had to eat were these very long chopsticks and they were not able to bring the food to their mouths for they were so long. Thus the all the inhabitants thereof were starving and thin. The man said that in heaven it was the same with a giant table and giant chopsticks. However there the people would take food in their long chopsticks and give it to those sitting around them. They were all fat and happy.

I loved this story because it focused on one difference between salvation and suffering. That being team work. This life is not meant to be something that we deal with alone. We have been sent here in families and we make friends for a reason. The game of life is a team sport. When this truth is acknowledged one understands one of the many reasons why we attend church to hear and to teach others through our testimonies and life experiences. We can also understand why it is that there are missionaries, such as I, going out and teaching the gospel. We want others to have the same happiness that we have received. We want to invite them to the team so they can also help us achieve the prize. That being eternal life. But not only are there full time missionaries like me the church stresses the importance of missionary actions to the members. I am not sure if I am getting that point across right so here let me paint a picture.

This Saturday we are baptizing a wonderful investigator named Martin. Like many we teach he found the church by having a member friend who was willing to answer his questions. In fact his friend answered so many of his questions that we have been able to teach the Plan of Salvation lesson and the Gospel of Jesus Christ in one lesson as well as the entirety of the commandments. He is really amazing and had already read all of the manual that we receive as missionaries and the majority of the Book of Mormon. Please keep him in your prayers so that he will continue to have this amazing strength for his baptism this Valentines Day.

Martin has said on multiple occasions that if his friend had been scared to share that he was LDS and hadn't answered his questions he would not be making these sort of life choices. We full-time missionaries rely heavily on the members we are around. I challenge you this week to find someone in your group of friends who is ready to start being prepared to receive this gospel. Someone is ready. We have been promised by so many apostles and prophets by the power of God that there really is no way that there isn't. Then give this name to the missionaries. They can help you so much.

I love you so much and I thank you for the prayers you send my way