Blogging...weird...

Hello, world! Well I'm Elder Hainsworth, and I'm serving as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the Utah Ogden mission. And now I'm writing a blog... Honestly I thought this was only something middle-aged moms did, but the First Presidency said "Hey, you can use blogs to share the gospel!" So I figured, "Hey, maybe I'll give it a try."

Just to make it clear, I have no idea what I'm doing, and I have no idea how effective this could be. But I figured it was worth a shot, and if I can enlighten your mind and bring you closer to Jesus even by the tiniest bit, I guess this was all good for something after all.

Serving a mission definitely has its ups and downs. And a lot of the time it seems to have more downs than ups. It feels like for every person who is actually willing to listen to us, there's 10 people who don't want anything to do with us. And when you have 10 people who are willing to hear what you have to say, only 1 of them will actually act on it. It can get pretty discouraging, and a lot of times we may wonder why it has to be that way. Why can't it all just be kittens and rainbows?

Well thankfully, I have the gospel to rely on when it comes to questions like those. It brings me back to the second chapter of 2 Nephi. It's the prophet Lehi's last counsel before his death, and he felt prompted to talk about Adam and Eve and the Fall. He talks about how before the Fall they lived in Eden, a complete paradise, free of anything bad. But would they be happy? According to Lehi "they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin" (2 Nephi 2:23).

It's an interesting philosophical debate. Can we be happy if we never experienced sadness? According to the scriptures, no. If I went around and baptized every single person who answered a door I knocked on and everything was absolutely perfect and there were never any trials or problems, it sounds pretty good. But would I really appreciate it? Would I really appreciate bringing these people into the Lord's Kingdom if I didn't ever once experience the rejection or heartbreak or sadness? As my friend Gary says, "You can't appreciate the ice cream until you eat the brussels sprouts."

We learn from the scriptures that our sacrifice we give to our Savior is "a broken heart and a contrite spirit" (3 Nephi 9:20). I've learned that to truly turn myself over to God, my heart needs to be broken. Only when I've seen the sadness, the disappointment, the rejection, the sorrow over seeing these people reject His message and watch their lives crumble around them. And that is what has brought me closest to God. Only once I've seen the bad have I been able to appreciate the good: a prayer said for the first time, an investigator reading his scriptures out loud, a baptism, a patriarchal blessing. These things have shaped who I am and have brought me all the closer to God.

Missionary work has its ups and downs. And the downs make all the ups worth it.