The Turning Point

General Authorities often relate experience that acted as "the turning point" or "the day I figured it out", in their talks. Many of us know the story from President Hinckley where he was frankly tired of failure in the mission field and wrote his father saying that he was wasting his time and money. His Father wrote back with only a simple phrase and said "forget yourself and get to work." President Hinckley says that was his "turning point" and that all good and blessings have been a result of him "losing himself in the work."

A few years ago in conference, or it could have been just an article in the ensign, Elder Jay Jensen said that about a year into his mission he had yet to test Moroni´s promise about the Book of Mormon. He had never placed his trust in the lord in that aspect regarding the truthfulness of the Book. He decided to pray about it and he received a testimony that the Book of Mormon was true. He also says that this moment was crucial to his mission and to his future, and claims that ever since then, he has been able to Trust God and the blessings have flown.

In a Halloween/Birthday Package, Miss Tish sent me a talk from Brent L. Top entitled "Strengthened by His Hand". Brother Top´s experience he told opened my eyes to a new view of a certain scripture passage. This different way of seeing has helped me, perhaps, have a "turning point" of my own. It might not be the first, nor the last, but I feel that it was indeed a turning point, and that blessings have flown.

Matthew Chapter 14 tells the story of Peter walking on water. It is a very popular story from the New Testament so I will skip the details but discuss what was important to me.

It was nighttime, middle of the night-ish, and the disciples were out fishing. It was a windy night with lots of waves and in the darkness, they saw Christ, but did not recognize it as him. They thought it was a spirit, or as it says in spanish, a phantom, and they were afraid. Christ called out to them and said it was him, so peter answered and said "lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water."

"And he (Christ) said, Come." Peter got out of the boat and "he walked on water." Now this is the part that hit me hardest. It says that Peter became afraid because of the "boisterous winds". What was Peter, a fisherman, doing being scared of the wind? Why would the wind and the waves scare someone when he was probably so familiar with them?

I don´t want to contradict the scriptures, but I feel that it wasn´t the wind that scared him. I think he realized at that point, that he was walking on water.

I can picture in my head and almost feel that I can relate with the moment that Peter realized what was happening. He saw himself walking on water and with that, might have thought "wait, I can´t walk on water." And that is when he began to sink and then he cried out and said "Lord, Save me."

It might show my weakness and lack of ability, but I was called to be a senior companion and I didn´t feel ready at all for the task. I felt incredibly inadiquate to carry out that calling.

My last companion, Elder Barney, and I had a great relationship. We worked well together and we had a lot of fun as well. If things werer going slow or we had a hard day, it was all good because we had eachother to lift ourselves up. It might sound extreme, but I still had my trust in the "arm of flesh" as the scriptures say. Like I said, if things were going rough, I would turn to my friend elder barney and everything would be ok.

But the Lord, in his infinant wisdom has provided me a chance to place my trust in him.

I have previously commented that I have had a hard time with my new companion. With his criticisms on my every move, corrections to my every fault and his expressions of lacking confidence in my ability to lead the companionship bore heavy burden upon me. And on top of that, he didn´t speak any nor understand the language. So it was really me pulling us along, with him dragging his heels.

This was about 2-3 weeks ago and I had never felt so overwhelmed, lonely, or tired in my entire life. I felt completely and utterly solo. However, the task was still before me and I still had to do it.

This is where I would like to make the connection from Peter´s experience to my own. Figuratively speaking, I saw myself walking on water, doing something I knew I couldn´t do and I began to fear. I began to sink; sink into feelings of despair or discouragement. And as I sank, all I could do is cry out and say "lord, save me."

As the scriptures say with Peter "and immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him", I feel the savior has done the same for me.

In my state of loneliness, I had the only option to trust in the lord. My prayers became more fervent, my mind was filled with hymns, and my scripture study was an effort to put myself closer to God.

This wasn´t a one moment and it happened event, but rather over the space of time, about a week actually. But I feel that this might have been one of those moments where I can look back, and realize how everything became better because I put my trust, all my trust, in the Lord. I really do feel like it was a turning point in my life and I don´t think I´ve ever learned so much nor grown so much spiritually as much as I have these past few weeks.