If you are wondering, I did not become a smoker the last two years; I have just been sick, sorry for my voice. It has been a really long time since I have given a talk in English so entonce espero que me van a poder entender.
I’m Zack Stidham and I just got back from the Ecuador Guayaquil South Mission, it’s by the equator so it is really hot and humid, it’s awesome! The bishopric gave me free reign on what I want to share with you guys today; I hope I don’t make you regret those words. And no, my Mom has not revised this talk so it’s going to be fun!
More than anything I want you guys to focus on how you feel as I talk. I promise you that the Spirit will be here with us today.
About 20 months into my mission I had a friend write me an email and she asked me what were the top three greatest things that I learned on my mission? That question really hit me. I started studying and thinking about that. And I would like to share with you what my answer was to her on what I feel are the top three greatest things I learned on my mission.
Choosing to be happy. It might not be a spiritual quality or a Christ like attribute, but it definitely is an eternal quality. In 2 Nephi 5:27, this is my favorite scripture and it reads:
‘And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness.’
And if you look back in the chapter and read what was going on, they didn’t have a lot of reasons to be happy. They had a lot of trials. They left their home and lived in the wilderness. Sailed across to the Americas and sacrificed so much to get there. They start to build their house and build their town, there is a lot of fighting with the brothers and Layman and Lemuel want to kill Nephi. It is pretty serious. They hate Nephi so much that they want to kill him so Nephi has to leave. So they have to leave their houses again. They have to go out to the wilderness and they don’t have food. I cannot imagine how you could ever find a way to feel like they could possibly live after the manner of happiness. But in that same chapter it explains why. First in verse 11 it says that God was with them. In verse 16 it says they built a temple and found blessings and happiness there. And the third thing was they were working and labored with their hands. Those are the three keys for anyone to find true happiness in their lives.
I had a couple of experiences with this on my mission. I remember one time I had a companion that I was training. He was a Bolivian guy and he was really shy. I took him out and was introducing him to people, trying to contact and break him in a little bit. It was a looooong day. We decided to take a break. In Ecuador they have these little house/store things. Every 10 houses there is a house opened up and they have a small store. We show up at one of these houses and are buying Gatorades. And while the storeowner was bringing my change back we were joking with each other and I was cracking jokes with my companion. We were just laughing and having fun. And we hear in the back of this house the lady was laughing and cracking up at what we were saying. She comes back and says, “You know, when we were little we used to have the missionaries come over but I haven’t seen them in a long long time. You guys are really funny and you should come back some time!” Me and my companion look at each other and were like WHAT?!!!? She wants us to come back?!? So we get all excited and we come back the next week and her family gathers around us and I start sharing the Plan of Salvation. It was just a perfect message for them. It really touched them. You could just see it in their eyes. Fast-forward a couple of weeks, their entire family got baptized and you could just see how much they had changed. We had invited them to be baptized several times and they kept saying they were not sure yet. They wanted to wait until they got an answer. And it came up one day, they said I know you have invited us to be baptized several times and we are going to do this! We want to do this on this day, and you [Zack] are going to baptize me, and he [Andres] laid out the whole thing. You could just see how excited and happy he was! He became a very close friend of mine. I would talk to him and keep in contact with him over my whole mission. About five months after his baptism he wrote me and said ‘I just want to let you know that they just called me to be the First Counselor in the Bishopric. I’ve never been happier in my life! I have never loved my kids more than I do. This Gospel has really changed everything. I cannot thank you enough for coming out on a mission!’ That really touched me. I could see how much the family had changed. I knew I loved them and I could feel how much Heavenly Father loved them.
I have another experience of why being happy is so important. Before I can explain that I have to tell you how much I loved my mission. It was the greatest thing. I am not the same person who left. I am so much happier and I now know what is important. Life is to short to waste on things that are not important. I loved it and I loved the people. I loved every moment there, walking around down there, eating bananas and rice every day, I just loved it!
With that being said, I spent the majority of my mission very very sick. I was in and out of the hospital and spent many nights there. It was very hard. I really suffered. I was really really sick. I have never been so weak and had pain in my life. And I remember in that moment, I have never been happier in my life either. I can say for the first time in my life, I loved who I was. I was happy with what I was doing, I was happy for what I wanted to do. I wanted to serve the Lord. I wanted that. I had all the right reasons I just needed the health to do it. Just choosing to be happy in those moments really changed who I am and what I believe for the rest of my life. I just cannot stress how important that is, that we live the Gospel, we can be with Him everyday. If we don’t choose to be happy, we will never feel the love of our Savior Jesus Christ. Every time I feel the spirit, I know my Father in Heaven is very happy because I feel happy.
During this time of being sick I also learned another valuable lesson. I learned about the power of fasting. I remember one week when I had been serving for only a couple of months. I had this virus called chikungunya. I also had a couple of other ailments and I was really sick. I remember how much it hurt to get out of bed. I didn’t do my exercises or eat much because my stomach was messed up too. I just couldn’t get out of bed. One week I just felt pure relief. I just felt the Spirit hit me so hard. I just didn’t stop. And I got to my next P-day where we had time to write our families and I had 50 emails from you, the best ward in the world! You told me that you all were praying and fasting for me! I remember just sitting there in front of the computer crying. Because I could feel your love for me so much, from so far away. My Momma told me that she asked the Bishop [Tueller] to ask for a special fast for me. And that fast made a huge difference for me that week. So I learned the power of fasting. That was the first time that I had ever witnessed the power for myself.
I kept getting worse and worse in my illness. The mission doctor from the U.S. contacted me and said if I didn’t get better by a certain date they were going to send me home because they couldn’t let me stay out in the mission if I was so sick. I remember how sad that made me. I loved my mission too much for that. And I’m stubborn too, I kept fighting! I remember my Mission President Moreno asked me to go to the temple with him. He and I went alone. When I was in the temple, finally for the first time in my life, I accepted God’s will over my own. And I finally accepted it. If He wanted me to go home, I would do it. I had so much peace. I cannot deny the answer the Spirit gave me. I was supposed to go home. After the temple, I went back to the Mission Presidents office for an interview. He asked me to share what I had felt. I shared a lot with him. He said that he was glad that I trust God’s will over my own. But he had also felt something else in the temple. He wanted to give me a Priesthood blessing. I had already received several blessings in my mission but I can honestly say I didn’t have a testimony of them because I had never received an answer.
When he put his hands on my head, I can never forget what I felt. The Spirit entered that room like something physical, I could just feel it. And he commanded in the name of Christ for me to be healed.
And immediately I just stood up and I never had that sickness again [chikungunya]. It was just gone. I remember feeling just how much my Father loved me. We went to the doctor the next day to check me out. There wasn’t a trace of it. I had been cured! I stand as a witness that miracles do exist today! And I will for the rest of my life! Our Heavenly Father loves us. He lets bad things happen so we can learn. I was kind of confused by those two events that occurred. I had just received an answer from the Spirit that I was supposed to go home. And then my President gave me the blessing to be healed. I was confused why that occurred. I was talking to my companion about it and he said that maybe I just needed to learn to trust in God, get out of my own way. If I trust in Him, He knows what is best for me. Sometimes I want good things but He knows what is best for me.
I learned that and tried to apply it to the last two years and I will remember it the rest of my life. The Lord knows each one of us personally. He knows what we like to do, what makes us afraid, knows what we can make of our lives. In His eyes we can be happy. We can find joy in our lives.
While I was in the hospital I shared the Gospel with a couple of my nurses and doctors. We actually became really good friends with some of them. Sometimes they would take me out to lunch, get me some empanadas. I spent so much time in the hospital with them that we became really close. Fast-forward a year and a half in my mission. I’m out knocking doors with my companion. We have a reference from a member. We go knock on the door we have a reference to. And it is one of my sweet little nurses that had taken care of me in my sickness. At first I recognized her but couldn’t figure out from where. She started talking to us and immediately I recognized her as my nurse. She said that she remembered me and us missionaries. She said she remember us telling her about the Gospel. She let us come in and we shared the Gospel. She just clicked. She was so ready for the Gospel! I remember between our first and second visits she had read the entire Book of First Nephi. When we came back we were so impressed. She was just so ready for the Gospel. She was baptized and she is very strong in the Gospel now. I just remember that this is how God wants us to trust in His timeline. I am so grateful that I could spend those days sick in the hospital, suffering and sad because I learned so much! I could never be more grateful for that experience. I’m so grateful that I was able to meet and teach that sweet sister. Who was baptized over a year later by a missionary that she had treated in the hospital. I really know that God is always with us. He never leaves us alone. He wants us to trust in Him.
One of the last things I learned in my mission was that salvation really can’t be earned. When you read the scriptures you can find a lot that God’s grace is free and a gift. And that is what salvation is, it’s a gift. The price has already been paid. But it does take an effort from us to open that gift, to receive salvation. The only way to be saved is to come unto Jesus Christ. That is only possible by living His gospel. Living and loving His teachings. Through faith, through sincere repentance, by being baptized and by taking the sacrament, by receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and by enduring and enjoying this life, this Gospel until the end. That is how we can be saved. It’s a free gift. Its up to us to partake of it because it is prepared for us.
I just want to share my testimony of the Book of Mormon. I know it is the word of God. And I know because I can feel it. When I turn to it daily I can feel the strength of my Heavenly Father helping me get through every challenge I have. Satan attacks every day. The Book of Mormon gives me strength. Stronger than anything he [Satan] has. I know the Book of Mormon changes lives. It has changed a lot of lives of the people that I was able to teach on the mission. And more than anything, it has changed MY life! It has made me happy. It has made me come to trust God.
Se que el Evangelio de Jesucristo ha sido restaurado por medio del profeta Jose Smith, y que tenemos un profeta vivente de Dios. Se y testifico que Jesucristo nos ama con un amor sincere y perfecto, y que pormedio de El podamos regresar a Su presnecia. Para esta fin Jesucristo dejo venir a la tierra, sufrio mis pecados, padecio en la carne y murio. Al tercer dia El se levanto de la tumba para que yo puedo vivir y ser feliz hoy. Testifico que El ama a las familias, y que somos Su familia. El desa que regresemos a Su presencia. Testifico que soy feliz gracias al Evangelio que El enseno. Testifico que nuestro Padre Celestial tiene un plan perfecto para nosotros. Siento Su amor en mi vida y lo siento ahora. Nos guia dia tras dia. Se que si seamos disipulos verdaderos de Jesucristo, traeremos mucha paz y gozo a las vidas de nuestros hermanos. Testifico que Jesus es el Cristo, si el Buen Pastor. Y lo testifico en el nombre de El, Jesucristo. Amen.
