Why I served a Mormon Mission Part IV

As that conference approached I was looking forward to speaking what the Lord would have me speak. I remember walking over to the stake center which was over past the wave pool. It was a building that I had never been to. I got to the stake center about thirty minutes early because we were supposed to have a prayer before hand. As I walked into the chapel in the stake center I felt my courage depart out the door. There were chairs that filled up both the overflow and the gym. I then thought. . . well they are just planning for a lot of people not that many people will come.


I found the room where President Clark and some of the other speakers were waiting and we said a prayer asking God to help us speak what he would have us say. Well that was fine with me I had been asking that for the last few weeks. We then left the room to go to the chapel and wait for Stake Conference to start. Well as I sat there on the stand and listened to the prelude music I saw the chapel start to fill up. I then saw the overflow fill up and I then watched the gym start to fill up and I just sat there dumb founded at the number of people that were there. It seemed like everyone had come and brought a friend. Now I had been on the debate team and was used to speaking before people but I had never spoken before a group this large before. To be honest it was all I could do not to feign some kind of sudden sickness, however I didn't and once the meeting started I began to regain some of my courage despite the feeling of inadequacy that I had when I looked at the few scribbles I had written down compared to the pages of printed material that the others seemed to have. As the first speaker spoke I began to search frantically through the scriptures for more to talk about. I had learned a few minutes before the first speaker got up that I was supposed to talk for fifteen minutes and I knew that I only had about five minutes worth of talking to do. As the speaker spoke that wonderful calm comfort that only comes from the Holy Ghost spoke to me and I quickly found some more scriptures to share.



The first speaker sat down and I knew it was my turn to speak so I stood up. My knees weren't shaking to bad but I had to put my hands on the pulpit so that they wouldn't shake to badly. I then started to read the little thing I had written. I read a scripture that talked about the fruits of the spirit and talked about how the Holy Ghost made me feel. I then talked about the fruits of the spirit and how I knew that the book of Mormon was true. I then bore a quick testimony of God and Jesus Christ and sat down. It took all of about 5 minutes. (Looking back on that now I feel really sorry for the next few speakers who had to make up for my short talk. Overall it was a wonderful experience that helped to strengthen my faith and it helped to give me courage in sharing what I now believed in and why I believed in it.)

One of the things that really bugged me about the church that I learned in these weeks after stake Conference was that I didn't get visiting teachers. I thought this was crap. I mean I really wanted to girls to come over and visit me and it would be even better if it could have been Sheena since I was her home teacher. But alas I learned much to my dismay that guys don't get visiting teachers. Go figure.

With Stake Conference now over the only thing that really frightened me was the upcoming Christmas break where I would have to go home and see how my parents really felt about me becoming a Mormon. However before Christmas I decided that I really wanted the Melchizedek Priesthood but was saddened by what President Clark told me.