Come and See

Talk given in the Saturday evening session of Sacramento Stake conference on 17 February 2007:

Thank you, President Lemon. It is a pleasure to be with you today. I bring you the greetings and love of President and Sister Huff. President Huff is probably standing at a pulpit in the Cordova Stake right now. And since he hasn’t mastered the art of being in two places at once, you have me.

It has been a day filled with spiritual experiences. Being here has been wonderful, to hear a returned missionary and new converts to the church, to feel of their spirit, to hear of the conviction in their hearts of the truthfulness of the gospel.

I started out the day, this morning, with a funeral. One of our missionaries passed away this week. Elder Jad Harris started his mission almost three years ago, called to the Japan Nagoya Mission. He served there for almost a year before he got sick. Because of the medical attention he needed, he was sent home to Miami, Florida. His parents moved from Chile to Miami shortly before he left on his mission. And so he went home to Miami and he got better. The doctors gave him a clean bill of health, and his stake president resubmitted his papers and the brethren approved his call to come here and serve in the California Sacramento Mission.

After a few months in Sacramento, Elder Harris got sick again. He had to go home again to Miami, and actually went to BYU for a block while he got better. Again, the doctors gave him a clean bill of health, and the stake president submitted his papers. It is very unusual for the brethren to approve a missionary to go out a third time after he has had medical difficulties in the mission. But the medical reports were so clean and glowing that the brethren approved it, and he came here to the Sacramento mission again. He had been serving a few months when, a couple of weeks ago, he became ill. He was having a hard time breathing, and he was taken to the hospital. Before he went to the hospital, he wrote a letter home saying, “Mom, I wish I could find a way to extend my mission.”

Elder Harris was admitted to the hospital. The doctors never did figure out the cause of his difficulties, although they knew he had pulmonary embolisms. He passed away this week. His parents came out here and, because he did not have ties to Miami, his parents wanted him to be buried here where he served so faithfully and honorably.

In Doctrine and Covenants section 138 is the vision that President Joseph F. Smith had of the spirit world. Toward the end of that vision, in verse 57, he says: “I beheld that the faithful elders of this dispensation, when they departed from mortal life, continue their labors in the preaching of the gospel of repentance and redemption, through the sacrifice of the Only Begotten Son of God, among those who are in darkness and under the bondage of sin in the great world of the spirits of the dead.”

Elder Harris’ great family came out here and testified that Elder Harris found a way to extend his calling as a missionary. And I testify to you that that is where we go after this life and that we have opportunities to serve there. It is not a passive thing; it is an active thing in the spirit world.

In Elder Harris’ coffin today, as I had a chance to see him for the last time, his scriptures were opened. They were all marked up, and there was a little bookmark sitting on his scriptures. This is the quote that the bookmark had on it. It is from a talk of Elder M. Russell Ballard last year at conference. He said: “Today I invite you to relax and set aside your concerns and focus instead on your love for the Lord, your testimony of His eternal reality, and your gratitude for all He has done for you. If you are truly motivated by love and testimony and gratitude, you will quite naturally do all that you can to assist the Lord in ‘[bringing] to pass the immortality and eternal life" (Moses 1:39) of our Father's children. In fact, it would be impossible to keep you from doing it.”

In that same talk that Elder Ballard gave, he said this about missionary work. Elder Ballard is a great man who loves the missionary work of the Church and has been fully engaged in leading that work for the Church. He said: “From every indicator we have, there is nothing more effective that any of us can do for our friends than to say “come and see” by joining with us in sacrament meeting.”

And that is what I want to talk to you about for just a few minutes -- that invitation we give others to “come and see.”

I love the first chapter of John. It talks about the beginning of Christ’s ministry here on the earth. It also talks about John the Baptist. He was preaching and baptizing in the wilderness near the river Jordan. He had disciples who were following him. John told these disciples that there would come after him one “whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose,” that there was one greater than him coming, the Son of God. We know that Jesus Christ went to John the Baptist and was baptized by John.

The very next day, Jesus was passing by. John was with two of his disciples -- John and Andrew -- and John said, “Behold the Lamb of God.” These two disciples got it. There were other disciples who didn’t get it. They didn’t understand that now was the time to follow Jesus Christ. But these two disciples understood. And so they physically began to follow Jesus Christ. He saw them following, and he turned around and asked, “What seek ye?”

Sometimes, we get asked questions and we don’t know what the answers are. In fact, we want the person asking to give us that very answer. A few years back, I was asked to meet with about 10 or 15 other bishops to meet with Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Council of the Twelve. He was sent out by the Twelve to meet with bishops and find out what some of their challenges were and find out what the brethren could do to help the bishops and make them more effective and to lift some of their burden. We sat down with Elder Holland and he said, “Okay brethren, I want you to tell me about being a bishop.” All of these other bishops were very good at telling him the difficulties of being a bishop, pouring out their hearts about some of the challenges and obstacles in their calling. But I just couldn’t do it, because there I was sitting with an apostle of the Lord and I wanted him to give me the questions and the answers. I had a very hard time speaking up, even though that is what he wanted me to do. And I have a feeling that maybe John and Andrew, when Jesus turned around and said, “What seek ye?” that is probably what they wanted to know from him.

John and Andrew asked, “Rabbi, where dwellest thou?” which is simple enough. They were saying, we want to follow you. And Jesus said to them, “Come and see.” That was the beginning of the ministry of two of the great men in the New Testament.

The next day, Jesus said to Philip, “Follow me.” And Philip understood, and he went to his friend, Nathaniel, and said, “We have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” When he said, “[the prophet] of whom Moses [taught],” Nathaniel knew Philip was referring to the Messiah. Nathaniel’s answer to him is classic, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?”

Have you ever had that response when you tried to share the gospel? Can any good thing come out of the Mormon Church? Are we here to prove that good things can come out of the Mormon Church? Are we here to convert people? No, we are not. We can’t do that. The Holy Ghost converts people. We can only invite. And so Philip said to Nathaniel, “Come and see.”

About 40 years ago, here in this stake, a young mother who was disappointed by a failed marriage came to Sacramento to be around her family. She knew she needed to get a job, so she started to look. She found one quickly, a good job. But then she realized she needed a babysitter for her little daughter. That was a scary thing for her because her daughter had never been watched by anyone other than family.

She didn’t know who to ask, so she looked in the newspaper for daycare. Her eyes were drawn to an ad in the classified section for “good wholesome daycare.” She recognized the address as being near to where she was living. There was a phone number, which she called. The parents were not home. It was a house full of girls, and they said, “Our parents will be home soon and you can come and meet them.” This young mother went over and met the family. She was so impressed. She found these girls to be delightful. She found Mrs. Davis to be trustworthy and kind. She decided this would be her daycare.

This was Saturday night. On Monday, the young mother brought little Kimmy over and dropped her off, and she went to work. It was a very hard thing for her, but she knew it was what she needed to do to provide. This went on for awhile; it was difficult. One day, Mrs. Davis said to the mother, “We have a program for children at the church on Tuesdays. It is called Primary. Can little Kimmy come with us?” The mother said, “That sounds like fun. Why don’t you go ahead and take her?” She didn’t even think to ask what church it was. She trusted Mrs. Davis.

Little Kimmy started going to Primary every week. And pretty soon she was coming home singing, “Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam” and, perhaps more importantly, “The golden plates lay hidden . . . .” Her mother began to wonder, what are these golden plates hidden in the mountainside? In fact, she had been very interested in archeology, so this was something that piqued her interest. She went to Mrs. Davis and said, “Kimmy has been singing these songs. Can you tell me about them?” Mrs. Davis sat her down and said, “Listen, these are very important things. These are things that our Heavenly Father wants you to know. And I have a couple of friends who I would like to send over and have explain them to you.

One evening, not too many days later, a knock came at her door and she answered it. There were two missionaries. One was a full-time missionary and one was a middle-aged stake missionary, as we used to call them back then. And I know this story because that middle-aged stake missionary was my grandfather.

He had the opportunity to go in and to start teaching the gospel to this young mother. And she quickly caught on, especially to the part about the Book of Mormon. She had the opportunity to hold it in her hands. She had the opportunity to learn about it from the missionaries. And then, she wanted to do it the same way that Joseph Smith did. She read in James 1:5: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.” She knelt down and prayed, and then she opened up the Book of Mormon and read. And the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon was opened up to her understanding.

Within just a few weeks, she was baptized a member of the Church. And when little Kimmy grew up and was eight years old, she was baptized. I know this because my father was the bishop who interviewed her for baptism. They remained faithful to the Lord. And when little Kimmy was 19 years old, she went to the temple and knelt there at the altar and was married for time and all eternity to a husband. And I know because I was the lucky fellow who knelt across from her at that altar.

“Come and see” is a powerful way for us to invite our friends, neighbors, and family members to find out for themselves the truthfulness of the gospel. When we pray to have these experiences, we will have them, but we must pray with faith and real intent. Faith I think we understand. We pray with faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ. But what does it mean to pray with real intent? That means, very simply, that when we pray we intend to do whatever the Lord instructs us to do. How many times do we pray then say, “But Lord, you take care of it”? It seems easier, but it doesn’t happen that way. We need to pray with the conviction and determination that we need to go out and do what the Lord wants us to do.

I promise that, if you will pray with faith, with real intent, the Lord will give you those opportunities, and you will be an instrument in his hands. I bear you my testimony that this is the gospel of Jesus Christ, that we are here with the responsibility to share this gospel with others, so that we can fill the kingdom of God with those who faithfully come unto him, so that we can bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of our fellow beings here on earth.

And I leave this with you in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.