Sunday Sentiments - Good with One

Last Sunday was our ward conference. Our stake president spoke in our sacrament meeting, and he talked a bit about his mission. He was assigned to serve in Atlanta, Georgia speaking Vietnamese. I won't try to recap his entire experience because I'll probably get a lot of the details wrong, but I can tell you a few things - first, he spent 12 weeks in the MTC learning the language. Then, when he was in Atlanta, the Vietnamese program in his mission was dissolved, and he was reassigned to be English speaking. BUT through one of those right place/right time situations, he was asked if he could teach a young man the gospel in Vietnamese. That young man had been meeting with the missionaries for quite some time, but it wasn't until he met with our stake president and heard the teachings in Vietnamese that he made the decision to be baptized. He has been a faithful member of our Church ever since. 

This story got me thinking about how God has the power and willingness to set things into motion for the benefit of one. There are a lot of things that happen that bless humans on a grand scale, but there are a lot of things that happen for the benefit of a single individual. Sometimes we get to see those things unfold, but a lot of times, I think we are completely unaware. 

That night, I had the opportunity to teach some youth in another ward about covenants. I found the subject matter (and the presence of young people) a bit intimidating. "Covenants" isn't a comfortable topic for me (I find that I am rarely assigned topics I'm comfortable with or feel adequate to teach - I guess that's how the Lord deals with me. I don't get asked to teach because I know stuff... I get asked to teach because I need to learn stuff). 

I always take my teaching/speaking assignments very seriously, and I study and pray my guts out as I prepare. This time, I worked especially hard because I felt so inadequate in my own understanding and knowledge of covenants. Plus, it's not a topic that holds my attention well. I confess, for me, it's what I would consider a "shut off" topic - one that makes me glaze over, so I'm sure the youth struggle, too. I hoped that what I taught would be simple and clear, and that it would be what the Lord wanted.

We had 28 youth come to our class (which blew our minds because we live in an elderly ward, so we would have had 6 youth on a good day in our own ward). We taught the class. We went home. (I say "we" because Scotty came and helped me). 

In the end, I was a little disappointed with how things went. I didn't think it was terrible, but I also didn't feel like it was successful at the level I would have hoped for considering how much effort I'd put in. I didn't know if I'd accomplished what the Lord wanted. I wished I could have a do-over and fix some things.

The next day while I was driving to work, my stake president's story came to mind, and I was thinking about how wild it was that a young boy in Utah spent twelve weeks learning Vietnamese seemingly to reach one person in Georgia. I have such a strong testimony of God working in this way, and as I acknowledged that, the Spirit washed over me, and I had this thought, "You weren't meant to reach 28 youth last night. No one can do that. But you reached The One."

That's when I realized that if my study and preparation only resulted in one of the kids feeling the Spirit in the room that night, I'm good with that. If one kid took something away from the activities and discussions we had, then I needn’t have done it any differently.