Obedience: More France

Sunday evening’s meeting was a powerful one. The current missionaries were in attendance. The training was, ostensibly, for them, but I found myself hanging on every word, knowing I am training my own band of missionaries at home.

But before the meeting even began, the training of my heart began. DH introduced me to a lovely woman—one of the ‘goldens’, he said, the large group of young adults who had been baptized while DH was there in the Bordeaux mission. One of DH’s missionary friends mused that he didn’t know why there were so many, these goldens and why they found them. But the lovely woman knew. She said. You were obedient. Obedience brings power. It brought you to us.

Later in the meeting, Elder Andersen told a story of a former elder, not in attendance, who wanted to be perfectly obedient, so even though they had no more appointments for the evening and even though it was pouring rain so meeting street contacts was unlikely, it wasn’t yet 9:30, so he wouldn’t go inside the apartment. His companion stood inside the doorway, begging his companion to come inside, but he stood out in the rain and (not so) miraculously, a man walked up to him. The elder asked what he knew about Jesus Christ, and the man’s heart was pricked: he knew this elder knew something he needed to know. He was taught and accepted the path of gospel discipleship, because an elder wouldn’t go in out of the rain until it was time.

Exact obedience is a funny thing. The world would have us believe that obedience is mindless, is a sign of cult worship, is something no thinking person would engage in without firm rewards in view. But we know different. We know that “when we obtain any blessing from God it is by obedience to that law upon which it was predicated” (D&C 130:21)

My mission president (in Brazil) often spoke of obedience. He counseled us to seek out the predicate laws for the blessings we needed. He implored us to be exactly obedient, to seek that power. Even though we served in Brazil, where the church is being accepted readily and seemingly easily, we served in the heart of historical Brazil, where the Catholic church is strongest (at one point I served in a small town with two different convents and a monastery), where people seemed most inclined to cling to tradition, even if it brought them no peace, no light. President Smith taught us that we would find power in obedience, the power to teach, the power to find those who were ready for change, for light. And to my knowledge, during my time in that mission, no one was sent home for disobedience. No one.

Those goldens in Bordeaux that were found because of the obedience of the missionaries of DH's time are now the leaders in the church of France. I could speak to many because they had served English speaking missions. One serves in the stake presidency. One works for the church in Europe. They continue being golden, finding their own blessings from their own obedience. They learned even the lessons the elders didn't know they were teaching--that obedience brings power.