Dads letter.

Dear Elders and Sisters,

Following a late evening meeting last week, Sister Christensen and I braved a frigid wind burst that whipped drifted snow around our heads as we walked several blocks in the dark along an icy pathway. I tried to imagine how handcart pioneers survived the bitter cold, wind and snow for weeks and weeks on vast windswept plains without adequate clothing, food or shelter and remembered the account of a small group of Mormon pioneers who got a very late start on their journey to Utah in 1857.  They were caught in a heavy snowstorm in the early fall and many of them became extremely sick with high fevers and pneumonia. Weakened by freezing temperatures, sickness, the strain of pulling handcarts and carrying the smaller children, they made little progress each day.

One day, being terribly cold and exhausted, they approached an icy river that presented an almost insurmountable challenge.  The river seemed too wide, too deep, and too cold to cross. One weary sister stood on the bank of the river, holding her baby, with tears silently streaming down her face. She simply had no strength to face this seemingly impossible trial. Many felt that their journey had come to an end.  They were so cold and worn out that they simply could not move on.  Then suddenly, without saying a word, a young man waded into the cold river and made his way to the other side to see how deep it was. The icy water came up to his waist. He returned and announced that the handcarts were too short and too heavily loaded to carry children and those who were sick across the river. He knew there was only one possible way to cross the river and asked everyone to kneel down with him and pray for help. He was a tall, strong seventeen year-old boy who knew that he would need the help of the Lord to deal with the numbing cold of the river.

Following the prayer, the boy immediately rose to his feet and carried his sick mother across the river.  He then carried his younger sister, and finally his three-year-old brother. When they were safe, he started carrying other children across. Soon another boy, a little younger but nearly as tall, joined him in the cold river and the two of them carried across all the children and others who were too weak to trudge through the icy water on their own. When everyone else was safely on the other side and the handcarts had been pulled across, the two boys struggled out of the river and did their best to get dry and warm themselves by the fire.  One member of the company recorded that the boys' legs and feetwere blue from the cold. The boys were given dry clothes and were wrapped in blankets. Eachmember of the company reverently approached the boys and expressed tearful gratitude for their help. As one pioneer remembered, the boys just smiled kindly and responded that they had only done what needed to be done. 

That night, after everyone else had gone to bed, the boys huddled by the fire doing their best to get warm. Suffering from severe muscle cramps and violent shivers, the two boys spoke late into the night of their dreams for the future. The next morning the leader of the group found the boys still sitting by the fire, wrapped in their blankets. As he approached them, he was devastated to discover that both boys had died during the night as they sat by the fire. The extreme trauma of the icy water had claimed their young lives. Their bodies were buried at the edge of the river where they had sacrificed their lives to save the lives of others.

I thought about these two boys again, Elders and Sisters, as I looked at each of your photographs last evening and thought about you individually, which I do regularly. I realized, with tender emotions and my eyes filled with tears, that there is not a single missionary in this mission would not have stepped forward, as these two young men did, to carry every weakened child of our Father in Heaven across that dangerously cold river. I know this about you because I see the goodness and kindness of your hearts.  I know this about you because I see you getting out every day in the face of rejection, disappointment and fatigue, seeking diligently to find brothers and sisters who need to be carried across a dangerously cold river of darkness and despair into the light, warmth and safety offered by our Savior.  

You carry precious brothers and sisters to safety when you selflessly do all you can every day to help them "receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and his Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end."  

You carry precious brothers and sisters to safety when you pray with all the energy of your heart to be filled with the pure love of Christ so that you and your companion, like the two boys in the story, serve together, single-mindedly, in unity and love, under the guidance of the Holy Ghost to find and carry souls seeking refuge from the storms of life.

You carry precious brothers and sisters to safety when you, like the boys in the story, abandon yourselfish wants, desires and opinions and submit your whole will to God as His true representative and rescuing agent. 

You carry precious brothers and sisters to safety when you speak to everyone throughout the day so that God can place in your path His children who are seeking passage to peace and salvation.

You carry precious brothers and sisters to safety when you do your absolute best to do everythingGod's servants have asked you do in Preach My Gospel and the Missionary Handbook, assummarized in our Mission Standards of Excellence, so that you have the constant help of heaven.

You carry precious brothers and sisters to safety when you keep your thoughts, words and actions clean and in harmony with the mind of the Lord in order to have the power, strength and confidence to draw down the powers of heaven.

You carry precious brothers and sisters to safety when you dress, speak, act and present yourself at all times with dignity so that they will recognize and trust you as a servant of Christ in whom they can entrust their spiritual lives.

You carry precious brothers and sisters to safety when you, like the two boys, are determined not to waste a single precious minute – when you refuse to linger at the branch building or in your apartment, or spend excessive time in members' homes or at activities that might be comfortable orenjoyable but are not effective in finding souls seeking to be rescued.

As I discussed in my letter last week, this brief time of full-time missionary service is a unique and sacred season in your life when you have the privilege of living the laws of sacrifice andconsecration, consistent with your covenants in the temple to do so.  Like the two boys' brief period of selfless, heroic service, you too can place the salvation of others above your own wants and desires, draw closer to God, and exercise greater faith in His Son, Jesus Christ.  The first boy's overwhelming desire to rescue his mother, his younger sister and his little brother, and every other soul who desperately needed his help, became his singular desire and focus and it inspired his younger friend to join him. Rescuing beloved souls in danger dominated their thoughts and overpowered any desires for their own comfort and welfare. 

You also are blessed with a glorious opportunity, but without the threat of death or physical harm, to sacrifice your comforts and self-centered thinking and fully consecrate your time, thoughts, and efforts to rescuing sons and daughters of God who are standing at the edge of a dark and treacherous river of despair, searching for truth and light. Cold, dark winds of uncertainty and doubt continue to blow all around us and many children of our Father in Heaven are in peril.  You have been blessed with both the opportunity and the time to become lovingly selfless in every aspect of your life as you seek to rescue them.

As I have observed you thinking less and less of your own comforts and desires and exhaustingyourself in finding and rescuing God's children, I have seen you experiencing the transforming realityof the Savior's Atonement and increased selfless love for others.  This thrills me because I know you are also enjoying the comforting, strengthening companionship of the Holy Ghost and are becoming amore powerful instrument in the hands of the Lord.  As you continue to act selflessly and do all you can to help precious souls facing darkness and disillusionment find safe passage to light and salvation, you will become more familiar with and have greater confidence in the whisperings of the Holy Ghost who will direct you where to go, what to do and what to say.  With all my heart, I want you to become a selfless, totally submissive, Christ-centered missionary, mostly because I know it will help you to become a loving, selfless and deeply spiritual father or mother who will guide, lift and bless the lives of your children and posterity forever.  I can assure you, my dear Elders and Sisters, that there will be many times in your life when you will, without hesitation, wade into an icy river in order to carry someone you dearly love to safety. 

I cannot overemphasize, as I expressed last week in my letter, how important it is for you to understand that you were called by God through a living prophet to learn and apply the celestial laws of sacrifice and consecration for a brief period of time in Russia.  You do this by letting go of your selfish wants, appetites, opinions and desires and fully consecrating your time, your thoughts, your words and your actions to the Savior who has called and authorized you to help children of God learn these same celestial laws and abide by them.  

My greatest desire is to help you enjoy all of the spiritual gifts and privileges to which you are entitled as a missionary and to better understand your true character and potential as a son or daughter of God. I pray that you will continue to strive during your mission – and then continue throughout your life – to exercise faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement and confidently call down the powers of heaven as you selflessly commit all with which God blesses you to the rescue of His children. I promise you that as you do so, He will bless you with the righteous desires of your heart and He will bless you and your posterity to stay firmly on the path to eternal life.

I pray that this may be so and express my sincere love to each of you,

President Christensen

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