We had a really good meeting with President Wakolo this past week. Not a whole lot to mention about it until we got to right at the very end. President got up and began to tell us a little bit about how he was converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I had known from previous meetings that it had taken him a very great length of time and 24 different missionaries for that to happen, but what I didn't know was a little bit about that final missionary.
By the time he arrived (I'll call him Elder Green because I don't actually know his name. lol) President Wakolo had been meeting with missionaries for several years. He had received the missionary lessons 6 times over and could teach the doctrine back to the missionaries better than some of them could teach it. The first time he met Elder Green was the also the first time that Elder Green had met anyone in course of his mission who was not either a member or another missionary; the very first lesson Elder Green ever had was at the Wakolo home.
Early the morning before the appointment and late the night before this Elder had devoted a great deal of time to prayer and meditation. Clearly he received an answer from God, because after they had sat down and said a prayer with the Wakolo family, Elder Green looked straight at President Wakolo and asked him just one question: "If you were to open up a family grocery store, what would it be called? Now don't you think that if Jesus Christ was to have a church, wouldn't it be called after His name?"
President Wakolo said he just sat there for a moment nodding his head and then responded to the new Elder's question with a statement of his own. "Elders, if you answer this next question right, I will be baptized a member of your church." Can you imagine how those Elders must had felt? This was a man who had resisted baptism for many years, and suddenly everything was put on two young missionary's shoulders, one of them very 'green' indeed. "Elders," Wakolo asked, "when can I be baptized?"
Fast forward many years down the line to this present time and this same man is now faithfully serving a mission of his own with his wife and kids beside him. And all it took was a prayer and an inspired question at exactly the right time.
People have asked me before why it is our church's name is so long. The simple answer is that Christ Himself named it. The longer answer is that we are the Church belonging to Jesus Christ, and we are doing our very best to become faithful servants of our Savior (the very definition of 'Saint') here in these Last Days before He comes again to rule personally on the Earth. He is coming again, and we are trying to get the rest of the world ready for it by helping them understand the fullness of His gospel, namely Faith in the Savior, Repentance of sin, Baptism by immersion and proper authority, Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands, and Enduring to the End (Mark13:13). Endure to the End simply means repeat steps One and Two for the rest of your life.
As far as actual missionary work go we had the great blessing to help an investigator come to church with us for the first time ever. She has been seeing the missionaries for over a year now, and we are just helping her build her faith in Jesus Christ. We have great hopes for her.
I know that this church is the only true and living church on the Earth set up by the Lord Himself. Great blessings come from being active in it, and by living the gospel that Christ taught while he was on the Earth. Please, if you have anything in your life that is preventing you form living as He would have you live, change it so you can have the sort of Joy that He would have you have. I know all the blessings I now have is a direct result from faithfully living and keeping the commandments of God.
God bless you till we meet again.
~Elder Jayden Barker
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