by “Obedience has been described as the first law of heaven, and the longer I live, the more convinced of that I become. I never cease to thrill at the story of Helaman and his stripling warriors told in the Book of Mormon. Even though 2,060 of the young men “fought most desperately” (Alma 57:19) in battle, not one lost his life. What everyone may not know is that they qualified for this mighty miracle by their obedience. Their leader, Helaman, says of them: “They did obey and observe to perform every word of command with exactness” (Alma 57:21; emphasis added).”
Our Mission President, President Thompson, shared this with us to show us the blessings of exact obedience. The stripling warriors didn’t just talk the talk, but they walked the walk and they did everything they could to be exactly obedient. One transfer (6 weeks) we started a transfer of exact obedience. Everyone was going to be exactly obedient and we were going to see the blessings of our obedience.
I can honestly say I was the happiest missionary when I was the most obedient. When I would wake up at 5:30 and exercise and we would leave the apartment at 9:30, that’s when I was the happiest and had the most success.
When you are more obedient you are also more spiritual, you will find that scriptures will come to mind very easily and that your investigators will find understanding very fast. It’s as if you increase your spirituality and success by 500%.
All the times where I have had the most fun on my mission, it was because I was trying to be 100% obedient and because I was studying the scriptures like crazy.
A talk that really inspired me to be 100% obedient was this talk by Tad R. Callister, Becoming a Consecrated Missionary. This talk changed my entire mentality on obedience on the mission.
Success flows to the missionary who works hard and who is obedient. That is it. There was this one sector in Douala called “Village” that was know as being the hardest sector in the mission. it was hard, but there was this one missionary named Elder Reeve who served their he was super hard working, the difficulty of Village didn’t bother him, he was obedient and he worked and during his 3 months their he baptized someone. He didn’t actually find the person, as we say it happens, “the person fell from heaven” he was a referral who was super ready to receive the gospel and he was baptized. Likewise, when I served in that sector, I worked super hard and was obedient, but I didn’t baptize any of the people that I found, instead, the person that I baptized came to church with her family and we baptized her. I didn’t have to invite her to church she came to church by herself. Thus through my obedience and hard work, even though I didn’t find this particular person by myself, things came together and we had success.
Another story of obedience was when I was in the cybercafé. I was there I and was tempted to listen to rock music. I thought why not but instead I looked up things about the Book of Mormon on the Internet and that got me pumped about the Book of Mormon and that created a series of events that really grew my spirituality helped shape who I am today. I was blessed by my obedience on the mission and I look back with fondness on that good choice that I made and the blessings that that good choice has had in my life.
