"Ye never knew me" (JST Matthew 7:23) - October 10, 2022

Spiritual Thought

As part of the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount the Savior warned against the dangers of casual discipleship.  In that instance declared "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.  Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?  And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity."  This account is a powerful insight into what exactly our experience on the day of judgement will be.  I am confident there will be many who are disciples in name only.  Those who have professed Christ's name and outwardly may even seem to be doing everything perfectly.  Yet when they stand in front of our Savior their feeble charade will crumble.  The reality of such a future situation is that we do not have the right or omniscience to judge those around us.  They Savior "knows his sheep" and "looketh upon the heart."  Thus, our responsibility is to always strive to ensure we are more than token disciples.  Aside from our Savior we are the only individuals who know what is within our heart and it is our ability to choose whether we will be disciples who simply say "Lord, Lord" or if we will be true disciples of the Master who are worthy of all he possesses.

One of the blessings of the restoration is that the revelatory work of the Prophet Joseph Smith was not limited to the Book of Mormon alone.  One of the additional blessings we receive from him is the translation of the Bible which clarifies and expounds on many truths which otherwise would be lost.  This occasion is one such instance.  The Joseph Smith translation of Matthew 7:23 changes the Savior's response from "I never knew you" to "Ye never knew me."  This is a very helpful and insightful distinction.  It would be entirely against the nature and character of the Savior Jesus Christ for him to not know or be aware of anyone of us.  The idea is illogical and dissonant to all other truths concerning the infinite love and compassion of the Savior.  The Savior's resurrected body still carries the scares of the nails, we are "graven on the palms of his hands" and we will never be forgotten.  This prophetic clarification places the responsibility of discipleship upon you and me.  We will always be allowed to choose whether we wish to follow the Master.  Because of this fact if we reach this crucial moment with the Savior and feel uncomfortable or out of place then we have failed in our preparation.  Every preparation has been made and opportunity provided in order for us to not only be comfortable in this moment but to yearn for it.  Whether we feel this way or not is our decision.  

My prayer is that, in the words of Elder Bednar, we will "choose to be chosen."  That we will righteously exercise our agency to know Christ.  To spend time with Him each day and allow Him to occupy our thoughts and attention.  As we do so I promise we will one day hear a very different greeting from the Master: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Weekly Update

Hello everyone,

We're getting to the end of the transfer again and that always makes my mind feel fuzzy.  This transfer seems to have gone by very quickly and I'm hoping Elder Razafimanantsoa and I have at least one more here in Antsirabe.  I have five transfers left in my mission which on the one hand feels like a very long time but also feels like nothing at all after how fast this transfer has passed.

This past week was mostly spent helping people be prepared for baptism on Saturday and getting the area ready for next transfer.  Henri was going to baptize his son, Nicola, who he thought was nine.  As I was watching Elder Razafimanantsoa fill out the baptismal form I noticed that Nicola was born in 2015.  That didn't sound right to me but I thought it was just because of time being weird while you're on a mission.  After I remembered it's still 2022 I did the math and realized his son was only seven.  Not only that but he barely turned seven about six weeks ago!  We told Henri Nicola would actually have to wait until August to be baptized.  He was very understanding and is hopefully still going to baptize the other people on Saturday.  I'm just glad I realized so we didn't accidentally perform an infant baptism!

This mission changed rules this week so now there is one smartphone for each companionship instead of each missionary.  I knew that was the case in most missions outside of the United States and Europe so I was surprised when it wasn't here.  We were supposed to collect all the extra smartphones from the companionships in the zone and keep them until somebody came to take them.  It looked pretty funny to have a stack of smartphones sitting on our study desk.  The office Elders came down here to take all the phones and Elder Lewis came up on Tuesday so they could give the extra smartphones from Fianarantsoa.  We turned this apartment into a six man for the night.  It's always fun to see the American Elders.  I love Malagasies but sometimes it does get a little tiring being the only American within four hours.  Tuesday night Elder Peterson, Elder Lewis and I were talking about typical missionary things (deep doctrine, how long we've been out, how weird it will be to be back in America, we'll feel like we need a companion with us the first time we go on a date, etc.)  We were standing in the kitchen and after a while Elder Lewis asked if we wanted to go sit down.  I said sure then said "what time is it anyway?"  Elder Peterson pulled out his phone and it was 12:30 a.m.  Somehow we had completely lost track of time!

The Malagasy translation of conference came out a week later so we were able to watch it this week.  Antinette and Henri watched every session.  It was so neat to see them taking notes at different points.  After it was over we went to their house and asked if they had received any impressions during the conference.  Henri immediately responded by saying "We need to follow the commandments, we need to read the Book of Mormon and we need to prepare for the temple."  He responded immediately so it was very neat to see how he had obviously been thinking about those things before we asked the question.

We taught Jean Marius and Tahiry the law of tithing this week.  After we had finished we asked if they were willing to follow this commandment.  Jean Marius thought for a minute then said "That is very difficult and will not be easy.  But how could I be so selfish with my money if that is what God needs from me.  He is the one that blesses us with money anyway so we're really just giving him something he already has so that he can give us something we need more."  It was a very powerful and mature view on tithing.  I am always so impressed with how willing everyone is to follow this commandment even though they have so little.

I hope you all have a great week

Elder Payne

With our six man plus the two other Elders who live below us.

You could say that Elder Lewis is high maintenance.  He decided he needed a new proselyting bag before he left and was convinced he had to have Prada.  The truth is he's always struck me as a right side of the menu kind of guy.

Alma 30:44

Sisters, help me out: does every Relief Society room in the world have this same picture of past General Relief Society Presidents?  Is it a policy or something?  Why do they only go up to 1995?  It's fine with me but I'm genuinely curious.

I've been convinced for a while now that I'm maturing in reverse.  When I was in Primary I never would have done this.  But now, as a missionary, I decided to build myself a throne to sit on while we helped other missionaries do weekly planning.  This is me ruling my kingdom.

Elder Razafimanantsoa standing next to my throne.  Yes, he's standing right now.  That's how high it was.  Don't worry though, these are very sturdy chairs.

I will never stop being amazed at people carrying things on their head.  Bricks are a new level of impressive though.  This is Clarque and this is how she and the other women they work with move all the bricks.  The most I've seen one of them carry on their head is 14.

Chicken blood is a delicacy here.  It honestly is pretty good but you have to get past the mental block of eating blood.

We had a very windy day and this is the view from our apartment looking at the area of our first lesson.  For those of you in New Mexico, imagine if none of the roads were paved.  That's what it's like here.

There have been some people working on our roof.  They dropped something and now this entire window is broken.

There was something wrong with the projector during conference and everyone looked like this.  Maybe the Quorum of the Twelve should invest in some sunscreen?

A mango.

A brick with a chicken foorprint.