Great Power in This Work

Great Power in This Work

Great Power in This Work
Mormon History Related

"Years ago a friend, who long since is gone, told this experience. He was seventeen-years-old and with his companion stopped at a cottage in the southern states. It was his first day in the mission field and was his first door. A gray-haired woman stood inside the screen and asked what they wanted. His companion nudged him to proceed. Frightened and somewhat tongue-tied, he finally blurted out, 'As man is God once was, and as God is man may become.'"Strangely enough, she was interested and asked where he got that. He answered, 'It's in the Bible.' She left the door for a moment, returned with her Bible. Commenting that she was a minister of a congregation, she handed it to him and said, 'Here, show me.'"He took the Bible and nervously thumbed back and forth through it. Finally he handed it back saying, 'Here, I can't find it. I'm not even sure that it's in there, and even if it is, I couldn't find it. I'm just a poor farm boy from out in Cache Valley in Utah. I haven't had much training. But I come from a family where we live the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it's done so much for our family that I've accepted a call to come on a mission for two years, at my own expense, to tell people how I feel about it.'"After half a century, he could not hold back the tears as he told me how she pushed open the door and said, 'Come in, my boy, I'd like to hear what you have to say.'"There is great power in this work, and the ordinary member of the Church, sustained by the Spirit, can do the work of the Lord."
-- Boyd K. Packer, "The Candle of the Lord," Ensign, Jan. 1983, 56