Lessons on Prayer
My missionary colleague and I first met Jean-Luc on a street corner near La Promenade du Peyrou, a city park in the center of the city of Montpellier, France. Jean-Luc was sitting astride his bike, waiting to cross a small street towards the park when my colleague and I introduced ourselves and asked him if he believed in God. A lanky Frenchman in his 30s or 40s, Jean-Luc told us he worshipped God through dance. He gave us his number and agreed to meet with us at the park later that week.
At the end of our first meeting with Jean-Luc, we invited him to pray with us. Jean-Luc had never tried talking to God before. We taught him how to pray: to begin by addressing his Father in Heaven, to thank God for his blessings, to ask God for anything he had need of, and to close his prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. Jean-Luc agreed to try, bowed his head, and proceeded to give one of the most humble, sincere prayers I have ever heard. When he finished, he looked up with this huge smile on his face and said, “Ca fait du bien!”
“Thy kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10)
The president of my mission was a man of great faith. A plastic surgeon from Virginia, he left his medical practice for three years to accept an invitation from the leadership of his church to serve as a mission president, overseeing about 150 missionaries assigned to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ to those living in the south of France.
At one particular gathering of the missionaries in my area, my mission president shared a story from his life with us. My mission president was a husband and a father to eight children. He told of a time when his family was reading the scriptures together. They came across a verse in the Book of Mormon where Jesus, teaching the people in the Americas following His resurrection, says,
“For verily, verily I say unto you, he that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he stirreth up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another. Behold, this is not my doctrine, to stir up the hearts of men with anger, one against another; but this is my doctrine, that such things should be done away” (3 Nephi 11:29-30).
My mission president said that after reading these verses, he and his family made a goal to not have any more contention in their family. They prayed and asked God to help them. My mission president told us that it took his family three years to achieve their goal.
It had never occurred to me that having no contention in your family was a possibility.
“Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10)
The south of France has a significant population of immigrants from Africa, both North Africa and the francophone countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Belief in God tended to hold a much more central place in the lives of these immigrants than in the lives of the native French people we spoke with. I learned a great deal from the incredible faith of many of these people I had the opportunity to meet.
I remember one young woman from Africa in particular that I met on the streets of Toulouse. She was thrilled to meet my missionary colleague and me and talk with us about her relationship with God and how He had helped her in her life. One story she told us sticks in my mind. Full of faith that the Lord knew better than she did what was best for her life, this young woman prayed to God about a young man she was dating. She told God, “If this guy is not the right one for me, please take him out of my life.” The next day her boyfriend called her to tell her that he was moving back to Africa permanently. She took that as a clear sign from God and wished her boyfriend a happy life in Africa.
“Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11)
Another woman from Africa I had the privilege to know lived in the city of Nimes with her daughter. She had fairly recently been baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and and she enjoyed having the missionaries stop by to visit. She had been asked to teach one of the classes at church, and she often asked for some help preparing her lesson.
I loved this woman’s relationship with God. She was always very frank with Him about her life and what she needed. She worked cleaning people’s houses, and sometimes her back gave her a lot of pain. She told us about one day when she was cleaning someone’s house and her back started hurting so much she couldn’t keep cleaning. She told us that she prayed and said, “God, you took my husband away from me, so now I have to make a living for myself. If you’re not going to give me a husband, you better fix my back so I can work and make money to feed my family.” She said after her prayer the pain in her back eased, and she was able to continue cleaning.
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In the church congregation I attended in Montpellier there were twin sisters who both had a tremendous amount of faith and a gift for teaching. One of them taught a Sunday School class for those who were meeting with the missionaries or who had recently been baptized into the church. She spent a great deal of time and effort preparing her lesson each week, and it showed.
As part of her lesson preparation each week, this sister would make a set of handmade cards, each one with a different quote from scripture or from a current church leader on it. She would pray and ask God to help her find quotes that would bless the members of her class and that the right person would get the right quote. At the beginning of her lesson she would hand out a card to each class member. On more than one occasion I found that either her lesson or the quote card I received, or both, were exactly what I needed to hear that day.
This sister once shared with my colleague and me that she had made a promise to the Lord that she would spend her money and time making these cards and preparing these lessons every week for her class. In return, she asked God to look after her family and posterity and make sure they were never in a situation where they were without food or had to live in the street. For her service to the Lord she sought blessings of food and shelter for those she loved.
“And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Matthew 6:12)
When I was living in Marseille, we met a man on the street near our apartment named Fabrice. A Frenchman in his late twenties, Fabrice had recently had a spiritual experience that made him eager to talk with others who believed in God. He told us that his father was a police officer and that his father had nearly died after being attacked by some fellow police officers.
When his father was in the hospital in critical condition, Fabrice had prayed and promised God that he would give up smoking and that he would not seek revenge on those who had attacked his father if God would let his father live. His father lived. Fabrice kept his word. In exchange for his father’s life he chose forgiveness, and when we met him he was eager to learn more about God and Jesus Christ and to make them a bigger part of his life, ultimately choosing to make a covenant to follow Christ and have his sins washed away through baptism.
“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (Matthew 6:13)
One of the most interesting people I met on my mission was a member of the church congregation I attended in Nimes. This woman attended church every week, but she had trouble keeping certain commandments. She hadn’t been able to quit her habit of smoking, and for several years she lived with her boyfriend, the father of her two youngest children, out of wedlock.
Despite her struggles to abandon some of her sins, this sister did an amazing amount of missionary work herself. Through her influence her father had been baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, my colleague and I helped prepare her adult daughter for baptism while I was in the city, and later her youngest two children also chose to have the missionaries teach them so they could be baptized, despite their Muslim father’s initial opposition.
I was amazed at all the good this woman was able to accomplish, despite her obvious imperfections. She had so many stories of different ways God had guided her in her life. She was such an example to me of how much God loves each of His children and how willing He is to help all of us, no matter how imperfect we are.
One story she told us was about the time back when she was still with the father of her youngest two children. She talked about how the first time she and her boyfriend broke up she prayed and prayed so much that she would be able to get back together with him. God answered her prayer, and they got back together. She said they made each other miserable though, so they broke up again. Again, she prayed fervently to be able to get back together with him. Again, God answered her prayer. And again the relationship made her miserable. Finally, she realized that being with her boyfriend was not a good thing for her, and she broke off the relationship permanently.
I found this story so interesting, because you would think that if you were living with a person out of wedlock, which is against a commandment of God, that God would not answer a prayer that would help you continue to break that commandment. And yet, God knew this daughter of His well enough to know that the best way to teach her the importance of keeping this commandment was to grant her desire to break it so she could learn for herself the negative consequences of her choice through experience. It was a testimony to me that God doesn’t care how we learn the lessons we need to grow and progress, He just cares that we learn them. Sometimes He delivers us from evil by first letting us choose evil so that we can learn for ourselves that that path does not lead to happiness.
“For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever. Amen” (Matthew 6:13)
The life of a full-time proselytizing missionary is a challenging one. Especially when you are in a country where people tend to have negative views of religion. A history of religious wars between Catholics and Protestants has turned a lot of French people off to religion altogether. They are terrified of cults and regard anyone trying to teach people about religion with suspicion. When everyone around you thinks you are doing something evil, you start wondering if you are.
I prayed often for help to have the courage to open my mouth and invite people to learn more of the truths that had been such a huge blessing in my own life. To invite them to learn more of the Savior and how He could help them. To invite them to learn more about where they came from, why they’re here on earth, and where they’re going.
We had a goal in my mission to have at least ten significant conversations with people we met on the street per day, conversations where we had a chance to teach someone something, testify of some truth we knew, and/or invite someone to do something to come closer to Christ. I don’t think my mission president could have picked a more difficult goal for an introvert like me to meet. Talking to strangers all day long to try to find people who were interested in hearing about God did not play to my strengths at all.
On one particularly difficult day, I introduced myself to a middle-aged French woman sitting beside me on the bus. Upon learning I was a missionary, she proceeded to chew me out, telling me that I was part of a cult and that I should be ashamed of myself for trying to trick people into joining it. After saying her piece, she stared stonily out the window for the rest of the bus ride. I shrunk inside myself, feeling like I really was a sneaky person trying to trick people into doing evil things. As I sat there, the words of a scripture suddenly came to my mind:
“Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you” (Matthew 5:10-12).
These words of the Savior instantly brought peace and comfort to my soul. I realized that just because someone thought I was doing something bad didn’t mean I was doing something bad. I was not trying to trick anyone. Choosing to follow Jesus Christ and keep God’s commandments had brought me a lot of blessings and happiness in my life, and I wanted to share those good things with others. Other people’s opinions about my choices didn’t matter; only God’s opinion mattered. And I knew God loved all of His children and wanted to help them and that He sent missionaries throughout the world to deliver this message for Him. Not everyone was interested in hearing that message, but that didn’t make it wrong for me to invite them to hear it. I had seen how much good came into people’s lives, including my own, when they did choose to listen and change their lives to follow God.
That was not the end of my difficulties talking to people I didn’t know, but it was the beginning of my learning that other people’s opinions don’t define truth and that I should stop giving others so much power over how I feel and see myself. God’s expectations of me are the only ones that matter. And it was significant to me that even when it was difficult for me to meet God’s expectations of me due to my weaknesses, God neither condemned me, nor lowered His expectations of me. Instead, He waited patiently for me to work up the courage to make another valiant attempt to meet His expectations, and as soon as I did, His Spirit was instantly there to support me.
I learned a lot about the nature of God on my mission. I learned that He does not hold grudges, that my weaknesses, far from offending Him, are things He has given me to help me learn to rely on Him and His power, and that He is infinitely more loving and patient than I could ever imagine. He is a Being worthy of worship. And I find myself singing His praises for allowing me to have the difficult experiences as a missionary that I needed to help me grow and develop into a better human being and a better disciple of Christ.
