Date
March 21, 2016
Area
Aberdeen, Maryland
Companion
Elder Bartholomew and Elder Parkinson
Fourth Watch
Hey!
This week has gone by super fast! Not to much has happened just the usual missionary grind;) We have been doing our best with the teaching pool we have accumulated, and we now have eight new investigators and 3 of them are progressing. One of them is named Neal Smith, he came to church these last two weeks and has fed us dinner twice! Hes awesome! He is from Jamaica, and loves to cook. He lives with an LDS family so its a great setting to be teaching in. He says he loves the environment of the church but he just needs "time" to figure out if the church is true. We also are working with a woman named Diane. She is awesome, she is a grandmother who is raising her three grandchildren. We stopped by on day and her son was out on the porch fixing his barbecue. We told him who we were and our purpose and said he wasn't interested, so we asked him if he knew of anyone in the area that would benefit from our message and he said his mother would love to talk to us. So he told us to come inside and we taught Diane. We love her and have very high hopes for this special daughter of Heavenly Father. We have been able to meet and talk with a lot of members in our ward this week, we really have an awesome ward! Its cool to see that no matter where I go, the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the same and the foundation on which Jesus Christ built his church is the same.
This week I was listening to a pretty awesome talk, titled the "Fourth Watch." In Matthew 14: 22-27 it reads:
22 And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away.
23 And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone.
24 But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary.
25 And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea.
26 And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea,they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear.
27 But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.
The individual giving the talk goes on to give an explanation of what the fourth watch is. He said that the hours of the night are broken into four watches, you could think of this like shifts someone would take at night. Each watch was three hours long, divided into four watches (6pm to 6am). After having told the apostles to go into the ship, Jesus went and prayed on the mountain. The winds came and started pushing the apostles a different direction. In Mark 6:48 it says: "And he saw them toiling in rowing; for the wind was contrary unto them: and about the fourth watch of the night he cometh unto them, walking upon the sea, and would have passed by them.
"And he saw them," Christ saw them from the mountain. He saw that they were struggling to get where they needed to be. And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. The "fourth watch" after they had been struggling throughout the night, he went unto them in the fourth watch. That not how we feel sometimes in our own lives. We get to our fourth watch, we get to our point were we feel we can't handle anymore, and that's were the savior steps in. The question was asked in this talk as to why Heavenly Father does this? That's a valid question! Why does he push us in this life, give us trials that we feel are overwhelming and past our breaking point. Do we sometimes to go our own Gethsemane? Yes! Of course! That's part of this life, learning, growing, over coming adversity. But I know, that in our moments of need He will be there for us. In his moment of need, Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ were there for Joseph Smith:
"After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction.
But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction—not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being—just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.
My message to you today is that He will come. No matter what "watch" you believe you are on know that he will come and that he watches from the mount. I love my Savior and I have been able to see him come to me in my times of trial and need. I know he will do the same for you! In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Love you all have a great week!
Elder Shouse