My name is Marshall Cluff Underwood. I just got home from
serving in the France Lyon mission. I really miss it to be honest. I really
really miss it. Usually when someone – I don’t know how many people here have
been to church in France, I know there are a couple, but usually at the
beginning of a talk when the person gets up they will say, “Bonjour.” And then
everyone will answer “bonjour”. Bonjour means hello or good day. So are you
ready to do that with me today? I see
some nods. “Bonjour” “Bonjour” Thank you. Those of you laughing know that I was
lying, but it was fun. They don’t do that, but they should. Today I am going to
talk about FAITH. I am so happy to have the opportunity to talk to all of you
and to see all of you. You all look so great. I am going to start with my
testimony in French. Ce que je
m’apprête à dire ne peut pas paraitre cliche parce que je vais commencer par
mon témoignage. Je sais que Jésus-Christ est le Sauveur du monde. Je sais qu’il
est descendu de son trône divin et il l’a repris après son expiation glorieuse,
et grâce à Lui nous pouvons vivre encore avec notre Père qui est dans les
cieux. Et je dis ces choses au nom de Jésus-Christ, Amen. Amen.
I want to give a little disclaimer. I am going to share some
stories about my mission today and the last thing – absolutely last thing – I
want you to take away from this is that my mission was hard. There is my new
difference between hard and trial of faith. I am going to go to the scriptures
in Ether 12:5. A scripture that most of us know. At this moment, Ether is
prophesying. He is prophesying great things. I imagine he is prophesying the
coming of Jesus Christ. The people are not believing because they never saw
him. I says, “And now, I, Moroni, will speak somewhat concerning these things.
I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not
seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness
until after the trial of your faith.” So basically what he is saying, the
question isn’t whether you see Him or not. The question is whether you are
going to choose to have faith in Him or not. So I would say 100% that my
mission was a trial of faith. That I gained a lot more faith on my mission than
I ever could have at home, but it was not hard.
I had one great companion sitting down in the audience, his
name is Braydon. I would like to start with a little story that we had together
that really highlights the principle of faith. As missionaries, we have faith
that the Lord will show us where to go, what to do and what to say. If you read
Preach My Gospel, that’s all over in it. Where to go, what to do, what to say.
And so one day, we were living in Bastia, which is a city on the island of
Corsica. And we had some plans that fell through and so we prayed to know where
to go. We had faith that God would show us where to go. We were led to a city
about 30 minutes outside of where we were that we weren’t planning on being in
that day. We entered the city and out other companion decided to take the third
turn on the left. So we took the third turn on the left. We knocked on a couple
doors and the third door we knocked on a little girl opened the door and looked
at us like we were ghosts. Then she ran away. We expected her mom to come to
the door, but her little brother came to the door and looked at us like “wow”.
And then the mother finally came to the door. We kind of took a classic
missionary approach “Hi we are the missionaries.” She said, “I know. I am a
member.” And we were surprised and said “what”. She said she moved there a
while ago and I have never seen you around here. No one had any clue that she
was there on the island. I guess the point that that story makes is that
doesn’t just happen. It doesn’t just happen. We don’t just feel exactly where
to go unless it is by the spirit of God. It is not a random work. It is not a
work where we just decide to Port – to knock on doors in one specific area and
spend a whole month. It specifically doesn’t just happen, especially because it
happened twice.
Sorry if I pause. I am keeping tears and butterflies from
flying out.
In the same area, we were still having faith that God would
lead us where to go. We prayed one day and felt really strongly that we need to
go to this one place. We went to this neighborhood. In French, a neighborhood
is a quartier. We went to this quartier and there were probably 100 houses. We
knocked on them all. No one – absolutely no one – was there to receive us. We
got many doors slammed in our face. So jokingly we call it our quartier préféré
which means our favorite neighborhood. We made a couple jokes throughout the
weeks we would go back to quartier préféré. Until one day, we really felt like
we needed to and that was interesting. It was an interesting feeling to have
because we were joking about it, but it was very clear that we needed to go
back. We went back and the same exact thing happened. That story illustrates
that there are miracles at the end of faith. Always. But sometimes our faith is
used for things we can’t see. For the first story, where we found that family,
our faith was used to help out that family. In the second story, our faith was
used to help us. It was really strengthening to know that God would lead us
there twice just knowing that we would be rejected and we would leave with
nothing. It reminds me of – it is easy to get down on yourself when you see
that. You know that you are supposed to go there and then you get there and
nothing happens. It is easy to get down on yourself with that, however,
throughout the rest of my mission I learned through reading the scriptures that
it happens all the time. We can take multiple prophets. Almost any prophet you
can take – they have a quartier préféré story. Like Lehi – his city was
destroyed. You have Abinadi. He was there to preach and he was burned at the
stake. You have Noah – 8 people on the earth after you go prophesy. How about
that? And then we have our Savior. He came to earth and his ministry was about
3 years long. It ended with his crucifixion and a small band of followers. I
know that Jesus Christ leads this work. I know that He leads the missionary
work of this church. He is the head of this church. That has been made known to
me multiple times. The second thing that he will help us know, other than where
to go is what to do. My first area was a Ville called Perigueux. There was a
man there called us wanting to be taught and he lived about 30 minutes outside
of Perigueux in a village called Riberac. It is a tiny little village. We went
there and we started teaching him. After a couple weeks, we were planning on
what we were going to teach him. This man, his name is David, he was doing
something that wasn’t exactly in line with the teachings of the church. That
was his job. He had this job. He had a family, 3 kids, and had a car. He was
coming to church. He would save all his money throughout the week just to have
enough for gas to get to church and back home and then he was at zero. He was
done. One day we felt really inspired to tell him that if he wanted to continue
and be baptized that he would need to stop his job. That is insane. That is
just dumb. No one would think of that. A man that has a family – he is trying
to raise his family – 3 young kids – we were telling him to take away all of
his income. But we told him. It was a really tender moment. He said, “you know
what elders, you are right.” And since then has made beautiful efforts to be
able to put his life in line with the gospel. Throughout the rest of my mission
I kept getting updates from him. “He just got the Aaronic Priesthood” “He got the
Melkizedek Priesthood” I was so happy for him. He baptized his daughters. It is
amazing to feel how much love you can have for someone when it changes their
life like that.
I would like to share one more story about a woman named
Amandine. This will illustrate the fact that God will tell us what to say. I
served in Lyon, but I lived in a little city called Tassin-la-demi-lune. It is
just a quartier of Lyon. We were walking down there – you can usually judge the
size of a city by the number of bakeries. There were probably about 2, which
means it is very small. We were walking by one of them and we saw a woman with
her son and daughter and we stopped her. We tried to tell her about the Book of
Mormon. We tried to tell her about coming to church. She didn’t want anything
to do with us. That was ok. At the end of the conversation, we really felt that
we needed to give her an invitation to the Paris temple open house. We gave it
to her. That was about it. She even refused to take a card with our number on
it. That is how much she was against it. A couple weeks later, after leaving
our apartment and walking down the street next to our apartment, we ran into
this lady again. Amandine. We talked to her and she made it very clear that she
still was not wanting to talk to us, but we made the connection with her
between the temple and her family. We had seen her with her family. And then
she accepted to take our number. We said, “Amandine, after you read this
brochure on the family – give us a call.” No later than maybe an hour and a
half she gave us a call and said “I need this. I need this for my family.” We
all need different things. The gospel never changes, but it is going to apply
to us in different ways. Amandine would not have listened to us if it weren’t
for her love for her family. And I know that that is a really big pathway into
the gospel. Is loving your family. The gospel is all about family. As members
of the church, (Marshall checked to see if his missionary tag was on his shirt.
He said “sometimes I still check to see if it is there. My placard.) A lot of
us will define missionary work as finding, teaching, baptizing. That is how
many will define it. The purpose of missionaries is to teach repentance and to
baptize converts. The only thing left out of that is finding. So missionaries
do do (laughter – do do) They do a lot of finding and knocking on doors and
talking to people on the buses, however, their purpose is not to find people.
Their purpose is to teach them and to baptize them after they have received a
testimony of Jesus Christ our Savior. That means for us as members – our
purpose is to invite. And so, as we have faith in God, Jesus Christ, that we
will have faith that he will show us what to say so we can invite people. I
know as members, we are sometimes hesitant to invite people – except for the
Union Park 3rd Ward – I see there are some people that are not
members of the church in the audience and I want anyone here that is not a
member that has chosen to come today to know that when we invite – it is
because we love you. We know the gospel is something – the teachings of Jesus
Christ are something that will turn your life into a better life. There is more
happiness found in His teachings than in anything else. That is why we invite.
This same woman – Amandine – we kept inviting her to do things. To read the
scriptures. To come to church. She kept finding out that what she believed
isn’t what she felt like was true anymore. After a while she got really frustrated
with us. She said, “you know what elders – you are ruining everything I have
ever known. You are tearing it down piece by piece.” We knew that, but we loved
her. A couple weeks later she realized that her life, her beliefs, were being
deconstructed, but God was reconstructing them at the same time into something
that would make her so much happier.
A couple principles that we find in Preach My Gospel are to
find people. That is our purpose as members is to find. Invite. As we invite –
we find. There is one little analogy that I would like to share. Imagine that
you are on a basketball team. Your coach comes up to you and says, “Marshall,
Michael, Dayton, when you get out on that court – every time you shoot it is
going in.” What would you do? You would shoot every time you got the ball. It
is the same thing when we invite people. When we invite, we are successful. A
missionary’s purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ. Inviter les gens
à venir au Christ. And as we invite, we are successful. There is one thing that
President Bednar said. I will try to remember it exactly, but I might not. He
said, “Some may say that baptisms are not decided by the missionary for it is a
mortal decision that every investigator must make.” Right? “There is truth in
that statement, but there is also truth in this one. There is a power that can
cause a good soul. Souls that are good, but dormant. To awaken unto God and
that power is faith.” That is something that I really believed in throughout my
mission. It didn’t matter how many baptisms I got. It didn’t matter how many
people invited us to teach them because it is really their choice. So I
realized that faith is actual power. Faith can change a good soul that is
dormant to a disciple of God. And that is what happened with Amandine. We met
her twice and she was dormant. And then, by our faith she awoke unto God by her
faith. In Preach My Gospel there are a couple principles of finding and
inviting that I would like to share. The first one is that we are all part of the
family of God. It makes it really easy when you are not inviting a stranger,
but you are inviting a brother or a sister. In Romans 8:16, it says “the spirit
itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if we
are children then heirs. Heirs of God co heirs with Christ. I suppose the
sorrows of this present time are not to be compared to the glory that shall be
revealed with in us. So as we see that glory – that potential in everyone – it
will be a lot easier to invite them. The other one is finding those that are
seeking. In the latter times – in the Doctrine & Covenants – the Lord has
spoken unto many missionaries and he has told them Thrust in your sickle with
all your might because the field is white all ready to harvest. And that is
something we need to have faith in. That those that will be invited will be
invited and will hear the voice of the Lord. Multiple times in the Doctrine
& Covenants, the Lord promises missionaries with sheaths upon their back. A
sheath isn’t something small. That means that He is preparing people and we
just have to have faith. I hope that you have found something in these stories
that have touched you. That have made you think about missionary work in a
different way. There are a lot of clichés that a missionary will give you. They
are going to tell you that is was the best 2 years. He will tell you that he
couldn’t have done anything better with his time. It is all true. It is a
cliché because it is true. I am so grateful to have this opportunity to serve
the French people and I am happy to be home. My first home of Utah – my second
home in France. I would like to bear you my testimony that I know that Jesus
Christ of Nazareth was born unto the Virgin Mary and that He came and he walked
the roads of Palestine. Healing the sick and causing the blind to see. I know
that He lives but more importantly I know that He lives I know that through Him
and by Him we can return to live with our Heavenly Father with our families
forever. Which is really the greatest experience that we could share with
anyone. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
