For My Name's Sake

Oct 2018 - "And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredold, and shall inherit everlasting life" (Matthew 19:29). Our friend Sarwar, who moved here from Pakistan, received a confirmation that he'd found the truth when he was at sacrament meeting with us a few Sundays ago. He literally wept in the back row because he'd been searching his whole life for THE truth. Since then, his wife and family has pressured him into not coming, hid the Book of Mormon, you name it. He has been praying and studying the scriptures for the past 6 months to know if he should leave his family and MOVE OUT or stay and essentially surrender. I'm DEFINITELY not qualified to make that type of decision for him so I suggested that we pray together about it. Mid-way through my prayer, I hear him softly say "okay" and then after I continued on and finished, he said confidently, still looking at the ground, "He will take care of me." He sat back in his chair, smiled and said "I need to move out." I picked my jaw up off the ground and explained that we'd do everything we could. Initially, he said, "please find someone my age, retired, etc", but then as we got up to leave he said firmly, "ANY family, please." I knew that Sarwar had been praying, fasting and studying for this answer for months, so the spirit of peace that we felt as we left was SO clear. His hope is that if he leaves for a few months, his family will miss him and welcome him back despite him being Christian. A testimony of Jesus Christ is more powerful than anything else in our life!

~ Elder Stone