Cheers!! we have safely landed in Jolly Old England and are loving our experience thus far in the UK. We finally have internet at our flat and so begins our attempt to share with those we love our experiences of our mission at the Hyde Park Chapel Visitors Center. Thus far it has been an exhaustingly wonderful experience though we dearly miss our family and dear friends across the pond. I will attempt to catch you up on what has transpired over the past month since we left our home in Granite Bay. Our farewell talks took place on Easter Sunday, March 27th 2016. We were thrilled to welcome so many including Libby, David and Kate from Utah, Sue and Steve from San Ramon, the Larson Family and Ish from San Ramon, the Rameys from the Monterey area, Carolyn Perry from Utah, our temple shift family and so many others from our area whom we dearly love who came to bid us well. We are ever grateful for your love and support. As a means of documenting that day we have included our farewell talks for reference here.
First is Michaels talk on the Atonement.
THE
ATONEMENT IN OUR LIVES
For the record, over the years when someone
has inquired as to what the best attribute of Brother Mullen was, the
thoughtful reply has invariably been…Sister Mullen!
She is just a wonderful person and I get to
be her missionary companion, which will certainly make me the envy of the
England, London Mission to be sure.
As Ann Marie has shared this morning, we have
had a wonderful experience this past month as we welcomed our third grandchild,
Hannah Joy, into our family.
Healthy, beautiful, and calm.. a dream baby. And another grandson due to arrive next month. To be sure, The anticipation, hopes and
dreams of parenthood and grandparenthood are such a wonderful part of married
life.
Such was the case for my parents.
It was 1943. They had been married in 1939
and had been trying to begin their family for four years.
Having a child was my mother’s fondest
dream. Joyfully, in July of that
year, mother and father brought their long prayed for first borne child, a
daughter they had named Mary Clair, home from the hospital.
It was now October and it had been a
difficult three months, for Mary Clair had been borne with a congenital heart
defect for which in those days there was no cure. And so they were told to simply take her home.
On the evening of October 2nd, Mary
Clair, who continually fussed and struggled, had finally been put down for the
night and my parents had retired to the small living room of their little
apartment. Some time later, the apartment grew uncharacteristically
still and my father arose and
slowly ascended the stairs to the little second floor nursery.
A minute or two passed, then my mother
followed only to find my father standing by the crib reciting the 23rd
psalm. Mary Clair had slipped
through that veil we call death.
They were devastated and heartbroken.
My mother shared that experience with me, as
I have described, many years ago and told me of her sitting in the rocking
chair in that dim-lit room and holding her lifeless baby – and gently rocking
her well into the night.
As a post script, the following year, my
parents welcomed another baby girl, perfect and healthy in every way. Truly a
tender mercy to soothe my mother’s aching heart.
And even though well over 50 years had
passed, mother told me, as too many of you know all too well, you never get over the loss of your
child and that is why my second sister was so precious to her.
I would arrive 4 years later, thereby
completing our little family.
And she assured me that I was precious to her
as well.
This is
Easter Morning!
It is the most sacred day of the year when we
join with Christians of all faiths in celebrating the greatest victory of all
time. The victory over death. How
grateful I am for the Atonement and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and I
acknowledge with each of you events in God’s divine plan that led up to and
give meaning to the love Jesus offers us.
Today we celebrate the gift of victory over
every challenge we have ever experienced, every heartbreaking sorrow we have ever known, every
discouragement we have ever had, every fear we have ever faced – not to mention
the gift of our resurrection from death and forgiveness for our sins.
That victory is made available to each of us
because of the events of that weekend long ago in Jerusalem. Christ gave us freely an enormous and
unconditional gift of the universal resurrection. However, Christ’s offering of the further gift of eternal
life is conditional.
It is Christ who sets the terms for receiving
this great gift and our progress toward eternal life requires us to be willing
to submit to Him. Then, if we are
truly faithful and endure to the end he will mercifully make up the difference
as only He can and then will welcome us home.
The Atonement of Jesus Christ is the central
act in all of human history. It
provides the universal resurrection and it makes our personal repentance and
forgiveness possible, Since all of us have sinned, the need for repentance is
universal. And mercifully,
Christ’s atonement fits sins of all sizes – whether the smaller sins of
omission or more major transgressions.
Repentance is thus a continuing process in
which each of us has the opportunity to draw on the Atonement for real relief,
real forgiveness, and real progress.
Nothing in the entire plan of salvation
compares in any way in importance with the most transcendent of all events, the
atoning sacrifice of our Lord.
Frankly, I am at a loss to explain it and it’s infinite scope, but wish
to only share a glimpse of what His Atonement means to me and our family and
what it might also mean to you and yours.
We still do not know how the Savior was able
to take upon himself and bear our transgressions, our foolishness, our grief,
our sorrows, and our burdens. For
me, it remains indefinable and unfathomable.
In the process of working out our salvation,
adversity will be part of our experience and we will have all the more reason to
ponder upon and rejoice even more in the great Atonement.
There are so many of us who have faced physical
challenges in our lives and some who are simply
sick of being sick. To those,
we offer the words of young Nephi who said,
“I know that
He loveth his children;
nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things” 1 Ne 11:17
That having been said, our submissiveness in
Him needs to grow, as in the words of King Benjamin, in order to become:
“a saint
through the Atonement of Christ the Lord, and become as a little child,
submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all
things which the lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth
submit to his father.” Mosiah 3:19
Knowing of Jesus’ perfect empathy for us
individually will help us greatly to endure our pains of various kinds.
This knowledge and belief should transform
all of us to be confident, settled, unafraid, and at peace with our lives as
followers of the divine Christ. It
can help us carry all our burdens, bear any sorrows, and just as importantly,
fully savor all joys and happiness that can be found in this life.
Thus the angel’s declaration to the two Marys
that first Easter morning, “He is not
here, for He is risen, as he said,”
Matt 28:6 confirms the
most transcendent event in the history of the world, for it attests that Jesus
had not died, but that death itself had been overcome.
In 2002, Ann Marie went through the temple
for my mother, who had passed away the previous year, just as I had done for my
father 15 years earlier. And then
we were proxy and sealed my parents to each other and Mary Clair and myself to
them.
Brothers and
Sisters, death doesn’t separate families – But sin can.
Gratefully, through the Atonement of Jesus
Christ, there is great hope for all and no need for sin to separate us.
The Prophet Joseph Smith stated, “I can taste the principles of eternal
life, and so can you….I know that when I tell you these words of eternal
life…you taste them, and I know that you believe them.”
John the Revelator “saw a new heaven and a new earth” and “Heard a great voice out of
heaven.”
“He that
over cometh shall inherit all things;
and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.
And God
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death,
neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
I testify that, through righteousness, this
priesthood power and these spiritual gifts of the Atonement can operate in our
lives.
Ultimately, each of us must come to know
these great spiritual truths by following the counsel of Jesus. John wrote;
“If any man will do his will, he shall know
of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.” John 7:17
As we each strive to become more Christ-like,
Easter can give us special pause to turn our thoughts to the sacrifice and
mission of the Savior. It was to
this world he came, and to the people of this world he left his great message.
If we are to
please Him, we should make the effort to truly know Him and the effect that
knowledge can have on our lives in this world.
We all make mistakes, most of us truly want
to do better, and the Atonement is meant to help each of us as we work to
improve our lives.
So what does it mean? This Atonement of which we speak…
To me, and to you….
It means
hope.
It means
forgiveness.
It means
peace.
It means
love.
I cannot
imagine a life without hope, without forgiveness, without peace, without love.
As we remember the ultimate sacrifice which
Jesus Christ offered on our behalf, we can give thanks that Christ took upon himself
that which we could not do alone.
We can provide many things for ourselves, but
it is Jesus Christ, and him alone, that has given us the promise of a new life
by enduring the physical and spiritual pains we could never, by ourselves,
bear.
I turn to
the words of the lyricist who, in this instance, just happens to also be Ann
Marie’s sister, Cori.
She put her words to music some years ago and
although they have been shared with many of you in years past, I desire to
share them again as I close.
They speak of the feelings all of us have
felt at one time or another in our lives when we faced trials that seem just
too difficult to bear alone and when the only way out…is through.
She titled her song, Firstborn, and the lyrics, in part, read as follows:
Then the
storm rages on
And I feel
so alone
There’s a
pain in my heart
With a life
of its own
And it’s
taking me down
It’s pulling
me under
Then
strained by the struggle and stained by the tears
I fall on my
knees to the floor
And I cry to
my Lord, “Don’t you know what I’m feeling”
And He
answers, He’s felt this before
So stay with
me Jesus, you’ve already borne this
I know you
have felt just the same
When you knelt
in the garden and you carried this burden
You offered
it all in my name
Firstborn of
the Father, Lord of the Heavens,
Who came
here to show us the way
Firstborn of
Mary, laid on a cradle of hay
The first
perfect light to conquer the darkness
The first at
the garden, the first to go in
He loves me
with his offering
My own sin
and suffering
Were first
borne
First borne
By Him
My prayer is that our Savior will heal our
souls, dry our tears, and create in each of us a purer heart.
I also pray that we may find shelter in the
shadows of his out stretched arms and that He will be merciful and forgiving.
That He will be a father to the fatherless,
and deliver to the needy according to their needs.
That the Atonement which He willingly suffered
in our names will become increasingly
meaningful to each of us individually, sustaining us in the trials we all must
face, drawing us ever closer to Him, and bringing us safely home into the
presence of the Father and the Son, and our loved ones.
Brothers and Sisters, as Ann Marie has so
eloquently taught this morning, this life is meant to be joyful.
As she and I now embark
on our much anticipated mission, just as so many of you have done before us, we
step away from everything familiar and our family and friends we so dearly love. But we take with us our faith in and love for the Savior and
a desire to simply make a difference and share the message of Jesus Christ and the
restoration of the Gospel with the people of England.
And on a personal note, it is for me a dream
come true and in a very real sense completes my life’s resume’.
And so I leave my testimony that God our
Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ live, and with a grateful heart
declare that that reality is wonderful, wonderful to me.
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen
Secondly, I would include my talk...
Happy Easter to all of you.
Thank you to those dear friends and family who have taken time from your
busy lives and traveled many miles to share this moment in time with us. It is a moment we have looked forward
to for many years…at least the mission part. The goodbye part…not so much. But we are so very grateful for your love and support and
friendship. I believe one of the
greatest gifts God has given us on this earth is each other. I am so very
grateful for the love represented in this sea of faces I am looking out upon.
So many wonderful memories of times we have grown together sometimes in the
midst of very difficult circumstances.
We are admittedly nervous and excited and about every other emotion you
can ever imagine.
Nearly six weeks ago now our family was anxiously awaiting the arrival
of a little baby girl. The days
drew on past her due date, each one seemingly longer than the day prior. Chris and Jenna live in Boston so
prayers for all of them were fervent from our home here across the
country. Eight long days following
her due date that beautiful little girl joined her earthly family bringing with
her a taste of heaven. She came on
Feb 14th, the day we celebrate love…how perfect is that…a Valentine of the very
best kind. And so we
welcomed this little one whom they had most appropriately named Hannah
Joy. How perfect is her name for
she has brought such Joy to our world.
As some of you
know, my angel mother was a lover of poetry. She would encourage us as children to memorize poems and
passed that love of poetry on to us and then on to her grandchildren as
well. Of course it didn’t hurt
that they received a $5. bill for each memorized poem. One year at Christmastime she
introduced us to a book compiled by Tasha Tudor. It’s title is based on a prayer which was penned in the year
1513 by Fra Giovanni. It reads:
I salute you!
There is nothing I can give you which you have not; but there is much
that, while I cannot give, you can take.
No heaven can
come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take Heaven.
No peace lies in
the future which is not hidden in the present moment. Take Peace.
The gloom of the
world is but a shadow; behind it, yet within our reach is joy. Take Joy!
Today we gather
to celebrate that Sabbath day, the most joyous of Sabbath days so many years
ago wherein Christ arose from the dead as the Savior of the world. In Primary we sing
Jesus has Risen,
Jesus our Friend
Joy fills our hearts
He lives again.
Praises we sing
to Him this Easter Time
Jesus has risen
Savior divine
Jesus has risen
Savior divine,
Indeed joy does
fill my heart this Easter Day. I
am so very grateful for the joy I
have found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and in my Lord and Savior. I am grateful for a mother who taught
me from my very earliest days to Take Joy and taught me to which source I could
and SHOULD turn to find that joy.
Now it is our
turn to go to another corner of the world and share that joy with others.
We pray that we will be kind stewards of this opportunity the Lord has
given us.
It has been an
interesting process preparing for this mission. Perhaps a little overwhelming, well actually a lot overwhelming
at times but it has been wonderful to work together with Michael towards so
sweet a time as this. He’s gonna
be a great mission companion!!
Lucky senior missionaries…they get to stay with their favorite companion
their entire mission!!
I have loved as
we have spent countless hours pouring over Preach My Gospel together marking
every scripture mentioned therein.
For those of you who may not know, Preach My Gospel is the curriculum
developed by the church for the missionary program. AND there are A LOT of
scriptural references in Preach My Gospel. ( That’s a good thing right? ) After
completing Preach My Gospel we read the Book of Mormon together having just
finished it two weeks ago.
In Relief Society
last month Sunny Klang led us in a
wonderful discussion on adversity and it’s purpose in our
lives. The Lord never promised us
that our lives would be free of adversity but rather that we would have the
capacity to handle each trial given to us and that if we so desire that we will
be able to find joy in the journey.
Our lives will not be free of burdens. . .but they need not weigh us
down if we turn to Him who has taken them upon himself before. Stephen Robinson reminds us, (quote)“We
must try his works to do with all that is in us. We must do all that we can, and having
done all, then we must trust in his redeeming blood and in his ability to do for us what we cannot yet do.” (end quote)
And so when we are faced with life’s
trials may we remember there is One who has gone before us and who loves us
more than we can humanly comprehend.
I truly believe we can help each other on
this joyous journey we call life…for it has been in so doing that I have found a
profound sense of personal joy.
A newly called Relief society president in Chris and Jenna's
ward in Boston shared a thought when I was visiting there earlier this month that I thought most insightful. It provided a new perspective for
me. She spoke of that night so
long ago when Christ approached the Garden of Gethsemane with his disciples…His
best friends
.
He knew that he would have to go into that Garden and carry that burden
alone, but asked those dear friends to wait there at the Gate for Him.
In Matthew we read
36 Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder.
37 And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy
38 Then saith he unto them, My sould is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.
39 And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.
40 And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour?...
42 He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may no pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.
43 And he came and found thme asleep again; for their eyes were heavy.
44 And he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words.
45 Then cometh he to his disciples, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest: behold, the hour is at hand.
Each time Christ returned he found his
closest friends, his disciples asleep.
The new perspective that this sister shared was that prior to her
becoming Relief Society president she had no idea how many people around her
were suffering in their own figurative Gardens of Gethsemane. Just as the disciples were “asleep”
while their beloved friend was going through this most unbelievable trial, she
felt that she too had been asleep to the trials of people all around her in her
ward. She did not mean to …life
was just busy and crazy in her own home yet she found herself “asleep” while
others she loved were suffering.
I have heard and read this passage of scripture often in my own life and admittedly felt sad for the times when I
may have disappointed my Savior by figuratively “falling asleep” while waiting
for Him. This new perspective made
me wonder how many times I have found out after the fact that someone I love
deeply had been hurting and I didn’t even know. I had been asleep at the Gate. I pray now that my Savior will help me to be more awake to
the needs of those around me. That
is my desire. In so doing I know I
can and will experience true joy!
Then following that long lonely night in
Gethsemane we all know what the Savior faced next. Elder Joseph Wirthlin, an apostle of the Lord, shared the
following subsequent to the loss of his sweet wife Elisa. He wrote: quote
I think of how dark that Friday was when Christ was lifted up on the
cross.
On that terrible Friday the earth shook and grew dark. Frightful
storms lashed at the earth.
On that day the veil of the temple was rent in twain.
Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Jesus, were both overcome with
grief and despair. The superb man they had loved and honored hung lifeless upon
the cross.
On that Friday the Apostles were devastated. Jesus, their Savior—the
man who had walked on water and raised the dead—was Himself at the mercy of
wicked men. They watched helplessly as He was overcome by His enemies.
On that Friday the Savior of mankind was humiliated and bruised,
abused and reviled.
It was a Friday filled with devastating, consuming sorrow that gnawed
at the souls of those who loved and honored the Son of God.
I think that of all the days since the beginning of this world’s
history, that Friday was the darkest.
But the doom of that day did not endure.
The despair did not linger because on Sunday, the resurrected Lord burst the bonds of death. He ascended
from the grave and appeared gloriously triumphant as the Savior of all mankind.
And in an instant the eyes that had been filled with ever-flowing
tears dried. The lips that had whispered prayers of distress and grief now
filled the air with wondrous praise, for Jesus the Christ, the Son of the
living God, stood before them as the first fruits of the Resurrection, the
proof that death is merely the beginning of a new and wondrous existence.
Elder Wirthlin goes on to remind us:
Each of us will have our own
Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards
of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those
broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have
our Fridays.
But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday
will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come.
No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, Sunday will come. In
this life or the next, Sunday will come.
As I look out
over this congregation I see so many of you who have lived or are living
through some pretty rough Fridays in your life. But I also know that many of you can testify just as I can
and just as Elder Wirthlin did that SUNDAY WILL COME!! YES SUNDAY WILL COME!!
I love knowing
that in my life. It has been my
experience time and time again.
When Michael got sick now 9 years ago next month I did not know how my
Friday would end but I can tell you that I absolutely knew that Sunday would
come. And it did. And it has again and again in my
life. It does not mean it has been
a life without trials. As with
many of you it simply means that we will rise figuratively above those trials.
Therein lies the promise of the Atonement. I am so very grateful to my Savior for the Sundays in my
life. And I am grateful to have
shared both Fridays and Sundays with you as we have “grown up” together in the
Gospel of Jesus Christ in this wonderful ward and community in which we dwell
together.
It is on the
“Sundays” in my life and yours that I have found and experienced the meaning of
true joy. We rejoice
together. We have indeed learned
together to “Take Joy”. And over the next 18 months we will “ talk of
Christ, …rejoice in Christ, … preach of Christ, and… prophesy of Christ”
In John chapter
15 we are promised...
10 If ye keep my
commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s
commandments, and abide in his love.
11 These things
have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy
might be full.
I want you
know of the love I feel for Him who I have come to know as my
Savior. That love for Him is what
drives me to leave my home, my family who is gathered from afar today, and my dear
dear friends. I pray that I will
be an example to those in England of one who knows true joy. May we Take Joy as we feel His presence
in our lives this Easter Day. May
we Take Joy in knowing that Sunday will come.
I TOO KNOW THAT HE LIVES, AND I HAVE FOUND JOY BEYOND MEASURE IN
FOLLOWING HIM. I LOVE YOU
ALL. I LOVE MY COMPANION. I LOVE MY LORD.
