The Beginning of a Holy Week

 We will be released from the England London Mission five months from today.  It is all going by so fast...too fast.  Dave and Deb are down to three months and feeling the crunch.

Today marks the day of a very beautiful week for us.  As a mission, we started a 24-hour fast this evening with a telephone zoom call.  A prayer was said and we were united in asking for help for several people.  Most of the people we were praying for are relatives of the missionaries, people who are being taught and people who are preparing to go to the temple.  

I have seen how faithful these young people are, and I know the Lord hears and answers prayers, especially from ones so dedicated to His work.  Tomorrow evening we will gather on the zoom call again to end our fast with a prayer.  In the evening the senior missionaries will have the sweet blessing of watching Lamb of God, on a zoom call.  It is the one that is in theaters now.  The wonderful thing is that we seniors can invite our families to watch with us.  So if you haven't seen it, or if you would like to see it, let me know and I'll send you the link.  During the week, there will be five separate zone conferences in the stake center closest to the missionaries who will attend.  At each one, they will show The Lamb of God.

This evening for our Saturday night mission call, Thomas Kofod spoke to us.  He played Jesus Christ in the church's production of The Testaments: One Fold and One Shepherd.  It was really sweet to hear him talk about his experiences portraying the Savior.  It was an interwoven story of a fictional family in the Americas and Jesus during his ministry in Israel.  

He shared some inspiring experiences, some miracles that happened along the way, and sweet answers to prayer.  One answer to prayer for him was when he had been chosen to play the part, and the day before filming was to begin, he felt suddenly completely overwhelmed that he would be in this role of the most significant being ever to walk the earth.  He was sitting in the dressing room alone thinking perhaps he should just get back on a plane and return to Denmark.  He reeled off so many things he was concerned about - speaking in another language, speaking in biblical language, being relatively untrained, and so many others.

Elder Neal L. Anderson offered to give him a blessing (he wasn't a member of the twelve then, but was appointed to oversee the film and report back to the Twelve).  Thomas readily agreed.  Elder Anderson answered every single concern he had, including one he had never voiced - even to his wife.  That was a deep fear that once he had played the Savior, what would he hope for after that?  In the blessing he was told that there would be amazing things ahead.  

Thomas said that in the intervening years, (he didn't talk about the roles he has played since in live theater like the Beast in Beauty and the Beast, the Phantom in the Phantom of the Opera and Jean Val Jean in Les Mis.) he has come to realize being a father and husband are far greater than any roles he has had.






I hope the young missionaries felt inspired by his message, and can awaken in the morning ready for the Sabbath and the holy week ahead of us.

Comments

melissa said…
Wow! What a day!!
March 28, 2021 at 12:52 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Master Teacher

In the 1st Ward today, an 11-year-old boy gave a talk that was one of he best sacrament meeting talks I have ever heard.  He got up to speak and his head just barely cleared the podium.  He is small and has a shock of dark hair topping a cute slightly freckled face. It will be several years yet before his voice deepens.  He had his written talk, and he read most of it, but he was familiar enough with it that he looked up often and it seemed as if he was speaking from his heart. He began with a quote from Nephi in 2 Nephi 25:29, where Nephi prophesies about the future and then tells us how to worship the Savior. How? this boy asked us. He went on to answer his own question.  Nephi says "with all our might."  The boy then asked how that is done. He cited the story of the converts in the Congo who threw all of their idols into a massive waterfall where they were unrecoverable.  The boy said that when we worship the Savior with all our might, that mea...
Read more

Going Home

  Fifteen missionaries are returning to their homes this week.  For this Saturday night zoom conference broadcast, each bore their testimony from their flats with their companions by their sides.  SK and I teared up many times as we listened to humble, sweet and strong testimonies.  It is easy to see the difference as they get close to their release date.  It they have been faithful, there is a maturity and a sweetness that is unexplainable. Here is a smattering of what was said: There is no growth in the comfort zone.  I am about to go home to my comfort zone...but it struck me that my old comfort zone is no longer comfortable for me.  I want to be in a growth zone. The early apostles did not succeed, but they knew we would. One elder quoted Dave's poem "If."  "If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same...Hold on...even through the hardest times."  "How can I accomplish these things?  Jesus Chr...
Read more

Shark!

Image
We left our flat way too early for my taste this morning, heading out to go south to Farnborough.  Forty-eight miles, supposedly an hour and twenty minute drive.  We got into some heavy stop and go traffic and it was closer to 2 hours before we got there. We inspected the two young sisters' flat, which was beautifully clean and organized.  They are cute sisters.  They had been in London yesterday for zone conference and excitedly shared all they had heard and been taught.  They had their notes out and were very cute to repeat some great messages from President Checketts.  I hardly ever talk to him when he isn't dealing with numerous issues in the mission and in the middle of at least one or two crises, and planning the next gathering....all at the same time.  It must be that he and Deb are in a constant state of stress.  But he has cleared the half-way mark.  I wonder if he knows how highly he is esteemed by these young missionaries, who ...
Read more