HOMECOMING TALK BY AIDAN
HAMILTON FRAGA
OCTOBER 14, 2018 DRAPER, UTAH.
The opportunity to serve a mission is from Heaven and the blessings that accompany it are celestial.
But I’m a little bit nervous today because there are more people in this chapel
than I’ve seen in church in two years.
But I definitely feel the love from everybody here and I’m happy that
everybody has come out to worship together.
An interesting conversation, an interesting discussion from
the other day went a little bit as follows.
I was in the car with someone who knew very well about what I had been
through, what I’ve gone through and how I’ve served my mission. And he said, “You know, Aidan you’ve been
through quite a bit. You’ve been through
a storm.” I quickly agreed and he said,
“A lot of people today at church are going to be wanting to know some advice,
some words to help them overcome difficulties.”
And he said, “How do you think we can really overcome all things?” I paused for a second because of course it’s
a loaded question and there’s lots of things that you can put behind it. It would have been easy to say something like
“Charity”, because of course Charity is completely applicable in that question and
in the service of God and all trials. It
could have been “Hope” or “Faith”. But
the answer that I gave him was just one word.
And what I told him was, “It’s Conversion.” Because, if we are truly
converted to the gospel and to the Lord Jesus Christ, there’s nothing that can
shake us. And there’s no trial that’s
too big or too hard to overcome.
Elder Richard G. Scott is one of my favorites. I don’t know if we’re supposed to have
favorites when it comes to apostles… But he said the following quote, which
I’ve kept it in my scriptures ever since seminary, because it’s had a deep
meaning to me. He said, “Your happiness
now and forever is conditioned on your degree of conversion and the
transformation that it brings to your life.”
How then can you become truly converted? President Marion G Romney described the steps
you must follow:
“Membership in the church and conversion are not necessarily
synonymous. Being converted and having a
testimony are not necessarily the same thing either. A testimony comes when the Holy Ghost gives
the earnest seeker a witness of the truth.
A moving testimony vitalizes faith, that is, it induces repentance and
obedience to the commandments.
Conversion is the fruit or the reward for repentance and obedience. Stated simply, true conversion is the fruit
of faith, repentance and consistent obedience.
True conversion yields the fruit of enduring happiness that can be
enjoyed even when the world is in turmoil and most are anything but happy.”
The key to our lives,
the key to the plan of salvation, and the key to the gospel, all boils down to
that one thing. It all falls upon how
converted we truly are.
I know that over the
last two years it’s been my privilege to see so many people exercise that conversion
and exercise their faith, to repent and to obey, and find the accompanying
peace that lies therein. It’s been an amazing
journey.
There are so many examples for me in this room and in the
country of Kenya. I do want to share a few.
One person who has been especially dear to me over my mission and
especially in my last area was a sister.
Her name was Linda. She was
really amazing. Me and my 3rd
to last companion, his name was Elder Ngele from South Africa. One day we had some bounces and we were
walking around and we decided to go tracting.
We went knocking and knocking, and we met a few people and talked with
them and on that particular day we met her brother Andrew. My initial reaction to the whole thing, it kind
of fell into place with all other contacts with all other tracts. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but I
really underestimated it which was bad on my own part, because I came to find
out later that God had a big plan forLinda and for this family. About a week after we had met Andrew, we
decided to call him because we got his phone number and we quickly set an appointment
to come back and visit him. We got to
their home and met Linda and we met his sister Nelly and we met Andrew. We were told that Linda was blind. We got to sit with her and we introduced
ourselves. We told her we were
missionaries. We told her about the message
that we had to share and almost immediately after those things she started hitting
us with a lot of hard questions. I think
they are questions everyone asks themselves.
She started asking, “Why do I have to go through this?” because she wasn’t born blind. She had become about blind 5-6 years
ago. She said, “Why do I have to go
through this? Why does God allow this to
happen? Why is this really a part of the
plan of Happiness? I don’t feel too
happy in my life!” Me and my companion
were a little bit shocked. We didn’t
immediately know what to say, but after a few minutes we decided to share a scripture
with her from the book of Ether. It’s a classic scripture. Ether Chapter 12 verse 6. Moroni here is talking about trials and he’s
talking about faith and it can very well apply unto the whole theme of
conversion and service to the Lord. He
says, “I, Moroni would 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.”
And that day we bore testimony to Linda that these things
were true that we receive no witness until after we hold strong, until after we
pull through. And the spirit was there
in plenty. We enjoyed our time. We thanked her for the date and we went our
way. Over the next few weeks we did go
back and visit her few times, a couple of times, but because we didn’t feel
like she was progressing as well as some other people, we put her on the back burner. And we decided to pop in and say hello every
now and again and it wasn’t until I was with my last companion (whose name is
really difficult for me to pronounce even now, something like Elder Ntlebi or
something, it’s supposed to have a click in there or something, but I never got
that down) but it wasn’t until I was with him that we were walking around the
neighborhood that Linda lived in and we ran into her in a little duka, just in
a little store there and she immediately said, “Oh, you have to come back and
visit us”. She was with her sister
Nelly. I said, “OK, ya sure, we’d love
to come back” and we planned a time.
When we went back, it was my companion’s first day there, we started
building a relationship with Linda, getting to know her, and my jaw just fell
to the floor because all of a sudden she started recounting everything that we
had ever told her over the last few times.
I turned to her sister Nelly and said, “We believe in something called
the Book Of Mormon. “ And Linda said, ”I
know what the Book of Mormon is. It’s
another testament of Christ!” And then
she she just recited the entire verse to us. She told us the whole message. She told us the effect it had on her life
after we had left and both me and my companion were completely speechless. We thought that it was absolutely
amazing. That just from those small and
simple things, from a tract, just from a scripture, just from a contact, just from
maybe a 40 minute lesson, that had had that much of an impact on her life. And that same principal applies into many different
aspects of the work and it is an amazing thing to witness. But immediately following that, we put her on
the top of priority and we told her, “You know we aren’t positive if we can get
material in Braille but we will do our best, if you promise to read it.” Because she had come to learn Braille.
And the next week actually, we went to Nairobi, the city, to
the MLC to meet with the missionaries and we were sitting there sharing different
experiences and things that had happened in the area as of late and we brought
up Linda and we said “President, we’ve got this amazing investigator. And she’s so firm in the faith and we really
want to be able to get her some Braille material.” He turned to us and said “Elders, I don’t
know if we’re going be able to get that over here but we can see what we can
do.” And immediately the assistant
chipped in and said, “Wait a second! We
have a Braille copy of The Book of Mormon in our apartment!” And again, my jaw just
fell to the floor. I was completely
shocked! I thought, what are the odds of
this? First the contact, then the lesson
and the scripture, and now a misplaced copy of The Book of Mormon! The very next week we took it to her and she
was crying when we were telling her about it. She had it in her hands and she
immediately read the first line, “The Book Of Mormon, another testament of
Christ.” And we could see how much it
meant to her. We could see the faith
that had already taken place, inside of her body, inside of her spirit. Just a few months later and the day before
her birthday, it was September 17, she entered the waters of baptism and we were
able to see her make a covenant with Heavenly Father. Since then we’ve gone back to visit a couple
of times and I’ve even gone back to visit with some of the missionaries that
are here in this room. But I asked her a
question one day, and I said, “Linda, I’ve seen a change in you since the first
time we met. The first time we were together you asked us these questions about
your situation, about the trials and about life. Nowadays you seem so peaceful. What’s been
the change? What’s been the effect of
this message on your life?” She faced
our direction and she said, “Elders, for the first time in my life, I can see
myself in God’s eyes. I can see His love
and I can feel the hope that I’ve been looking for my entire life.” And that immediately struck us just right to
the core.
Linda is an amazing example to me. I’m grateful for her faith. Many of you in this room are amazing examples
to me and I’m grateful for your faith.
Because as many of you know, my time out there wasn’t easy. It was met with challenges at every
corner. I remember thinking, first of
all the trials are seeming to set in from the very beginning, and second of all
they are coming from all ends. They’re
coming from home, they’re coming from here.
So many times I asked myself, am
I really going to be able to do this? At
other times, I wanted to say, “Is this really, is this REALLY, the way things are supposed to be going?”
I just came across a quote actually by President Heber C Kimball. He was talking to some of the saints and he
said, ”Let me say to you that many of you will see the time when you will have
all the trouble, trial and persecution that you can stand and plenty of
opportunities to show that you are true to God and his work. To meet the difficulties that are coming, it
will be necessary for you to have the knowledge of the truth of this work for yourself. If you’ve not gotten a testimony, live right
and call upon the Lord and cease not until you obtain it. If you do not do this, you will not
stand. The time will come when no man or
woman will be able to endure on borrowed light. Each will have to be guided by the light
within himself. If ye do not have it, how can ye stand?”
And it was evident to me pretty early on, particularly
following one of the hardest trials in many of our lives, that I wasn’t going to
be able to endure on borrowed light. My
family wasn’t there with me and my friends were in various places around the world
on their missions and at times it just looked to me like I was alone. But I can honestly say with all my heart and without
a quiver in my voice, that I never felt alone.
Because I know that Christ was there.
I felt His light and I felt His love and I felt the hope that Linda
testified to me about. It was an amazing
thing to serve a mission but I can testify that I feel of that hope now. I can testify that God lives and that he loves
us. I know for a fact, and I know for
myself, that Christ is our Savior and our Redeemer. I knew it the same, wherever I was. I knew it regardless of the area I was
in. I knew it regardless of the home
that I was in. Many of you know that I
was arrested and was put in prison but I felt it there too. That’s because it’s not a joke. It’s real.
I don’t have much time before I close but I want to say this much, and I
want to remind you of these things, that
conversion is different than being a member of the church, and it’s different
than just being baptized. It takes faith, it takes obedience and it takes
repentance. I’ve told myself a few times
and I still tell it to myself today that if you really want to be converted
it’s going take what’s most valuable to you.
And that’s not just your time.
It’s going take your very existence.
Because this work and this gospel and the kingdom and the happiness
that’s ours to take, depends on that. It
depends on us being all in.
I want you all to know, as I’ve testified hundreds if not
thousands of times before, that I love this gospel more than anything in the entire
universe. It means the world to me. It means everything to me. I promise, and all of us here in this room
know that it’s not easy to live and it’s not an easy thing. But it never was
supposed to be. One scripture and I’ll
be through. Following the news that I
received in November of 2016, I was counseling with my mission president and he
shared this scripture with me. What it
says, it’s in D&C Section 58 verses 2, 3 & 4. It says, ”For verily I say unto you, blessed
is he that keepeth my commandments, whether in life or in death. And he that is faithful in tribulation, the reward
of the same is greater in the Kingdom of Heaven. Ye cannot behold with your natural eyes for
the present time, the designs of your God concerning those things which shall
come hereafter and the glory which shall follow after much tribulation. For after much tribulation come the blessings. Wherefore, the day cometh when ye shall be
crowned with much glory. The hour is not
yet but is nigh at hand. “
I know that after much tribulation cometh blessings. I feel as if for the last two years I’ve been
through a storm. But I’ve come home now
and I’ve found refuge. And I’ve found
peace and I’ve found shade, and I am eternally grateful for it. I would love to be able to shout with Paul
that I’ve endured to the end, that I’ve kept the faith, that I’ve stayed
true. But I also know that the end of
this story is yet unwritten. Even
thought my tag is off, I’m still a missionary and each of us in this room are. I’m grateful to have that opportunity to
write that history and to go forward in faith and to stand true in what I
know. I only pray that I’ll be able to
do it. But I quickly add that I know its
possible.
My grandpa always used to always say something that was
following more or less. He used to say,
“Hard things, they take time. Impossible
things, they take a little more” At
times the mission might feel impossible and at times our lives might feel impossible
and at times our burdens they might seem impossible. But if we give it time and if we rely on
Christ as we should and as well already know and as we learned and trusted in
the life before this, it’ll all be worth it and it’ll all be doable.
I testify of all those things in the name of Jesus Christ,
Amen.
