"The One"

By Brother Tanner

Jesus with Woman Taken in Adultery

​
​We are all here sitting in our  pew or class or wherever the Mt. Fagan Ward Sentinel has found us. We are blessed to be in a ward with so many wonderful people. I have seen firsthand the love so many of you have shown as you have blessed the lives of each other.  

---

Lately I have been thinking of “the one.”  We may work so hard helping one person learn about and become a member of our church. We may also spend many hours serving the one who has for whatever reason not been partaking of the gospel – and find so much joy in seeing them come back. We do our part ministering to the families to which we are assigned. But these are not “the one” I have been thinking of. “The one” I am thinking of might be sitting right beside you or in the next row. 

We are all different in our own ways, and sometimes our differences make others treat us poorly. Or maybe those differences result in others being “nice” to our face, but saying terrible things behind our backs. 

We are all in this gospel together. We all are here with the same goal to live with our loving Heavenly Father again. 

A great missionary song says, “If it so be that you should labor all your days and bring but one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of thy father.” 

On the other hand, if your words and deeds ever were even a small part of someone losing their testimony or leaving the church, how sad will you be? How sad will our Heavenly Father be?  

Jeffrey R. Holland said:

“… I suppose it goes without saying that negative speaking so often flows from negative thinking, including negative thinking about ourselves. We see our own faults, we speak—or at least think—critically of ourselves, and before long that is how we see everyone and everything. No sunshine, no roses, no promise of hope or happiness. Before long we and everybody around us are miserable. ...

The voice that bears profound testimony, utters fervent prayer, and sings the hymns of Zion can be the same voice that berates and criticizes, embarrasses and demeans, inflicts pain and destroys the spirit of oneself and of others in the process. ‘Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing,’ James grieves. ‘My brethren [and sisters], these things ought not so to be.’”

Elder Holland continues by quoting Paul, when he said, “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”

This message contained in Elder Holland’s April 2007 talk “The Tongue of Angels” really made me think about how we should think about others and treat them.

It also brings to mind a story told by N. Eldon Tanner at a 1961 mission presidents’ conference meeting, as shared by President Thomas S. Monson in his October 2012 talk “See Others as They May Become”: 

“In one particular meeting, N. Eldon Tanner, who was then an Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve, had just returned from his initial experience of presiding over the missions in Great Britain and western Europe. He told of a missionary who had been the most successful missionary whom he had met in all of the interviews he had conducted. He said that as he interviewed that missionary, he said to him, ‘I suppose that all of the people whom you baptized came into the Church by way of referrals.’ 

The young man answered, ‘No, we found them all by tracting.’

Brother Tanner asked him what was different about his approach—why he had such phenomenal success when others didn’t. The young man said that he attempted to baptize every person whom he met. He said that if he knocked on the door and saw a man smoking a cigar and dressed in old clothes and seemingly uninterested in anything—particularly religion—the missionary would picture in his own mind what that man would look like under a different set of circumstances. In his mind he would look at him as clean-shaven and wearing a white shirt and white trousers. And the missionary could see himself leading that man into the waters of baptism. He said, ‘When I look at someone that way, I have the capacity to bear my testimony to him in a way that can touch his heart.’”

Think of “the one”  that is here with us today. Please know that our Heavenly Father wants us all to return to live with him. Please be a instrument in His hands in helping the ones around you. Get to know people better. Give a smile or a handshake; be a friend and be kind to them. And if none of that works, serve them. Most importantly see “the one” as Heavenly Father sees them: not as who they are today, but who they have the potential to become. ​