Farewell Message
The Faith to Follow Jesus Christ and to be Saved
I love living and serving in West Africa. I love to be with you, to see your warm smiles, to see the goodness of your souls as I look into your eyes. I like to shake your hands and to speak with you one-on-one. It is a sacred privilege to experience the Savior’s love for you—and I know that He does love you very much. You and I are brother and sister, brother and brother, children of the same Heavenly Father.
Before you and I were born, our Heavenly Father presented His plan of salvation, whereby we could become like Him and receive all that He has! He is a generous, loving, just, and merciful Father. He knew that in order for us to receive all that He has, we would need to learn much, grow, and become like Him. Thus, His plan provides for us to obtain a body, live outside of His presence on this beautiful earth, and to gain experience: tasting the bitter to know to reject it and choose the good. He knew that as we learned, we would sin and make mistakes. So, He provided His Son, Jesus Christ, to save us from our sins and to strengthen us in our journey to return to the presence of our Father in Heaven, become like Him, and receive eternal life.
The only way for you and me to succeed through the many challenges of life is through the help, healing, and strength of His Son, Jesus Christ. Any other way will—sooner or later—fail. And, the only way for us to receive His help is through faith in Him. To have faith in Christ is much more than saying we believe in Him. It is much more than saying we accept Him, and it is much more that getting someone to pray for us.
Faith in Christ means that we love and trust Him. It means that we trust Him enough to follow Him. It means that we will do things His way. The Savior can save us temporally, spiritually, and emotionally only to the degree that we exercise our faith in Him unto repentance.1 Exercising faith in Christ unto repentance means that we willingly turn to Him as our guide and example—and change our behavior and thoughts to follow Him. Exercising faith unto repentance means that we will give things up that we once thought were important, such as traditions, material possessions, and personal desires.
Too many think they know better than Him how to live and stubbornly persist in doing things their own way or in the way of their tribal traditions. This is a mistake. The Savior knows the way, He marked the path, and He invites us to: “Come, follow me.”2
To help us receive the strength we need to succeed now and forever, the Savior gives us commandments. Keeping God’s commandments is like walking up some steps. You walk up steps, one at a time, starting at one level, climbing to a higher level. Each act of obedience to the commandments of God lifts us up, one step at a time, and brings us closer to the Lord. The closer we come to Him through obedience, the more of His power and strength we will receive.
Sometimes the climb is hard, and we need to let go of things that we once felt were important but are getting in the way. Giving those things up is called sacrifice. And, the Lord expects us to show Him that we do love Him more than anything else by sacrificing our selfishness, our traditions that are contrary to His Gospel, our sins, our bad habits, and our worldly things and thinking. As we exercise our faith in Christ unto repentance, He will sometimes try our faith and patience so that we can grow in strength and humility.
I love Emmanuel and Adiza Nelson. They are from Ghana. I respect them and want to share a part of their life story with you. They decided long ago to exercise faith in Christ consistently and constantly. That decision has changed their lives. With their permission, I will share some of their history. It is written in their words, with a little of my editing.
After joining the Church as a young married couple, they say: “We felt a sense of belonging. The members helped us modify our lives through the teachings and knew we were in the right place. We attended church regularly, learnt about the principles and commandments so we could govern ourselves.”
They learned as new members about the Word of Wisdom. Brother Nelson worked at a tobacco factory, but that seemed inconsistent with the Word of Wisdom. So, they together decided that he would quit: “He resigned his job without any employment in sight.” This decision brought them many financial challenges. Sister Nelson had a “scanty salary as a staff nurse midwife” at the time and Brother Nelson “tried many odd jobs to help sustain the family.” Sister Nelson also “did a lot of petty trading such as selling fresh fish, sugar, roasted groundnut and peanut butter after work from house to house in effort to sustain the family ... We became very industrious. We learnt a lot of things that could help sustain the family.”
During this challenging time, Brother Nelson “assisted in most of the house chores like washing, cleaning, ironing, cooking, baking and even taking care of our son while [Sister Nelson was] at work in the hospital. He wrote to many companies for employment, but he never succeeded.”
The Nelsons exercised their faith in Christ constantly and consistently. In their words: “Even though we were financially hard-pressed to take care of our children and those of our relatives, we NEVER missed paying a full tithe on our increase and did not deliberately miss church. There were times he had to walk to church on Sundays and walked to church for other activities far from our home so we could enjoy the full blessings. In the midst of these challenges, other relatives brought their children to live with us so we could train them in the way of the Lord. We were not financially sound, but we took them in. We worshipped and struggled together with them. These challenges drew us closer to the Savior, and our salvation. He never left us alone or uncomforted.”
They had more children of their own and changed how they behaved as parents in raising their children. They “tried to follow the admonitions of the leaders. We stopped flogging them and rather used the word of God to teach and counsel even though at times we were pushed to the wall. This brought a bond of unity amongst them. They still seek each other’s welfare till now.”
Even with their steady obedience to the Lord, the Nelsons had difficult trials: “In 1996, we had an unforgettable experience. We had run out of food and were thinking of how to feed the children when they came back from school. I left for work that morning a bit worried. Emmanuel shared that when the children came back from school and my younger sister asked what could be prepared for supper. Knowing very well that there was no food, he asked her to go and make fire. Minutes later she came and told him that the fire was ready. Emmanuel asked her to go look for a medium-sized saucepan and fill it halfway with water and set it on the fire. She came later and reported that the water was boiling.”
Not knowing what more to do, Brother Nelson “then entered a room, shut the door and cried unto the Lord to rescue the family for the sake of the children. Just after he ended the prayer, he heard a knock on our main gate. As he came out, he saw someone with a headload and instructed the children to go see who was there. To his surprise, it was his mother-in-law who had travelled all the way from Ada to play a visit. The load was actually food stuff and she even had to leave some at the roadside of which the children later went for. We had enough to eat that day, and we have never run out of food since then.”
After 11 years of not having a steady job, Brother Nelson was offered a wonderful position and was able to provide for his family. Through consistently and constantly exercising faith in Christ unto repentance and consistent obedience to the commandments, the Nelsons became able to provide temporally for their family. More importantly, they provided spiritual strength and faith to their children. Their children observed these blessings and experiences and today are strong and stalwart in their faith, like their parents. The Nelsons have continued to exercise their faith in the Lord and today they lead the Nigeria Uyo Mission as mission president and companion, blessing their missionaries and all the people they teach.
My dear brothers and sisters. The first principle of the gospel of Jesus Christ is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the first principle because it is the principle that moves us along the covenant path. If we exercise faith in Him, our faith will always move us to repent, to change, to follow the Savior by keeping His commandments and the covenants we make with Him.
The Lord’s promise to us is sure: “Keep all the commandments and covenants by which ye are bound [to the Lord], and I will cause the heavens to shake for your good, and Satan shall tremble and Zion shall rejoice upon the hills and flourish”3. I promise that as you keep all the commandments of God consistently and willingly, you will draw near to the Lord and He will draw near to you. You will thrive first spiritually and then temporally—and the spiritual and temporal blessings will become generational inasmuch as you and your children and their children exercise faith in the Lord unto repentance.
My invitation to you is loving and simple: keep all the commandments. Keep the law of tithing. Obedience to this great commandment will open the windows of heaven so that light, inspiration, knowledge, and ability will come to you. You will be blessed spiritually and in every way that matters in time and eternity. Always remember: “The future is as bright as your faith.”4