Love, Dad
Elder and Sister Stephen and Patricia Beus
Japan Fukuoka Mission
9-16 Hirao-josuimachi
Chuo-ku
Fukuoka-shi, Fukuoka
810-0029 Japan
Japan Fukuoka Mission
9-16 Hirao-josuimachi
Chuo-ku
Fukuoka-shi, Fukuoka
810-0029 Japan
home phone: 503 617 3910
office phone: 001 81 92 522-0386
office phone: 001 81 92 522-0386
Japan is Calling
Sacrament Meeting - Rock Creek Ward
22 April 2012
It’s great to have several of our family here with us this
morning. We attended the farewells of five of our children and so they’ve got
some catching up to do. Seriously, we
are never in better company than when we are with our kids and their families,
and we are really going to miss them more than we yet realize. I would have you know that we are very proud
of our family, and what our children are doing with their lives. I watch their parenting and realize that
they are better parents than we ever were, well anyway, better than I ever was.
And I have to say that it has been many
years since we passed over that magical threshold when they do more for us than
we do for them. And that’s a good place to be.
We love living here in Oregon. It is a beautiful place. It is much like Pennsylvania where we spent
most of our lives, except back there it rains in the summer and snows in the
winter. But both are green and beautiful.
What we like best about Oregon is the people we have met
here. One wouldn’t think that would be so, what with the reputation of this
area, left coast and all, but it is
so. There are many salt-of-the-earth
people we have come to know and love here, who have enriched our lives. Thank you for being our friends and for
making us welcome.
When friends or family come to visit us here, of course, they
all want to see Mt. Hood. We’d like to show it to them but, frankly, usually
Mt. Hood is nowhere to be seen. Recently
as some friends were leaving they remarked that they didn’t believe there was a
Mt. Hood. That got me to thinking. Truth to tell, even living here all the time,
we seldom ever see the mountain. Several
times we have driven right across its western shoulder without ever glimpsing
any sign of the mountain at all.
So I have a theory, and my theory is that Mt. Hood is a
hologram; it’s not real. It’s an image. Now if you are Star Trek savvy, you know what
I mean. A hologram is an image of reality, created to fool the senses, to make
it seem like someplace it isn’t. And so with a hologram you think you are
seeing things which aren’t really there.
And my theory is that this hologram is sponsored by the
local chamber of commerce to attract tourists. That would explain why in recent
years Mt. Hood appears less and less frequently. Large holographic productions cost money, you
know. What with the recession and all, they just can’t afford to keep it up
there all the time.
And these hologram people, they’re not really that good at
what they do. Recently we were driving
up river in the gorge on the Washington side when I looked up and saw Mt. Hood far
ahead on the south side of the river, where it is supposed to be. Then about
half an hour later I saw it again, this time on the north side of the river.
I’m not making these things up. This was
my experience. I know some of you have
seen it too but just don’t like to talk about it.
Anyway, I’ve been thinking some about mountains lately, and
in particular, about mountains on the move
In
Matthew 17 we read of a man whose son was “…a lunatick and sore vexed.” Said he
to the Savior “… I brought [my son] to thy disciples and they could not cure
him. 17 Then Jesus answered and said, O
faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me.
And Jesuus rebuked the devil; and he
departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour.
Then came the disciples to Jesus
apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out?
And Jesus said unto them, Because of
your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of
mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place;
and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.’ (Matthew 17:17 - 20)
The mustard seed is a very small item, and the mountain a
very large one. The analogy is
compelling. His reproach to the
disciples, and perhaps to us, is that if we just had the tiniest bit of faith,
it would be sufficient to move a mountain.
Now I don’t know about you, but I have seen great acts of
faith, but I have never seen a mountain moved through faith or by any other
means. (Well maybe you folks who were
here 20 years ago when Mt. St.Helen’s blew its top, you might argue the
point.) But actually, I don’t think the
Lord is really that interested in mountains, except perhaps as a metaphor. But a mountain as an obstacle, now
that’s another matter. Think of a
mountain as something that stands in the way, blocking the pathway ahead,
preventing progress.
As Pat and I sat in the temple in Dallas, Texas 14 months
ago I was pondering and praying about how we could best serve the Lord and how
we might help our son and his family who were living in Japan. While praying and meditating on the matter, somehow
these two concerns connected in my mind, and there came to me the clear and
unmistakable impression that we should prepare ourselves to go as soon as
possible and serve a mission in Japan.
Frankly I was shocked. There were
several huge obstacles standing in the way of this objective. It seemed an
impossible task.
Do you ever go back to the Lord and say, “Really, is
that what you want? Are you sure?” In the ensuing months I have done this many
times. We had a house in Pennsylvania
which we couldn’t sell. We came to
Oregon to help our daughter and her family. We can’t just abandon them. Other large obstacles loomed in our path.
Nevertheless we decided to place out faith and trust in the
Lord and move ahead with confidence as if the problems could be overcome. As we did so, a peculiar thing happened - the
mountains began to shift and to move. I
am witness to the movement of mountains.
We have watched the obstacles that blocked the way, the mountains if you
will, one by one move aside revealing each time a little more of the path
ahead. Surely this didn’t happen with our just sitting on our hands, but I
testify to the Lord’s intervention in our behalf, as well as the assistance of
family and friends.
And so, my brothers and sisters, when you are advancing down
a path and you see a mountain blocking the way, and if it is a path you feel
the Lord wants you to travel, then my advice is: place your trust in the Lord and move forward
with confidence and I promise you, you will see mountains move.
And so, Japan is calling – or more accurately, the Lord has
extended a calling through his prophet, Pres. Thomas S. Monson. The best thing about this mission is that I
know who my companion will be. Loving my
companion will be a piece of cake. Pat
is a courageous woman with great spiritual instincts. She knows how to serve and she has tried to
teach it to me over the years. I know
from previous experience, it will be a daily joy to be yoked together with my
eternal companion in the service of the Lord.
I grew up in the midst of World War II. I was taught, and I
learned to hate the Germans and the Japanese.
I’m not ashamed of it. It wasn’t that we were hateful people back then,
it’s just that the Germans and the Japanese were killing people we knew, our
friends and relatives, slaughtering our fellow citizens – by the
thousands. And truth to tell, these two
peoples warring against us as they were, committed some of the most terrible
atrocities ever perpetrated against humankind in the history of the world. It was a terrible time and hatred was in the
air we breathed.
Not long after the war had ended, and while many bombed-out
buildings were still in evidence in the 3rd Reich, I arrived in
Germany as a young missionary to teach the gospel to our former enemies. It really didn’t take me very long to learn
to love the Germans. Heck I even came to
love the awful German language. I loved
my mission to Germany and I found the Germans to be not sub-human as I
had supposed at all, but real people just like you and me, with families and
children and hopes and dreams, and many of them having been prepared through
the refiner’s fire to hear the gospel.
One day as I sat in the Essen branch of the church in Germany
and looked at a photograph taken in the 1930s, of 40 Melchizedek Priesthood
holders, none of whom returned from the war, I realized that one of the
terrible consequences of war for them was that their priesthood had been
destroyed.
Fifty years later Pat and I were called to return to Germany
for two years as missionaries. And we
loved every minute of our mission there. We learned to love the German people all over
again. It was one of the great experiences of our lives. We found the church there to be organized
into wards and stakes with great native leadership, and that the priesthood of
these people had been restored, two temples had been built in their midst, and
now, of course, one of their number even sits in the highest council of the church.
What a great transformation for the
church in Germany in those 50 years. I
must say parenthetically, how grateful I am to hundreds of missionaries who
brought this remarkable harvest of the souls of our former enemies, among which
missionaries were our son and two of our sons-in-law.
Meanwhile one of our sons took up extended residence in
Japan and married a girl from there. Together they have to two beautiful
children who look a lot like Japanese. We have been there several times to
visit and we love the Japanese people. They are not ruthless and cruel, but
kind and generous, with their own hopes and fears. We sat on the floor in the home where our
daughter-in-law was raised and looked at picture after picture of grim-looking,
uniformed relatives lost in the war, looking much like the ones I had hated
years before. Later we toured the grim memorial at Hiroshima where the atomic
bomb caused such terrible devastation, killing thousands and ending the war,
and our hearts were drawn out to this people and all that they suffered. Now we
have been called to serve the people of Japan as missionaries. And as irony would have it, the church has
also constructed two temples in Japan.
I will never forget the awfulness of the wars we fought with
these two belligerent countries. Yet now, for more than half a century these
two nations have been our trusted allies and the church has prospered among
their peoples. This old country of ours
has its critics and surely we have made our share of mistakes as a nation, but
at the making of enemies into friends, no one has ever done it better.
I believe it was Abraham Lincoln who said that the best way
to destroy an enemy is to make him your friend.
If nations and peoples can do this, then probably so can individuals,
and whenever we do, it is a marvelous business.
Now I must say something about geriatric missionaries. We
are all familiar with the Savior’s last brief instruction to his chief apostle,
Peter, at the Sea of Galilee. “Lovest
thou me? Yea, Lord thou knowest that I
love thee. - “Feed My sheep, then a
second time… Feed my sheep.” And then “Feed my lambs.” It is a charge to all of us to minister to
those around us with the saving message of the gospel of Christ. It is good that we are familiar with these
verses, but we would do well to look at the verse which immediately follows in
the gospel of John. It should be of
particular interest to those of us advanced in years, those of us who are
approaching the age where we can serve as senior missionaries.
18 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast
young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou
shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee,
and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. (John 21:18)
As you advance in years, time is running short. As we are
today, we may be able to dress ourselves and walk wherever we choose. So if we want to serve the Lord, if we desire
the mission experience, we would do well not to delay. Because, there will soon come a time when
someone will have to dress us and we will have to be taken wherever we go. Serve while you can.
Shakespeare had a saying for this. “There is a tide in the
affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads on to fortune, omitted, all the
days of our lives are spent in the shallows and the miseries. On such a full
sea are we not afloat, and we must take the current when it serves or lose our
fortunes.”
There are lots of legitimate reasons why people can’t serve
missions, reasons for young men and reasons for senior couples. No one should dispute them. However, if there are not legitimate
reasons, then my advice is: Don’t delay! Serve while you can. Elder L. Tom Perry has said that the only
health requirement for senior couples is that they have to be able to hold up
their tray in the food line at the MTC.
So, Pat and I have been working on that and I think we’re almost ready.
We count it a great privilege and a blessing to be permitted
to serve among the Germans and the Japanese, and we do it gladly because we have
a great and invaluable treasure to share, and because this is what we do in the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Six of our grandchildren are here and I would be remiss if I
didn’t share my testimony with them.
This I know…..
There is a
God in heaven. He is our Father. He knows your name. He knows your desires, your fears and your
dreams. I believe there is nothing in
which he delights more than pouring out blessings upon the heads of his
children. He will always be there for
you.
This I know…
He sent his
son, Jesus Christ, to earth to sacrifice in our behalf – so that even though we
are not perfect, even though we make mistakes and fall short of the standard he
sets for us – we can be forgiven. With
his help we can overcome every obstacle and meet every challenge that might
come to us in this life. And through his
atoning sacrifice, we can be cleansed and become worthy to return to our
Heavenly Father where we began.
This I know…
The church
of Jesus Christ has been restored to the earth in these latter days., and with
it has come priesthood power. This power
enables us to perform saving ordinances acceptable to our Father in
Heaven. And through priesthood power,
families are sealed together for eternity. The older I get the more this weighs
heavily upon my mind.
In Mark Helprin’s
novel about World War I, he has one of his characters say near the end of his
life: “Dear God, I beg of you only one
thing. Let me join the ones I love. Carry me to them, unite me with them, let
me see them, let me touch them.”
Surely this is the desire of every one of us and indeed, I believe, the
desire of all people. And it is through
walking in obedience to the commandments of God and by way of priesthood power
that this desire can be realized. This I know.
In the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
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