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Our Father in Heaven encourages us to experiment with the Gospel of Jesus Christ – to find out if it’s true or false.
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Serving as a mission president in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania I felt like a gospel scientist with a lab of 350 young experimenters. These were our full-time missionaries whom Joyce and I came to know and love during our three years of service.
As part of this experiment, I expected lives to change. I expected testimonies to grow. I expected blessings to pour down from heaven upon the obedient and humble. And all of this happened in great abundance.
But there was an additional astonishing result that I did not predict from this experiment. And it happened time and time again.
Missionaries are required to send a weekly email to their mission president. I would receive about 150 such emails each week. And when a missionary had been serving for 9-14 months, I would often receive an email with the following first sentence:
“Dear President Murray, I’ve never been happier in my life.”
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This statement came from missionaries who eagerly entered the mission field with strong testimonies – and from missionaries who reluctantly entered the mission field with no real testimony.
Let’s dig into this experiment more deeply. There are two things I want to investigate with you: (1) What was the source of this happiness? and (2) Why did it take 9-14 months for a missionary to experience such happiness?
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(Read / listen for the answer)
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