Friday, January 31, 2014

He called me for me

     Hello, my most beloved brothers and sister. Behold, I, Elder Goodrich have seen the lack of talent in most blogs and have heard the cries of my potential investigators. And it came to pass that I, with  my own hand, thus made a blog. And it was so. And it was good.

     Well, hopefully it will be good. After the cease fire on my facebook videos I have been trying my best to come up with something new and of worth and I made some punny photos here and posted some comment there but nothing seemed to be up to snuff. Then one day while I was serving in the ghetto, a little child came up to me, "Yo, can you step?!" and then another one said, "Can you rap?!" Please, this white boy has more moves in his left hand they this 10 year old ever will. So I busted out my moves and left them in awe of my gnarly dancing skills. And then, commenced the rap battle. Hushed up that 7 year old like it was nobody's business!!! (Really, it was something simple and very very very white)
     Yo, may name is elder Goodrich
Yeah I'm white, that right
I'm going to serve god with all my might
To preach about Jesus Christ and his holy sacrifice
Word.
     If my mom would let me, I would become a religious rapper. She would disown me as soon as I got off the plane. Sorry, getting way off the subject. Long story short, I rapped and so then I thought, Hey! I should write poems or something and post them on the facebook.  And here we are. Now, let us begin.

He Called Me for Me

I have been called to serve the Lord
Out here in the southern states
Where people shoot, instead of talk
Thinking I'm here to negotiate

To sell a product to them that will buy
That's why I'm in a shirt and tie
He's here to sell, or preach of hell
Or to tell me my church is a lie

Till one day a lady answers the door
Tears running down her face
"My Husbands' moving out, he's leaving for good
He's going to his girlfriends place"

I know this feeling, I've seen it before
It happened to my family
I testify, and then start to cry
Cause this feeling isn't new to me

"Do I know you
Have we met before
How did God know
To send you to my door?"

We're called of God
Our service is free
I'm one of 80,000
But this lady, she needed to hear from me

     80,000 missionaries, crazy right? And out of that big group there is this very little kid named Elder Goodrich. What difference could I make? Yes, I am from Utah but I was nothing special. I lied in Jr. High seminary and pretended I memorized all the scriptures so I could get a little key chain. (Brought it on my mission to remind me of what I did) And then in high school, I was the class seminary president or what ever the title was. And my first day of reining involved me going on a doughnut run for my subjects. And then me getting in trouble, for my subjects. And then feeding my subjects after getting chewed out. Long story short, I'm nothing special. Why would God want me out here? What could I do to help serve God? There are 79,999 more qualified and better than little Elder Goodrich.

     Then I have experiences like this. We knocked on a door and a lady came out in tears. We showed up on her door as her husband was walking out. He had the truck all packed and was getting the last few items he needed. Calling her a wreck would be understating it. Imagine a 4 year old crying cause she just broke her doll plus a teenager screaming at her mom for saying she cant text a special boy. That kind of a wreck. And my companion, he didn't really have much experience with something like this. Me, on the other hand have had something like this in my life. I'm not going to go into detail, but, I've seen this before. And it was so cool when I was able to testify to her about the Atonement and how it helped me through what she is about to go through. Yes, I was a child of the divorce and it wasn't my spouse leaving, but I could get where she was coming from. 
     I have heard people say, "I'm grateful for my challenges." Please, you are straight up crazy! Obviously, my challenges are 56x harder than theirs. I felt this way before I had experiences like this. However, I was able to go through something that was quite hard for me and then help someone else go through a similar situation. Moments like this make me realize, God needs me out here. He has 79,999 other missionaries to do what they need to do. He needs me to be me and do what He needs me to do. There are certain people only I can reach. (Not height wise reach, I need a ladder to get stuff off the top shelf.) There are experiences and challenges that I have gone through that make me who I am and have the testimony that I do. It's like Moses, (see Exodus 3 &4) when God called him, Moses responded something like this. "Hahah, you're a funny guy God. I am not going to do that, you'll need to get someone else. Cause I am not the best one out there. You'll need someone better than me." Or when Mary was called to be the mother of Christ. (See Luke 1:34) "Oh silly angel. I need to have a man to have a child." Or Nephi when he is told to kill Laban. (See Nephi 4:10-18) "Now there is No WAY the spirit just told me to do that. This isn't right. I probably should just get a going." Plenty of people have doubts, but, look what these three people were able to do.
     We often times are scared of who we can become. And we don't think God can use us for much more than a rug. But, if I take off my name tag there is something special there. Yes, Jesus Christs' name is on it, but I want to focus on something else. Look at the name above it all in bold solid letters. That is my name. God didn't call me to be someone else, he called me to be me. God has let me go through life and become who I am for a reason. For people like this lady or for the others I have met or am going to meet. He needs me for me and God wants you for you. He does not want you to be another Elder Goodrich, He has enough head ache from having one of those. He wants you to be you. Don't ever doubt what you can do or who you can become. If I can do this life, so can you. (:
Goodrich out.
(Yes, I misspelled Christ in the little leaf thing. Get over it. I'm not perfect.)