Mike Utibe

In the last six weeks of my mission, I got transferred to a new area. It was small town Loa, UT and the surrounding towns in that area. I've mentioned this place before in earlier posts and it is still one of my favorite places in Central Utah.

Anyway, even though I spent such a short amount of time up there, it quickly became one of my favorite places. I loved the small towns, and the people and restaurants. It was an incredible place to end my mission.

One of the towns that we covered was a town called Hanksville. It's about an hour away from Loa in the middle of the desert. It's a town of about 200 people. Yeah, 200. You blink and you would miss it. You... Well, you get the point.

So, anyway, in this super small town of Hanksville my companion and I meet some of the people there and we get a referral for a young man named Mike Utibe. We learned that he worked in town and had some questions about the church. My companion and I jumped on that referral immediately. We went to go visit him in his little trailer and began to talk with him about the gospel.

He was an awesome person! He was originally from Africa and was going to college in Romania. He moved to Utah for the summer to work. He had a huge testimony of God and the power of God in his life. One thing that I remember is that he would have cookies or some sort of snack for us whenever we stopped by. I still don't know how I didn't get diabetes.

Since Hanksville was an hour away from Loa and we lived on that side of the stake, we only spent one day a week in that part of our area. Since there were sometimes when Mike couldn't meet with us when we were in town, we had a couple of lessons over Skype with him. It was a super cool experience teaching somebody over video chat and still being able to feel the Spirit.

Unfortunately, I never got to see Mike baptized. He wasn't ready for baptism at that time and I went home from my mission 6 weeks after we got the referral. But, (this is where this story came to mind), I received a message fro Mike through Facebook a couple of weeks ago. He told me that he had gotten baptized a few weeks ago, and that he was going to speak in stake conference in Loa!

This made me incredibly happy. Mike was an amazing person and he definitely made a great member of the Church. Knowing that I helped to plant that seed and to be a part of his life was awesome. Those are among the reasons why I served a mission.

Service Opportunities

One of the things that's been on my mind a lot in the recent week is service.

Now, as a person who's been a member all their life, service has been a huge part of my life for as long as I can remember. From people helping us move from house to house, to us helping other people move. Among other things but I remember helping people move the best.

As a missionary, my companion and I were called upon many times to help do service. Two strong young men in their late teens/early twenties were perfect candidates for helping those in need.

I remember one particular time when I was 14 that a family in our ward was moving to Pennsylvania. My dad woke me and my brothers up at 7:00 in the morning on a Saturday to go help this family move. I grumbled and complained; I really did not want to go. But, I went and had the least helpful attitude ever. Even when I found out that there were Dunkin' Donuts afterwards. I had a sour look on my face for about 95% of the time that we helped this particular family move. Near the end of the service, however, the wife that we were helping move approached me (very bravely I might add) and thanked me for helping them move. She appreciated all of our hard work that we were doing in order to help them move. This softened my little 14 year old heart and made me feel super guilty.

After that experience, I tried to not have a negative attitude when it came to doing service for others. This bled into my mission and it helped me to be more excited when it came to doing service for others while I was on my mission. Doing service became a joy for me.

While visiting my family in New Jersey, my Dad needed my help on Labor Day to move a washing machine and a dryer to a member's house in their ward. Similar things happened like when I was 14. We got up early, and it was hard work. However, I noticed that my attitude had changed. I didn't mind getting up early to help serve. I know for a fact that my mission helped me with this.

Now, with a new semester starting at Brigham Young University-Idaho, I keep an eye out for how I can help those in need. Service helps change hearts and it makes us more like our Savior, Jesus Christ. He always helped those in need. Try to find an opportunity this week to help others!

Until next time!