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Living by the scriptures

Having recently turned 19, I faced the most important decision of my life. I knew the commandment from the prophet was to serve a mission but work, school and hobbies seemed more important to me than giving up two years of my life.

I wrote a close friend who was serving a mission, and told him of my struggles and reasons for not wanting to go.He immediately wrote to me and explained the difficulty he had in deciding to serve his own mission. He told me of the joy that serving the Lord had brought him and I felt the Spirit bearing witness that what he said was true. He told me to read this scripture. As I read, the Spirit was very strong and my reasons for not serving a mission felt much less important.

I soon put in my papers, and am currently serving our Lord in the Arizona Tucson Mission.

On my mission I have had the joy of blessing many lives with the gospel and have shared this scripture with many people. One of these was a 19-year-old young man we baptized in the first area of my mission.

A year after his baptism he faced the same decision that I had almost two years before. I shared with him this verse of scripture in the same way my friend had with me, and the effect was the same. He also is currently serving a mission for the Church.

Sacrifice brings blessings, and in my case I feel it has been more than "an hundredfold." - Elder David Romney Openshaw, Tucson, Ariz.

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