"Left Their Nets and Followed HIm."

It is always interesting to see people's reactions when we tell them about the guidelines that we as missionaries are to follow.  They feel that we are extremely restricted in our activities and in our daily lives.  Having to be home by 9:00 pm, getting up at 6:30 am, having study time, no television, and various other things.  But if you ask a missionary how much they wish they could do something else, most of them would say that they have never been happier!!  I know I can say that.  So why is it that we find joy when we are so restricted?

Thinking about this makes me think of Christ when he called the 12 Apostles.  He said to "Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother . . Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.  And they straightway left their nets, and followed him."  (Matthew 4:18-20)  It always amazes me how quickly Peter and Andrew obeyed the voice of Jesus as he asked them to sacrifice.  Well, he asks the same of us.  "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." (Matthew 16:24)   Those who "putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord" (Mosiah 3:19) will find that leaving their nets is the best thing that they will do.

So, does this mean that you have to serve a full time mission to qualify as someone who has "Left their nets"?  No.  "Now this is the commandment: Repent, all ye ends of the earth, and come unto me and be baptized in my name, that ye may be sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost, that ye may stand spotless before me at the last day." (3 Nephi 27:19)  And when we are baptized we say that we are willing "to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in."  (Mosiah 18:9)  So by following the commandments, being baptized and receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and fulfilling our baptismal covenant, then we show that we have put off our nets.

Well now your all set!!  But oops, you made a mistake.  You said as Peter said, "I go a fishing." (John 21:3)  You went back to your nets for a time.  You are no longer spotless.  But, there is still hope.  With a lot of faith and repentance, you can "Leave your Nets" once again and become perfected through the atonement of Christ.  "There is none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God."  (2 Nephi 31:21)

It may be difficult to do all that God has asked of us.  But I promise that as we faithfully endure "and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon" (Mosiah 3:19) us, then we can be as "those who have washed their garments in my blood, because of their faith, and the repentance of all their sins, and their faithfulness unto the end." (3 Nephi 27:19)