Sunday at the hospital, the little nondenominational chapel was overflowing with people waiting to take the sacrament administered by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints. My friend Louise snuck up to the second pew to tell me that people were waiting outside. I quickly stood and left to make room for hospital workers, hospital patients and visitors.
Once outside the chapel, in the busy foyer of the hospital, I stood among a dozen people waiting for the sacrament. It was a solemn, and cherished moment to see that taking of the sacrament was important enough for people to stand outside and wait.
I stumbled upon an instagram account where a young man shares his experience of learning about the sacrament from an apostle.
The young man is Chandler Hendry and his IG account is restored_truth. This is a written version of his sincerely told story:
"When I was 18, I was in a ward where the second counselor was a son-in-law to President Nelson. Because he was a son in law, President Nelson who was the president of the quorum of the twelve apostles would come and visit on Sundays and every time he came to visit, I was up there blessing the sacrament, and he would ask us every single time to stay up there. This happened a couple times and I was always curious; I was 18 and I didn’t want to stay up here, I thought this is weird.
But I asked him one time why and what he told me has stuck with me from that moment. He said,'You guys are basically the guards that stood outside the tomb except you’re the guards that know that the Savior rose. You’re standing as sentinels to proclaim the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
“You are his servants that allow his people to renew their covenants by you kneeling down and blessing the sacrament for all to receive.'
That really hit me because I feel like when we bless the sacrament, sometimes we get lackadaisical. I think sometimes we don’t understand that it’s not just a symbolic representation of Jesus. It’s actually a covenantal keeping process that happens every single week.
It is massively important, and when he said that to me it hit me really hard because it made me realize that President nelson knew the savior. It also helped me gain a testimony that he was a disciple and an apostle called of God."
A new perspective.
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