It's been a long day without you, my friends...

Wow! So I know it has been forever since I posted here on my blog. First, I should give credit to my mom, who graciously updated my blog while I was away serving my mission - she's the best! Second, I would like to start posting on these blog again, because I have so many thoughts that I would love to share with those who are willing to read them. I had a goal on my mission to continue to use my blog even afterwards, I've remodeled the look of everything a little and I am excited to get started!

I have been home from my mission for just under 7 months now - oh, how time flies! It is amazing to think how two years ago I was in the MTC down in Mexico City, studying Spanish and doing my best to learn how to be a good missionary. I love my mission so much, and I think of it daily. Those 18 months shaped me and taught me so much. I have never learned as much, prayed as long, smiled as big, or loved as hard as I have as a missionary. Kentucky and its people will really always have my heart!

When I was on my mission, I would try to record in the back of my Preach My Gospel every time that I felt that Heavenly Father was teaching me a lesson. I recorded a few of the funny lessons or tips that I learned from members on my mission as well. I love looking through those and remembering the moments when I learned the things I did. Here are a few of the lessons I included in my list:

• My God is good. Although He created the grand mountains, deep seas, and the stars in the sky, He knows me personally. 
• Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves. 
• When you're down to nothing, God is up to something. 
• Everything will turn out good in the end. If it's not good right now, it's not the end yet. 
• Fear is not worthy of a child of God. 
• (Here's one of the funny ones) Dairy Queen makes everything better. 

Life really is all about learning, growing, and progressing. I am amazed how much Heavenly Father is still helping me to grow after my mission. I have learned so much in these 7 months since I have been home, and it has not always been easy, but knowing that these experiences are worth something helps me to keep moving forward.

A scripture I feel that captures what I learned this summer is in the Book of Mormon in 1 Nephi 21:16. It says, "Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me." To me this summer as I have been adjusting to being home, I really have felt like Heavenly Father has me safe in His hands. I have felt so much love from Him, even when I feel I do not deserve it.

Another thing I have learned about more deeply is the infinite power that Christ has to help us. His grace really is sufficient to help us, heal us, and forgive us! That grace does not expire after one use. We can never run out. That does not mean, however, that we can do whatever we want and then repent later, but it means that as we give a consecrated effort to improving and becoming more like Christ, we will have Christ's help. These changes will not happen all at once, but we have to be patient with ourselves and remember Christ's patience as we try to make these changes.

Sometimes I can be so hard on myself. This summer, I received the advice to look at what I am doing, rather than what I am not. I try to remember that! Some days are hard, and we are not going to be perfect, but that does not mean we are terrible people! I am positive that even on those days when we feel like we have made a million mistakes, we have done something good.

So I guess I will end this first post-mission blog post by reminding myself (and others if you happen to be reading this) to be a little more patient as we work on personal goals and a little more aware and willing to turn to Heavenly Father and Jesus in the process.

Love you all! Until next time.

Homecoming Talk from March 8, 2015!

Homecoming Talk: Lessons Learned while Serving as a Missionary

Brothers and sisters, it is so great to be back with you! I want you all to know how much I love my mission. It was the fastest 18 months of my life, but through experiences in my mission, I have changed for the better so much faster than I ever could have done if I were left to myself. Today I would like to share some of the greatest lessons I have learned in serving as a full-time Spanish missionary in the Great Kentucky Louisville Mission. Now, I am not just sharing these for fun, but I hope that as I share what Heavenly Father has taught me, that you all can gain a little insight too as you seek to share the gospel. I know He all has lessons for us to learn as we seek to serve Him more fully.

The first lesson I learned so much on my mission is about how essential prayer is both in the lives of missionaries and in the lives of those we teach. As missionaries, we pray a lot. Just in the morning between the hours of 6:30 and 11, we pray at least 10 times. On my first night in Kentucky after arriving from the MTC, my mission president’s wife was talking a little bit about the routine and she said that when the alarm goes off in the morning, our minds should automatically be accustomed to roll out of bed and get on our knees to pray. One thing I never expected about missionary work is just how tired I would be all the time! Because of that, sometimes I was a little sleepy in my morning prayers. But I believe it’s really the action that counts, which is that we are putting God first in our lives as we begin our day by communing with Him before doing anything else. It’s like we are aligning our lives with His will. Alma 34:18 says, “Yea, cry unto him for mercy, for he is mighty to save.” Prayer is so very important, and as we seek to talk with our Heavenly Father, I believe we have more hope in our lives. As we pray to Him often, and especially as we always have a prayer in our hearts, we begin to recognize how our Heavenly Father responds back to us. Although we can’t see Him, He is really so close to us. 3 Nephi 14:7-11 reads, “Ask, and it shall be given unto you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, who, if his son ask bread, will give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” All we need to do is ask fervently and with faith. 

An experience of this that I saw in my mission was with a woman named Aly. She was a member, but due to work situations on Sundays, was unable to attend church regularly. One day, my companion and I were out with a member and we were just not having any luck whatsoever. We were trying practically every door to just be rejected. I began to pray very urgently in my head to know where we needed to go with this member, and I was feeling really impressed to go visit Aly. I shared my feelings with my companion and the member and we headed over there. We went up and knocked on her door and within a few seconds, Aly swung open the door very enthusiastically and welcomed us warmly. She told us that she had been having a hard day and upon returning home from work, she fell on her knees and began to pray. She began to ask Heavenly Father if He was really there and if He was listening to her prayer, and right as she asked that, we knocked on the door. Because of that experience, I know that Heavenly Father loves Aly so much that He made it so we arrived at her house at the exact second that she needed us to so she could feel of His love. I know that if we pray seeking for answers, Heavenly Father will answer us immediately. Some of my most treasured moments on my mission were after a really hard day when I asked Him through prayer if I did what I was supposed to that day. He always would answer me immediately and with lots of love.

Another thing that I have learned is just how much God knows and loves each and every one of His children, and how He will give His children endless opportunities to accept the Gospel and to come unto Him. There was one email I wrote to my family after a week where I saw just how much Heavenly Father does to help His children receive and accept the gospel. A part of the email said, “I think the biggest thing I have realized [this week] is that God works for the one. The worth of one soul is great in the sight of God. As a representative of His Son Jesus Christ, He puts me where I need to go to help one of His specific children. Sometimes I wonder my purpose for why I am here [on my mission]. What if it is just to meet one person on the street and share something that will spark a fire and change generations to come? Each one of us is so important. I know that even if I were the only sinner in the entire world that Jesus Christ would still suffer for my one soul.  I am grateful that God works for the one. I am grateful for the ones I have been blessed to meet.” What I said in that email is still true. In Alma 16:16-17, God said it like this, “…The Lord did pour out his Spirit on all the face of the land to prepare the minds of the children of men, or to prepare their hearts to receive the word which should be taught among them at the time of his coming. That they might not be hardened against the word, that they might not be unbelieving, and go on to destruction, but that they might receive the word with joy, and as a branch be grafted into the true vine, that they might enter into the rest of the Lord their God.” I know each of us are so precious to Him and that He wants everyone of us to return to Him and He won’t stop working until He gets that. I also know that He knows that we are at different levels in our progression, and that He works with us according to our needs. 

One of my favorite stories from my entire mission is about a man named Frederico. I was on an exchange in my area, meaning I was another sister for the day to work and learn from her, and we were in a trailer park. We went up and talked to this man Frederico who was working outside. He did not have much of a religious background and we asked him if he thought God existed. He said he wasn’t sure. As we began to talk about it more, rain began to pour down and he invited us onto his covered porch. Before continuing, he went and got his wife from inside so we could talk with them together. Frederico continued to ask us questions of his soul, like about the nature of God and prayer. Due to his questions and the questions of his wife, we were led to teach them about the Plan of Salvation. It was the best, most spiritual Plan of Salvation lesson that I had ever taught right there under the porch with the sound of rain in the background. In the end, we invited Frederico to pray, and he told us he had never prayed before. We taught him how, and his simple first prayer was beautiful. I was excited to return, but as my companion and I tried in the future, we never could get in touch with him or his family. It wasn’t until a week before I was about to leave the area that we were in that same trailer park and I spotted Frederico taking out his trash. I ran over to him, overjoyed. He was surprised and happy to see us too, and the first words out of his mouth were, “Hermana, the lesson you taught us changed my life. I now know that God exists. I have been praying every day and my life is changing.” Because of Frederico, I know that God works with us according to what we need. Frederico needed to learn that God was there and that God loved him. I know Heavenly Father is working individually with everyone around us: our neighbors, the people driving next to us on the street, our family members. He loves us so much.

Finally, I learned a lot about the Atonement and our relationship with Jesus Christ. When I left on my mission, I gave my farewell talk on Jesus Christ. I felt that I knew Him. But my mission has taught me so much more about Him, and I learned the Atonement is so much deeper and has so many different aspects. One of those different aspects I learned about is how the Atonement helps us to change. Ether 12:27 says, “And if men come unto me, I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.” The Savior teaches us that our purpose is to become like Him. He is perfect and without sin and so we have a long way to go! But Heavenly Father and Christ both want to help us change and become better. Fortunately, they are both very patient and they recognize that change is a process and that it takes time. At the beginning of my mission, I was thinking about who I wanted to become and what traits I wanted to develop during my mission. I wrote them down, and in reviewing them the last week of my mission, I realized that Heavenly Father helped me to develop every single one of the things I had written down. It was not easy, but I know that through the Atonement we can change when we are relying solely upon Jesus Christ.

Another aspect of the Atonement that I learned about on my mission is how Christ is able to give us so much comfort because He knows us perfectly. Missions are hard. Life is hard. But I am grateful that I learned on my mission that Christ did not suffer only for my sins, but that He suffered for all my trials and my heartaches as well. In a talk titled “Missionary Work and the Atonement”, Jeffrey R. Holland said, “Anyone who does any kind of missionary work will have occasion to ask, Why is this so hard? Why doesn’t it go better? Why can’t our success be more rapid? Why aren’t there more people joining the Church? It is the truth. We believe in angels. We trust in miracles. Why don’t people just flock to the font? Why isn’t the only risk in missionary work that of pneumonia from being soaking wet all day and all night in the baptismal font? You will have occasion to ask those questions. I have thought about this a great deal. I offer this as my personal feeling. I am convinced that missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation never was easy. We are The Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head. How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him? It seems to me that missionaries and mission leaders have to spend at least a few moments in Gethsemane. Missionaries and mission leaders have to take at least a step or two toward the summit of Calvary. Now, please don’t misunderstand. I’m not talking about anything anywhere near what Christ experienced. That would be presumptuous and sacrilegious. But I believe that missionaries and investigators, to come to the truth, to come to salvation, to know something of this price that has been paid, will have to pay a token of that same price. For that reason I don’t believe missionary work has ever been easy, nor that conversion is, nor that retention is, nor that continued faithfulness is. I believe it is supposed to require some effort, something from the depths of our soul.” I know that in the end true happiness is found as we become like Christ. The process to becoming something really will require something of our part, but after we do all we can, Christ catches us and carries us to the level we need to be at. His grace really is sufficient.

Finally, the last aspect of the Atonement that I learned about is that the Atonement provides strength. Alma 26:12 states, “Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.” I remember the days when I was tired or it was hard and I was given the strength to keep going. I saw this with one of the investigators that I was closest to. I was there when we first met the man. He was outside his trailer smoking but as we talked with him, I noticed a visible light that turned on within him. Something in what we said sparked the spirit inside him. That began one of the most beautiful relationships I have ever been privileged to have. As we taught him, I saw his desires to do the right grow. Before we had even taught him about the Word of Wisdom, he came to us asking us for help in overcoming his addiction to smoking. To try to help him in his attempts to quit, we had many lessons on the Atonement. It was amazing to see him learn to lean on Christ to find the strength to quit his addiction and live without cigarettes. It was an amazing experience, and because of that and other experiences in my mission, I’ve learned that the best moments, days, or weeks were when I would do all that was in my strength and then I had to leave the rest to the Lord. And He always came through.

I learned so many other countless things. I could have shared other lessons, like about how God is a God of miracles and how everyday can be a day of miracles when we look for them. I could have born testimony of how being humble and conforming to God’s plan and doing the work in His way brings success. I could have included stories about how the Book of Mormon has changed lives, especially my own. I know that book has a special power about it. I could have talked about the importance of love in being a missionary, about how God gives us a portion of His love for those we serve, and about how if we truly love the people, we will share the gospel with them. My mission means so much to me because of the love I have felt for the people, and it is amazing how much love the heart can hold. I am so grateful for everything that I have learned in my mission, and I know these 18 months will shape the rest of my life.

So what does this all mean for you all and for me now that I am back to being a normal member?  In the words of Joseph Smith, “After all that has been said, the greatest and most important duty is to preach the Gospel.” So in all that has been said today, the words mean nothing unless we go out and apply them to help bring others to Christ. We can pray fervently and often for missionary experiences. We can remember the love God has for us and as we go about our lives every day, we can pause for a second and look around us for those that Heavenly Father may be preparing. And most importantly, we can use the Atonement in our lives daily to improve and perform our labors and do the will of our Heavenly Father. (Bear testimony in Spanish). I leave these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.