The Mormon on your doorstep...

I have hit a wall. 

It seems there are no words to accurately express the message I so desperately want the world to hear. I think my desperation may be making me harsh and intense and abrupt in a way that I have not intended.

The other day I found myself writing a blog post. I wanted it to be bold and for people to see how much all of this matters to me... isn't the opposition bold too?... but in the end it seemed to come across as proud and in-your-face and 100% not what I intended it to be. 

The truth is I want to write something that means something to someone. Something of impact. Something worth reading. Not because I think my words are of any importance. No, my thoughts and opinions are nothing to talk about. It is the message I have found and the way that it has changed me that I am trying to get across, and yet I fear good intentions have turned to an awful desperation, and for that I apologize.

The picture above was taken on a day amidst all of the craziness of life when I let myself let go of my apprehension and reason and I trusted the unseen power of the wind to hold me up. 

This was a moment of pure joy.

In the last 24 hours I have realized that I have been trying to build up my self importance, rather than letting go or my apprehension and reason and trusting the will and the unseen power of the Lord. This is where my pure joy lies -in letting go and letting him take over. Here goes...

I am sure there are many people who have a story, or have heard a story about two missionaries standing on their doorstep. At times the story ends with a slamming door, other times with a polite decline, and sometimes the door remains closed for whatever reason.

Have you ever thought about the missionary standing on the other side of the door?

I can't speak for all missionaries, but I will do my best to articulate myself. 

I get nervous every time I knock on a door, never knowing who I might find or how I will be received. I don't mean to be a hassle or an annoyance. Sometimes I grow slightly embarrassed knowing that I have knocked on a door several times before and the homeowner avoided us, and yet here I am again as if I didn't catch the hint. But for some reason I just can't let it go...

Maybe it was because I spent a year and a half paying off student loans and saving money so I could be in a financial situation where I could afford to drop everything for 18 months. Maybe it is because I gave up an educational dream to fulfill another.A few months back I was working hard as a missionary while the rest of my family was in Hawaii to see my Sister marry her wonderful husband. You could not pay me enough to miss my Sister's wedding. My heart sank as I thought about how this would be an event I could never get back. 

When the door opens sometimes I feel as awkward and uncomfortable as I look. Just a young girl who has little life experience and little expertise. I am not pretending to be someone with all the answers. There is still so much that I don't understand. By no means am I "a saint". I have so many weaknesses sometimes it makes me sick. The missionary on the other side of your door is probably homesick, nervous, tired, imperfect, uncomfortable, and has sacrificed many things she loved to be there.

None of these are good enough reasons for me NOT to be there.

Standing on this doorstep was more than a passing thought. It was more than a mere urge. No, there was much more involved than that. 

The Savior Jesus Christ gave His life for all men. Joseph Smith and countless others gave their lives to help this message to go forth... who am I to think that my life is worth more than that? I sincerely know how much this Gospel can bless lives. I know how it can fill an empty void. I know how it can provide stability and support in an unstable world. I know that God loves all his children and in an effort to become more like Christ, I want to know what it is like to completely give a part of my life for someone else. 

I guess the reason that I keep coming back is out of love. My love for God and His son Jesus Christ, their love for me, and our love for the person on the other side of the door.

Breakdown

Once upon a time I was much younger and had not a care in the world...

 One weekend my sister and I decided to go on a roadtrip to the mountains. The plan went like this. She would pick me up from work in our old 1994 Toyota Camry and we would drive to our Grandparents house to stay the night. The next day would be spent in the mountains admiring God's creations before heading home.

As luck would have it, when we stopped in a small town to fill up on gas the car decided to stop working. The car wasn't turning over. In fact, it wasn't doing anything at all. Naturally we both started laughing and when we couldn't find the problem on our own we called a mechanic. He came and literally started hitting something under the hood until the car started. With the caution that we needed to be careful as to not get stranded in the middle of nowhere, we took off again to Grandma and Grandpa's house leaving the mechanic behind.

We made it to our grandparent's house without a problem, but when we tried to start the car again we had the same problem as before. That night we debated whether we should still make the trip to the mountains or not, because although we were young and dumb, we weren't stupid.

We resolved to ask Grandpa.

Grandpa was a farmer. I don't know much about farming, but I am almost positive that he was one of the best. If there was anything he knew it was how to make things grow and how to bring old things back to life. Well, Grandpa came out and took a look at the car. He played around with a few things and the next thing we knew the car was purring as if nothing had happened....  Yet, I was still skeptical. Grandpa seemed to have confidence that we would make it, but I was a worrier and extremely risk-averse and was not about to get stranded in the mountains. As far as I was concerned we were staying put and definitely not going anywhere. It was then that something unexpected happened. My older and wiser Sister asked my Grandpa to say a prayer. He did. I don't remember what he said, but I remember thinking, "I don't know anyone with more faith than Grandpa. If Grandpa asks God to help us make it safely, and if he has the faith that we will be okay, we will. "

I didn't trust my own prayers or my own faith, but I trusted Grandpa's because I knew he was a man of God with the faith to move mountains. Long story short(er), we made it to our destination and the rest of the weekend was blissfully  uneventful.

 I have never forgotten this experience. I remember wishing I had enough faith that I could pray we would be okay and believe it. But I was so grateful that I could rely on Grandpa's faith enough to help me get to my destination. As the true farmer he was, grandpa cultivated my little tiny seed of faith with his own, believing it would grow. Since that time I have learned that the faith doesn't always manifest itself in the asking- More often it manifests itself in the believing.

I now have a destination much further than the mountains. There have been a lot more breakdown's on this road, and there are times when I fear continuing on because of the chance of yet another breakdown. I am so grateful that even though I don't know how everything will turn out, I can trust in the promise of our Savior Jesus Christ that He will fix what once was broken and we can make it to our destination, if we trust in him and let him cultivate our little seed of faith.

 

I love the word's from THIS talk by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, 

"What was once a tiny seed of belief for me has grown into the tree of life, so if your faith is a little tested in this or any season, I invite you to lean on mine."

I know that what I have told you is true. Although I might not have faith as great as Grandpa Anderson or Elder Holland, I still invite you to lean on mine until you grow the faith to support others!

The Perfect Experiment

There was a time in my life I thought I had to be perfect.... why? Let me tell you.

As you all know, I believe in a Heavenly Father, and his son Jesus Christ. Because I believe in them I study the scriptures and pray to come closer to them. In my studies I came across all of THESE scriptures.

One that really stuck with me was 2 Corinthians 13:11

"... Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the love of God and peace will be with you" 

After reading this scripture I had this theory that I had to be perfect. It seemed natural to develop this hypothesis:

 If I was perfect, then I was good enough for God's love, and I could have peace in life. 

This sounds like a pretty sound hypothesis to me. And everyone knows that when you develop a good hypothesis, the next step is to test it. .... So that is exactly what I did. 

I did pretty well for a few minutes. Maybe even hours. I was pretty darn perfect. I think I might have even made it to the end of the night. Nice. Then the next morning I slept through my alarm. 

AHHH, well I guess that I blew it for today, so I will start again tomorrow. The next day I made it to the mirror and took a look..... ZIT? WHAT???....Well, I guess I will wait a few days until that clears up. In a few days I would start again and then boom.... Only 98% on my math test? AHHH, come on! Again - I am going to be the very best violinist ever... I played the wrong note on the last page of that 20 page concerto???? Seriously? You have really outdone yourself this time! I AM HORRIBLE. I keep being sooo imperfect. No one can love me. I don't even love me.

.. Basically this all continued for the next 10 years. Sometimes I would do really well for a while. I could get the best grades. I could graduate a year early. I could be in the school musical and have a job and be on the academic committee and take violin lessons, all without breaking a sweat. and then I would make a mistake so I would have to start over. I found I was starting over and over and over again every day, sometimes even several times a day. Not only that, but I found that the more I was starting over and being imperfect, the less I felt loved by God, and the more unhappy and unsettled I felt in life. 

Based on the data, I had proved my hypothesis... the only way God could love me was if I were perfect.... and according to my experimentation, I was not perfect. Therefore, God could not love me because I was not perfect. Right?

WRONG!

As far as I can tell, there are two methods of achieving perfection:

Option number one- Never ever ever make any kind of mistake. No bad thoughts. Straight A's. Complete charity for everyone, all the time. Never speeding. Always making the right choices. 

What I didn't realize when I began this experiment is that I had messed up being perfect a long time ago, and option number one was no longer an option at all. 

Option Number two- Try really hard to be the best that I can be, but then believing that there is a way that all the mistakes I make in the process can be forgiven, and not only that, undone and gone from my past. 

There was one variable that I had missed when this experiment began. I forgot about the Atonement of my Savior Jesus Christ- the greatest symbol of God's love for me. Yes, I loved the Lord through this all, but I denied him from helping me UNTIL I was perfect on my own. And it was going to be a long time until that happened. BUT....

If I let the Atonement of Jesus Christ be a part of my experiment, then I would be accepting God's love for me. It is as simple as that. The Love was always there, but I wasn't accepting it because I was trying to be perfect on my own. 

If I try my best to be perfect and have faith that the Atonement of Jesus Christ will make up for everything else, then I will be perfect. If I am perfect through Christ, then I will feel God's love and peace. 

Heaven on Earth

There is a place here on this earth where we can get a glimpse of heaven.

After I learned my Grandpa passed away back in August, I was sad.

What is important to realize here is that I KNOW that families can be together forever. I KNOW that death is not the end (remember, there are no ends). I KNOW that Grandpa was finally free of all his suffering and the constrains of a well worn body. I KNOW that Grandpa is happy and he has been called home to his father in heaven.

...But I was still sad. I was sad for myself. I never liked goodbyes and I missed him. And even though I knew he was happy and safe, sometimes I wondered what that even meant. I was shocked. He had always been there, and he should always be there. But now he felt so far.

Two days after he passed away I was lucky enough to visit him in a heaven on earth. This is a very sacred place. A quiet place. I peaceful place. Truly a heaven on earth.

I went to the temple. I didn't see him there, but he felt so close again. I now longer had to wonder what it meant that he was happy-I could feel how happy he was. How could you not feel that way in heaven? He was with his dear mother and father and family members that had gone before. He was again the Grandpa that I knew and remembered. The one that laughed with us and played with us. I couldn't be sad anymore because I knew how happy he was, and I knew that one day we would be together again and we could be in that heavenly place together FOREVER.

I invite all of you in the Gilbert Arizona area to come to the temple and experience a little bit of what heaven feels like and feel the peace from knowing we have a Heavenly Father that loves us so much that he made a way for us to be with those we love forever. January 18-February 15 is a unique opportunity for all to come and see this beautiful heavenly place. For a preview of what temples are like, CLICK HERE.

To make a reservation to go see it CLICK HERE.