Stuck in a Hail Storm

How could I possibly be happier and how could I possibly be so blessed??
There are countless tender mercies and countless miracles in my life that remind me there is Someone up above watching out for us that MUST really, really, truly love us. Heavenly Father truly desires to bless us, to make us happier than we knew possible, to see us laugh and smile, to see us come out from trials a little more refined and a little more like Him, and to help us become like He is. Why would He want us to become like Him?? I've learned through my personal study and experiences that the reason behind this goal (to bring to pass our eternal life- life with Him and like Him- in our eternal families) is love. He LOVES us and He is happy. His happiness is eternal and His joy is FULL! He wants us to someday experience the magnitutude of what He feels and has!! He wants us to have that for ourselves!!

To help us to someday obtain this lofty goal, He provides us with essential help. Firstly, our Savior, Jesus Christ, who has the power both to cleanse us of impurity and to change our very natures (to make us a little more godlike- more kind, more patient, more humble, more selfless.) Another incredible and essential gift He gives us is our families and the people who love us most and who we love most. I know without a doubt that the family is of God.

I know that finding true happiness and achieving the potential God sees in us is ONLY possible with these essential parts: our Savior, and our families.

Families teach us to be more like the Savior. They support us in our deepest sorrows and hardest trials. They celebrate our accomplishments with us and experience our greatest joys with us. They help us to reach new heights and have a vision of who we truly are. But one thing I've learned as of late, is that more important than receiving these treatments and gifts from your family, is first being willing to give all of these things to your family. I believe this is the secret for happiness in families: build your life, family, and faith on Christ, and then forget yourself and give all you have and are to the well-being of your family.

Since arriving home from my mission (one of God's great gifts to me), God has blessed me with yet another gift that is greater and more precious than I ever could have truly deserved or imagined. -His name is Seth!

I always believed in these principles I've just written about- but Seth has helped me to see, feel, and know the truth of these principles. He is the most selfless person I know. He has shown me that true joy comes from putting those you love before yourself- making their needs a higher priority to you than your own! His kindness, gentleness, and goodness have confirmed to me again and again my belief that the greatest joys we can experience in this life will be experienced within the walls of our homes and in our families. I always believed that God's plan for us and our families to be happy together forever was real, but Seth has helped me to feel deep inside of my heart that it is not only real, but it is possible.

On December 22nd, I will be married to the love of my life!!! And I've never been so excited for anything in my life!!!

There is no one else I'd rather pass through the difficulties and joys of life with.

He even makes being stuck under a bridge in a rain and hail storm wonderful :)

I am blessed and so grateful.

Grateful

It is hard to believe how time has flown. It is May of 2015! It was back in September of 2013 that I left for a journey that would forever change my life!

I never could have predicted, guessed, or even hoped for what my mission turned out to be. I now know with certainty that all of the cliches I had heard a thousand times before ("It was the best 18 months of my life," "My mission changed me," "There is nothing like the mission," "It is the hardest but most worthwhile thing I have ever done," "the Lord doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called," etc, etc, etc) are true!

It is hard to know how to put those 18 (-19) months into words. But during the last transfer of my mission, while in Santarém, Brazil (a city and people that hold a special place in my heart), I was asked to do exactly that! To put my mission into words- actually, one word! What a hard thing to do. But after pondering and reflecting, the word came:

GRATIDÃO

(or "Gratitude")

I remember distinctly the night before I left for my mission. I remember kneeling alone in a room by my bed. I remember reflecting on my reasons for wanting to serve a mission, and pondering my greatest desires as a future-missionary. In this moment, I felt that wonderful and familiar feeling fill the room- a warmth, a comfort, something enlivening and enlightening. But this time the heaven-sent message did not bring simple comfort or peace, but a deep feeling of gratitude. I had always loved my Savior and treasured the doctrine of the Atonement. But I remember that in that moment, I felt a deeper gratitude, appreciation, and understanding for the Atonement than I had felt before. I remember feeling a desire deep within me take root, and this desire became my greatest goal for my time as a full-time missionary. That goal: To give back to my Savior. To express my gratitude. To give ALL of me- to give every possible part of me I could- to Him! The next morning my parents drove me to the airport and the journey began.

My mission, as I said, was more than I could have hoped for or dreamed of. 

It was full of unexpected twists and turns, trying experiences, times I recognized how desperately I needed the Lord's help and how inadequate I truly am as one of His servants. There were feelings of the deepest sorrows I have yet experienced, followed by the greatest joys I have yet experienced. There were times of confusion and lack of understanding, times to learn how to trust in the Lord, and times when I began to see the pieces of His beautiful masterpiece unfold in my life. Through everything, there was refining. I am forever grateful for my Refiner. Not only has He refined me, but He has literally given me the strength and support to survive the refining fire!

At the end of my mission, as I reflected on all of these experiences- pondering, praying, searching- I found myself again overtaken by that immense sense of gratitude. 

And I found myself again reflecting on these verses of the Book of Mormon, from King Benjamin's address in Mosiah chapter 2: 

 20 I say unto you, my brethren, that if you should render all the thanks and praise which your whole soul has power to possess, to that God who has created you, and has kept and preserved you, and has caused that ye should rejoice, and has granted that ye should live in peace one with another—

 21 I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants.

 22 And behold, all that he requires of you is to keep his commandments; and he has promised you that if ye would keep his commandments ye should prosper in the land; and he never doth vary from that which he hath said; therefore, if ye do keep his commandments he doth bless you and prosper you.

 23 And now, in the first place, he hath created you, and granted unto you your lives, for which ye are indebted unto him.

 24 And secondly, he doth require that ye should do as he hath commanded you; for which if ye do, he doth immediately bless you; and therefore he hath paid you. And ye are still indebted unto him, and are, and will be, forever and ever; therefore, of what have ye to boast?

 25 And now I ask, can ye say aught of yourselves? I answer you, Nay. Ye cannot say that ye are even as much as the dust of the earth; yet ye were created of the dust of the earth; but behold, it belongeth to him who created you.

These words describe the feelings I experienced at the end of my mission that I was unable to describe myself. Looking back on the past 19 months, searching for one word to describe what I had learned and experienced, I recognized that although I had given my all -my very best, my best efforts, my attempts at perfection- that I still hadn't managed to adequately give back to the Savior as I had wanted so desperately to do for the past 19 months, beginning that night before leaving for my mission. And in return for my imperfect, broken sacrifice, He had blessed me more than I ever could have imagined possible. And there I was (and here I am) again, indebted to Him. And when we find ourselves in that situation (which we are always in! Sometimes we finally just have eyes and hearts open enough to actually recognize the reality of the situation!), I believe that the answer lies in gratitude. There is NO POSSIBLE WAY for us to fully pay back our Savior, but we can always be grateful. 

As President Scisci spent those precious moments with me in my departing interview, he asked why I had chosen the word "gratidão." I tried my best to explain. He told me that when they ask missionaries to chose that one word to summarize their missions, it is in hopes that the missionary will always remember that word and apply it to the rest of their lives. 

I hope to always be filled with gratitude. 

I have been home now for almost 2 months! I returned home on April 4, 2015. 

And I have now learned that the happiness that seems to increase every single day on the mission does not suddenly disapear or lessen after the mission! It continues to increase! The miracles that a missionary once saw daily, hourly, and even minute-ly throughout their mission also do not suddenly cease! They also continue daily, hourly, minute-ly. 

In the great Texas San Antonio Mission, my companions and I had the theme "milagros cada dia." ("Miracles every day.")  Those miracles are still happening in my life- every day.

What a blessing to be alive. What a gift to have the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ in this life! What a blessing to have an endlessly loving Heavenly Father- who is patient beyond my understanding of patience. What a blessing that we have a Brother who loved (and loves) us enough to have been the sacrifice for our sin, so that we can one day find perfect and eternal joy with him, with our Father, and with our families. What a blessing to have family. I couldn't have been more blessed when it comes to family.

It is my first term here at BYU (in Provo, Utah). I couldn't feel happier. I love this place, the experiences I am having, and especially the people who surround me. It's a great time to feel grateful.