Week 42: April 14, 2014

Hey folks!

What a week. First of all, I gotta tell you that I remember my trainer Sister Weaver telling me that cats are everywhere during the springtime in Latvia, but she wasn't kidding! There are 6-8 cats outside of every apartment building. Thank heavens I'm not allergic (here's lookin' at you, Smash). 

We had something really cool happen on Sunday. Earlier in the week, we had taught this lady and invited her to English and Art club. She was super nice but we didn't think much of it. Then on Sunday, she walked into the church at 11 (an hour into the Sunday morning session of conference) and I got to sit next to her and explain things a little bit. It was so cute because she brought a Bible and all this stuff that she thought she'd need. After the first session of Sunday was finished, she was like, "Well, I have a son to get home to, so thanks for everything." She took a hymn book, a bunch of Liahonas, and a Book of Mormon. We just kept talking to her and we invited her to eat lunch with us in between the sessions, so she ended up staying for that and we got to talk to her even more. It was funny because afterwards, we didn't even ask her to stay for the next session and she stayed anyways. When Elder Corbridge gave that talk on the restoration, she whipped out the Joseph Smith's Testimony pamphlet and read through the whole thing as the next guy spoke. After it was all over, we asked her what she thought about and it and she said, "I feel something good right here," pointing to her heart. "There's something special about this place." It was the perfect opportunity to point out that it was the Spirit. She agreed to meet with us on Thursday so ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I'm pumped about it.

So something that I have had on my mind lately is the fact that I have learned a lot more than I have thought to write you. Or actually, I haven't even written them down in my journal because they have been stirring around in my mind and heart. I figure I can tell you a little about the mind-blowing thing (for me, at least) that I finally wrote down this week.

I have thought a lot about how God has an individual plan for each of His children, specifically in connection to destiny and fore-ordination. I have wondered how it is possible that God’s plan for each of us is so perfect even though we aren't. How can He account for so many variables and wild cards? Doesn't our happiness depend a little too much on the agency of others? What if things were supposed to work out a certain way—if we were foreordained for something, and we didn't quite measure up? Or what if somebody else’s failure to measure up robbed us of something that we felt we were supposed to have?

Through a lot of prayer and searching the scriptures (and talking to people who are smarter than me in this respect), I have come to an answer that gives me peace.

As a disclaimer, I want to say that I have always been wary of the word “destiny”. It’s a word that I automatically assign to anime romances that 12-year old girls. It seems to me that the whole concept isn't weighted in reality, too fluffy to be substantial, and inconsistent with the fundamental principle of agency. I’ll come back to that later.

So how can our plan be perfect if we are not? And just as important, how can our plan remain unblemished by the mistakes of others?

The first truth that we must account for is that God wants to give us everything that He has, holding nothing back.

That means that each of us has a personal, individualized plan of how we will make it back to Him and, further, how to gain all of the knowledge and experience that He has. Of course He provided one path (His gospel), but that path will look and feel different to everyone. 

Something I had always assumed was that God has one blueprint for each of His children. This blueprint contains what His child was foreordained to do and become. If the person doesn't follow that, then they lose the life that they were supposed to have and ultimately fail.

Well, that's obviously not true. What I didn't understand is that God doesn't plan our salvation on 2-D planes because we aren't 2-D creations. His plan for each of us is much more complex and perfect. Because He is determined to endow us with the same power and glory that He has, He doesn't just give us options A-D. It's more like A-Z^10. He has planned for way more than one detour from a life lived perfectly, which further proves that He is perfectly fair to me. He has a plan for us that allows for flaws just as equally as it allows for perfection. And what's even more--they all eventually end with inheriting all that He has and living in eternal happiness.

Whether you went with Plan A or Plan Z^5, the reward is the same. Which brings me back to destiny. Maybe it would be better defined as Plan A: the original and most flawless plan. Since it is impossible to stick to Plan A (Christ was the only one to ever do that), we can take comfort in the fact that there is Plan B, C, and so in, which are all pretty similar. The closer we live to Plan A, the more likely we are to fulfill our destiny...or maybe that's just a fancy word for fore-ordination.

Likewise, the further that we get from Plan A, the more complicated and difficult our lives become. Yes, our reward is the same and peace comes eventually, but we aren't here only to wait for a future time to have an enduring happiness. It is our task today and everyday to live worthily enough for God to bestow His peace upon us. It is our task today and every day to stick close to Plan A because that is the quickest path to lasting happiness. 

The second truth to account for is that the Atonement is the power that makes all of this possible. The Atonement of Jesus Christ is what gives us more than just one option. That's why Plan A and Plan Z^10 have the same reward--Christ will plead for the repentant soul. His Atonement makes all disadvantages and unfairness null and void. He descended the very lowest of us all, and it's from that depth that He has the capability to redeem. Conversely, He has ascended to a fullness of glory and can lift us to that very same height. 

The more that I study the Atonement, the more my eyes are opened to God's impeccable attention to detail in His plan for us. The Savior is not only perfect, but He is the perfect Savior. He's felt the weight of a universe's imperfections, flaws, degeneracy, mistakes, disappointments, offences, crimes, complaints, missed opportunities, and guilt--not to mention the physical aspect of His suffering--and despite all of it, He can still see us with every ounce of love and potential that we were created with.

Our "life plan" that I've been talking about is only functional because Christ was worthy in all things. That's why God is able to continue pouring out blessings upon our heads even though we have long since departed from Plan A--One came before us, lived His Plan A, and consequently enabled the Father to exercise mercy and give us as many opportunities as we're willing to take to keep us on the path back home (Plan B, F, P, Z^9). 

I feel like my understanding of gospel principles is so elementary, and that I've only seen the tiniest glimpse of the vast amount of truth that there is to learn in this life. It reminds me of D&C 88:47, and how God's power is just everywhere, whether we recognize it or not. The power of the Atonement moves our lives forward from mistake to triumph to regression to progress and so on. I'm pumped to learn even more, because there's always more to a principle than we think.

Sorry if you the feel like this was a preachy letter. I'm honestly just really excited about this new discovery and I hope that it's as cool as I feel like it is. It's totally possible that, as a missionary, my definition of "cool" has changed a little :)

Real quick, the other day we were in a hurry and we walk everywhere here, so I was trying to walk super fast. But, you know, my little legs can only go so fast. So I put my head down in order to get the best aerodynamics (sp?) of the wind and just charged forward. Sister Roy was laughing so hard because I looked like a babushka in a storm with the hunched back and a fire in my heart. We've dubbed it the turbo-bab and it's the walking sensation that's sweeping the nation.

Also, Anna is teaching me Latvian. Don't know how good of an idea that is seeing as I still don't have a firm grip on Russian but it's fun! It sounds just like Lithuanian but the words are shortened.

Anyways, I hope that this week is really great for y'all. Everyone should read and reread The Priesthood Man by President Eyring, because that one pretty much blew my mind. 

Love you to the moon. 

С любовью,

Сестра Гуч

Week 41: April 7, 201

So the first picture is of Sister Nikolaeva and I in Riga with a pillow, randomly. We love pillows?

The second picture is of Sister Roy and I on the train from Daugavpils to Riga. Can I tell you how much better trains are than buses? So much less crowded and clean. We had exchanges there with Sister Benson right after zone training was finished. It was fun to see a few of the missionaries that I haven't seen for a while. And actually, a perk of serving in Latvia is that President Boswell sometimes comes for zone training. He gave me permission to do an art class and told me to call Sister Suisse, who's part of a senior couple in Vilnius. She's been teaching art for quite a few years and she gave me a lot of ideas on what to do for it. We're printing the fliers and starting advertising tomorrow, so yaaaaaaaaay!

We also went to eat at the famous Muffins & More right next to the church. It's one of those place that missionaries have been going to for a long time and it's delicious.

Our exchange in Riga was so good though. It was funny to be back with Sister Benson after a few transfers and to see how we've both changed but at the same time how nothing was different. We were able to teach a babushka named Nadyezhda, as well as her niece, Tanya. I've never met someone with so much spunk. Well, first of all, we walked in and she immediately showed us this door mat that she was sewing upside-down bottle caps to. She was pumped because if you step on it for twenty minutes or so, it's a free massage. So funny. She also tried to talk us into marrying guys from Latvia so she can see us more often, haha. She's a super loving person and I felt so at home with her. We talked about the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ, focusing on the love of God. It was cool to teach someone like Tanya that because she told us that the love her parents gave her was very conditional. The whole time it was obviously an interesting topic to her, but she was busy sewing the bottle caps onto the rug and her son stopped by the apartment and a few other distracting things happened. I sat there pleading with Heavenly Father in a silent prayer that I would be able to communicate just a small portion of the love that He has for her, and it was cool to see what happened. I turned towards her and testified that I know that God's love is unchangeable; that there is nothing we can do to make it increase or decrease. I told her that because He loves her, she was born with a potential so great that she can't even comprehend it, but that Heavenly Father is more than willing to reveal it to her line upon line, and that process starts with simple steps like daily prayer and scripture study.

She had set down her sewing while I spoke and when I finished, she came over and gave me a hug with tears in her eyes. It's an amazing thing to tell someone exactly what Heavenly Father wants them to hear. 

But anyway, Daugavpils is so good. We have been working a lot on creative ways of finding and teaching. Sister Roy and I both love to figure out different and more effective ways of doing things, so it's been a funny few weeks of testing out new ideas and laughing at the things that went horribly wrong.

We ate at President Spalvens' house with all of the missionaries, which wassooo good. It was classic Latvian/Russian/European cuisine: potatoes, pork, dill, onions, pickles, a salad made of cabbage and carrots and those white carrot things. All of our plates were spilling over with the grease and meat but it was delicious. I've learned by now how to eat a massive amount of food. The trick is no liquids until after the solids have been eaten, just in case you were wondering.

Anywho, the Spalvens are awesome. As a tradition, they have missionaries sing three hymns before eating but we only had one hymn book in Russian so we all tried to pick ones that we knew. It was hilarious too because Elder Hansen and his eyes-closed-100%-serious-serenading face was on the whole time. Can't get enough of it.

Something kind of funny that happened yesterday was when we were teaching by some train tracks and we went to approach this lady when she starts running at us and just snatches the Book of Mormon out of Sister Roy's hands. I don't really understand why it happened but I guess she stole the best thing that she possibly could have.

Life is really good here in Dpils though. I'm loving it more with each day that I'm here and Heavenly Father has blessed me especially lately to find the humor in the situations that I'm in. One of which was that in a lesson last night with the elders, one of us accidentally said, "When Christ was born, there were three forks that we know of that brought him gifts." Forks, wise men...it's all the same.

I love you all and hope you have a lovely week!

С любовью,

Сестра Гуч

Week 40: March 31, 2014

Hey, fellas! I don't even know how to start these things anymore, so it's probably just going to get weird from here on out.

The picture of the little house with the Latvian flag was just one of the many times during the day that I look around and realize how picturesque the Baltics can be. The other picture attached is mostly there because I wanted to support my case that Daugavpils is the perfect place for a zombie apocalypse. I don't even like zombies so I'm not sure why I feel so strongly that you need to be convinced of this but anyway, there you have it.

We had a stellar week here in Dpils. One of the reasons that I loved serving in Narva was because the members are awesome, and I'm more than happy to say that Daugavpils isn't lacking in amazing people, either. 

I remember serving with Elder Bell and he told me a lot about a girl that he taught named Anna in Daugavpils, and how she's the coolest girl ever. It's really cool that I finally got to meet her and see that he wasn't exaggerating. Anna is Latvian but she speaks a bunch of other languages, English and Russian being two of them. We did an English lesson with her, which means that we just had an hour to talk to her in English for practice. It was fun to get to know her and really cool to see how much the gospel can mean to someone who hasn't had it their whole life. There have been a few people on my mission that have been familiar to me from the moment I met them, and she's one of them.

We taught Zita, our investigator, on Thursday. Lidija Spalvens helped us again because she's the world's greatest and it went so well! Zita is another one of those people that I just loved from the second I met her. She's really sensitive to the Spirit, so it's cool because you can tell from her physical reaction when something that you say was inspired. We taught her about the 10 Commandments and why we follow commandments in the first place, using "Obedience to Law is Freedom" by Elder L. Tom Perry. Or at least, I think that's what it's called. It's awesome when you can get to the end of a lesson and before you even extend a commitment, the person has already decided for themselves what they need to do. Zita said, "I've had a feeling that I need to come to all three church meetings on Sundays." She's a lovely human being, because she actually followed through with that and came to all of church this Sunday.

Another cool thing about this week is that we have been planning our faces off. I know that doesn't sound pleasant but I realized this about myself: I love to plan, whether it be parties, activities, English, or art courses. Speaking of which, we're starting an art class! I have had to (or rather, been able to) coordinate a little with Sister Dalley over the phone what kind of curriculum we need for that. We had the idea when we were together, but I'm pumped because I actually get to do it here!

Anyway, sorry I don't have a lot of time today because I spent most of it responding to individuals but I love you! Keep me updated on your lives, alright?

Sister Gooch and Sister Roy