Week 67: October 6, 2014

You know when you learn some incredible news and you're excited to tell someone about it so you tell that person over email or text that you've got something to tell them and they better be excited but it'll have to wait until tonight because you're both busy with work or school but then on your lunch break you're crossing the street and you see this person and you want to tell them every detail of what you've learned and they even ask what it was that you wanted to tell them but you're in the middle of the street and cars are waiting to turn right and it's so disappointing to realize that now is not the time and even if there weren't any cars, it just wouldn't be the right place because you have a lot to say but the person that you're telling would have other things going on in their head like what class they have next or how many minutes it'll take them to get from their present location to their destination if they continue standing there listening to what you have to say and that's the last thing you want because what you have to tell them is something that they can't really understand or feel as deeply as you do in that state of mind and you don't want to tell them just to say it and get it over with but you want it to change them like it's changed you but you're rushed so the excuse that comes out of your mouth isn't a fully comprehensible sentence so much as it is a bunch of mumbled syllables because you see car blinkers out of the corner of your eye but they understand that you meant that they'll have to wait until later and you make it to the other side of the street feeling like you just managed to put a cork in a firehose? 

That, my dear friends, is what it feels like to email you every week. Especially this week. 

First, before I forget, I'll explain the pictures. I think one is of Sister Roy and I in Old Town today. I always underrate the old town of the big cities that I've been in. It's beautiful and made me feel like such a tourist. But sometimes it's nice to feel like that. It's relaxing.

The other picture is of me in a really, really ghetto apartment building. To get to one of the members' apartments, you have to walk through an abandoned apartment building and we thought we'd express how sketchy it felt through this picture. Can you feel the cobwebs collecting in your heart?

Salaspils was amazing last week. It was a concentration camp from 1941-1944. The whole place had such a heavy feeling to it. There was a big slab of rock to place flowers and inside the rock, there was a drum that sounded like the beating of a heart. I'm so glad we went, though. It was the coolest place I've been on my mission and it fulfilled my lifelong dream to visit a concentration camp.

We had zone conference this week and, as always, I was thrilled to see my homies from Daugavpils. Elder Farns told me that ever since I left, Valentina doesn't let them touch the potatoes in her garden. She always says, "Я сама!" which is like, "I'll do it myself!" That warmed my heart somethin' sore. (That was for you, Mike. I don't think it works in that context.)

I mentioned last week that I'd only have time to share one part of what I learned from Helaman 5. The part that I didn't get to share is that I've been thinking a lot about all of the miraculous displays of power and faith in the scriptures and all of them have one thing in common: they were true to the truths that they knew. I find it especially impressive in situations like what Nephi and Lehi faced in Helaman 5, where they have no logical reason (to others) to hope or to keep trying. Their circumstances were dark and the peoples' hearts were so hardened that they woudn't even turn to the Lord when facing destruction. And yet, Nephi and Lehi decide to spend all of their energies and efforts on a mission. Obviously 

they didn't make that decision by looking around at their circumstances: they looked to God. To them, God's matchless power and mercy were more real than what they could see with their physical eyes. 

It's the same for many others: Moses hadn't ever seen the Red Sea part but he had seen God do the impossible and take a stuttering, weak man and turn him into a prophet. Nephi hadn't ever built a boat but he had been undoubtedly guided in the wilderness and had seen visions. 

They had the faith to give just as much validity to those miracles (gradual though they were) as they gave to the fact that the sun would rise the next day. They could do that because they didn't cound God as a whimsical Being that cared about them and showed it just through abstract things like good weather and a nice hair day.

We can tell that they must have known that God would never leave them unaided if they were righteous and if their hearts were in the right place; that He is unchanging, because He had delivered their ancestors; and if He's unchanging, then He loves His children and always will.

Obviously there's a whole lot more to what they knew, but what I find so incredible is that they were actually true to their knowledge in their actions. All of their circumstances were factual: there were an army of Egyptians surrounding them with only a sea to escape to; there wasn't a single hammer lying around and there certainly wasn't familial support, but Moses and Nephi understood that some truths supercede others. The power of the truth that emanates from God about His character will always dominate circumstances or facts. This kind of truth operates on a higher power and, therefore, should have higher priority in our faith and beliefs. 

By its very nature, truth abounds and multiplies because it is all somehow connected: truth recieved and acted upon invites a gathering place for the accompanying truths, thus fulfilling the scripture in Doctrine and Covenants 88:66-68. 

Having your eye single to the glory of God means that you treasure and collect truth, acting in accordance with each addition of knowledge. 

We are often distracted by facts dressed up as truths that are far less superior to the truth that emanates from the very being of God Himself. That's why I was feeling so discouraged when I first came here: I was looking at a fact like "that woman did not want to talk to me" and connecting it with the "truth" that "nobody that I come into contact with is going to accept the gospel". I was connecting it with the wrong truth. The truth is that everyone has agency, not that nobody is prepared. 

I don't know how to explain this without making it jumbled and not concise, but I had the realization that we often prioritize the facts that we see to be in front of the truths that we know. And with the knowledge that we have of God, that's just not logical. 

I pretty much don't have any time to tell you about zone conference but it was the most inspired one that I've ever attended. As it was wrapping up, they announced that we'd hear the last testimonies from Sister Roy, Dalley and I. I felt like I'd been punched in the face. Seriously wasn't expecting that. All of us stared at each other in shock. Thankfully the Spirit was already really strong and so bearing my testimony felt right. 
I love you all a lot. Aaaand now I gotta cork this firehose. Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Gooch

P.S. Just throwing this out there: I would really love some hot chocolate and pumpkin spice...if there's any relief society woman who has pity on me, feel free to jump on that. Haha just kidding. (Not really.)