I figure that sending you my final letter on my final Monday would be fitting. So here it is!
Сестра Гуч
Dear President Harding,
I feel like I placed a quarter in a gumball machine and gave the knob a twist by coming on my mission. I expected what I paid for: 1 gumball—a good experience to look back on that would hopefully help the people I served as much as it would help me. But from the day I set foot in the MTC to this moment, gumballs have poured out much faster than I have been able to catch them. They've filled my hands, my pockets, my shoes, and the guy's hat standing next to me.
I guess that that's lesson number 1: The Lord can take our seemingly insignificant or imperfect offers and turn them into more than enough.
Serving in Narva with Sister Dalley is what seared this truth into my heart. We were both in our fourth transfer and had only served with sisters who were at least 3 transfers ahead of us. It was humbling to realize that Heavenly Father trusted us to take care of a branch that so desperately needed an example of leadership and integrity—two traits that both of us felt far from capable of emulating. There were three girls there (Ksenia, Katya, and Anya) who weren't too much younger than us and the branch looked to us to give them the maturity and self-confidence that came to us through years of participation in the Young Women's program. Besides that, they each came with their specific challenges and I didn't wonder if I was qualified to deal with them—I knew I wasn't.
I can't tell you how many times Sister Dalley and I sat on our couch at the end of the night with heavy hearts feeling like our circumstances required someone much older than 19.
And you know what? Heavenly Father didn't turn me into what I wasn't so I could fit the bill of what it seemed like the branch needed. He took what I already had—a deep and sincere love for Him and for the people—and multiplied it until it was more than enough. Just like the seven baskets leftover after Christ fed the multitude, I know that the love I experienced in Narva is something that I'll carry with me for the rest of my life.
Which brings me to lesson number 2: Being a conduit of the love of God is the most important desire that we can have.
I had been sincerely happy before my mission, but I had never imagined the kind of burning joy that comes with being a pure vessel of the love that Heavenly Father has for His children in the Baltics. I remember it hitting me particularly hard on a February night in Narva. Sister Dalley and I trudged through the snow to Sister Valling's apartment for a lesson. That morning, I had the impression to draw our message from 3 Nephi 12:13, which reads (in part), “Verily, verily, I say unto you, I give unto you to be the salt of the earth.”
As she read the scripture out loud, Sister Valling began to cry. Once she had composed herself, she explained to us why it meant so much to her. She and her father were very close when he was alive and he had been the one who named her Marika. They took her home for after she was born and he was filled with a sense of restlessness because he felt that they should have spelt her name differently on the birth certificate. He felt so strongly about it that he went through the trouble of dealing with all of the paperwork to have her name changed legally to Maarika. The extra “a” turned it into an Estonian word that holds special meaning: “salt of the earth”.
I don't know why, exactly, she needed to hear that message that night. I'm not even sure what Heavenly Father communicated to her heart, but what I do know is that the love that I was filled with for her was not something that my own heart was capable of producing. It was divine and perfectly familiar—it was a glimpse of the love that radiates from Heavenly Father.
I felt the same thing in teaching Sasha Gorin, our investigator for the whole time I was there. I don't know if I had ever thought so much or prayed so hard for someone before. I certainly hadn't received such specific revelation as to what I should say on lessons, and especially which questions I should ask. It felt like Heavenly Father wanted Sasha to feel of His presence and love so badly that His desire spilled over into me. I will never forget the moments of clarity that he experienced and the undeniable fact that God knew him and wanted Sasha to know Him, too.
I will spend the rest of my life striving to purify my heart enough to be a dependable conduit of those personally tailored messages that Heavenly Father wants to send to His children. I want to be the equivalent of His note-passer, His courier, His newspaper boy. Whatever way it's delivered, I want the Lord to count on me to listen to His spirit and to pass His love right on down the line.
Heavenly Father gave me a life-changing opportunity to put that to the test when I served in Daugavpils with Sister Roy. There, I learned lesson number 3: by the very eternal nature of our spirits, we have an eternal impact on everything we touch.
I had served in the same MTC district as Sister Roy, so I knew something of the way that she viewed herself and how she tended to doubt herself, but I also knew what a beautiful person she is. So from the beginning of our fifth transfer, a powerful desire to help her see who she really is was planted into my heart. And when I say powerful, I mean it. Raising her confidence was on my mind just as much as the members and our investigators were. I was suddenly aware that each conversation was an opportunity to lift her sights and clear her vision, and I found myself equipped with powerful knowledge that I hadn't had previously. I was able to communicate the beauty of the plan that God has for her in the way that she could understand it and I was given to see her in the way that He sees her. It was like He magnified all of the parts of me that He could to get it through to her what her potential was. I had unwavering confidence that she could reach it, no matter how many set-backs or disappointments she might meet. I was filled then and I am filled now with gratitude for the chance that I got to see those truths take a trip from her head all the way to her heart. She began to reach for things that she'd felt too inadequate for before, to let go of the negative thoughts that weighed her down, and to take control of her direction.
After being apart for two transfers, we were called to serve our last two together in Imanta. It's safe to say that the second time around has been with a completely different person. Because of her new understanding of who she is, the course of her life has changed. And goodness, I don't mean to make it sound like all of that is thanks to me, because it isn't. What I'm trying to say is that throughout the whole process, I was given a clearer view of myself as well. Heavenly Father showed me what I hadn't been able to comprehend before; that our inherent capability of having a positive influence on others goes much deeper and spreads much wider than we can imagine.
I can't really express to you how excited I am to live my life trying to help others see themselves clearly, President. I have found it to be my greatest joy on my mission and it's something that I feel Heavenly Father wants me to be good at. I can't wait to apply it to my parents, my siblings, my friends, whoever I date, random people I meet, and my future family. More than anything, I want to be a force of light and goodness in as many ways as I was created to be.
The majority of miracles in my mission have names attached to them.There's Maarika, Sasha, Tressa, Daniel, Pavel, Egle, Irina, Sergei, Inga, Janna, Anya, Katia, Zhenja, Masha, Evgeni, Inna, Boris, Natalija, Loie, Sadee, Zhana, Sariah, Tatjana, and Galina. In recounting all of them, I've found the common pattern that Heavenly Father obviously wanted me to learn: consistency in showing others who they are in the eyes of their Creator is what I was sent here to do. I met each one of those people at different stages in my mission and they taught me exactly what I needed in order to progress to help the next person.
In pondering how I could possibly sum up how I feel about my mission to you, humility and gratitude have enveloped me completely.
I just had no idea that God was so good. I had the basic understanding that He wanted me to be happy, but I didn't quite grasp that He literally does everything in His power to make sure that the happiness I feel is the kind that lasts. It seems like He's put me under a magnifying glass and enhanced the good parts of me but also made the weaker parts a lot more visible. He's never once comforted me and made me feel like my flaws are what make me unique, but He has pointed them out to me over and over until I understood that they needed to change and then gave me the power to change them. He's filled me with His love even when I didn't see that I was in the wrong or when I was short-sighted or selfish. He's always known who I can become, but unlike the parent that waits to see their kid cross the finish line, He's been there every step of the race and He will continue to run it with me until our strides match perfectly.
I just had no idea that God was so good. I had the basic understanding that He wanted me to be happy, but I didn't quite grasp that He literally does everything in His power to make sure that the happiness I feel is the kind that lasts. It seems like He's put me under a magnifying glass and enhanced the good parts of me but also made the weaker parts a lot more visible. He's never once comforted me and made me feel like my flaws are what make me unique, but He has pointed them out to me over and over until I understood that they needed to change and then gave me the power to change them. He's filled me with His love even when I didn't see that I was in the wrong or when I was short-sighted or selfish. He's always known who I can become, but unlike the parent that waits to see their kid cross the finish line, He's been there every step of the race and He will continue to run it with me until our strides match perfectly.
I've run out of cheesy analogies to explain how I'm feeling. All I can say is that I love Him and I love what He's called me to be. I hope that it's clear by the way that I live and the words that I speak that His love has changed me forever. I love you for the love and charity with which you've served me, and I will thank my Heavenly Father in every prayer for who you are to me.
I know who my Father is. I know that He is never discouraged by who we are, by our imperfections or shortcomings. I know that He is the source of all clarity and truth and light, and that through the merits and the mercy of our Brother, Jesus Christ, we can become like Him. I know that Their goal is for us to be happy and to be filled with the enabling power of their love so that they can find kindred spirits when we come to stand before them on that great and last day. I know that the Book of Mormon is a source of real spiritual power that can equip us to meet any challenge. I know that covenants honored are a protection and weapon that we have against anything that opposes the purposes of God. I know that the Atonement of Jesus Christ is enough when we aren't. I have loved my mission in a way that I words can't contain, but that I plan to express through who I am and who I help others become for the rest of my life.
I leave this witness in the sacred name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
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