Sister Syd: Canada Week 10: Simple, plain and precious

Hello everyone! I hope this past week was splendid and fun!

My week was an adventure. If I am being completely honest I have been on quite the emotional roller coaster. I know missionaries generally only talk about the good and their weekly highlights, but I feel like I should talk about how my week has really been. My mission has been hard since day one of arriving in the Canadian mission field. I got hit with a lot of things I did not expect to experience. I came across a lot of hard times and emotions and things I had never experienced before. This week was a particularly hard week and what made it even harder was the fact that I couldn't pin point the reason as to why it was so hard. Why was I was letting Satan get to me knowing I had my Savior right beside me. I didn't know how to give it to God because I didn't know what I was trying to give to him. I found myself wondering "why can't I just fight Satan and trust God?" News flash - we are our harshest critics and hold ourselves to incredibly high expectations, at least I do. I found myself taking the blame for any and everything that was happening in our area and in our companionship. I found myself thinking I am not good enough, I am not capable enough of accomplishing what I want to while on my mission. I have thought why would God let me keep experiencing all of these hard things? I am getting so tired. But then the spirit slapped me in the face and I realized I had it all backwards. I was expecting too much of myself. I was giving in to negative thoughts because it was easier then fighting against it. I have also been so overwhelmed with love and strength from my Savior and I have been reminded of the refiners fire. I know God lets us experience all of these hard trials and moments in our life because He sees our greatest potential. He gives us these hard times so that He can mold us into the instruments He needs us to be in His hands. He knows what we can become and He knows what we need to go through to get there. This gospel is so simple. It is full of plain and precious truths and we as natural humans can complicate everything.

I have learned a lot about the simplicity of the gospel through my studies this week. I read a talk by Ronald A. Rasband called "Be Not Troubled." IT IS SO GOOD! He talked a lot about fear and how we as mortal, natural people let fear overtake us and we forget about having faith. It was cool because one thing he mentioned was that, "fear limits the perspective of God's children." HOW TRUE! When we let fear overtake us we forget that there is someone who knows, someone who understands, and someone who knows the end from the beginning! He mentioned one of my favorite scriptures in this talk which is in D&C 68:6. It reads, "Wherefore be of good cheer and do not fear, for I the Lord am with you and will stand by you and ye shall bear record of me, even Jesus Christ, that I am the Son of the living God, that I was, that I am and that I am to come." It is SO SIMPLE! He is literally always there and His love is always there even when we don't think we feel it or think that we deserve to feel it. He will love us no matter what. We don't feel it when we let fear take over. Rasband also stated that, "Our love for Him and His gospel dispels fear!" IT IS TRUE! It is much easier said than done, but I know that if we pray for the strength and help to do so we can dispel that fear that creeps in! We just need to have faith and strive to always have the Spirit, because "our desire to always have his spirit with us will push fear aside for a more eternal view of our mortal lives" - President Nelson. God and Jesus Christ are simply always there for each of us. We just need to LOOK for them and have faith, trust and love in our hearts!

In between all the whack things this past week we did have some fun and cool things happen. It wasn't all bad ;) We were able to meet with the guy that randomly showed up at FHE last Monday that I mentioned last week. He is so solid. He lives just outside our area so we will have to pass him to the missionaries in his area eventually, but we were able to meet once and he came to church! He mentioned how powerful it was and the good feelings he felt. He has such a strong desire to know God and to receive answers for himself. He is awesome and I am grateful for that little miracle from our week! We were also able to meet up with a former that was being taught a while back AND he came to home evening yesterday! He loved it and we are meeting with him again this week!

I am so grateful for the strength I continue to receive from my Savior. I can definitely feel Him carrying me some days when I think I can't go on. He simply carries me and I think wow - how did I make it through today? How have I made it this far? Then I remember that I have such a loving Savior and Heavenly Father and I couldn't be more grateful!!

I got to go to the Edmonton temple this week and it was the most amazing thing! I am so grateful for the peace that can be felt there and for the comfort I receive as I pray in the beautiful celestial room. The temple is truly the Lord's sacred house. A wonderful thing we have been wanting to help member families with is having them make their homes temples and it as been super cool! :)

Here are some more fun highlights from my week.
1: We had our Trainee/Trainer follow-up meeting this week and I got to see some of my BEST FRIENDS - including my cute MTC companion Sister Smith :)
2: We had Zone Conference and got to watch the new Light the World video - it is SO POWERFUL! I LOVE IT!!
3: We played Zone mini-games and had a big picture scavenger hunt one day so that is what a lot of my pictures are from this week

I have such a strong testimony of the Savior's atonement and the help and strength I have received from my Savior. I am truly amazed that I have made it as far as I have with as hard as it has been! Honestly it is truly a miracle! Jesus Christ is our ultimate healer and I know He understands what I have been through and go through and will experience perfectly. I know I have a loving, merciful Heavenly Father who has a perfect plan for me and knows exactly how to help me get there.

I hope everyone has an amazing week and remembers the power of prayer and the simplicity of the gospel. Always remember you are doing better than you think you are and your Savior can give you the strength to get through anything!

Love always, Sister Syd Merrill :)