Sister Syd: Canada Week 8: There is always joy in the journey!

HELLO FAMILY AND FRIENDS!! I hope everyone had such a fantastic week! I love and miss you all. I am so grateful for all the love and support I have from everyone. Your prayers are most definitely felt over here in Canada!

This week was full of God's miracles and tender mercies! They can be found when we looking for God in the details. ;) We had a bunch of member lessons set up and were able to get to know them and strengthen and uplift one another. We discussed how we could come closer to our Savior and how we can help others along their path to becoming converted to Christ. One of the lessons that stood out to me in particular was with a cute girl named Kristina. She is actually a nurse so it has been fun to talk to her about nursing. She is a huge example to me of faith and endurance. She shared some personal stories with us about how she just trusted God and did what God had asked of her every time. It really got me thinking about the trust that I have in God and how more often than not I trust him 70 percent of the time - not 100 percent. I asked her how she did it - how did she put her 100% of her trust in God in the situations she had been put in? She simply stated that He knows best. He knows the beginning from the end - He knows the best course for us. I thought to myself - is it really that simple? And IT IS!!! Totally trusting in God is hard because our natural instinct as mortal beings is to be uneasy about things, to be a little skeptical at times, especially when what we go through can be so hard! I have learned that we will always be blessed beyond our expectations as we put our full trust in God.

I have had a hard time with being confident in my knowledge of the gospel and being bold when it comes to talking to people so this week I decided to base my personal studies around how I can gain more self-confidence and how to really believe in myself. I was reading a scripture in D&C 121:45 - It says "let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men and to the household of faith and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly: then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God: and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distill upon thy soul as the dews from heaven" It got me thinking that if I try to be more like my Savior and have a stronger relationship with Him I will be able to gain greater confidence in myself. I also read a talk by Richard C. Edgley called, "That thy confidence wax strong." The biggest thing I took away from this was that our confidence is either waxing strong in the Lord or it is waxing strong in Satan. If we develop a relationship with our Heavenly Father and our Savior through scripture study and prayer we can have greater confidence. If our confidence is waxing strong in Satan then we are giving into fear. I hope we can all develop a stronger relationship with both our Father in Heaven and our Savior so our confidence can wax strong as we love God's children.

I wanted to share about the power of prayer. Prayer is one of our greatest tools as communication with our Heavenly Father. Here are a few things I learned from my studies.

- "As you make a habit of approaching God in prayer, you will come to know Him and draw ever nearer to Him. Your desires will become more like His. You will be able to secure for yourself and for others blessings that He is ready to give if you will but ask in faith."

- "Remember that prayer is two-way communication. As you close your prayers, take time to pause and listen. At times, Heavenly Father will counsel, guide, or comfort you while you are on your knees."

- "If you do not feel like praying, pray until you do feel like praying."

- "Heavenly Father hears your prayers. He may not always answer as you expect, but He does answer—in His own time and according to His will because He knows what is best for you,"

- "As you continue to draw near to your Heavenly Father through prayer, you will recognize more readily His merciful and wise answers to your pleadings."

I have such a strong testimony of prayer! I know that God is listening and is eager to answer our prayers. He answers them in ways we fail to recognize most of the time. He has so much in store for us. I know that as we develop a relationship with our Heavenly Father that it will become a natural and instinctive thing. I am grateful for the answers I have received to my prayers and can't wait to see what the future holds for me. :)

Now to get to the title of this email, "There is always joy in the journey!" It is from Thomas S. Monson's October 2008 conference address. An Elder invited me to read it so I did. It got me thinking about where I was just 6 weeks ago and how hard my first transfer was compared to now. As I look back I can see that even among the hardest of times there was always something to be grateful for, to find joy in and to rejoice in! God is always blessing us! Trials can be God's tender mercies in disguise because every hard thing we are asked to go through makes us stronger and can help us turn to our Savior and develop that crucial relationship with Him!! Some other things I learned from this-
• "Nothing is as constant as change" - time never stands still and change is one of the most inevitable aspects of our lives on Earth.
• We should relish life as we live it, find joy in the journey and share love with our friends and family.
• Whatever hour God has blessed you with, take it with a grateful hand, nor postpone your joys from year to year, so that in whatever place you have been you may say that you lived happily!

I LOVE THIS GOSPEL AND MY SAVIOR! I love them with all my heart and I am so grateful for this opportunity I have to share that message with others. I love helping people feel the love our Savior has for them and to feel the peace that comes from living the gospel. I am grateful for all the moments and experiences of life, good or bad, easy or hard, because they shape us into what God needs us to be! :)

I wish you all the best this week! With much love,
Sister Sydnee Merrill 💕