Sister Syd: Canada Week 21: Remember what you are worth!

I hope everyone is doing well and had a good week. My week up here in the great white North went pretty well. Time continues to amaze me and so do the works of the Lord! Although this week was good, it had some tough moments. Building an area that's had very little progress has been challenging, but it has also been a really neat experience as we have involved the Lord in the work. It has been pretty slow getting things started in our assigned ward and this week was just a little harder for me for some reason. I found myself feeling a little discouraged. My companion and I have worked really hard to contact all the active members and set up member visits so can get to know them. We hope to build trust and relationships with these members to help further the work and have had pretty good success thus far. I have just felt a little discouraged because we can see the potential this ward has but the members just haven't caught the vision yet. We haven't found anyone to teach consistently and we don't have any investigators we can invite to church but we continue to work hard. Helping members grow closer to their Savior is just as important as finding those who don't know this beautiful message of joy and peace. I have been reminded again and again that the Lord works in his own time and He knows what is best.

One major lesson I have learned, and continue to learn, is that if you pray for patience the Lord will without a doubt provide plenty of experiences to learn. Looking back I am grateful for the experiences He has provided for me, even if in the moment I didn't quite recognize that it was an opportunity to learn and grow. That is the great thing about our God. He allows everything that we go through, and everything that happens to us, to become opportunities for us to grow and to learn valuable lessons from. It amazes me how detailed and intricate His individual plan is for each unique person. The fact that we have all these opportunities to learn and grow are evidence that He is a loving God.

One big thing I really tried to study this week was confidence and self-worth. My district leader shared a talk with our district this week by Hyrum Smith about self-worth and it changed my perspective immensely. He pointed out that as we grow up and continue on in life we are constantly being told put-downs - even things we wouldn't even recognize as a put-down. He explained his point using a crab analogy. He told a story about a time when he went crab collecting. They would put all the crabs into a bucket and when the bucket was full he told the man in charge that he was scared the crabs were going to climb out. The man explained that the crabs wouldn't get out even when they are packed in all the way to the top. Hyrum was then asked to sit and watch the bucket to understand what the man meant. As he did this he noticed that when one crab would get close to climbing out another crab would grab onto it and try and get out too and would pull the one that was close to escaping back down. He compared humans to the crabs and said that we do the same thing. Humans put others down to bring them to their level to try and feel better about themselves. He continued on to say that when others put us down and when we put ourselves down, we start to develop this mindset that something is wrong with us. This really made sense to me! We are our harshest critics! On top of others putting us down, we add to it by putting ourselves down as well. He posed the question, "who or what is your self-worth dependent on?" He then explained that our self-worth should be dependent on Christ and Christ alone. We need to remember that we are sons and daughters of a Heavenly Father who has immense love for us. We are perfectly made and all have an eternal destiny to become kings and queens.

Life is hard. We experience loss, fear, hardships, trials, etc. God allows for us to experience all of these hard things because He loves us! For many people this is a hard concept to grasp. They ask why would someone who loves us that much want us to hurt? Hyrum Smith also told a story of a current bush that was cut down. He explained that God is the gardener of our life. He knows what is best for us. We will look back on the moments we were hurting the most and realize that God loved us enough to allow hurt. He knew what we would learn and the blessings that we could attain from going through those hard things; from being "cut down." I am so grateful for the hard times I have gone through because it was then that I learned and grew the most. It was then that I found Christ's presence ever so present! He has carried me through more things that I can count, and has given me strength to do things I thought I couldn't do during the times I felt I couldn't keep going. Our Savior and our God are ALWAYS there! Even when we think we don't feel them or hear them - they are there. One thing I am especially grateful for is the peace I feel when I turn to my Savior. He provides a peace that is different from any other source of comfort.

I am so grateful for the people I have been able to meet since being here in Canada. The members here are amazing! They are so welcoming and loving, and even though it's been a little challenging, I am so grateful for the experiences! Heavenly Father is so loving and merciful that sometime I can't find the words to fully express my gratitude for everything He does for me. Especially for sending His Only Begotten Son to be sacrificed so that we could all have the atonement and a source to turn to for peace!

I love and miss you all! I hope everyone has a wonderful week and can start to see God in the details! :)

Love, Sister Merrill <3