Hello my beautiful friends and family! I hope everyone had a splendid week! My companion and I had another roller coaster ride of a week, but nonetheless, GOD IS SO GOOD AND MIRACLES UPON MIRACLES ABOUND!
The week started quite slow. Everything we had planned on Tuesday ended up falling through and rescheduled for Wednesday. Then Wednesday EVERYTHING got cancelled again and it was pouring rain! In the moment it just kind of sucked. We tried to do some finding at the store and that didn't go so great. I then had the thought to do some Facebook finding. I had joined a Facebook Bible study group a while back and decided to go to the page and post a scripture or question to interact there in some way. I got on the page and saw that some guy had posted about a negative experience he and his wife had with a deceiving pastor. He asked how they could know prophecy is from God and how to know if they are speaking on behalf of God, or in other words, a prophet! I knew I needed to tell him that we have a prophet of God on Earth today! I made a group chat with him and my companion and sent him some scripture verses. As a result we are NOW TEACHING THE COOLEST, SWEETEST FAMILY from South Africa! We met with them over video chat and a couple days later they asked if we could teach them a lesson. WHAT A MIRACLE! As I now look back at the hard beginning of the week, it has allowed for me to think about how good people can experience hard things in life. Sometime the greatest miracles and blessings will come from our hard times in life. I am so grateful for the many miracles that followed those two hard days!
I've thought a lot this past week about lessons I have learned, about expanding my knowledge of the gospel, and strengthening my testimony. I know that I tend to think about things way too much. I think as humans we often think too much. But when it comes to the gospel, we need to remember that the gospel is very simple. A friend once told me that while the gospel is simple, it isn't shallow. This is so true! The gospel is simple and the basic foundational truths are simple, but that doesn't mean it isn't deep. There is always something to study and deepen our understanding of. We could spend our entire lives studying and deepening our knowledge of the gospel, but we always need to remember the simple truths and principles. My favorite simple truths about this gospel are that God is our loving Heavenly Father and that Jesus Christ is our Savior. It can be hard as mortals to fully comprehend God's power and Christ's atoning sacrifice for each of us, but we don't need to understand everything. If we did, we wouldn't need to be here on Earth and God's entire plan would have been for nothing. We are here learning how to trust Him. We are learning how to strengthen and exercise faith in Him. We can continually learn more and more about Him, but we must try to never forget to trust and have faith in His power. It's hard to come up with a logical answer to complete faith and that's OKAY! This is actually something that has always kind of frustrated me. I could never come up with a logical explanation as to how God was listening to my prayers while there could be two billion other people praying to Him at the same time. Simply put, He loves us and He is always listening to us....somehow. I can't give you a logical reason to how He does this, but because I trust Him and have faith in Him I can bear testimony that HE IS LISTENING! I have witnessed this in my own life - in my own experiences. Sometimes it doesn't happen until I've looked back on my life and various experiences I have had, but I have seen His hand in my life and He has listened to and answered my prayers.
I mentioned that one of my favorite simple truths is that God is our loving Heavenly Father. HE IS! HE HAS A PERFECT LOVE FOR US! I personally feel we can't fully comprehend how much love He actually does have for us. Yesterday during home church we were discussing with a family about God's love. We talked about how God could still love Nehor even though he burned innocent people. It is because He is a just and merciful God. The atonement is infinite! While we maybe can't comprehend or understand how He could still love someone who has done such horrible things, we don't need too. It isn't our place to judge. It is our job to just love as God loves and trust in His perfect plan. He knows ours thoughts and our choices even before we do. I can't tell you how He does, but I testify that He is all powerful and all loving.
This week my companion and I were asked 2 questions. I want to share the questions and my answers with you.
1- Why did I drop everything back home to go on a mission?
I shared this on Facebook a while back about my "why." My simple answer is because of my love for my Heavenly Father and my Savior Jesus Christ, and for the love I have felt from them. I continue to serve everyday for this reason. I will serve Him everyday for the rest of my life for this reason. Serving Him is a beautiful way for me to give back to my Heavenly Father a penny of the priceless fortune that He has given to me.
2- What is one of the greatest lessons I have learned or hope to learn on my mission?
I thought about this and came to the conclusion that one of the greatest lessons I am learning is how to align my will with God's will. I need to let Him truly direct my sails as I ride the waves of life. I am also learning how to truly listen to and discern the spirit in my life. I am also learning just how incredible the atonement is.
I want to bear my simple testimony that I know God lives and loves us with an immeasurable abundance of love! I know He has perfect plan and that everything happens for a reason! I know that God is a God of miracles! I am so grateful for the experiences, opportunities I have had and for the miracles I get to see everyday!
I love and miss you all! Have a wonderful week!
Love, Sister Merrill
A baby pig!
No comments:
Post a Comment