Let the Lower Lights Be Burning

SAN DIEGO — I am so glad you are doing well! :) My week has been hard on my heart, that is for sure. I wish I could explain, but it is just so hard to.

Let me first start with transfers. You all asked a lot about how that works, and I realize I probably haven’t done very well at explaining. I am serving at the Mormon Battalion Historic Site six hours a day and I am assigned an area that I drive to for six hours a day. We rotate whether we take the morning or evening shift, so we can have both mornings and evenings in our area each week. We all live in Old Town San Diego so we can be close to the Mormon Battalion. My area is Helix Singles Ward. It is a HUGE area, covering 5 main city suburbs of San Diego. This is my third transfer here, and I will most likely end my mission here, as I am training Sister Jerrett. 

The church has a 12-week training program for new missionaries. We have a handbook, practice and reading materials from Preach My Gospel and the scriptures so that I can help Sister Jerrett, if called upon, to train after twelve weeks of being in the mission. I was really emotional this week sitting in the trainer’s meeting with President and the rest of the trainers. I think it hit me how much Heavenly Father loves Sister Jerrett, and how Heavenly Father has trusted me to help this be the standard for the rest of her mission and on into eternity.

Sister Jerrett is so great. She is 23 years old from Winnemucca, Nevada. She graduated from BYU in Human Development. Chris (Brittany’s older brother) and I were actually in her BYU ward at Roman Gardens! Chris may have played soccer with Jessica Buxton, her roommate? She recognized him in our family picture. Small world huh? It is so interesting the last two transfers training Sister Miller. I know it will be very different from training Sister Jerrett. They both are amazing missionaries, just very, very different. I suppose this is great practice for having kids. Let's just hope I don’t get any as sassy as me, right, dad?

Let the lower lights be burning, send a gleam across the wave!

 Do you all remember Daniel? The night before his baptism, he texted us and said he is "walking away". 

If you knew Daniel, if you could have just been in the room with me hearing his testimony of the Book of Mormon, if you could listen to his prayers as he plead with Heavenly Father to help him, watching his determination to live the commandments, you would understand how hard that was to hear. I haven’t heard from him since, but we will never stop praying or looking for him. The worth of every soul is great in the sight of God.

That same night, Robert looked me in the eyes and I asked him.

Robert, "Do you know the Book of Mormon is true?" 

He responded, "Yes".

"Robert, do you know that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God?"

Again he responded, “Yes.”

"Do you know that The Church of Jesus Christ has been restored to the earth?"

Robert responded, “Yes”

And then I asked him if he would continue to prepare for the day he set to be baptized?

Robert responded that he would not.

Even with knowledge that this is true, he said no. I wish I had an eternal perspective. I know that it will all work out, but I don’t understand why things happen sometimes!

All I can say today is how grateful I am to be a missionary. Do you remember the talk about the "lower light" from General Conference? Sister Jerrett and I sang that this morning and it really hit me what a responsibility I have knowing I am a daughter of God, and exactly what we all have to do to return to live in His presence again.

Look at the Hymn, "Brightly Beams Ours Fathers Mercy":

Brightly Beams our Father's mercy from his lighthouse evermore: His Gospel will NEVER stop shining upon the world that is dark and lost.

But to us he gives the keeping of the lights along the shore: WE are the ones responsible for shining that light. If we don’t, who will?

(Verse 2)

Dark the night of sin has settled; Loud the angry billows roar, Eager eyes are watching, longing for the lights along the shore:  There ARE and always WILL BE sailors lost at sea looking for the lower light to guide them safely home. Have you left your post? For a second? For quite some time? Come back! Your light is needed to guide someone safely home.

(Verse 3)

Trim your feeble lamp, my brother, some poor sailor, tempest tossed. Trying now to make the harbor, in the darkness may be lost- Strengthen your testimony, no matter who you are, we need to trim our lamps to shine forth and be a standard to the nations.

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I think being a missionary opens one's eyes to the urgency of this work. You may read these emails and think, "Oh she’s just a missionary". That I am and forever will be. I cannot and will never go back. Neither should you.

Love you all, I hope you think about the way you are using this precious time on earth, for we will all be held accountable for every single moment.

The Fourth Watch

SAN DIEGO — General Conference was amazing!

I sometimes think, "Oh how cool would it be to know Moses, Noah, even Lehi", and then I realize once again: I get to see the prophet of God here, now, TODAY! Do you realize how incredibly lucky we are?

When I teach people about the prophet, they are amazed, they are so excited and anxious to learn what he has to say. And then I hear members grumbling about "having" to watch conference. Don’t ever take that for granted!

Dad asked me what I thought about the new age limit for missionaries. I am so excited to add more troops to this war! The time is getting eerily close. You can see it in everything, especially being a missionary. I feel like I could place myself in the war chapters of the Book of Mormon sometimes. Right now, I feel that I am in Antipus' army. We are fighting with all our might and it seems like we might be overtaken, but now Heavenly Father has recruited the Stripling Warriors — his young ones with fire and faith and zeal to help us win the war. It gives me chills thinking about it.

Today I want to talk to you about "the fourth watch." I want to share with you something that Sister Clayton wrote to us as missionaries:

In the sixth chapter of Mark, after having fed the five thousand, the Savior sends his apostles down to the ship, and instructs them to push out to sea.

"And when he had sent them away, he departed into a mountain to pray. 

And when even was come, the ship was in the midst of the sea, and he alone on the land. 

And he saw them toiling in rowing for the wind was contrary unto them and about the fourth watch of the night, he cometh unto them, walking upon the sea"

 The Hebrew night was divided into four watches, each lasting three hours with the fourth watch taking place between three in the morning and sunrise. 

Brother Wilcox states: "I worship a fourth watch God. One who tends to feel that it is good to let His children toil in rowing against the wind to face a little opposition. My problem is that I am a first watch person. Now there is something inside of me that understands that it is good for me to toil in rowing against the wind. But certainly by the second watch He would come. And when the second watch has passed and He still has not come, sometimes I forget that... He is watching."

Brother Wilcox goes on to explain it is easy to make one dangerous assumptions about why He is not coming yet to us. One is that the Savior is just not there and that is why He is not responding. Second is that if He is there, He is not listening. Third is if He is there and He is listening He must not care. And the fourth — and most dangerous of all — is that if He is there, and if He is listening, and if He cares, we must not be worthy.

In all cases, these assumptions are false. He is there. He is listening. He cares. And even though we probably are not entirely worthy, He will always respond. If He has not yet come to us, it must be because we have not yet reached the fourth watch.

I, too, feel like a first watch person. This week has proven to test my faith. We had five investigator lessons cancel on us, and have not added anyone new for a few weeks now. It has been weighing heavily on me. 

I remember the other night, jokingly yelling at the ceiling during one of our nightly plannings, "Heavenly Father, please can this be our fourth watch?" 

To my surprise, the very next day the Elders gave us a referral of a girl they had been teaching that was Young Single Adult age. Then yesterday, we were able to find a few people for the other missionaries to teach. How humbling it is to know that God does hear us. He does know us and He does care.

I’m not saying you can yell at the ceiling for the fourth watch to come. Sometimes it is far off, sometimes it is close. But I want you to know that it will come. I know with each of you, you are going through hard times. I hear about it, and I want you to know I think and pray about you. Don’t give up. Please don’t give up. It just might not be the time of the forth watch.

P.S: Just got transfer calls. They are splitting me and Sister Miller. I’m training in Helix, probably to the end of my mission as training takes two transfers and that’s all I have left. Can you believe 11 out of 13 transfers in a singles ward? Whew! CRAZY!

Imperfection, Action, and the Great and Spacious Building

SAN DIEGO – Heavenly Father has really decided to push and pull me around a little bit —and it is definitely working. I want to share with you some things today, some lessons I have learned: some experiences that have humbled me, and some moments that have strengthened my faith. It's a lot, so please bear with me.

Before I start, I want to tell you what I used to think of when I heard the word "missionary". I thought of a guy dressed in black pants, a white shirt, name tag on shirt, scriptures in hand ready to conquer the world. I thought they could do no wrong, they knew every answer, they never had a hard time, they never messed up. You can see that my understanding of what it means to be a missionary was very skewed.

I want to open up my life as a missionary and let you see that though I do have a black name tag on my shirt, I am imperfect: I mess up, and life is HARD for me many times. I cried myself to sleep last night; this week has been so hard. I am not telling you this to get your pity or sympathy. I am sharing this because I want you to know that I am just like you. And just like you, there are lessons that I need to learn to be a better daughter of God.

I hope that as I write by the Spirit and you read by the Spirit, that my experiences this week can help you learn something that God needs you to learn to reach your full potential as well.

First, let me share with you some lessons I learned:

Elder Zwick, if you remember, toured our mission a few months ago. This past month, he was touring Samoa, Tahiti, and other islands in the South Pacific. On his way back, he stopped once again in San Diego and wanted to take his family through the tour with some other close friends. He asked if he could have a fireside with the sisters at the Battalion. I want to share with you a story. I only have time for one, but maybe next week.

This story actually comes from Sister Zwick. She told us a story about her son Scotty, who is in his thirties and has some mental disabilities and thus lives in a group home in Orem while they travel around the world.

The temple President in Portland are the Zwick's good family friends. The president shared an email with Sister Zwick that his son had emailed to him. His son had been having a really hard time with his family and other things. He was really feeling low. But he was really excited for General Conference that was coming up, and he was praying and praying and praying that something one of the General Authorities would say would answer the questions of his soul.

Session after session ended and by the time the closing prayer was ended, he felt dejected and that God had not heard his pleas. Just at that moment his cell phone rang and the caller ID said, "Scott Zwick". Brandon wasn’t going to answer it, because phone calls with Scotty are often full of questions and last a really long time, and quite frankly, Brandon felt that he wasn’t in the mood, but something made him answer the phone. He heard Scotty's voice on the phone and he said, "Brandon, I just wanted to call you and tell you that Jesus loves you and I love you too." Brandon explained, that at that moment, he knew that God had heard him and did know who he was.

And all that he needed to know was that he was loved, by a Father in Heaven and by His Son, Jesus Christ.

Do you see what I mean when I tell you that what you do makes a difference! Listen to the Spirit when he urges you to do something. If you don’t act, God will use someone else to do his will, and what a shame it would be to not be trusted by God enough to follow out His will.

Second, Let me share with you an experience that humbled me. I think I will write this out of my journal because I really don’t want to retell it- I hate messing up!

May 3, 2012

"Today was really hard. We had our weekly training meeting where we train the sisters at the Battalion. Sister Kennington and I did the training and then separated to practice with the sisters. When we came back, my group was a little late, so they were already talking. I asked if my group could hear what was said. We went on with training, but I could tell something was hurting my companion. I looked at her and my heart sank. 

I knew that I had acted out of harmony with Jesus Christ, for I had caused her hurt. We talked and I came to the realization that I had made her feel that I didn’t trust her to wait for all of us to get back into the room and I didn’t work with her in unity. I have been trying so hard to be better at allowing others to lead, but I think the harder and harder I try, the more and more I seem to mess up. 

It is really hard for me to allow others to lead. It's a weakness I know I need to get over to become a true disciple of Christ. It may seem like a little thing that happened today, but I realize that if my companion felt badly about it, then it matters a lot. She is so gracious and so patient with me, something I admire in her a lot. I think this experience opened my eyes to how much Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ care. This little things that we do matter. The little ways we mess up, and then become better are a big deal. We don’t live life by the year; we live it by the hour, by the minute, by the second. It is day by day that we become who we are meant to become....."

Finally, I have one more experience I want to share, a moment that has strengthened my faith. Cinco de Mayo in Old Town is CRAZY. I mean ridiculous. Sister Kennington and I were at the temple in the morning and then on shift at the Battalion at night. A drive from the temple that usually takes about 10-15 minutes took us just over an hour.

We were driving bumper to bumper trying to get to our apartment, which gave us plenty of time to watch what was going on around us. It hurt my heart to watch how past feeling all of these people were. Alcohol, tobacco, loud, offensive music, inappropriate dancing and actions, immodesty (bad, I mean real bad). It was like a movie, driving through a sea of people who weren’t real, they were literally like zombies.

Later, Elder Seegmiller shared with us his experience with being down in the middle of it at the booth. He told the sisters there to watch him. He walked into the middle of the swarm of people making their way to who knows where and he would wave right in front of their face. None of them acknowledged him. None of them knew he was there. He related it to the great and spacious building. My heart started pounding as I heard that. The Spirit was teaching me that this experience was exactly that. My faith was strengthened by seeing how real Satan is, and how real the Savior and His Atonement are.

I am out of time, but I hope these lessons I learned have strengthened and helped you. In summary, help others, be humble, and go forward with faith.

Apostolic insights and lessons in leading

SAN DIEGO — I sure hope you are doing well. I pray for you all the time, I hope you know that. For some reason, It has sure hit me harder than usual how much I love and miss you! It sounds like you had a great General Conference. I hope your Easter is great too!

This week has been a crazy one! We were super busy with General Conference and we also had MTE (missionary training event) this week as well. I feel like I have been soaked with doctrine, now I just have to keep it all in!

As part of MTE, they always have either a health training or safety training, and this time it was a car safety training on what is called "TIWI". The Church is launching a new program to keep the missionaries better obeying traffic laws, so we now have GPS tracking devices in all the cars and we have to log in to them every day. If we speed, stop or start too fast, or anything like that it gives us a mark on our record and the GPS talks to us and tells us to stop. We have to keep in the "green zone" in order to be able to have driving privileges. Crazy huh?

It sounds like everyone loved Conference. I did as well. Some of it got interrupted having to take a tour, so I will have to watch it again later or wait for it to come out in the Ensign. Do you remember Elder Perry's talk? About Scott giving him a new tie each conference and about how bold he was in talking about the Book of Mormon? Scottie is Elder Zwick's son. The one who said one of the prayers in conference and who came to our mission to inspect it the other month. The one who we had an interview with.

I don't remember if I told you about Scottie, Elder Zwick's son, so I want to share a story that he and Sister Zwick told us about him and why he was on the plane that day, talking to the man about the Book of Mormon. Because Scott has a mental disability, he was unable to serve a mission. But when his little brother decided to serve, he promised Scottie that he would serve his mission for the both of them. So every week Scott would get word of what his brother was doing in their mission together.

At one point during that time, I think it was something like Elder Zwick had to do on another mission tour close to where his son was serving, and he asked the mission president of his son if they could visit or something. The mission president replied, "You can only come on one condition. If you bring Scottie. The whole mission has heard everything about Scottie from your son, and I want him to come serve with his brother for a week." 

Scott, in Elder Perry's talk, was already being a missionary on that plane, and continued to serve side by side with his brother as a full time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for that week. I just love that story so much! I'm not sure I got it exactly right, but super close.

About what else is going on: we are still working with our investigators, and they are slowly but surely moving forward.

I also wanted to leave you with something that has been on my mind lately. As this transfer draws closer to an end, I will most likely be transferred, and it will most likely be time for someone else to take the role of being the sister trainer at the Battalion. I have been looking back and asking myself what I could have done differently. I want to share a learning experience I had this week, as being a "coach" during MTE for some of the sisters.

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March 29, 2012

Today, I coached two of the sisters. It was a very good learning experience for me. As a coach, I sit on the sidelines as the sisters teach and afterward, guide them to focus on what we learned at MTE to incorporate it into their teaching. We had lessons that went pretty well.

The sisters are amazing at asking everyone for referrals. We had a dinner appointment with Wilbur and Edna, Wilbur is a non-member married to an active member, but he goes to Church with her every Sunday. Long story short: it was a pretty rough lesson, of which I shouldn't have talked, but I did- first lesson learned once again about being a leader: LET PEOPLE LEAD!

We had a tense few minutes in the car on the way to our next appointment. One of the sisters was crying along the way, and I started feeling a sense of despair and not knowing how to help the situation. To make matters worse, because we left Wilbur's late, we missed the next investigator for our next appointment, so tension was really high. Second lesson learned tonight: don't try to fix the problem when the environment is not right for the Spirit to be present!

I decided we needed to pray. I asked if I could say a prayer. I desperately begged Heavenly Father to send the Holy Ghost to guide us and help us know where we needed to be. It was so great to feel the Spirit once again with us, and I felt instantly that whatever happened next would be okay. We went to one of the backups they had, which happened to be a 14-year-old girl (whose parents they were trying to contact). As I sat on the sidelines and watched the sisters teach this girl about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I was hit harder than I ever had that this little girl was God's daughter. I walked away from the lesson, with a sure knowledge in my heart that God does know and He does care. 3rd lesson learned: I cannot lead without the Holy Ghost as a constant companion.

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I share this with you because each of us are leaders. Each of us are most definitely inadequate. If you think you are up to par, think again. God needs us to lead, and we must lead according to God's will, not our own. What you do makes a difference: how you interact, what you say, how you teach.

The missionary handbook teaches that we must minister to those around us. There is a difference between administering and ministering. To minister is to encourage, lift, inspire and bless. Administering is accomplishing the tasks to get something done. What kind of leader are you in your homes? at school? at work?

I feel like leaving you with an invitation from our Savior Jesus Christ: "What manner of men ought ye to be? Even as I am."