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.

"Even when you are tired": a lesson on diligence

" Salvation might come to him that should put his trust in the Lord and should be diligent in keeping his commandments, and continue in the faith, even unto the end of his life. If ye do this ye shall always rejoice and be filled with the love of God and always retain a remission of your sins: and ye shall grow in the knowledge of the glory of him that created you..." Mosiah 4:6, 12.

SAN DIEGO — This week Heavenly Father answered my prayers. I asked him to help me understand the Christ-like attribute of diligence more clearly.

He gave me ample opportunities to practice! A few days ago, I was in the urgent care with one of the sisters from 11:30 p.m. to 4 a.m. Two and a half hours later, I was up and doing morning exercise. If you don’t already know this, sleep is a precious commodity in missionary work. 

And missionary work is just that — WORK! 

Put those two together, and I was one sleepy missionary.  I felt like I was trying to stay awake after taking an Ambien or something!  As I was reading about diligence earlier in the week in Preach My Gospel, one line stuck out to me: "Continue until you have done all you can, even when you are tired." 

Those words kept flashing across my mind as my eyes would droop in tours or lessons, but Heavenly Father helped me continue to be steady, consistent and energetic in His work. His promise came true that, "when you are diligent, you find joy and satisfaction in your work."

I have found a lot of joy this week in the work. I want to tell you about the miracle of the Avocado Ward starting to transform.

If whoever is reading this knows anything about my Dad and Mom, they are very very organized, and very hard working. In fact they are so organized that we have an alphabetical and numerical system to organize the collection of DVD's in our home. Also, family vacations would usually consist of a planned out calendar of our itinerary that Dad would email to us before we would leave on vacation. I bet you can imagine I picked up on a few of those characteristics.

I have found that the phrase, "God is a God of order" is essential in our quest to become like Him. In the Avocado Ward, we have been working so hard these past three weeks to get organized and gain the trust of the members. We have visited every member of the ward council and have plans on how we can work together in missionary work. We are teaching the ward members how to invite their friends to activities and church. And we have reorganized our reporting in ward council so the members can better understand our efforts in their ward. 

Just those simple things have transformed the spirit here. We were able to have 18 lessons this week with only 4 half days in our area (A full time missionary needs to get 20, so we were very blessed)! We are now teaching three part-member families, and Tracy and Amber have a baptism date for July 28th! And hopefully by next week, Sean (a different family) will have a date too. I'll keep you posted (Dad, you asked about Peter- he is a YSA, so we had to pass him off, but I'll let you know if I find anything else out about him).

I just want you to know my testimony of this work. There has been a transformation of what has been happening since I last wrote. Just look back and see the letters! It is the power of Heaven plain and simple. No one can claim that just literally a few weeks ago, this ward didn’t trust missionaries, they didn’t like missionary work, and we had no investigators to teach. Heavenly Father has sent us an army of angels to help us in this work, and because of that, we are seeing an explosion of miracles. 

There is rain falling on the scorched earth of Avocado — the rich soil that comes from burnt earth is sprouting fruit! I can’t wait to update you next week.