***
I’m so grateful for the
sacrament. It helped to calm me significantly even though I’m still a little
bit nervous. I’d just like to say, thank you all for being here, and all those
who came to support me and welcome me home. It is wonderful to be with you
today as a return missionary in the ward that I grew up in, with an arsenal of
gospel experiences to recount. I now have a few other wards that I call home,
but this will forever be my first home, and whoever coined the phrase “homecoming”
couldn’t have been more spot on. I feel at home.
A few facts about my mission. I
was called to serve in the South Dakota Rapid City Mission. When we looked it
up, it turned out it was the largest land mass mission in the United States,
save Alaska. But Alaska’s a different animal entirely. So, actually, because of
the growth of the church in that area--in the South Dakota Rapid City Mission--actually they split the mission! They redrew the boundaries when I was
serving there, and the mission headquarters was changed, and so now it is
called the North Dakota Bismarck Mission. So I returned home from the North
Dakota Bismarck Mission.
I served in three different
locations. I served first in Bismarck, North Dakota. That’s where the temple
is, and it’s the capital of North Dakota. And then I served in Sioux Falls,
South Dakota. That was the biggest city in the mission. But now it’s not in the
mission, since the boundaries have gotten redrawn. So I am grateful to have
served there while I could. And then the last place that I served was
Williston, North Dakota, and that is the oil boom town. That’s where everybody
was going to North Dakota for work because of the oil boom. I loved all of
these places where I served.
I had, I like to say,
seven-eleven companions on my mission. Explaining that, in our mission we have
transfers that last six weeks, and so usually you’re with a companion for six
weeks. But I was with four of my companions for less than that--three weeks or
less. So depending on how you count them I either had seven full-fledged
companions, or eleven if you count those other four.
Also, the mission gets very
cold, as you can imagine. At this time last year I was experiencing negative
temperatures when you include wind-chill. It was probably about... I think it
was seven degrees the morning of Thanksgiving when I was in Sioux Falls. And
that was one of the coldest times, thank goodness. November was very very cold.
After I received my mission call, I remember that Fargo, this place called Fargo--which I now know of well, but at the time I didn’t--it reached this low,
lower than Canada, and people were pointing at me saying, “that’s where you’re
going, good luck!” Thanks... I’m just glad I flew south for the winter. I was
in South Dakota verses North Dakota, so that was good. But it also was a mild
winter, so blessings there as well.
So those are a few facts about
my mission, and today I’ve been given the topic of living in thanksgiving
daily. And as soon as I was given that topic, I remembered last Thanksgiving
when I was trying to prepare some sort of thanksgiving message to share with
the family we were eating dinner with, and I found a scripture that relates
just perfectly with this principle. This scripture is found in the middle of
Alma. It’s in Chapter 34, and at this point, Alma and Amulek--who have such
companionship unity by the way. They’re great companions. I’ve learned a lot
from them and have found a new appreciation for their companionship--they were
preaching to the poor people of the Zoramites who got cast out of their
synagogues because of their poverty. And they’re asking Alma how they can
possibly worship God if they are cast out of their synagogues! And Alma is
super happy, because he sees that they’re teachable. He then proceeds to tell
them the sermon that we commonly know which is about faith, comparing the word
to a seed. And then Amulek, he adds the testimony to that of his companion,
telling them that they should worship wherever and whenever they choose! That
it doesn’t have to be on Sunday. It doesn’t have to be a holiday, or any
specific occasion. It doesn’t have to be Thanksgiving to give thanks. He says
to them.
“My beloved bretheren. I desire
that ye should remember these things, and that ye humble yourselves, even to
the dust, and worship God in whatsoever place ye may be in, in spirit and in
truth. And here’s the key part. And that you live in thanksgiving daily for the
many mercies and blessings which he doth bestow upon you.
Brothers and sisters, I have
seen so many mercies and blessings
that have been granted to me over the course of my mission. And today, I would
just like to dedicate this time to describe some of the key experiences that
I’ve had that have made my mission so unique and personal to me, something that
I am so blessed to have experienced.
I was blessed for many reasons
for Heavenly Father sending me to Bismarck as my first area. It was a hard area, as far as the work goes. We
did not teach a whole lot of people. We didn’t have less actives who would see
us regularly, and we didn’t have investigators who would see us regularly. But
when you are in an area where you are compromised and have to really get on
your knees and ask and be directed, then you are guided by the Holy Ghost
probably more than any other time. And without that experience first, then I
don’t think I would have been as close to the spirit in order to help people in
areas where there was work.
So, Heavenly Father, he knows.
He knows what you need and I found
joy in the journey as much as I was able, and I tried to apply that principle
of living in thanksgiving daily. So I found things to be grateful for.
I was so grateful for the apartment. We had a very nice apartment, and we
stayed with two other sisters who were in the other ward (there were two wards
in Bismarck), and they were awesome, and at no point in time was there any
disagreements in-between us sisters as long as I was there. What a blessing.
And we were so close to the temple. I’ve been privileged to attend the temple
five times while I was serving in my mission, and many many of my companions,
they had never been to the temple because they had never served around there,
and they didn’t get the chance to go basically until the time they went home.
And so, I’m just super grateful.
I was very close to leadership
in Bismarck. All the leadership--my sister training leader and my zone leaders--were there, and as a new missionary, I was very very green, and I just soaked
up information like a sponge that couldn’t hold
all the information, and they were that ultimate reservoir for me. They
were always there for me. They comforted me in times where I felt inadequate,
which often happens as a new missionary. And it was such a blessing to live with the sister training leader. I grew a
fond relationship with her, and she always
cared about me, and I really really looked up to her. She was my inspiration
and my model of what kind of missionary I wanted to be. Because, as a new
missionary, you’re kind of floundering about, ‘What’s the right way?’ ‘How do I do missionary work?’ ‘What is the
right way for me?’ And, she was very
similar to me. She was very dignified and yet, was so herself, her silly self,
and that, that is what I wanted. I
wanted to still be myself, but still be a representative of Jesus Christ and
she was the perfect example for me.
There were many many miracles
that occurred during my time in Bismarck. It was not manifest in baptisms, but
it was manifest in those small and simple things.
One miracle, that I count as a miracle, was meeting
somebody named Tracy. Now the missionaries, they met Tracy before I came to the
area, but only just before. She is a
mother of three young boys, who at the time were four, six, and eight. So three
young boys, and they reminded me of my brothers. They just, they played well
together, they laughed, and they were just so funny and quirky, and I just
loved their family. --The boys were crazy... that’s my brothers right there. And,
I just saw Tracy as this mother who just wanted to be such a great mother and
she was. But she had so many
struggles with the father of the boys. They were never married, but they were
separated. They had been separated for about three years, and she was
struggling on what to do, as far as to go back with him or to continue living
on her own when she was working like, three jobs. It was insane what she was
going through. And it seemed that every time we showed up at her house--because, she told us to just drop by. Scheduled things didn’t really work for
her and drop bys did. So, every time we dropped by it seemed to be in a moment
of need.
One time it was after a funeral
with one of her close friends, and it was such a sacred experience to be there
and comfort her with the words of the gospel. Another time it was when she was
really struggling financially, and we had received permission from our bishop--we brought it up that she was struggling and that she was trying her best to progress. We got permission to bring her
groceries and... the look on her face... of amazement and surprise and
gratitude... it made me want to cry. I’m so grateful for all the times that we
have been her tender mercy. She is that person I still pray for that I met in
Bismarck.
Another experience that I’ve
had was brought about and made possible by being obedient to something that I
said I would do. I have a testimony of putting things into practice as soon as
you learn them. I was on exchanges with Sister Christiansen, my sister training
leader. And what exchanges are is you’re with your assigned companion for those
six weeks, but the sister training leader, just to switch things up and help
companions learn and things like that, you do an exchange for one day, and you
pick a focus on what you want to learn and then you switch back at the end.
It’s really an incredible experience, and miracles happen on exchanges. I also
have a testimony of that.
I learned from this particular
exchange that it is inspired to follow the schedule that you had written down
the night before, that if you follow the schedule as you planned it and be in
the places that you previously designed to be, then you will be blessed.
So I was debating--this was
the day after exchanges--I turned to my companion, Sister Gray, and I said,
“Well, we still need to finish this and that. We can do it now. I mean, we’re
already at the apartment.” She put me in my place, thank goodness! She said,
“don’t you wanna do what we wrote down?” And I said, “Yes, let’s do that.”
We were on our way to try and
see a potential, a potential investigator, somebody who we had tracted into. We
weren’t there for that person. We were there for the people across the street.
We went to this street, and
there was a family, back with a million groceries in the back of their truck, a
whole lot of groceries. And they had
a little girl that looked about three, and she had a rare chromosome deletion I
later found out. Her twenty-third chromosome, part of it was deleted, and it
kind of looked like she had down syndrome or something like that, and... my
heart just... I felt such a connection to her, because of... well, Marshall.
She reminded me of Marshall in a huge way, just her sweet spirit. Her dad was
handing her groceries and sometimes he would take out big things in the grocery
bag so there’d only be like, a few ounces of weight so that she could help with
the groceries.
We asked if they needed help.
Of course, you know, “Ah, no no we got it,” you know. But their family just
captivated me. We knocked on the door. There was no answer. Even though we were
denied that opportunity to go and help, I just started pickin’ up groceries and
bringing them into their yard. And I started talking about Marshall and how he
has spina bifida and asked them about their daughter, and they also had a son
who was about two, the girl is actually five, and the two-year-old, it seemed
like he had down syndrome. And I was able to tell them that their children were
beautiful, from somebody who actually meant what they said, and I think, now
I’m not for sure, but I really feel that they just needed that. They weren’t
interested in learning about the gospel, but that was such a tender mercy for
me and I believe it was a tender mercy for them as well. And I hold that
experience as one of the most sacred on my mission.
The next experience I would
like to share is a principle about diligence. Diligence brings blessings. If I
were to define diligence for you, it would be consistent effort. It doesn’t
always mean that you will have success right away. But, it will bring you the
blessings that will inevitably come from your consistent effort.
I came up with a saying
actually because--skipping ahead--Williston was kind of the bread basket of
the mission. A looot of baptisms happened there. Our area was really booming!
And one of our leaders called us and said, “what are you doing to make this
happen?” And we said, “we’re not doing anything. It’s the Lord who’s doing all
the work.” And, the spirit guided my words to say, “Sometimes there’s feast,
and sometimes there’s famine. But there is always
diligence.”
So in Bismarck, we tracted a
lot and Sister Gray, she was a pretty new missionary as well, and she came from
an area where she maybe knocked on a dozen doors. She had not experienced much
tracting, and it was a hard hard thing for her. And she struggled with tears a
lot even, because of it. But we just kept on working through it. We were
together for just one transfer but most of our miracles happened within that
transfer, and most of the growth within ourselves I would say.
At the end of our
companionship, at the end of that transfer, we were knocking on doors, we were
trying to locate this less active, and we tried that door and there was still a
little bit of time left in the night, and we said, “oh, let’s knock a couple
more. We went to the next one. Eh. It was a person. They weren’t really
interested. But the next one we knocked on. A teenage girl answered, and we had
a conversation with her, and we asked if her father was home. While he was
getting ready to come to the door we kept on chatting with her and it seemed to
be going great. And the father came to the door. He was so warm and welcoming.
He let us into their home.
...Brothers and Sisters... this
was a family of eleven kids... who weren’t
lds! And seven of them lived at home! And we were just.. we were in shock! And
they had just moved here, and they took the gospel very well, they were educated,
like all of their children had like, Jewish names, like, biblical names, they
had like, church set up at home type things, and they were very very religious,
and just... holy cow! We just found this family from tracting!?
We shared just the first part
of the restoration because time was short. We set up a return appointment--which they kept by the way! That never
happens. And we just, we got out of the lesson and we just said a prayer of
gratitude right there. Oh! Stop the car. We need to say a prayer right now and
thank Heavenly Father for this blessing that was undoubtedly because of our
diligence.
I never really got to teach
that family. I did for the return appointment, but for that return appointment
I had received a call beforehand letting me know that I was getting
transferred. So my heart was kind of ripped out because their youngest, their
five-year-old, she thought that I looked like her older sister or cousin or
someone, and she grabbed onto me and said, “don’t go!” And then, she’s five so
she turned to my companion and said, “you go home!” Haha, her mom of course got
onto her, “don’t you say that! Don’t say that! You apologize!” So that was kind
of funny.
They were a great family. Later
on they did say, no, I don’t think we are ready to come to church yet, and I
don’t think we can meet anymore, but it was good while it lasted. And they are
great formers to follow up with. And that moves me onto Sioux Falls.
My second area was my area that
I spent winter in. It was hard, the winter, but what made it sweet was the
people. I loved the people in Sioux
Falls. They were an incredible blessing.
When I got to Sioux Falls, I
arrived and my to-be companion and her previous companion were like, speaking
in Sign Language for like, a little bit like, “see you at home!” And stuff like
that and I’m like, are you just doing that for fun or... Then she turns to me
and she’s like, “By the way, you’re basically serving in the deaf ward.”
I, screamed. I knew that I was going to help the deaf
people. Even though I was not called to a deaf speaking mission, I knew that I was going to use the talents
that were within me, and help those people who communicated in sign language.
And that was an incredible confirmation.
We had this one less active/recent
convert--she was baptized then she kind of slacked on coming to church for one
reason or another and she was a delight to work with. Her name is Sunshine, and
she has such and incredible spirit.
And teaching her, she voiced very well, so teaching her was a great learning
tool. It was a great refresher for all those sign language years of looking at
sign language but not really doing sign language that I was able to refresh and
improve on my signing.
I had one couple that is in
Sioux Falls that were really people that I think of even now. That is Henry and
Elizabeth. And they’re not baptized, but we taught them and they progressed so
well. And Satan worked so hard on them. I know that they will be baptized one day.
One of the most profound experiences was Henry when he prayed for the first
time. His grandmother was killed in a car accident, and so he was angry at God
for about seven years. The thing that softened his heart was the birth of this
baby daughter, and she was about six months old when we came, and we tracted
into them as well actually. And when he prayed for the first time, that was
about as big as baptism. That was an incredible experience, and I will never
forget that.
And then I was transferred again,
and I went to Williston. When I first got to Williston, I was serving in the
second and third wards, and in third ward boundaries there was a little town
that was called Ray, and I absolutely adored Ray. It was a pleasure to work
there. It was cool because when we went to Ray we stayed with a family that had
four girls who were either of mission age or close to being mission age, and we
were able to take them out and inspire them. And we were able to meet people in
Ray that really needed to be brought back into the gospel.
But the most distinguishing thing
about Williston was the amount of baptisms that happened and who I’ve taught
there. We had eight baptisms. And that,
is a lot. And, I always wanted to see baptisms on my mission, but wow, eight
baptisms! And something that’s interesting is that Williston, for some reason,
I think the work factor has lots to do with it, there were tons of Africans in Williston! And five of the baptisms that I had
on my mission were African. And one was Pilipino, one was white, and one, was deaf.
And brothers and sisters.
Seeing the baptism of someone who is deaf is an incredible experience. Because, as you are, you have five senses,
and you are very aware of those senses, and when you are baptized you’re just
so excited, and you want to express yourself, but you are self-conscious about
all the things that you say and do. But when you’re deaf? When she came up out
of the water, this older lady, she was laughing. She was laughing and
applauding out of sheer joy, and it was such a beautiful experience. And I know
that Sioux Falls, that area, it prepared me to teach her. I thought I was maybe
done helping the deaf people. I thought, “oh, well, that was a good run,” but
no. It was a preparation in order to help Memory become baptized.
And, there’s so many other
experiences but, I think my time is about up. But, I’ve loved my mission. I’ve loved the experiences I’ve had on my mission.
And pull me aside and I’d be glad to tell you more experiences. But for now I’d
just like to bear my testimony in sign language.
*Insert testimony about the
atonement in sign language here*
Jesus Christ is our Savior and
Redeemer. This is the most important thing to be thankful for. In the name of
Jesus Christ, amen.
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