My Last Epistle Unto Thee

Hi guys. : )

First off, some transfer stuff. Sister Semenyuk will be staying in the area, covering the whole ward again, and also picking up the Tongan ward. Her new companion will be Hermana Huddleston (who is super awesome), and they will have a third companion who's brand new. They are going to be so busy! I'm actually super jealous because covering two wards with so much work is so fun! I was going through appointments with Hermana Despain last night, and it looks like they will have back-to-back-to-back(-to-back on one day) appointments for the first three days. ; )

My companion is staying, but I, as some missionaries politely say, am "being transferred to Salt Lake." I am so sad to leave my area, and even more sad to leave the mission, but I'm excited for the world ahead. Serving a mission has been the greatest blessing of my life. It was the best decision I have ever made, and is truly a miracle to me and a witness that Heavenly Father truly has a great and marvelous plan. I am so grateful that serving a mission was part of His plan for me. Now, with it coming to a close, I am so grateful for every moment, and I'm sad that it's over. But I will always have the memories of the many miracles I experienced. I know that serving a mission has prepared me for the work the Lord has ahead, and I am so excited to see the further miracles that follow!

(I apologize in advance for how long this is going to be, haha.)

Favorite Spiritual Moment:

In sacrament meeting on Sunday, we were sitting behind a family with three little kids, one of which was a little boy about three-years-old. The dad of the family is the young men's president, and since we were short a few young men yesterday, he was helping out by passing the sacrament. When he walked down the aisle with his sacrament tray, his little son got so excited to see him. He was smiling, pointing out his dad to his mom and his other siblings, and waved when his dad was the closest. It was super cute. I'm sure that some of it was just because this little boy is young and sees his dad as a superhero, but when I thought of it in a more spiritual side, it really touched my heart. This little boy was so proud of his dad for passing the sacrament, for being worthy and holding the priesthood authority from God in order to do so. The dad was setting an example for his son, showing him how to be diligent and to take his priesthood duties seriously, even if he was just substituting for an absent deacon. It was really a beautiful thing. Someday, when his son is ordained a deacon, he will continue to look to his dad as an example. I am so grateful that we can look to God in the same way, as our example and our Father. The Lord loves us enough that He trusts His children with some of His power, the same power that the world was created with. What a wonderful thing.

Favorite Miracle:

We had a lesson cancel on Monday night, which left us with basically no plans. Fortunately, they called us ahead of time, so when we received another call from Miguel, we were able to meet with him one more time! It worked out perfectly. We taught him about the Spirit: what it feels like, how to recognize it, and how it can help us to know what things are true. It went super well! He talked about how he knew that was what he was feeling when he met with us, and how he wanted to keep learning more and understand how he can have the Spirit more in his life. How cool! We also were able to call the Spanish Elders in his area, and they bore testimony to him of the Holy Ghost as well, in Spanish. The Spirit was so strong. It was great because it helped him to realize that those Elders are called of God also, which will hopefully make the transition easier.

There was someone we were trying to teach a while ago who moved from Egypt and reads Arabic a lot better than English. It turns out that she wasn't nearly as interested as we thought, but we had already ordered a Book of Mormon for her in Arabic. After we'd stopped teaching her, we remembered that we had another potential who is from Egypt. We stopped by her on Saturday night, and she was actually home, which was a miracle in itself since she hasn't been home ever since we'd met her. We talked to her a little more about what we do and bore testimony of Jesus Christ. Then, when she put together the dots of what church we are from, she was super interested in reading the Book of Mormon since we are so much different than the false ideas she'd had in her head about members of our church. She seemed impressed that we had another testament of Jesus Christ. It was super cool! We ran outside to go get it for her, and then she helped us figure out where 3 Nephi 11 so we could bookmark it. I'm so grateful that we were able to find the person who needed that Book of Mormon!

Favorite Funny Thing:

I've used a lot of different analogies and object lessons on my mission - some of which were even quite a stretch - but until this week, I'd never heard anyone talk about UFOs in a lesson and relate it to the Gospel. It was a member present that brought it up, and the crazy thing was that be did it successfully! Bill, the man we were teaching, had mentioned that he found it hard to believe everything in the scriptures because sometimes the writers don't even agree with each other on the facts (the size of the ark was the example he quoted). So then, our member present talked about how in those UFO reports from the 1950s or so, there's a ton of made up stuff, lies, and just garbage, mixed with a tiny bit of interesting truth. He then talked about how in the scriptures, there's a ton of spiritual direction that's inspired directly from God, with the occasional geographical, mathematical, or historical mistake from the human flaws of the men who wrote it all down. Sister Semenyuk and I were just looking at each other like "where is this going to go?" But in the end, it worked! Bill is a scientist but is apparently super into that UFO stuff, so it helped make some things click. The member present must have really been teaching by the Spirit, because I never ever would have thought to put those things together. ; )

Favorite Spiritual Thought:

I was reading Ether this week and noticed that in the beginning of Ether 2, the Lord appeared to the Brother of Jared in a cloud to give him direction, "and the brother of Jared saw him not," (Ether 2:4) while in Ether 3, the Brother of Jared saw the finger of the Lord and then saw Him completely. I wondered what the difference between the Brother of Jared's faith was between chapters 2 and 3, what the difference was that allowed him to see the Lord. I went through the two chapters and wrote down the differences I saw, the testimonies the Brother of Jared shared, and the changes he made. Some of them were that he repented and humbled himself, experimented with the Lord's word, did things exactly the way the Lord commanded and saw the blessings, cried unto the Lord regularly, trusted Him, recognized that he needed His help, bore his testimony, lived what he believed, and did not doubt. Those things helped him develop faith so great that the Lord declared, "never has man believed in me as thou hast." (Ether 3:15)

In the last six months or so of my mission, I have repeatedly been told that our testimonies should never stop growing. They shouldn't just stagnate and stay where they are, because we should be continually doing the things that bring us closer to Christ. Some of those are things we can schedule regularly, like praying, reading the scriptures, attending church, and going to the temple. Others happen more unexpectedly, like receiving and fulfilling different callings. But two things should be constant: we should always be relying on the Lord and we should always be following Him. Sometimes we don't do those things constantly, and that can still be okay, because when we realize what we're doing and turn to Him, it helps bring us closer to Him again. And other times, we may need to rely on Him a little more fully than when our lives are relatively calm. But our testimonies should always be growing.

My invitation to you is to evaluate the growth of your testimony over the past little while. You can choose how long of a time period. Then do a personal inventory and ask yourself if you are continuing to come closer to Jesus Christ: What spiritual truths has the Lord taught you lately? What Christlike Attributes has the Lord helped you to develop? What are some of the instances when you've seen the Lord's hand in your life recently? Do you feel the Spirit in your life regularly? Are you trusting in the Lord constantly? Are your top priorities focused on bringing you and your family closer to Jesus Christ? How often do you share your testimony, formally or informally? What can you do to become a better disciple of Jesus Christ over the course of the next period of time?

To start off with how I would answer a few of those questions, I want to reverse the phrasing of 1 Nephi 11:17: I do not know the meaning of all things, nevertheless, I know that God loves His children.

Heavenly Father's love for His children has been a truth that the Spirit has born witness of to me every single day of my mission. I know that it's true. I know that He knows every single person who lives on this earth, and that He loves them so much. I know that He loves you so much. It doesn't matter who you are, where you're from, what you look like, or what you've done; He still loves you. And because He loves you, He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to be your Savior, so that you, and all of His beloved children, can have the chance to come home.

As His missionary, I have felt His love for His children every single day, and doing so has helped me to develop more charity than I ever thought I could have. I still have a lot more charity to develop, but the love the Lord has for all of us is absolutely wondrous to me. It fills me with joy every time I think about it. I am so blessed to have been able to share the message of His love every day for the past 18 months. I finally understand how the Book of Mormon prophets could serve missions as long as 7 and 14 years, because the love of God gives us the strength to press forward and the desire to serve His children for all of our days. I want to shout the story of His love from the rooftops, so that all can hear, and so that all can know that there is a loving God who has a plan for them.

"O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people!

Yea, I would declare unto every soul... repentance and the plan of redemption, that they should repent and come unto our God, that there might not be more sorrow upon all the face of the earth." (Alma 29:1-2)

I know that because of Jesus Christ, there need not be any sorrow on the earth. Because of Him, we can be forgiven of our sins. Because of Him, we can live again, with our families and with God, forever in the Celestial Kingdom. Because of Him, we all can have the strength we need to get through the trails in life. Because of Him, we can have hope, and it's all possible because of His love for us. All that we have to do is come unto Him, and He is there to help us every step of the way, until the day when He can welcome us home, embracing us in the arms of His love.

Hoping that you can feel His love for you always,

I love you all!

Love,

Sister Jessica Garfield,

Always and forever a disciple of Jesus Christ