The Fast-Forward Wish

I was sitting in my Pearl of Great Price class earlier this week; the lecture was on Joseph Smith's First Vision. As we talked about Joseph's experience, I felt a bit envious. Sometimes I just want to talk to God and to hear His voice clearly—not so that He can give me all the answers or tell me what I should do so I don't have to figure it out myself, but because sometimes I just want to know that I really am connecting with heaven. Sometimes I just want to know that what inspiration I feel I have received really is sent from God.

As the lecture went on, a random thought sidelined me. I opened a note on my computer and wrote a decent-sized paragraph as sentence after sentence came to my mind. It went something like this: "Remember how on the mission there were times I just wanted to fast-forward to being home and going to school and all that? And now how I wish I could go back and tell myself in those moments to cherish every second as a missionary, to give my all while I could because eventually that window of full-time missionary service would close? Life now is the same. Career, marriage, family, those will all come with time. Don't waste a second of your time now as a BYU student, as a YSA in wishing to fast-forward to the next phase of life. Don't be anxious about the future. Let it come when it is time. Be in the moment—that is the best formula for meaningfulness and joy."

As I finished jotting that down, one last thought was tacked on the end: "You wanted to know you were hearing God's voice, right? You're welcome."

Yeah. It was pretty clear.

I recognized that this "random" thought was a direct answer to a few questions I've been mulling over for weeks as well as a remedy to the mental space I've been occupying of late. I've felt restless and anxious to get on with things, to get out of where I'm at. I just want to be married and have a family of my own and a job I love—that would be so much better than the murky, drifting sensation that accompanies single, college life. Right? (Smirk away, those of you who are further along in life's experiences ;)) This mental state has been so bad, in fact, that for the first time in my life, I've wanted to get out of school and never come back—which, to anyone who knows me, is a shocking admission (I almost made it to graduation from college before that kicked in—that's gotta count for something, right?;)). In short, I've been wishing to fast-forward to the "good stuff" so as to not have to keep trekking through the "interim" I'm living now.

So I just sat and read and re-read that paragraph for a few minutes, a bit in awe that God had so clearly sent me the message I had needed for weeks but hadn't realized. Funny thing is, it was a message I was already familiar with—somehow I'd just lost sight of it.

Soon after I came home from my mission, the Lord taught me that His timing is perfect (you can read about that experience here). It was the encouragement that allowed me to be at peace with my mission ending when I had wanted so badly to just go on. It helped me to look to my future with excitement and gratitude, knowing that what lay ahead was the Lord's plan for me in order to hone and mold and empower me to become the woman and daughter of God He wants me to be and that I want to be too.

So sitting there in class and receiving this inspiration, I was reminded that part of that message when I first got home from my mission was to yes, look to the future, but above all to enjoy the present. It's so easy for me to fall into the trap of wishing I were some different from where I am—working in a career that fills my soul, married to a man I love wholeheartedly and with whom I'm working towards eternity, caring for my own children, giving more of my time in the Church (#seniormissionyet?), etc.

But wishing, longing to be somewhere, sometime else can be dangerous. Worrying about or wishing for the future drains the present of its vitality. Time passes. I have no say in that—none of us does. What we do have a say in is what we do with those minutes and hours and days. These past two years have been full of learning and growth, and topmost among the insights I have gained is that I am happiest when I live in the moment. Of course it is paramount to have a vision of where we are going, to set goals of where we want to be in months and years down the road. But once we have established that, what counts is buckling down to living in the moment and working to reach where we've set our sights.

Like I said, I too often and too easily get down about things not happening yet. But what I'm learning  is that falling into that slump a) is a choice, and b) has a cost. I can hole up in my room and stress out over not knowing exactly what I'm going to be doing after graduation, or I can spend that same time reading books I'm interested in or researching internships or jobs that might give me leads. I can bang my head against the wall telling myself I'll never be good enough publish anything I've written, or I can jot down that line of poetry that's been bouncing around in my head or actually submit what I've already written. I can eat a Ben and Jerry's pint of sorrows over not having a date Friday night, or I can pile into the car with my roommates for a Frosty run while singing at the top of our lungs (windows rolled down, of course, so everyone can enjoy our prodigious talent;)).

Here's just a sneak peek of those moments I've chosen to live in over the past months:

Plaid cooking roommate photo shoot (which admittedly was a parody of a photoshoot some friends in our ward did—shoutout to them;))

 Spontaneous hammocking (which inevitably leads to good conversation)

 Dropping into a cafe in Provo where they had an open mic night for poetry reading; I ended up reading two pieces of my own!

Signing up for the ward talent show—I can't even remember the last time I did that; I read a poem and a short essay I had written.

Post- random photoshoot after church on a lovely fall Sunday:)

(Huge thanks to my roommates and best friends; these beautiful women have been my angels over the past semester. I couldn't have asked for any greater blessing!)

It's all a choice, right? That's not to say that there won't be moments when I feel discouraged and disappointed. There have been a lot of those moments this semester. But they've allowed me to see that as I act in faith, as I choose to make something beautiful of my life, no matter its twists and dips, those negative emotions can become points of contrast with moments of encompassing joy and gratitude. They increase my appreciation for the good things in life, and they allow me to choose and to learn to be happy, no matter my circumstances.

I guess what I'm trying to say with all this is that I have an absolute conviction that God's timing is perfect. I may have completely righteous desires, like marriage and family or work that serves and uplifts God's children around me, but the process of arriving at those things is a fundamental part of Heavenly Father's shaping my life. This moment I'm living in right now is just as valuable as that moment years down the road when I have a family of my own. And if I don't choose to be here now and love being here, I know future me will look back and wish that I had just lived and let life come as it would.

It can be hard to do when disappointments and heartache come and you just want to stop hurting and instead be happy. But I've learned much more about God's grace in my pain than any other time. And for that, I am grateful that His timing hasn't been mine.

Don't let your life get away from you by wishing it would fast-forward. Have your vision and align your actions with that vision, and then let life bring its adventures in all their wonder and hardship. What you're hoping for will be all the more beautiful for the wait and the fight you've undertaken on its behalf.

Anika

P.S. (An important part of being in the present for me is learning from others, so if you have thoughts on how you've made life meaningful or how you've learned to live in the moment, feel free to comment or message me. I'd love to hear your insight!)

God's Presence

Thanks to the replica of the Old Testament tabernacle currently on display at BYU, a small interfaith conference was held a few weeks ago in which representatives from six different religions came together to talk about what the tabernacle meant to them. Across the board, the tabernacle for these people of faith was literally and/or symbolically a point of access to God's presence.

I was particularly touched by the words of the Catholic father who said that the tabernacle was a symbol of God's desire to be with us. He then asked, "What do you do to be with God?" It's not enough, he continued, to show up in church or to be physically present in our personal worship, whatever form that might take. Being with God comes from the heart; it requires the whole soul. We have to reach out and ask God to help us see Him in our lives. "Seek ye diligently and ye shall find," right?

As I thought about what it means to be with God, I realized that it's been all too easy for me to slip into the rote, checklist mentality of worship. Morning prayer, check, scripture study, check, show up to church, sit through ward council, check, check, visit teach, go to the temple, index for a few minutes, check, check, check. But is it enough? It reminds me of Brother Ridd's devotional back in 2015 when he told his story about "reading for stars." He shared that his seminary teacher challenged the class to read The Book of Mormon; they kept track of each person's progress by placing stars on a chart for each book completed. Brother Ridd recalled that he kept pace and finished the challenge, but then he said, "[Do] you know what I [got] by reading the Book of Mormon? I know you are thinking 'a testimony,' aren’t you? But I didn’t. I got stars. I got stars because that was why I was reading. That was my real intent."

Sometimes, I feel like I'm just getting checkmarks. Does this ever happen to you? I've talked to many of my friends who have been home from their missions for a while, and it seems like most of us have experienced this sensation in our spiritual lives at one point or another. We're doing what our mission presidents challenged us to do (pray, study the scriptures daily, attend the temple, etc.), but sometimes it doesn't seem to reach our hearts. All we get out is checkmarks.

Let's be real—checkmarks have little satisfaction to them when it comes to spiritual things. Especially when we've tasted of the fruit, so to speak and know that there's more to be had. It can be incredibly frustrating to feel like you aren't "getting it," like your spiritual investment isn't paying off.

So this idea of being with God—being there in more than a rote way—particularly struck me. It's a question I've wrestled with ever since I've been home from my mission but have never put in quite those terms. So after this interfaith conference, I prayed about it daily, asking God to help me feel His presence in my life, to better understand how I could be with Him and be spiritually engaged in my worship.

I don't have the complete-package answer; I'll just put that out there up front. But I had an experience last week that was at least one answer to those prayers. So I hope sharing it with you will spark something and help the Spirit teach you what you can do to get out of the checkmark rut if you feel like that's where you are at.

Last week, I went to the temple. Since I've been home from my mission, I've made it a priority to make it to the temple regularly, but I had been feeling lately like I was doing the showing up part but not learning anything or getting anything profound out of it. So I prayed constantly in the days, even minutes, leading up to attending the temple. I wasn't looking for any earth-shattering revelation or for a vision of the rest of my life. If nothing else, I just wanted to feel God's presence, in whatever measure.

After the session, I was sitting in the celestial room. It was one of those perfectly peaceful moments. The stresses of school and work had fallen away. The clutter that builds up from week to week from just living in the world—the images, the news, the words, the messages in whatever form that weigh me down—had all been swept out. Sitting in the celestial room for me is like my mind and spirit becoming a perfectly calm, silver lake. The water is still and undisturbed; it is reflective of the celestial sky above. There is a sense of power and purpose and enlarged capacity; everything is put into proper perspective.

So there I was, with my mental lake, and the thought came to me, "I wish I never had to leave." And then it struck me that I was feeling what it means to be in God's presence. It's the stillness, the assurance, the empowerment of the temple and the feeling of never wanting to leave (a feeling I often experience in the temple, whether or not I feel like I've learned anything profound). He's been there every time, and I've felt His presence, but that morning, He helped me to better recognize it—because I asked, because I earnestly sought Him.

When I came home from the temple, I was still pondering how I could be with God and keep that sweet spirit of the celestial room with me beyond the temple walls. So I knelt by my bed with my scriptures and I sang a hymn aloud (my roommates were all gone thankfully;)). I couldn't tell you why, but singing hymns, especially ones I feel personally connected to, always brings the Spirit in a powerful way. It was especially true in that moment. I felt in a way words can't grasp that I was inviting God's presence into my life. He knew I was there, kneeling, singing, wanting desperately to feel. And He answered. He seemed to fill the whole room with His love and His awareness.

I can only speak for myself. I recognize that you or others you know may not experience what I do in the same way when it comes to spiritual matters. But in my life, I have found that God has never left me alone. President Nelson talks about seeking heaven with the kind of desperation a drowning man feels to get air. Whenever I have wanted God that badly, I've never been turned away. I know I've experienced that desperation in lesser and greater degrees as my circumstances have changed with time, but that wholehearted desire is the common denominator, if you will. As I have sought God with my whole heart, He has been there, ready, waiting, to answer my prayers.

Hmm the more I write, the more I realize how difficult it is to capture the vibrancy of spiritual experiences. #fallenworld #fallenwords. But I hope that you'll take a moment today to think about what you're doing to be with God. How are you reaching out to Him with your whole heart? And how has He been answering you?

I know that combining desire with righteous actions invites the windows of heaven to open and God's love to pour down into our lives. He lives. He loves us. And He wants to be with us.

We just have to want to be with Him too.

Anika

Because of the Book of Mormon

The topic of discussion in Sunday School and Relief Society this past week was the Book of Mormon. During our lesson in Relief Society, the teacher wrote up several truths that President Hinckley identifies as being taught in the Book of Mormon. We then had a discussion focused on how these truths change our perspective. How are our lives different because we know these truths? Of the several listed, one in particular jumped out at me:

Jesus Christ is our Redeemer.

As a missionary in Italy, the majority of people I met had faith of some sort. Whether they weekly attended church functions or preferred personal worship over organized religion, most everyone I talked to claimed to believe in God. But then I realized, that although almost 100% of the people I talked to every day said they were Christian, I hardly ever heard them talk about Jesus Christ. They would talk about God and Mary and Peter and other saints or prophets or religious figures, but rarely was their faith focused on Jesus Christ.

The title page of the Book of Mormon reads that the purpose of the book is to "[convince]...the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God..." I have learned countless lessons from the Book of Mormon, but if I were to pin down the most vital, the most prominent theme of the Book of Mormon, it would be its purpose as stated: it has convinced me that Jesus is the Christ. And that knowledge changes everything for me.

Because of the Book of Mormon, I know that Jesus Christ is the source to look to for a remission of my sins. I have never been unsure about where to turn to or who could help me escape the pits and chains of sin. I have never had to wonder if there was any way to be freed from the darkness that follows disobedience. The Book of Mormon has always testified to me that Jesus Christ is my Redeemer, that He could and would rescue me if I turned to Him.

Because of the Book of Mormon, I also know that He is the only way by which salvation comes. No matter how many righteous acts I perform throughout my life, they cannot save me. There is no other person, practice, or object that mediates between me and God. Jesus Christ alone is my Advocate, interceding on my behalf before the Father.

Because of the Book of Mormon, I know that I can receive forgiveness for my sins; when I have felt God's forgiveness, I have known that it is real! That forgiveness is unequivocal, almost tangible. It is the sensation of a deep wound being totally healed, without scar, without vestigial pain. The resulting relief, hope, joy come through faith in Christ who makes me whole.

Because of the Book of Mormon, I know that Jesus is the Christ, the Light and the Life of the world—not just in a blanket-statement way, but personally. It was in the blue of the sky and the warmth of the sun as I walked to church on Sunday. It was on top of the mountains as I stood beside my good friends and looked in awe at the peaks and valleys surrounding us. It was in hugging my family when I got off the plane at the end of my mission. It was in my father's hands on my head as he gave me a blessing that promised great things in my future. Again and again, Jesus Christ has blessed me with life and has filled me with light, the promise of good things to come, the hope of joy in following His path, the assurance that endings are never permanent, but that their sorrow is swallowed up in His love.

Because of the Book of Mormon, I know that the marks in His hands and feet are a crowning symbol of His sacrifice for each of us so that we could be resurrected and brought again into the presence of our eternal Father, to go no more out. Those marks are a promise that He has never forgotten me. My trials have never gone unnoticed; His compassion has never been checked in my regard. In all things, He has walked beside me, going with me where no one else could.

Because of the Book of Mormon, "I know in whom I have trusted." He has become an indelible force in my life, an unmistakable presence in both the sunshine and the rain that fall on my path. I see His hands shaping my way, molding me—if I allow Him—to become all He wants me to be as a daughter of God.

The Book of Mormon has confirmed over and over that Jesus Christ is my Redeemer. And that has changed everything for me. I am not burdened by past sins and mistakes. I am full of hope and excitement for the future. I am not afraid of the fiery darts of the adversary. I have learned on Whom to build my firm foundation. I have found enduring peace in my faith in Christ.

The Book of Mormon has brought me to an empowering knowledge of my Redeemer. What has it done for you?

Anika

Believing in the Future

It was the first Sunday in January 2016. I sat down in my home ward Sunday School class, and the teacher announced that we would be watching Elder Holland's devotional address, "Remember Lot's Wife." Since he figured most of us were in the goal-setting mindset, our instructor said he hoped this particular talk would help us as we considered our personal plans and hopes for the coming hear. As a newly returned missionary, I was all about keeping up my goal-setting streak, and I was ready to receive whatever goal-achieving wisdom Elder Holland was going to dispense.

But I ended up hearing a much different message, one I hadn't realized I desperately needed to hear.

"The past is to be learned from but not lived in. We look back to claim the embers from glowing experiences but not the ashes. And when we have learned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that we have experienced, then we look ahead, we remember that faith is always pointed toward the future."

I had only been home from my mission for two weeks, and every day, I had wished to go back. In my last area, I had gotten to a place where I felt confident and strong, where I had overcome so many of the reservations and struggles that I had fought with as a younger missionary. I felt on fire. I wanted to give and go on giving. And that's when my mission ended. I had finally felt able to give God something worthwhile, something tangible, but time beat me to it. So I looked over my shoulder, back towards Italy and its people, my companion and our members, and just wished to be there again. Part of me wished to make up all the times I had fallen short and to give God the best of everything after all I had learned. Another part wished to embrace once more the courage I had found to share the Gospel with everyone on those cobblestone streets, to pray my heart out for our investigators, to hold out a copy of the Book of Mormon with my own promise of its impact. I wished to be engaged forever in serving God, and what seemed the best way to do that was nearly six thousand miles away and sealed in the past. 

But as I sat in that Sunday School class, listening to Elder Holland, a sense of peace sprang up inside. My past was to be learned from but not lived in. God's timing, though I didn't understand it, was what it was supposed to be. I was looking over my shoulder and longing to go back to where I had been, but God was asking me to instead look ahead and trust that what was to come could be as good as, if not better than, what lay behind. 

It clicked. My whole life, I had been looking forward to serving a mission. Based on stories I had heard from others, I had thought of the mission as the ultimate, the moment, the maximum experience. And after it was over, I didn't know how to construct any meaningful framework around my life. I mean, the mission was everything, right? I could never be as happy or find the same sense of purpose in anything else. Yeah, marriage and family are important, but everyone just talked about the mission, how they'd go back in a heartbeat, how it was the best two years, how they've never been so happy...

But with Elder Holland's words, a new door opened. God's path for me lay in the future and not the past. Serving a mission was wonderful and it was right, but now it was time to move on to new and better phases. God hadn't intended for the mission to last forever, otherwise it would have. So I had a choice: I could live the rest of my life looking over my shoulder at my mission, at its ups and downs, its highlights and its trials, and become fixated on them, or I could count my many blessings, gather up the lessons I had learned, and stride into my future—a place God promised could be better than what I was leaving behind. 

I chose that day to have that faith-focused mindset. I chose to believe that what lay ahead was better than what I was leaving behind. As it turns out, the last year and a half have been the best of my life. Not because I've left the past behind entirely, but rather because I have tried to gather its embers in order to light my future. 

Thanks to my mission, I've been more outgoing, more willing to reach out and talk to other people than I have ever been before. As I have, I have developed friendships and relationships—including with many of you reading this now:)—and each has blessed me immensely. I love being around people, listening to their experiences and their perspectives and simply enjoying the goodness that they radiate. 

Thanks to my mission, I have worked harder in all of my endeavors. Work, school, volunteering, callings in my ward—I have been more engaged in all of them. I recognize that while results often do not come immediately, persistence pays off, if only in personal satisfaction at a job well done. I have learned to not be disappointed when my expectations don't play out exactly as I imagined. Rather, I have come to appreciate that life often has a mind of its own:) 

Thanks to my mission, I live sincerely. I focus on being in the moment; I don't want to come out of a meeting or a class or a conversation with another person and realize that I wasn't really there at all. I am more engaged because I know the value of experience that is grounded in wholehearted living.

Most of all, thanks to my mission, I have an infinitely closer relationship with my Heavenly Father and my Savior. They are a daily, active part of my life. Decisions I make, goals I set, opportunities I pursue are fundamentally tied to my ultimate objective of becoming like Them. Their direction and help have been a daily constant for me. My mission gave me a spiritual foundation that has allowed me to continue growing and building towards an ever brighter future.

When it comes down to it, "remembering Lot's wife" has helped me to focus on the future and believe that the best is always on the path ahead of me. The past is a fundamental building block, but it is not the sum of my existence. Wonderful as it may have been, God has more in store.

So believe in the path ahead! Trust the Lord to lead you to greater heights and more beautiful vistas. He is, after all, the God of "good things to come."

Anika 

Losing My Life

The Savior taught His apostles an eternal truth when He said, "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it" (Matthew 16:25).

For months after coming home from my mission, my mind and heart were full of regret and pain, especially as I thought of my future. At times, I heard people say that an individual's mission was a microcosm for the rest of his or her life, a predictor as to how faithfully they would walk the covenant path. That planted a seed in my mind that because I had not been my definition of the "perfect missionary," I could not be the faithful, contributing member of the Church that I had always envisioned being. I had had my chance, and I had blown it. I felt like I could only ever be a second-rate citizen in God's kingdom, no matter how hard I tried. 

Writing that makes me flinch. It's embarrassing to admit that that was how I felt, when all my life I had been taught and, as a missionary, taught others, that the Atonement of Jesus Christ washes away our sins and heals our hearts, giving us a new page every day on which to write the stories of our lives. But the adversary had me. He had convinced me that the bright future I had hoped for as a disciple of Jesus Christ could never be. I feebly told myself his lies weren't true, that God still had a plan for me, but I couldn't feel it in my heart. And that lack of reassurance scared me and further compounded the conclusion I had reached that my future would always be shadowed by my past.

Then a call came to serve in my ward. It filled my time outside of school and work with visits and calls and planning and collaborating. I was getting to know lots of people in my ward—their hopes, their dreams, their disappointments, their struggles. I was praying and fasting for their needs and pleading with the Lord to guide and comfort and heal where and what I could not (so, basically everything!). Haha I remember feeling frustrated that I had to go to school and work because all I wanted to do was serve. It filled me with a motivating sense of purpose and fire. 

And then one day, a few months later, I realized something amazing.

My mission didn't hurt me anymore.

Somewhere amidst the Tupperwared meals, the texts, the between-class conversations on campus, the evening talks on the swing seat, my pain had melted away. I was no longer plagued by the corrosive thoughts that had circuited endlessly through my brain in those months after coming home. I realized that for the first time in nearly a year, there were no nagging doubts, no clouding sense of permanent loss undergirding everything else. My mind and my heart were quiet, finally at peace.

Yet they were also filled with renewed enthusiasm. When I thought of my future, I saw endless opportunities to do and to be good. My calling was teaching me that reality. There were needs all around, and God trusted me to help fulfill them now and wherever they arose in the future. My calling even helped me to see that I was better able to serve because of the mistakes I had made as a missionary. I was more compassionate and able to reach out in ways I wouldn't have had it not been for my mission experience. I was given the opportunity to learn from those "failures" and to give the Lord and His work my heart in a new, complete way.

In that moment of realizing the memories of my mission did not hurt me anymore and that my future was as bright as I could hope for, my mind immediately went to the scripture in Matthew:

The Spirit confirmed to me in that moment that the peace that had, unbeknownst to me, filled my heart was directly correlated to my attempts to live this eternal truth. 

I guess I thought that the mission was the ultimate pass or fail test of losing my life. But since this experience with serving in my ward, I have realized again and again that the call to lose my life was not limited to the mission field. It is the call of a lifetime because it is the call given to disciples of Jesus Christ. Wherever I go, God gives me opportunities to forget myself in serving others, in even the most minute ways. I guess He had to make an official calling of it to get my attention, but He has it now, and I've tried to be a good student:) And the lessons have changed me forever. Life post-mission can be every bit as meaningful and wonderful as life during full-time service! God's children will always have need of helping, loving hands, and we all can be those hands, whether or not we wear a badge.

All this is to say that as I have tried to lose my life in the work of God—wherever and whenever He calls—

I have found a life worth living. 

Anika

No Effort Is Wasted

One of the toughest challenges post-mission was the question that circuited through my head over and over: what good did I do?

I felt like I had worked, and worked hard. I had done things I had never done before and never could have for any other reason. It was a struggle for me to talk to people all day, every day, and while I wasn't perfect at it, I did so much more than I ever thought possible. But I felt like I didn't see anything come of it. I wanted to see the light in people's eyes as I told them about the Book of Mormon and its teachings of Jesus Christ. I wanted to see them come to church and to hear them say that it was what they had been looking for their whole lives. I wanted to see them make changes in their lives and be baptized and continue on the covenant path so that they could more fully follow in the footsteps of the Savior.

So when I didn't see what I wanted and expected to see, I was discouraged. Why had I been there when little seemed to change or improve despite my sweat and tears and incessant prayers?

I've realized since that those questions are not limited to the mission field. I've run into them as a visiting teacher, as a tutor, as a friend. They circulate through families as parents struggle to teach and support children, as siblings ache for each other's choices, as spouses reach the end of their rope, unsure of what more they can give to love and to hope.

I'm sure you can think of your own experiences when you felt like nothing you were doing made a difference. Few things are more frustrating than feeling like your efforts have been wasted. I believe that is because inside each of us is an inherent goodness that wants to reach out and uplift and improve the lives of others. What, then, when even our very best efforts don't seem to make a scratch?

For me, it came back to Alma 32:21. I had to hope for things that I could not see. I had to hold onto the hope that my efforts had not been wasted. I had to believe that the good I had done was impactful even if it did not manifest itself in tangible ways.

I began to notice promises in the scriptures that supported this kind of hope. Doctrine and Covenants 6, for instance, is full of the Lord's declarations that every worthy endeavor can have its challenges, but for those who persevere, there are celestial blessings to be had. One poignant blessing is laid out in v. 33:

"Fear not to do good, my sons, for whatsoever ye sow, that shall ye also reap; therefore, if ye sow good ye shall also reap good for your reward."

I cannot tell you how many times this scripture has brought me comfort. In those moments when I have felt discouraged and overwhelmed by a seeming lack of progress, I remember that what matters is that I "do good." That is all the Lord asks of me. My call is to generate goodness, kindness, love, mercy, forgiveness, charity. The exact impact and resulting consequences of those, I don't factor into. But He has promised me that it won't be in vain. If I sow good for Him, I will also reap good for my reward. What form that takes, I trust Him to shape. He knows what is best for me, and when the time is right, the harvest comes in the most meaningful ways. I don't always—haha or ever—see the big picture, but I trust that He does:

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.

"For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."

These verses from Isaiah 55 are some of my favorite. They help me to put my trust in a Heavenly Father who has a plan and a purpose, even and perhaps especially where I find blank spaces and question marks. These verses also introduce one of the loveliest images in all of scripture, one that reassures me once again that good done in God's name can never fall short of His eternal purposes:

"For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:

"So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

"For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

"Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off."

God sent me on a mission to Italy. He sends me to be a visiting teacher and a friend. He sends us to be sisters, brothers, parents, mentors, missionaries, Good Samaritans, and I wholeheartedly believe that "[we] shall not return unto [Him] void."

If you can get your hands (or your eyes, I suppose, via the Internet ;)) on the Oxford English Dictionary, look up the word void. Here are a few of its definitions:

-empty or destitute of good qualities; worthless
-ineffective, useless, leading to no result
-powerless, unable
-lacking, wanting

The Lord promises us that His word—and I believe that when we go in His name to serve, to love, to do good, we constitute part of that word—will not return unto Him void. Our efforts will not be worthless, useless, powerless, or lacking.

Rather, God will make out of our efforts a garden, full of life and beauty. What He sends, prospers. That prosperity often comes in unexpected ways, but it comes. He is the Master Gardner who sees and knows our lives from beginning to end, and in His infinite wisdom and love, is designing it to be the perfect garden for each of us.

So. Don't be afraid to do good. Don't let discouragement choke out your desire to do good, even if you don't see the results you want or expect. Believe that God is making a beautiful garden out of your life as you go about doing good in His name. Your efforts are not in vain, nor are they void. You are a valued child of almighty God who is working through you to bless His children.

Thank you for doing and for being good—no matter what.

Anika

After Coming Home: Finding My Faith in Jesus Christ

I came home from my mission, and I felt like a failure.

At first, it wasn’t so bad. I was distracted by missing the mission and then by being home with family and catching up with friends, getting ready for school and moving into a new apartment and ward. But once I settled into a steady rhythm, the thoughts bubbled up:

I could have done more.
What I did wasn’t good enough.
I didn’t make a difference.
I wasn’t the missionary I wanted to be for my family.
I wasn’t the missionary I wanted to be for God.

I was overwhelmed by the feelings of regret and failure. When I started my mission, I had wanted nothing more than to be a successful missionary. My older brother, Austin, had served his mission in Madrid, Spain, and every week, I would read his miracle-filled emails and wanted to be just like him. When I got my mission call to Rome, Italy, I was excited to make a difference. I envisioned unprecedented baptisms and reactivation and inspiration to missionaries and members alike. I wanted to be the sister-missionary reincarnation of Ammon and Alma the Younger. I believed that God would use me to perform mighty miracles.

A year and a half later, I was home, and my mission was nothing like I had expected. I saw no baptisms of anyone I taught. I rarely even had progressing investigators. Too many times to count, what began as great prospects ended in vacant houses and unanswered phone calls. I saw miracles in the lives and work of other missionaries, so I still believed God was a God of miracles—I just couldn’t figure out why He never gave one to me. All I could understand was that I hadn’t been good enough. All I could fathom was that I had not measured up, that I had not given what it took to qualify for wonders from heaven.

I felt unbearably heartbroken. How could I have served a whole mission and only have these corrosive feelings as my memento? I knew that I had learned more. I believed that there must have been a purpose and that even where I had made mistakes and failed, that Jesus Christ could transform those weaknesses into strengths.

Though I wrestled with these heart-wrenching questions, I never doubted that God loved me. I knew that He heard my prayers and understood exactly how I felt. What was more, as I took Sister Dew's challenge to engage in the wrestle, I knew that my Heavenly Father saw the whole picture and could help me to see more too.

As I began to ask, seek, and knock, a scripture I had read and heard a thousand times penetrated my heart and mind in a way it never had before. In Alma 32:21, the prophet Alma taught me that having faith at this moment in my life meant to "hope for things which [I could not see], which [were] true." Hope that I had not failed. Hope that some good had come of my efforts. Hope that I could still be a valuable and contributing disciple of Jesus Christ. Hope that my imperfections and mistakes could be washed away and that I could be made whole.

How? How could I develop that kind of faith that would bring that kind of hope and subsequently peace? Alma said that I needed to plant the word in my heart and then nurture it like a seed. While one clear interpretation of that direction was to immerse myself in the scriptures and the words of God's prophets, another interpretation seemed just as essential. The Gospel of John talks about the Word, not just in the sense of prophetic revelation recorded in scripture, but as another name for Jesus Christ Himself.

So Alma's invitation became an invitation to plant Christ in my heart, to nurture my relationship with and understanding of Him. As I continued to study Alma 32 and implemented his counsel on nurturing the Word in my heart (all pieces that I'll be writing about here soon :)), I was filled with exactly the hope that Alma promised came as an underlying principle of faith. Its central source was in my study of the Book of Mormon that led me to promises of the redemptive and healing power of Christ: 2 Nephi 2:6-8; 2 Nephi 25:23, 26-27; 2 Nephi 26:24, 33; Enos 1:5-8; Mosiah 3:17; Mosiah 4:2-3; Mosiah 16:8-9; Alma 7:11-13; Alma 36:17-20; and so many more!

As I read these promises and truths, praying for healing of my own, my hope grew more and more sure that these promises were for me too. They weren't just for the people I had taught on my mission who had never heard them or just for those who had served "better" missions than I had. These promises were for Anika Argyle, recently returned missionary, struggling to find herself.

Jesus Christ took upon Himself my debts, my failures, my weaknesses and faults. He walked every step of my mission with me, the good and the bad, the joy and the sorrow, and now He asked me to let Him take the pain and the sadness and the hurt. He had shouldered it all to begin with—I didn't have to anymore. He had better things in store for me.

Have you ever been backpacking? With one of those backpacks that weighs half as much as you do? No matter how well-strapped, there is nothing like the relief of taking it off and dropping it to the ground. The lightness of letting that burden go is a freeing experience. Multiply that infinitely and then translate it spiritually, and that's where I was. After months of carrying around a suffocating sense of guilt and failure that not only trapped me in the past but weighed darkly on my future, I was finally ready to hear what Christ had been saying: "Let me take care of that."

So I let it go. And He did. He already had.

Then He sat with me, walked with me, and showed me that He had a future for me. A future full of light and joy. No, not necessarily easy or painless, but He promised to be there through it all. He promised that He'd help me unload anytime and every time I strapped on that backpack again. He would never leave me "comfortless."

Jesus Christ has become everything to me. He has given me hope and vision and the promise of a fulfilling future as I draw near to Him. He forgives, He heals, He lifts, and He builds us up beyond anything we could even aspire to on our own.

"God be thanked for the matchless gift of His divine Son."

Anika

Engage in the Wrestle

A little over a year ago, I was shuttling down the winding roads through the green peaks of La Masca, Tenerife; walking through the forest of blue and green and scarlet sunlight on the floor of La Sagrada Familia; looking over the red-tiled housetops that stretched out like a fan, the collective roof of Florence; skimming the surface of Lake Como, the ferry's bow slicing through the waves and misting our sun-beaten faces with spray.

La Masca, Tenerife

Interior of La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona

At the bottom of the duomo's bell tower; Florence

View from the bell tower 

Ferrying it in style across Lake Como

View across Lake Como

Mom, Austin (my older brother), and I were on a tri-mission tour, visiting Spain and Italy. Austin served in the Spain Madrid Mission while my mom and I both served in Italy (she took Milan while I headed south to Rome). While I was ecstatic to get back to Italy, a knot of anxiety twisted inside of me.

I was facing a crisis. I had been home for six months, and while on the surface everything was going well, there was a deep, undergirding pain to all of it. My mission was not what I expected and, in my mind, not what it was supposed to be (more on that next time). I was afraid and embarrassed that Mom and Austin would see me for my failures and everything I wasn't. I didn't think I could hold up under the scrutiny.

I wish I could remember how I stumbled across it, but however it happened, within the first few days of our trip, I ran into Sister Sheri Dew's address entitled "Engage in the Wrestle." It was heaven-sent (and totally worth checking out right now or bookmarking for the very near future). The focal point of her talk was that in order to grow spiritually and to receive revelation, we have to ask inspired questions and subsequently be willing to put in the effort to find the answers. Here are a few gems from her talk:

"When we have unresolved questions, our challenge doesn't lie in what we think we know. It lies in what we don't yet know. "

"The Lord wants us to ask every probing question we can muster because not asking questions can be far more dangerous than asking them."

"Questions are not just good, they are vital, because the ensuing spiritual wrestle leads to answers, to knowledge, and to revelation. And it also leads to greater faith."   

Well, for the first time in my life, I had real questions, the answers to which I desperately needed. Questions that I was totally, completely, 100% invested in. Why did my mission happen the way it did? Why had God sent me to Italy? Why had I not seen the miracles I had expected to? How could I possibly turn my mission into a motivating force for my future instead of a deadweight tying me to the past?

Thanks to Sister Dew, I began to ask, seek and knock. It was not an easy process, but the answers I began to find as I asked these questions have changed my entire perspective and, in all honesty, saved me. I am no longer drowning in discouragement, doubt, and regret. I have been filled with light and hope by the Prince of Peace.

I don't feel like we talk enough about the challenges of coming home from a mission. For the first few weeks, neighbors, ward members, friends will ask, "How was it??" You give the expected "Amazing," "Indescribable," etc., but it feels a bit rote. Then the expectation clamps down that you adjust back to "normal" life fairly seamlessly and plow forward without a second thought.

It wasn't seamless for me, even though I tried to make it so. But my regrets, my doubts, my disappointments ate at me, and there was no one to give me the answers and the relief I was looking for. So I put on the facade, telling people my mission was wonderful (which, don't get me wrong, it was—but wonderful often comes across as "perfect," and my mission had definitely not been perfect). I shoved the negative emotions and thoughts even deeper inside, desperate to escape from them, afraid of what truths they might expose. It wasn't until I realized they were suffocating me and the future ahead of me that I decided to engage in the wrestle.

I took Sister Dew's challenge to ask the questions, to look for their answers in the scriptures and through personal revelation and communion with God. My purpose behind this blog is to explain how I went through that process and what answers I have found that have helped me be at peace with my mission and what's more, forge into a future full of light and potential. This is my journey. I know it isn't everyone's; my personal opinions and convictions are just that—personal. But I have felt like my experiences in coming home from my mission and coming to terms with it are worth sharing, if not for others who experience similar feelings, then simply for me to articulate and understand myself better. I hope that my words can be a positive, uplifting force.

For today, that means that I hope you will feel inspired to engage in the wrestle, as Sister Dew puts it. We all have "real" questions, the questions we are truly invested in and want answers to. The questions that in fact, we may be too afraid to face because of how much they mean to us. But if you are willing to wrestle with them, I can promise that the beginnings of answers come. Their entirety, I believe, is the pursuit of a lifetime, but even their beginnings bring peace and assurance.

Engage in the wrestle! I have never grown so much as when I have dared to ask my most difficult questions. The windows of heaven that had seemed distant and closed opened in remarkable ways as I was honest with myself and God and worked with Him to find peace and resolution. He has the answers, and He wants you to have them:

"Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you; seek me diligently and ye shall find me; ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you" (Doctrine and Covenants 88:63).

Anika