A Smile From Jesus

 Hi!! Today marks 3 months of being a missionary!!! Hardest 3 months of my life but thats ok i guess 👍

There's not much of an update for the week other than we had some lessons and some member meals and did some service and what not. It was probably a pretty normal week as far as mission weeks go so i guess thats good but idk. In all honesty its just exhausting everyday trying to fight off that dark cloud of depression and let me tell you, it is so freaking hard. All i wanna do is lay in bed and cry, but that would get me nowhere and i promised God that i would get up everyday and put my best foot forward. Now that's gonna look different from day to day and that is ok because President Nelson (or as i like to call him... P. Nelly) teaches us that God loves effort. So even if I feel discouraged, at least there is a promise from a prophet of God that my efforts are seen and loved. The fact that we have a prophet on the earth today is so cool and i hope everyone is hyped for General Conference in a couple weeks!! 

I would be lying if i said that i was feeling better, but despite that, i have come to really understand the peace that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ offer us. We teach a lot that one way to find that peace is through the Scriptures and let me tell ya, its so true. Every time I sit down for personally study in the morning I feel so comforted by what I am learning in the scriptures. The cool thing about the scriptures is that you can take 1 verse and it will mean something different to everyone. And you can read the same verse at different times in your life and get something different out of it depending on what you need. God knows our needs, sometimes better than we do. I have felt a little undeserving of comfort recently because of how hard I am on myself and I have been amazed by the comfort, validation, and understanding that is so personal, that i have found in the scriptures. At first i was like "i'm making this up... i'm looking for something to make me feel validated in how i'm feeling, but how i'm feeling is wrong... i should be given a harsh wake up call or something" blah blah blah. Then this week i had the wonderful realization that God and Jesus know that I am getting after myself enough as it is. They don't need to send me a wake up call. They want to comfort me and they give that comfort so freely. It was like a bell went off in my brain and i was like "duhhhhh they love me!!!" I need the comfort, understanding, and validation so that is what they give me. But it took me 3 months to realize that, so its a process and sometimes i still second guess stuff but all I can say is that they KNOW what we need and their arms of mercy are always outstretched toward us. 

Same thing goes for General Conference talks. I was listening to a talk by Elder Uchtdorf called "O How Great the Plan of Our God". This talk is about the plan of salvation and at the end he goes into judgment day and how it will be sorrowful and painful, but that we will be amazed by the love and mercy of God that all the guilt and pain will be washed away and replaced with gratitude. After reading this, I was again being very hard on myself because of how much i'm struggling and i was like "God must be so disappointed in me and at that day of judgment he's gonna be like you did x,y,z wrong" blah blah blah but the spirit cut in and the thought came to mind "if that is what you think, then you didn't understand his talk" and i was like woah!!!! But its true, God's mercy is amazing and incomprehensible. So much so, that we get to feel a piece of that grace now, in this life, through the atonement of Jesus Christ. I truly do stand all amazed by their love and one day all the pain will be washed away and it will be so insanely worth it. I just know it ✨️

Just know that I believe God is so good, even in the mist of our hardest trials. I love my savior more than life and I am grateful that he has the power to reach me even when I feel alone. I choose to believe that this experience is for me and that they are proud of me. 

In 3 nephi 19 Jesus prays for the Nephites and he asks Heavenly Father in his prayer to bless them and "all those who shall believe on their words" We're those people. That prayer that Jesus offered applies to us today just as it applied to the Nephites back then. Isn't that just so cool. Anyways my favorite part of this chapter is when Jesus comes back amongst the people after praying for them and sees that they are still praying themsleves, and it says "he did smile upon them". Its so simple but so profound because a smile can change someone's world. Especially a smile from Jesus!!! Jesus is proud of His people and that includes all of us. He smiles upon us as we turn to Him and let Him. Choose to believe that and let His atonement work in your life and you will come to know Him. And like I said earlier, its worth it. 

I feel like this email is all over the place and you all just got a nice little peak into my spiritual brain so i hope you enjoyed!! 

Have a good week for me and here are some more Books of Mormon that I've painted because it keeps me sane