Letter Sept. 27, 2021

Dear Friends and Family,

Last week

I had my first exchanges this week! Our Sister Training Leaders are in a trio, so two went with Sis. Bealer to Fruita, and I stayed with Sister Ray in the young adult ward.

I learned a lot from the exchange that I'm still kind of processing. I have been studying the Christ like attribute of hope. While on exchanges, I found the scripture Jeremiah 17:7-8:

"7- Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.

8- For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit."

Basically, this reflects President Nelson's famous quote about the joy in our lives having little to do with the circumstances of our lives, and every thing to do with the center of our lives. Obviously that Center for our lives that brings joy is Jesus Christ.

My theory, or what I seem to be learning, is that the part of coming to Christ that makes life good despite the guaranteed hard is hope.

I gave a talk on hope in the Fruita 1st ward last week. The warm feedback I received from that talk was a particularly special experience for me. I talked a little about it in my last letter, but today I will send pictures of the sweet notes I got.

In my talk I explained what I have been learning about hope. It would seem to me that hope is the result of actionable faith. I have found that hope is like one of those camp flash lights that you have to crank in order to shine. Faith is the crank. You exercise faith and as you do so continually, the light of hope shines. Then eventually maybe you get so good at cranking, the light starts to be less flickery and more constant, and cranking becomes automatic instead of a constant conscious effort.

I related this to running through water. I explained that I had experienced depression in my first couple years of College. This experience was, to me, like the dirty river of water in Lehi's dream that symbolized the depths of misery or hell. Depression takes away anything that is a given: getting out of bed, brushing your teeth, feeding yourself, are no longer things you do without great effort. It becomes like running through water. But as you exercise faith, ask for help, and get better, it becomes easier, and eventually it becomes a given again. You get up and at first it feels as if you run through water. But the water becomes shallower and shallower until you break out onto the land again. 

So it is with our faith. Faith is a daily practice, small efforts like brushing your teeth daily. Only now it's reading your scriptures, saying your prayers, stretching yourself a little further to be a little more patient, a little more understanding, a little more forgiving, a little more loving. Whatever new exercise of faith you choose to pursue, it will be EXERCISE. It will be like running through water at first, but with persistence it can become a given to exercise that faith. It can even (I hope) become as natural as breathing. Then does hope become a steady light in our lives.

But for now, I hold on to flickers of hope. My practice of faith is far from perfect, and so my hope flickers on and off regularly. But because God is faithful, every time I exercise faith I receive assurances. And these light my hope. These assurances come in the form of small tender mercies, the peace the the Spirit speaks to my soul, and tiny slivers of success that mean everything to me. More on that later...