Testimony

The following is an excerpt from my journal.

I am so grateful for my Heavenly Father who is always near and loving while my earthly father(s) are far away. I know He hears my prayers and has a great plan for me. While I'm at it, I also want to bear my testimony that Heavenly Father knows us and loves us. I have seen His hand and His love in more ways this month. The weather has finally warmed up and it is BEAUTIFUL in this desert valley. Whenever I feel the warmth of the sun on my face, feel the cool breeze outside or through my window, wake up to the bright blue sky and blowing leaves outside my window, or see the white clouds drifting - I can't help but smile and feel Heavenly Father smile back. Hallelujah!, I want to shout! Thank you! I feel so blessed to be here - with such great comforts and conveniences that people of the past or the present in other conditions can't even dream of: my soft bed, my colorful wardrobe, the healthy foods I have to eat, the great sources of learning, my dear friends and family, being so close to church and many spiritual opportunities... the Lord has blessed me SO MUCH!

My study of the pioneers and ppl of the American West (Hist 360) right now has intensified my appreciation for the relative ease of my life. I will never take it for granted. The harsh natural conditions, the economic stresses, the religious persecution, the lack of educational or career opportunities, the awful diseases, the racial persecution, the bigoted violence, the need for basic life necessities like clean water or adequate clothing...so many in the past have suffered through unthinkable trials and tragedies, often with little hope or relief. Not to mention the millions of miserable Africans who were enslaved - their stories are unthinkably bleak and painful, even to read about (as I am in the book Tim gave me). Worse of all, I don't know how all of these people were able to endure so much without the gospel, or even without knowing there is a Heavenly Father who loves them and cries for them as well as the sins His children commit on each other. How devastating it must have been to go through living H*ll without knowing there's a Savior who died and suffered for them because He loved them so much and is waiting to surround them in His arms, and to know that all of their injustices will be justified, that God is a just judge, that their battered and mutilated bodies will be healed and made whole, that they will see all of their loved ones again, that there is forgiveness for the cruelest sinner. I am grateful I was not born into those circumstances, but my heart aches for them. It is a physical pain. I can't imagine how/why Heavenly Father can stand to watch them suffer - so many millions of His children at the hands of His other children. I can only have faith that everything will be made right at the last day, that God forgets none of His children.

After I told my friend about my conversion story - not as detailed or as heartfelt as I now wish I had told it, because I really want to use my conversion story to inspire others, as I feel God wants me to - I pondered about my pre-Mormon days. How I had learned to pray from Auntie Josephine who always made everyone pray before meals, and that was the catalyst for my own personal prayers to a God I didn't really know through my teen years, but who I knew was up there listening. I really don't know how or understand why I had such a surety that there was an ultimate God who knew me and would make my life better. But God was preparing me. Through seeing my high school friends go to church camps, have church friends, and church families...I yearned so badly to have a church family of my own, though I didn't see how that would ever be possible ... so I figured I might as well push away that hope of having a church family.

Then somewhere along the way in high school, I read the quote "God has a bigger plan for you than you do for yourself." That sunk deep into my heart and I KNEW it was true. I could feel my potential welling inside of me. I had no idea what direction my life would take but I was hopeful and excited for my future...