Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Final days in the MTC

As I leave the Missionary Training Center, this is all I have to say: I'm thrilled to go and do!


 

WITHIN WAY LESS THAN 100HRS, I'LL BE IN FIJI!

Au vinakata mo cakava oqo, me rawa kina mo ciqoma na veivakaoulogatataki ni kosipeli, ka ciqoma kina na levu ni nona lomani iko na Truaga, ka ciqoma kina na isau ni nomu taro. Au lomani keimami!!! Kece keimami cakava me'u, e veivakaoulogatataki au, sara vakalevu!  Iko luve ni Kalou! Kila dina vuku na Yalo Tabu.  E daumarau, kece na gauna!!!! Kerekere!!


The MTC has taught me SUCH indispensably KEY things!


  • Humility.  I have been begging and pleading for this on a full and pleasing level before Him, every day.  And the Lord has so perfectly and fully answered this constant, earnest and sincere pleading of my heart and soul.  He is so wise!!!!!  My love for Him is expanding without measure, with each minute I'm here serving Him!  Truly the way to know Him, is to do His will and work and joy WITH HIM.  I absolutely know He put me in the perfect companionship, the exact district I needed, and He gave me just the Branch Presidency I needed, and He's given me all the experiences I needed to be prepared to go forth to His beyond-beloved Children in Fiji.  Oh the lengths He goes to to directly address, bring about, and acknowledge the prayers of us, His children~! I KNOW WITH PERFECT KNOWLEDGE that He hears us! I know He hears every word.  I know it!  And He commands me to boldly and unquestionably testify of it.  What more valuable knowledge could one have with complete surety?



  • Using Agency To ALWAYS Choose Joy (at every minute throughout the day) You have agency!!!! You are free to choose and act for yourself!  If you can always choose joy, then why would you ever choose anything other than it?  We are free to choose to look to the Light and focus on it, or the shadows.  IT'S SO OBVIOUS!  Choose always in every second all the way, to only and fully look to the light!  If you do this, the shadows will fall behind you every time!

You are a Child of God with great strength!  You have the ability to choose righteousness and happiness, no matter what your circumstances.

  • Look Up & Reach Out, Be Grateful for Everything (especially be grateful for your trials... if you do this, you win! They are no longer trials, and the Lord is able to help you fully and unrestrained once you're trusting Him enough to THANK Him for the trial) -the formula to always being ridiculously happy; regardless of circumstances!


  • Rely on the Spirit LITERALLY ALL THE WAY! I have truly learned I am--and can do--nothing without it. I'm not the one who will bring souls unto Christ, His forgiveness, healing and exaltation and eternal life.  The Spirit is the one who does that. I am simply the one who brings people the Spirit by truly loving them as Heavenly Father does.


  • I've learned that the Hymn (LDS hymnbook p.124, "Be Still My Soul.") is true: "In every change, He faithful will remain. [Therefore,] be still my soul."  I can do all things He requires, hopes, highest wishes of me--as I trust His love and rely on His power and enabling and uplifting strength. WHAT AWESOME KNOWLEDGE THIS IS!!!


  • I have truly come to know the Atonement on an significantly deeper level.  If I had more space to write, I would share with you 20 pages of what I've learned about the Atonement of Jesus Christ.


Smiling contests :)


Last night, a living Apostle of the living Savior, Jesus Christ who personally leads and directs this church, spoke to us!  Elder Dallin H. Oaks, of the Quorum of The Twelve Apostles, spoke to thousands and thousands and thousands of missionaries just like me, in 14 MTC's all around the globe!  He spoke here at the Provo MTC, but it was broadcast to ALL the MTC's in the world!  I got to sing to Elder Oaks for the Devotional!  The entire night, (as usual,) I couldn't stop smiling!  I was having smiling contests with people!  I felt the Spirit, and I must testify with all my heart and everything that I have, that I know that man is truly God's literal apostle.  We are literally led by living Prophets, Seers, and Revelators.  I know this church is true; and I do not just say that. I know it! I mean it, and I know it for myself, from my Heavenly Father.  How? Because I put this gospel to the test by living it and having a sincere heart, faith in Christ and a willingness to act and do and pray and fast and earnestly seek.  As I live the gospel, the Holy Ghost has born witness of the truth of this fullness of the eternal, everlasting gospel of Christ... I have received witnesses of truth and impressions upon the soul of the reality of God the Father and the Son Jesus Christ, (as President James E. Faust has said:) "So deeply that no earthly power or authority can separate me from that knowledge." 






Friday, November 21, 2014

Flying to Fiji SOON!!!

*Disclaimer:(Sorry if my enthusiasm, caps, and highlighting is irritating to anyone.  Just wanted to apologize if it is.  It's not going to stop--that's how I am in person, and that's just how I feel about this gospel. It's who I am and it's how I am--Just being real and genuine!  I'm excited and I can't restrain my happiness!  I mean only the best!  I LOVE you SO much!  )**

We got our flight plans this week!!!  THIS IS MY FINAL WEEK IN THE MISSIONARY TRAINING CENTER!!!!  One of my several flights to get there will be 4000 miles non-stop flight!  18 hour time difference!!! I will literally lose an entire DAY!! I'll never live Nov 30th, 2014  Ever.... 

The language is REALLY coming!   Heavenly Father is helping me, in ways that are so obvious and incredible to me!  I just can't miss all His constant manifestations of love!  He is a perfect Father! I am so grateful for all my challenges, trials, adversities, and difficulties!! My life is so fun!  

I testify that we can always choose joy! 

We can always choose joy!   Always!
So why not choose it always? This gospel is perfect, and it fills me with joy especially when life is trying and hard and difficult!  

I testify that God hears every word of your prayers.  I testify that personal revelation and your personal communication with Him is real.  

I spent 3 hours in the Temple today... It was the last time I'll be in the Temple for about an entire year!  (The Fiji Temple is being extremely renovated until 2016)  I love the Temple! Please go there EVERY WEEK. :)

My testimony is more than faith, hope or belief.  I know the Lord first-hand and beyond any ability to deny; this by His grace through the Holy Ghost which has and continues to fuse my spirit with knowledge and light and glory and joy from my Father.  I am 000.0% sad, discouraged, homesick, overwhelmed, lonely.  There is just no degree of any of those in me!!!! I say this in truth.  Heavenly Father supplies all my yearnings and needs as I literally and truly pray for His enabling and strengthening power to switch all my will, life, motives, thoughts, desires, joys, yearnings, and all I am and have, over instead, to Oneness with His will, the way He uses HIS agency to choose to live His life, have the same motives as HE has, to have literally all my thoughts sanctified and cleansed with His consuming and glorious fire, to only desire the things HE desires, the things He joys in are the things I joy in, the yearnings of His heart are the only yearnings of my heart, and He has confirmed to my soul, His promise of the very real reality, that all He is and has--(for His praise and glory,) I may be and have.  The scriptures are fully alive in my life.  The atonement is fully active and applied in my life, on a daily(even minutely,) basis... the Atonement is consuming and enveloping and sanctifying my whole consciousness and being. My whole being is currently and fully focused on 2 things: The Lord, and the eternal, divine, invaluable, majestic, grand, beloved and beyond treasured, souls of His Children.  The Children whom He and I are unitedly on this mission to lift, love, save, bless, rescue, nurture, bless, serve and exalt.  How great is the calling to share love and light and joy!  How great is it to have my Father with me, hourly, constantly, daily, for this 730 day mission!  

Friday, November 14, 2014

Listen to the Spirit

God is your Father in Heaven. I know and testify of this!  I know Him! He knows you personally and loves you more than you can comprehend.  He wants you to be happy in this life and in eternity. 

REMEMBER THAT.  LIVE THAT !! 

No glory or credit to myself, I have truly learned how to recognize and KNOW when the Holy Ghost is speaking to me.  I feel I know it with almost a perfect knowledge, each time when it speaks to me.  I am certainly open in acknowledging that this is a gift He has mercifully blessed me with, and I credit Him.  I can truly say I have followed every prompting while here in the MTC, except for one prompting I got today in the cafe, to say hi to and uplift a particular missionary a few tables away from me.  I regret not following that one, and I am counseling with Heavenly Father now, as to what my plan is to make up for that moment of hesitation. I am excited and happy to not delay--AT ALL--next time I see that missionary!  Heavenly Father and I have conversations, and He is truly teaching and leading me in becoming fully One with Him.


MY PURPOSE AS A MISSIONARYTO INVITE OTHERS TO COME UNTO CHRIST 
BY HELPING THEM RECEIVE THE RESTORED GOSPEL
THROUGH FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST AND HIS ATONEMENT,
REPENTANCE,
BAPTISM,
RECEIVING THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST,
AND ENDURING TO THE END. 





Friday, November 7, 2014

NOGU MATAMUVALE!!!!

WOW!!!!! I FALL MORE IN LOVE WITH THE BOOK OF MORMON, EVERY DAY!!!!! http://mormon.org/bookofmormon
I know it is true, with all my heart!!  I grow closer to my Savior, Jesus Christ, every time I spend even 30 seconds in that book!

THIS IS NOGU MATAMUVALE!!!! ("my family" in Fijian)

The other night, all of my family (all the missionaries preparing to serve in the Pacific Islands) got together.  

We sang and prayed and uplifted one another, more than I can even express... the Holy Ghost was powerful.

We read together the account in the Book of Mormon, where the people offer up all their weapons of rebellion, to God.  And they make a covenant with Him, that they will never take up their weapons again.  They literally buried them all in the earth. DEEP in the earth--as a sign to Heavenly Father, that they were earnest and were truly giving up those things.

Well, each one of us missionaries decided to write down our precious things, and our "weapons of rebellion" to any degree; things that the Holy Ghost told us we could offer up to God so we could be fully One with Him and fully consecrated in His will instead of ours to any degree.

We each privately wrote down things that were precious to us that we would give up and bury for the duration of our mission, so we could be fully One with Him and true disciples of Christ.

We took the papers we wrote these things on, and went up to the front of the room and tore up the paper into a basket.  


Almost everyone in the room was crying, and the Spirit was so strong.

I know this:
that, "If in the end you haven't chosen Christ, it won't matter what you have chosen instead."

I testify, that that is the fullness and most thriving, eternal, best life.  Let's rely on Christ more than we ever have before.

I testify that He is about to come.  I testify that this is literally His church, and He leads and guides His living prophet, even Thomas S. Monson.  Jesus Christ lives.  Heavenly Father loves us and will help us and reach us to our highest potential and LITERAL FULLNESS OF JOY!!!!!!!!


THIS LIFE IS THE TIME TO CHOOSE JOY!!!


THIS LIFE IS THE TIME FOR JOY.


JESUS CHRIST IS THE WAY TO TRUE JOY.