I Chose to Let Go

I remember a family party that I went to a few years ago. I was probably 15 years old. My entire family was there. The swimming pool was beautifully cool and the deck was covered with people eating and laughing. I was off in the corner eating and reading a book as per the usual.
After a little while my dad came over and asked why I wasn't swimming, since I'm generally the first one in the pool. I told him that I was reading and maybe I would get in later. He laughed and proceeded to grab my arm and pull me towards the edge of the pool. I, of course, tossed my book and whatever else I was holding, made sure nothing was in my pockets, and tried to get away.
(For those of you who don't know my father, you need to understand that my dad is 6'7" and 350 pounds.)
My escape attempt was unsuccessful and I began to squirm, trying to find some way to make him let go of my arm. Again, I was unsuccessful.
All this while I was being dragged to the edge of the water.
Finally, after what seemed like a year of hollering at my dad, he held me over the edge of the water and...just held me there! I was still squirming and fighting with all my strength but to no avail. I couldn't get out of his grip without falling into the water and I couldn't get to shore because my dad's arms were too long and my toes were barely gripping the edge as it was.
I gave up. I let go of him and into the water I went.

I was mad. He had let me fall! He had, in effect, pushed me off the cliff! He had dropped me into thin air!

This morning I was reading a talk by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland entitled, "The Inconvenient Messiah." The talk was very powerful and one line in particular caught my attention: "...if your prayers don't always seem answered, take heart. One greater than you...cried, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani...My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" If sometimes the harder you try, the harder it gets, take heart. So it has been with the best people who ever lived."
There are times in our lives when we pray and we plead and we pray some more that our trials may be taken from us. Even Christ, while performing the Atonement, asked, "If thou be willing, remove this cup from me..." But, in this supreme expression of love and submission He added, "Nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done." (Luke 22:42)
We were placed here on the earth in order to gain bodies and to learn and grow through the trials and tribulations that we would suffer. There are times when we will feel like we are hanging over the cliff. There will be times when we feel that we are not able to pull ourselves to safety.
In these times, remember the promise that "the Lord thy God is with thee, whithersoever thou goest." (Joshua 1:9)

In that moment, hanging over the edge of the swimming pool, I let go of my father's arm. I gave up on him and on myself. He never shook me off of his arm. I chose to let go.

No matter how far over the edge we may be or we may feel, God will never let go of us for, "the mountains shall depart and the hills shall be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee..." (3 Nephi 22:10) His arm is continually stretched out to us. All we have to do is accept His help. We must take His hand and trust that, though He may not deliver us from all of our trials immediately, we will be blessed that we will not fall.

Where is my Heart?

I will be the last one to tell you that a mission is easy.
I will be the first to tell you that it is worth it.
You see so many miracles, testifying that God is in the details of your life and in the lives of those you serve.
You see the Gospel change hearts and minds, especially your own.
You hear wonderful words of counsel, both from the Holy Spirit and from your inspired leaders who have been called of God.
You have the chance to help others "taste as [you] have tasted, and...see eye to eye as [you] have seen." (Alma 36:26)
Most importantly, you are being an instrument in the Lord's hand to further His work here upon the earth.

Just last weekend I had the opportunity to hear words of counsel from my mission president. He said something that really struck me. He quoted Elder David A. Bednar who said that 'heart' in the scriptures is, "The sum total of our desires, affections, intention, motives and attitudes. Thus, our hearts determine who we are and what we will become."
The heart is so important. It is the center of physical well-being. Without our heart, we would not be able to live. Besides being for our physical well-being, our heart is what the Lord sees. For, the Lord sees "not as man seeth...for the Lord looketh on the heart."* He sees our desires, our affections, our intentions, our motives and our attitudes.
There is a list of questions that ask, in a nutshell, 'where is my heart?' in any given situation.
    What are my desires?
    Where are my affections?
    What are my intentions?
    What are my motives?
    What is my attitude?
As I asked these questions, I realized just how deep of a self-evaluation these questions were. They made me think about everything I did, how I did it, and why I did it.
And that is the point of this life: to find out where our hearts are and to put our hearts in the right place so that we will be prepared to return to the presence of God. (Alma 34:32)
Our hearts need to be in line with the Lord's will for us. We can seek to understand His will as we pray. In the Bible Dictionary it tells us that, "Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to change the will of God..." Through sincere prayer we can come to know for ourselves the things that God will require of each of us personally and individually.

*1 Samuel 16:7

Updates, Improvements, and Bug Fixes

I am, in general, pretty technologically...incompetent. When I got a laptop I was constantly asking my dad or my roommates or even my younger siblings to help me figure things out.
Now, on my mission, we have lots of technology. We have iPads! We have to update our iPads periodically so that they can get new gadgets and so that they will be more self-sufficient and not rely as much on other people having to come in and fix them. As I was updating my iPad, it said, "Preparing update...This update contains improvements and bug fixes. Learn more."
This struck me!
In a couple of weeks The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is having General Conference where the prophet and the apostles will speak to us. What a wonderful blessing and opportunity that is! We get to hear those whom the Lord has called and chosen to lead and guide us. They speak to us on a multiplicity of topics, including marriage and family, education, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the importance of spiritual and physical self-reliance, being prepared, loving and serving our fellow man and many others.
Someone once said, "Live your life in six-month increments." General Conference is every six months! We are to focus on the things that the prophet and the leaders of the Church tell us for six months. Then when we have General Conference again, we are to add to our knowledge those new things that they teach us and apply them into our daily lives.
General Conferece is the update!This week we are preparing for it! Prepare to receive revelation! "Preparing update!"
Conference teaches us improvements and how to bring our lives more fully into alignment with God and His will for each of us. Our leaders are guided by the Holy Spirit to tell us how we can fix the spiritual problems and 'gremlins' in our lives and be more happy and more focused on God and others. "This update contains improvements and bug fixes!"
SO, watch General Conference! Look it up! "Learn more!"

Spiritual Towers

Towers. They're pretty spectacular. The imagination and the work and the architectural ingenuity that went into building the first tower had to be pretty amazing. Towers can stand for hundreds of years! Yet on the outside, all we see is blocks on top of blocks on top of more blocks.


One of my companions and I were playing Janga. We put the tower on top of a stool so its foundation wouldn't be the soft and squishy carpet and we began to build it higher and higher. It was a little better of a foundation but not by much. Unfortunately, in Janga, building a higher tower involves taking away from the already structurally unsound base.
Oh, man, we got that tower high. Every time we so much as blew on the tower it began to waver. But it still stood.
Our lives are much the same. We begin with a little tower. It's not too impressive but we know that we can make it bigger and higher and more grand. We learn and grow. We have experiences that shape us and change us. Sometimes we feel like we have a chunk taken out of us. We weather the storms of life patiently yet sometimes we feel like one more gust of wind will blow us over.

Suddenly, my tower collapsed around my hands. Blocks went all over the room and we had to go searching for them. I was simply making my tower higher! What was this?
I had seen that the foundation of my tower was incomplete, to say the least. But I still hoped that it would last just a little bit longer.

The Lord taught, "Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my
sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like: He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock." (Luke 6:48,49)

If our spiritual foundations are "digged deep" and laid on rock (Jesus Christ), no matter the winds and storms that beat us and no matter how continually we feel that the floods are at our doorstep, we cannot be shaken. If, however, our foundations are built on sediment and tend to be "tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine," (Ephesians 4:14) we will fall and "great [will be] the fall." (3 Nephi 14:27)
If we are hearing and doing the words that Christ teaches, we are building our foundation on Christ and "when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall." (Helaman 5:12)
God loves us and has given us the way whereby we can be saved and "not fall." That way is Jesus Christ. He is "the way, the truth, and the life." (John 14:6) As we learn of Him and seek to emulate His perfect example, we will be building a "sure foundation" and we cannot fall.

Power in the Scriptures

When I was young my dad told us that we were going to start memorizing scriptures as a family. I was not thrilled by this prospect and for the next several years, I became extremely grumpy every time the family got together to read the scriptures and memorize specific verses that my dad had picked out. Over time, I got used to it and resigned myself to the fact that I had to memorize these scriptures in order to get dessert on Friday nights. 
A couple of years ago, my dad told us that he would let us pick out scriptures that we wanted to memorize every week. So, I began finding scriptures for myself to memorize. Every week I memorized a scripture (usually very last minute) and passed it off with one of my family members.

Coming out on my mission I have used the scriptures every single day. As I began reading through and studying The Book of Mormon again, I found that many of the scriptures were familiar and that after reading them one or two times, I could repeat them with no problem. I had found the scriptures that my dad asked my family to memorize years ago. 
Just this last week I decided that I was going to skim through the entire Book of Mormon and find all of the scriptures that I had memorized all those years ago. I decided that I would write down all the references and then I would write down the scriptures themselves so that I could remember all of them and begin to memorize more scriptures.

This morning I was not in the best mood and was not feeling particularly hopeful. Before personal study I had a thought flit through my mind: You should start going through those scriptures, Sister Herring. I put that thought aside and concentrated on reading the Book of Mormon. Again the thought passed through my mind and again I put it to the side.
Yet, while I read very good scriptures and I learned some wonderful things, I was not feeling much better. Once again, I had the thought to begin finding and studying those memorized scriptures. I began doing so and immediately found scriptures that the Lord had been trying to direct my mind to.
For example, Jacob 3:1,2 says, "But behold, I, Jacob, would speak unto you that are pure in heart. Look unto God with firmness of mind, and pray unto him with exceeding faith, and he will console you in your afflictions, and he will plead your cause, and send down justice upon those who seek your destruction. O all ye that are pure in heart, lift up your heads and receive the pleasing word of God, and feast upon his love; for ye may, if your minds are firm, forever." I found great peace and felt my Heavenly Father's love for me as I remembered the simple verses that I had forgotten from so many years ago.
Elder Richard G. Scott said, "Great power can come from memorizing scriptures. To memorize a scripture is to forge a new friendship. It is like discovering a new individual who can help in time of need, give inspiration and comfort, and be a source of motivation for needed change." ("The Power of Scripture," Ensign November 2013)

The scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon, were written for us. They are to teach us, help and guide us, enlighten our minds, bring us peace, and bring us closer to God and Jesus Christ. A memorized scripture is a friend that will never change, that will always be there, and that will always help us to feel the Spirit. As we seek greater understanding of the scriptures, memorizing specific verses that are personal to us will help us to more fully see and feel the power that is in the scriptures.

The Key: The Book of Mormon

I was sitting in a mission meeting. We were talking about why The Book of Mormon is so important and how we can teach better by using the Book of Mormon. I thought about it for a minute and then raised my hand and commented: This information, this good news of the Gospel that we bear is not something we share just for fun. This isn't something that we offer to teach people because we find it humorous or simply because we have nothing better to do. We do it because it is necessary. It is essential for each of us and for each of the people that we come into contact with, each of God's children, to understand His plan for them and to accept Christ's restored Gospel. The Book of Mormon is how they will come to know that the Gospel is true.
In 2 Nephi 3:12 it says, "...that which shall be written by the fruit of thy loins, (The Book of Mormon) and also that which shall be written by the fruit of the loins of Judah, (The Bible) shall grow together, unto the confounding of false doctrine and laying down of contentions, and establishing peace among the fruit of thy loins, and bringing them to the knowledge of their fathers in the latter days, and also to the knowledge of my covenants, saith the Lord."
The Bible and Book of Mormon together confound false doctrine. These two books go hand in hand and because The Book of Mormon contains the fulness of the Gospel, it clarifies many parts in the Bible that are vague or unclear because of the plain and precious parts that were taken out of the Bible over hundreds of years.
The Book of Mormon, when read, understood, and applied into our lives, will lead to a greater measure of peace. It leads to a greater understanding of our purpose here on this earth. It also helps us to understand that God did reveal His Gospel to His children in the Americas, proving that He is "the same yesterday, today and forever" (2 Nephi 27:23) and that He loves His children no matter where they are in the world. The Book of Mormon also lays out very plainly the teachings of Jesus Christ and the things that we must do in order to return to live in the presence of God, namely: have faith in Christ, repent of our sins, be baptized by someone holding the priesthood authority of God, receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end faithfully.

The Book of Mormon "is to show...that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations." (Title page of The Book of Mormon)
The Book of Mormon is a second testament to the divinity of Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Throughout the Bible we are told that "in the mouth of two or three witness shall every word be established." (2 Corinthians 13:1) The Book of Mormon is this second witness to the words of Christ found in the Bible.
It is the word of God and as we read it we are promised that we "will get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts than by any other book." (Joseph Smith) We are also promised that if we will seek to know of its truthfulness, the Holy Spirit will testify to our hearts and our minds that it is true and that it is the word of God. When we know that The Book of Mormon is true, we will also come to know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer, that Joseph Smith is his revelator and prophet, and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints "is the Lord's kingdom once again established on the earth, preparatory to the second coming of the Messiah." (Introduction to The Book of Mormon)

The Church is true. I found that out through reading and praying about The Book of Mormon. No matter who we are or where we are on our road of life, The Book of Mormon will teach us the things that are essential for salvation.
The Book of Mormon is the key.

Press Forward

The past week has been a huge transition time. Transfers can be stressful but they're always a great adventure!
In the last week I have learned so much and I have already begun to love the people here in my new area. "Whom the Lord calls, He qualifies." I know that is true.
I was very hesitant to come to this new area. I have always struggled meeting new people and trying new things - except for food - and I love the people I have spent four and a half months with! How in the world could I just move on without any thought for them and for the past?
2 Nephi 31:20 says, "Wherefore, you must press forward with a perfect brightness of hope, having a love of God and of all men..."
My answer was right there!
Press forward. Move where you are called to move. Love everyone, no matter what. Trust in God and believe in His ability to help you to accomplish all things that He has commanded.
Sometimes we are called to do difficult things. Sometimes the things we are asked to do seem impossible. However, "all things are possible to them that believe." (Mark 9:23) No matter the difficulty, no matter the seeming impossibility of the tasks that are laid before you, the Lord has prepared a way and He will continue to prepare a way.
So when the way seems to be blocked or when the burden seems too much to bear, don't give up. Don't give in. Press forward and hope for a brighter dawn.