Well this is it! I leave tomorrow for Utah where I will spend my last few days waiting to enter the MTC! (I guess that's why this post is going to be so long!) Its been a busy day gathering all my final things, but I would like to take a moment to brag about how incredible I am at packing! I come from a whole family of great packers, I think its in our DNA. As many of you know missionaries only get two suitcases and a carry-on to carry all their items for their whole mission! Three pieces of luggage hold all my clothes, shoes and personal items for 18 months! I managed to fit all of my clothes and shoes into one suitcase! And may I add that its under the 50 lb weight limit! I'm sure your probably thinking I brought nothing but let me tell you, I am no light packer! I managed
16 Shirts
10 Pairs of shoes.
10 Dresses
9 Skirts
6 Cardigans
Some workout clothes/pajamas
Underclothing
and accessories.
Now don't go thinking I'm some kind of clothing hoarder! Each one of those pieces of clothing is essential, a necessity really. I spent a few days trying on every possibly outfit I could think of and took pictures (to create little photo album) so I wouldn't forget all the possibilities I have! If I counted right, I've got somewhere around 80 combinations. Most of those clothes are basic enough to be mixed and matched together, so for any girls struggling with clothes my advice is to purchase the classics!
I thought it would be appropriate to leave my farewell talk I gave last Sunday (March 17) as my goodbye!
Mission
Farewell Talk
Good morning Brothers and Sisters, I’m excited to be here
today to speak to you before I leave next week.
The 1st counselor asked Diana to speak a few weeks ago, and as
many of you have seen you can’t find one of us without the other around here,
so when he approached her instead I
though “oh what sweet relief", but of course when he asked her he had the
perfect opportunity to also ask me to speak, but I’m grateful that although I’m
only about 20 hours older than Diana I get to cover for the youth speaker.
Today I’d like to talk to you about the work I’ll be doing
for the next 18 months, I’d like to share with you a story that will give me
hope and inspiration while I’m serving in Fresno. The story I’d like to share with you is about
a young man who changed the world, but before I share his story I’d like to
tell you about an experience I had while in my early years of young women’s. I
was maybe 13 or 14, about the age you would start high school, when one Sunday
my leaders said “You will change the world”. Now they didn’t say you as in pointing to the
Young women in general but you as in you Julie LeStarge. My first thought was “Oh you poor sweet
woman, your putting your faith in the wrong person. I’m 5’0 tall, with glasses,
braces and breakouts on my face, there’s no way I’ll be changing the world any
time soon.”
At that time
I thought you had to have 3 things to make any kind of difference in the world
and those were : wealth, some grand amount of money to get you noticed, fame or
popularity, which I didn’t have in fact there were people at the end of my
neighborhood who didn’t have a clue who I was. And the last thing was some kind
of authority, like the President. When I think of someone who has all of these
qualities I think of someone like Oprah Winfrey…who I am nothing like…
As I mentioned I have none of those things, but I found a
story about a young man who changed the world without any of those, in fact he
was quite the opposite and his story goes like this:
“There
once was a young man who was quite ordinary.
He lived in a normal town, in a modest house, with a normal family, and
he had normal friends. He attended a public school where he learned ordinary
subjects and received average grades. He struggled with typical boy things such
as who he would ask to the next school dance, where he would attend college,
and how he would ever show up to work on time. Overall the young man was your
typical teenage boy, except for one thing that made him a little more
extraordinary and that was his faith, you see he belonged to the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and he had something special about him.
Whether he had worked his whole childhood to be this way or he woke up one
morning and made the choice this young man had made up his mind that he was
going to be an example of his faith. As many of you know, you can’t go very
long being an example of our faith without going unnoticed. Before long he had
caught the attention of two people, the first was his younger brother who had
said “ He was always making the right choices, he was bigger than me, stronger
than me and my hero, he was my older brother and I wanted to be just like him”
The
second person to notice him was a young woman with whom he worked with. After some time they became friends and she
joined our church. Like many young men in our faith this young man chose to
serve a full time mission, which brought him to the other side of the world. He served honorably and returned home. Soon
after his arrival home he proposed marriage to the young woman he brought into
the church, who had been regularly sending him letters throughout his mission.
Years later the couple ended up with 5 beautiful children….I think many of you
know where I’m going with this story…those 5 children grew up in the church and
each served a full time mission.
Now that I’ve told you the story of this young man and his
family I’d like to think many of you are asking “So what?” well here’s the part
where I tell you how this young man changed the world. The first thing he did
was decide to live his life as an example of his faith, which resulted in the
conversion of a young woman. The second
thing he did was serve a mission. As we all know missionaries change not only
their own lives on their mission but also the lives of those whom they serve.
So in the story of our young man let’s say he changed the lives of 100 people.
Now directly he maybe only baptized between 1 and 10 people…but thinks of their
future generations! We have no idea exactly how many people’s lives changed as
a result of his efforts. Then we look at his family, his 5 children all served
a full time mission, so there’s another couple hundred people whose lives were
potentially changed! I’m sure you’ve caught
on to my story and realize the young man from my story is my dad and the young
woman he converted is my mom.
I’d like to compare
the story of my family to the story in the scriptures of Abinadi. If you’re
familiar with the story of Abinadi you’ll know that he was trying to call the
wicked King Noah to repentance, he did what the Lord had asked of him but as we
all know he was tragically put to death. He died without knowing that he had
any converts but all it took was one person, Alma. Alma believed Abinadi’s
message, changed his life, and brought this crowd of people to baptism, Which practically
created this whole nation of righteous people! And all it took was one person!
Now of course my family wasn’t put to death or anything like Abinadi but like
him my dad, siblings and I have no idea how many people’s lives we’ll have
changed.
Before I end I’d like
to share a scripture with you from Alma 23, Aaron, Omner, Himni and Ammon are
teaching the people of Lamoni and this is what it says about their teaching, in
verse 5:
5 And a thousands were
brought to the knowledge of the Lord, yea, thousands were brought to believe in
the b traditions of the
Nephites; and they were taught the c records and
prophecies which were handed down even to the present time.
We see that from the efforts of these 4 men that thousands
were bought into the gospel! That’s so amazing!!! They truly changed the world!
I’m not saying anyone has to be like these great missionaries, you don’t have
to be like my dad and have 5 children who all sere missions but what I am
suggesting is you be a missionary by being an example and perhaps you’ll plant
a seed for someone’s heart for them to become a member later.
I love the work that I will be doing. I love the Gospel! I
know that I won’t be the greatest missionary, not even close, but I know that I
will be an instrument in the Lords hands and he will use me to change the world
by planting seeds in His children’s hearts. Amen.
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