Obrando en la Viña: He's Changing Me

Hermanas Sanford and Oliva with Presidente Kähnlein at Consejo de Lideres

Querida Familia,
It's comforting to me to know that, with a memory as bad as the one I have, even in the middle of struggles and trials, if I can just stick it out and endure to the end, I'm going to forget it all eventually anyway.:) I don't know why this cambio has been so hard for me, but I'll be honest--it's been really hard. I'm struggling in a way I've never struggled before... More a battle within myself than with anything in my alrededor. I feel that He is working in a very personal way on my heart, changing it and softening it and gently breaking me into the person He wants me to be. It hurts, but that's alright... Because after a hard day, He always blesses me with one a little easier. I know He doesn't want us to suffer. He just wants us to grow.

One of these hard days took place on Tuesday--Intercambio Day! In the middle of language study with Hna Alvarez, I began to feel the strangest hunger in my heart... The way I feel when there's something else I need to study or another answer I need to find... Revelation I need to receive... Not a physical hunger, but a clear and easily recognizable spiritual hunger. And I didn't have the faintest idea what my heart was hungering for. I tried reading in my scriptures and writing my journal (which I have done an especially good job of doing these last two weeks), but it didn't help. The hunger remained. In a quiet moment of pondering, I felt a quiet whisper in my mind--"Pray."

I kneeled down next to my chair and began to pray silently, but I couldn't concentrate para nada...so I excused myself and went downstairs to the bedroom and began to pray orally for the next 15 minutes. I imagined that my Heavenly Father was right there with me and just talked to Him...pouring out the desires and worries and longings of my heart...all the broken pieces and jagged edges that I didn't know what to do with. In a sensation sweeter than anything I have ever experienced, I truly felt His arms around me and His Spirit comforting me and whispering peace to my heart. I feel strongly that He is gently guiding and helping me to develop a very precious and real relationship with Him--my Father who knows and loves me a thousand times better than anyone else. I am so grateful that, in my search to develop and learn humility, He is helping me come to know and love Him better.

After I finished praying and pouring out my heart to Him, I returned upstairs and we prepared to leave for the day. It truly was a Trooper Tuesday. We walked ALL day and visited every single person we could possibly think of, but no one was home. I began to run out of ideas as the endless walking started to take its toll on my body... We stopped in the middle of the road to offer a prayer and ask Heavenly Father for His guidance in helping us to know where to go. He blessed us with a name in our minds, and we continued walking.

Around four in the afternoon, I began to feel really desperate; I probably made the best contacts I've made in a while because I just felt like pleading with the people with whom we talked, "Please... Please just listen to us... We have something really important to share with you..." I felt more worn out than I have in a while and a little discouraged, offering prayers in my heart that my Heavenly Father would bless me with the strength to keep walking and to be a good example for Hna Alvarez--to help build her up and have the strength to keep walking and fighting as well... And as we were walking and discussing what we would share with the investigator we were on our way to visit, the words from my favorite Mormon Message video came clearly to my mind with such force that I began to cry:

"Don't you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying."

Sometimes the Lord drives us to our knees because only on our knees can we [come] unto Him and experience the joy and peace--the healing--that only He can offer. When trials come and you feel you cannot do it on your own... Don't. Your Father loves you. He wants to help you. He wants to strengthen you, and He wants to heal you.

I am so incredibly grateful that my Father in Heaven loves me enough to take the time to teach me that humility is more than just an absence of pride--it is the special closeness and the incredibly personal relationship that result when we recognize that we literally CANNOT do this on our own and begin to cling to Him with all our strength--to rely on His grace and infinite mercy to help us keep moving forward.

I know He lives. I know He knows and loves every single one of His children perfectly and that His arms are ever stretched out to us, pleading with us to choose to humble ourselves, kneel down with broken hearts, and offer Him everything we are. Our Savior heals the broken pieces. He gave His life to be able to heal and change us. He doesn't want us to do this alone. Confiemos en Cristo cuando no podamos hacer más. We call Him Savior because He saves us from our weakness. He is saving me from mine.

Que tenga una buena semana, mi familia! Sigan luchando! Les quiero con todo mi ser.:)

Con Todo Mi Amor,
Hermana Sanford