Homecoming Talk
Throughout my mission I served in eight different areas (five in Oregon, three in Brazil) and had 14 companions (11 Americans, 3 Brazilians). While I loved all of my companions and learned from each of them, I am especially grateful for my first Brazilian companion, Sister Queiroz, who didn’t make fun of me for calling fire extinguishers hell extinguishers for the first two weeks I was in the country. But before you ask which of my missions I liked more, I will honestly never be able to answer that question. These two missions were completely different, but I learned so much from each of my areas, my two mission Presidents, and the friends I served with and taught.
One of the most important things I learned on my mission is that God has a perfect plan for each one of us. When I was in Oregon, I served a portion of my mission in the YSA ward on the OSU campus. During this time, we were teaching a 19-year-old girl named Zoe. Zoe grew up atheist. She’d lived in Utah for a part of her life and remembered driving past the Salt Lake Temple and asking her dad what it was, to which his response was, “it isn’t important.” After teaching Zoe about the First Vision, her comment was, “wow, isn’t that just amazing? I bet all the prophets have had experiences like that!” We invited her to be baptized and she said yes. She was one of the most prepared people I met on my mission. After every lesson we would ask her if she had any questions and her response was always “no, everything makes sense to me!”
Then one day, Zoe disappeared. She wouldn’t answer our calls or texts, and no one knew where she lived. Her baptism was canceled, and we were heartbroken. I remember being on my knees in tears wondering what had happened to Zoe. We kept reaching out and kept praying, and after three weeks we were able to meet up with her again. We found out she was going through a pretty rough and scary situation. When we asked her what she did to get through this tough time, she told us that she had read from the Book of Mormon and prayed. She decided instead of blaming or being angry at God, she would use this time to grow closer to Him. She was baptized the following Saturday and bore one of the most powerful testimonies of God and Jesus Christ’s love. She told us that she felt like everything in her search for God had led her to meeting with us and being baptized.
When we asked Zoe what her favorite scripture was from the Book of Mormon so we could put it on her baptismal program, she chose 1 Nephi 11:17. In this chapter, Nephi is seeing the vision his father Lehi saw, and the angel asks him a question he doesn’t know the answer to. Nephi’s response is in this verse:
“And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things.” Like Nephi, we are never going to know the meaning behind all the things that will happen in our lives. But we can take comfort in this truth declared by Nephi, that God loves His children.
My experience teaching Zoe showed me that God has a plan for each one of us. While I was freaking out for three weeks, God knew what He was doing. He allowed Zoe to have this trial so that she could grow closer to Him and continue to strengthen her testimony of the Gospel. And I had the opportunity to learn a very valuable lesson, that I needed to trust in the Lord and His plan. Had it been up to me, Zoe would’ve been baptized on the original date, and everything would’ve gone “according to plan.” But had this worked out the way I wanted it too, Zoe wouldn’t have had such a crucial spiritual experience. While it was so hard for me to wonder for three weeks why one of the most amazing people I had ever met was gone, I realized later that I had lost sight that God would take care of Zoe, because He loves her, just as he loves me. And just as he loves each one of you. Because of this love he has for us, the plan He has for our lives will always be perfect. That doesn’t mean it will be easy, but it will be perfect.
This was not the only instance on my mission when I realized the importance of trusting God’s plan. The first five months I was in Brazil, I had the opportunity to serve as a social media specialist. When I was in Oregon, there was a zone created that specifically did all the social media work for the mission, and the last thing I ever wanted to do was serve in that zone. Well, I think I said something incorrectly in Portuguese the first time I talked to President Saucedo in Brazil about how much I knew about social media, because he put me working with social media within 48 hours of being in the country. My companion and I were responsible for the seven different Facebook pages our mission had. We used Facebook Business Suite to create ads that people see when they are scrolling on their Facebook feeds. These ads had a button you could press that would allow you to send a message from the ad directly to our page, where my companion and I would answer the messages. The goal of these ads was to connect these people who were interested with the missionaries in their area so they could be taught. To work with the media, on Wednesdays and Fridays we would go work in the mission office so we could have access to computers. The days we were in the office, we would arrive around 10 in the morning and some days we wouldn’t leave until 8 at night because we had so many messages coming into our pages.
I remember one Sunday when I was still new to social media work, Sister Queiroz and I were sitting in church before the meeting started and I kept feeling all this buzzing in my bag. When I pulled out my phone to put it on silent before the start of the meeting, I saw we had received about 10 new messages since leaving our house, the most recent message with the question “what do I need to do to be baptized?” I about dropped the phone I was so surprised.
When I first left on my mission, I had no faith that social media would ever lead to finding, teaching, and baptizing people. My opinion changed a little bit while I was in Oregon, but I still didn’t really understand why we were being asked to spend at least two hours every day on Facebook. But when I was in Brazil and worked with the social media, it made so much more sense to me. I had the opportunity to message back and forth with so many people who wanted to know more about the purpose of life, what happens after we die, or even just asking for a prayer. It became clear to me very quickly that God wanted His missionaries to proselyte online. As I mentioned earlier, my mission in Brazil is seriously lacking missionaries. There was a transfer when my companion and I worked in the media that we were also responsible for all the work in three teaching areas in addition to these seven FB pages. We were very stretched, and without the ability to proselyte outside, we couldn’t interact in person with people. Without the ability to teach and connect with people over social media and receive these media referrals, we never would have been able to find people to teach. As missionaries, we read from a booklet called Safeguards for Using Technology and of my favorite quotes is by President Spencer W. Kimball. He stated, “I believe that the Lord is anxious to put into our hands inventions of which we laymen have hardly had a glimpse”
When President Kimball said this in 1974, I don’t think he had any idea that in 2020, missionary work would go completely online. But, I know that it was part of God’s plan. COVID allowed for the needed adjustments to occur in missionary work so that more people could learn about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And God inspired programs such as Facebook Business Suite to be so easy to use that a girl who had no prior experience with social media and had no idea what the correct name for a fire extinguisher was could learn how to work this program in her second language within a month. In the time I worked in the office, we would start about 300 messaging conversations per month, and 100 of those would turn into referrals for missionaries in our mission. I am so grateful for the opportunity I had to serve during the pandemic and see the blessings of online missionary work.
One of the best ways we can learn about God’s plan of salvation or plan of happiness is through a study of the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon testifies of Jesus Christ and his role as our Savior and our Redeemer. The Atonement of Jesus Christ is central to God’s plan of salvation; therefore it is central to God’s individual plan for each of us.
One afternoon we were out street contacting and decided to talk to a lady who was working in her salgado shop. We asked if we could share a scripture with her, and she agreed. We opened to Mosiah 24:14 and read this scripture:
And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.
When we finished reading the scripture, this woman had tears in her eyes. She told us that she had been going through a tough time, and this scripture had really touched her. We shared our testimonies with her about God’s love and the power of Jesus Christ’s Atonement. Our Savior will never forget us, and He will always visit us in our afflictions. My mission was in no way easy, there were nights when I was on my knees in tears. But in these moments, I was always reminded that I am never alone, my Savior Jesus Christ is always there by my side. The Atonement of Jesus Christ is real. I have felt Him forgive my sins and take away my guilt. And I have seen this miracle occur in others’ lives as well. Jesus Christ knows each one of us personally. He loves us and is ready to help us in any situation of our lives. I am so grateful for the Book of Mormon and how it powerfully testifies of our Savior.
The Book of Mormon is also crucial because it has the power to unite families. The family is ordained of God, and central to God’s plan. In my last area, my companion and I started teaching a 16-year-old boy named Felipe. Felipe had come to church because of an invitation from his 12-year-old cousin. We taught Felipe the Restoration at his aunt’s house, and we gave him his own Book of Mormon and invited him to read a little bit from it. On our next visit, we were sad that Felipe hadn’t had a chance to read yet, so we decided to read a little bit of 3 Nephi 11 with him, his aunt and cousin. This chapter in the Book of Mormon is one of my favorites, because it is an account of when Jesus Christ himself comes to visit the people in the Americas after His death and resurrection. While we were reading the chapter, Felipe’s uncle who was inactive, came out of his room and started listening to us read. When we stopped reading to discuss, Felipe started asking tons of questions about Jesus Christ and his life, and his uncle started answering him. The spirit was very strong as this uncle testified of Jesus Christ and the Book of Mormon to his nephew.
A few days after this visit, Felipe invited us over to his house to teach his family and friend. When we gave them each a Book of Mormon and invited them to read the introduction before our next visit, Felipe’s friend opened his book and started reading it right then and there, and when we tried to talk to him he was so into his reading that he wouldn’t pay attention to the rest of our lesson. Teaching Felipe and his family showed me the power the Book of Mormon has. It has the power to invite the Spirit into our lives and to unite our families. No other book is like it. The Book of Mormon truly is the word of God and it testifies that Joseph Smith was a prophet who restored this church.
My mission looked nothing like I thought it would. I never thought that I would spend six weeks in an online MTC, serve in two different missions, or spend my whole mission working completely online until the last month and a half and had to teach ourselves how to street contact. But I am so glad that God is the one in charge and because of His plan for my mission, I got to experience each one of these things and so much more. I want to end with one of my favorite scriptures that I found on my mission. It is in Isaiah 55:8-9: For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
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