Putting on my Big Girl Pants

Below is a copy of the talk Megan delivered in church during her meeting formerly known as a farewell on Sunday, JUNE 30, 2013. She did a fabulous job!!

"I am leaving for the Philippines Laoag mission on Wednesday. Yikes. Well here are some fun facts about Laoag, it is currently 90 degrees, there is a 70% chance of precipitation, humidity is at 71% and there is a 100% chance that I will have an afro once I get there. My mission president and his wife are both Filipino and they look adorable in their picture, but other than that, I am really going into the unknown. But Jesus will protect me, right?

So when I was growing up the question of my faith was never something I thought about.  Every Sunday I went to church, and I didn’t really think too much about it. It was not until I was in high school that I really started to question my belief in the gospel.

I was barely fourteen when I realized I first wanted to serve a mission.  It was my first time at EFY and I was sitting in a lecture when the instructor asked “who of you, girls included, want to serve missions?” I had honestly never thought about it before, but I heard a voice in my head say “raise your hand, you’re going to do that” so I raised my hand and was like “I’m gonna do that.”  That was the first time that I had had a prompting from The Lord, and I had understood what he wanted for ME specifically and I have treasured that moment ever since.

For a long time, I was worried that I would fall away from the church. Retrospectively, my worrying about becoming inactive was what kept me from becoming inactive. I was worried and I was stubborn, so I decided to go to church, and go to seminary and keep a current temple recommend because I was going to BE MORMON DANGGIT.

I didn’t necessarily have the testimony to back up my resolution to be a part of this church, but I believed that if I really tried I could gain the strong testimony that I desired. Alma 34:27 gives some great words of wisdom to that effect.

“But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.”

I had the desire to believe and I exercised the small amount of faith that it took to follow the commandments, go to church, actively attend seminary and do the little things The Lord asks us to. As I held onto that small amount of faith, it grew and The Lord has blessed me with a larger portion of understanding.

I wouldn’t deign to compare the trials of my life to those of Joseph Smith, but I think he and I made the same decision to believe in and desire the truth.  It was his desire to pursue the truth that lead him to that grove of trees, and it was his determination to exercise faith that lead to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ to appear to him. Joseph’s resolve to pursue the truth that was revealed to him that day in his first vision and in all the days of his life after is a great example to me in the exercise of faith.

Joseph did not have all the pieces to the puzzle, and neither do we.  And while seeing deity face to face would be a testimony boost of unfathomable proportions, we can still gain full conversion to the gospel by acting on the idea of faith because true conversion does not come through passive contact, it must be something that is truly desired and pursued.  Sometimes it is hard to have this desire, life becomes difficult and the resolve to do the work of The Lord can waiver.

I had already decided to serve a mission when I was 14.  I told people, and it was always on the list of things to do that I kept in the back of my head.  I even made a deal with my best friend Katie when we were still in high school that we would put our papers in at the same time so we would be apart for as little time as possible.  Then we graduated from high school and went to college, and a mission was still lingering in the back of my mind, but it was later, in the future, I didn’t have to worry about that yet.

Then October Conference happened and the possibility became extremely real. Katie started to panic in the good way, the way that leads to prayer and the changing of plans and timing according to the idea of The Lord.  I panicked in the bad way that leads to self absorbed fear.  So Katie put in her mission papers, and I decided that I was probably not going to serve a mission.  My resolve to do the things that were right waivered because I was scared and I was too busy thinking of myself to exercise faith and really ask The Lord what I should do.

About a week after I had told my family that I was not going to do the whole mission thing anymore, I went to a fireside that was held in my Grandma’s ward.  It was the old mission president from the Rome mission and since my aunt and uncle both served there, we all went to hear him speak.  It was a great talk about the miracles that helped in the building of the Rome temple.  Near the end of his talk, I had the feeling of “you are going to be there, helping these people” and my stomach dropped and my heart started to pound.  Then, not one second after the person saying the closing prayer said “amen” I heard a voice say lovingly, but firmly “YOU’RE GOING ON A MISSION” and I was like “Okay!”

I turned to my aunt and said, with tears streaming down my face, “Debbie, I’m going to serve a mission” and as the news traveled down the pew, my mom popped her head out from the end and looked at me with these wide eyes and said “you’re going on a mission!?”

I didn’t know it then, but once I finally put on my big-girl pants and followed the promptings of The Lord I felt like the Lamanites in Third Nephi chapter 6.  There were so many different factions of the church and there were people rebelling against the church, but in spite of it all, they decided to remain true.

 “the church was broken up in all the land save it were among a few of the Lamanites who were converted unto the true faith; and they would not depart from it, for they were firm, and steadfast, and immovable, willing with all diligence to keep the commandments of the Lord.”

I love the vocabulary of this verse, “they would NOT depart,” they were FIRM, steadfast, immovable and diligent in the face of adversity and fear.  Similarly, in spite of my fears, I did what The Lord asked and I put in my mission papers only a couple months after Katie.

Often I get the “oh holy crap what am I getting myself into” feeling, but I just have to power through those feelings to when I can feel the safety and comfort that comes with following God’s plan for me and when those moments of comfort arrive, I am a little more converted to the truth.

I have a testimony that this gospel is true.  It is one of my prized possessions because The Lord and I have worked so hard to put it all together. There are three things that I think hold my testimony together. First is the atonement, it is so real and I know that through its power, anything is possible. Joseph Smith really did see Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ in the Sacred Grove, and the Book of Mormon is true. With a testimony of these three things, there is really no going back for me. I made my decision, and Heavenly Father is helping me stay true to my choice.

I would like to share my favorite scripture with you as a wrap up and it is Doctrine and Covenants 68:6 and it reads:

“wherefore, be of good cheer, and do not fear, for I the Lord and with you, and will stand by you; and ye shall bear record of me, even Jesus Christ, that I am the Son of the living God, that I was, that I am, and that I am to come.”

I know that The Lord has stood by me at all times in my life, and that because of this, I do not have need to fear.  I have also been fortunate enough to have so many family and friends who have stood by me and supported me, not just in this upcoming adventure, but in all the ones past and yet to come. Many of you are here today, and that is just more testament to how hard my friends and family rock.  I cannot wait to share the cheerful gospel message with the people of Laoag, they just have no idea how great life can be and I am so pumped to let them know.

I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen."