One Year Later...

FAMILY AND FRIENDS. 

This week has got to be one of the best!!! We were able to find lots of new people to teach, make major progress with those we are teaching, and Trevor was baptized !! 

It was a beautiful service and his family who aren't members all came to support him. His mom just sobbed through the whole thing and loved it. and SO MANY people came!! It was a packed house, and Trevor was overwhelmed with gratitude! What a beautiful day! 

We had our final interviews with President Carlson, and it was so tender! I can't believe it's been a year with him and his sweet wife! I love them dearly. His final words to me included, "I am so proud of you." Those words sunk deep into my heart. What a year it has been! I am just so grateful!

If there's one thing about the gospel I have learned more than anything else on my mission the past year, it's love. And every other thing in the gospel is quite frankly dependent upon it.  Love has the ability to alter us. It has altered me. It is what keeps me going each day. Love for my Heavenly Father and Mother, for my Savior, for my Family, for my companion, and for every life I meet here in Indiana. The pure love of Christ simply HAS to be divine. There is no other way to explain the Lord's work in which we can all be engaged in. The love we experience while in the service of God cannot be adequately explained- but it is FELT.  I remember getting transferred to Fort Wayne during the week of the polar vortex when I was now in negative 40 degree weather with plenty of ice and wind to freeze this Vegas girl. It was dark, freezing, and so unfamiliar. I remember feeling in particular very small, unhelpful, and alone.  My first real day here, we were going through the stack of ward names to see if anyone stood out to try and visit. I remember one jumped out at me, and I showed my companion. Throughout our day, we received a phone call from a member asking that we go visit a lady in a behavior health hospital- this lady had the same name as the one I had pointed out earlier that morning. As if twice wasn't enough, during our dinner appointment, the member who fed us mentioned this same lady again, and how she felt like we should go stop by.  After 3 distinct impressions that day, we both were unified on the idea to head right over to the hospital and meet this woman. Knowing not a single thing about her, we checked in and headed straight for her room.  Quietly we knocked on her door, and we were let in with a yell. We entered in, and this large woman rolls over frightened, and asks who we were. Once she knew who we were, her fears seemed to ease enough for her to relax and begin a conversation.  Now this is what cannot be explained. Without knowing a single thing about her and without even talking to her for more than 45 seconds, I felt a power and a love come through my whole body that could not possibly have been my own. I began to weep as I quickly connected to this woman who was laying in so much anguish also feeling incredibly small, unhelpful, and alone.  I was able to sit with her, and listen. I was able to love her with a love that was beyond me. A love that didn't confine to labels. A love that I could tangibly feel. A love so strong that I was looking at my sister. I sat in that room that night until every tear she needed to shed was shed, and every word she needed to say was said, and every bit of pain and worry she needed to feel was felt. I sat in that room until I saw a frightened, troubled woman, become a peaceful, hopeful one. I sat in that room with her, my companion, and most certainly my Savior. A night that was awfully freezing and dark, seemed to fill me with a warmth and a light I'll never forget.  This woman's name is Angelia. And for the past 5 months we have become the best of friends. She is 44 years old, and her plethora of illnesses label her insane and an outcast. However, she means the world to me. Angelia fits right in my world, and certainly in God's. She is beautiful, hilarious, and so gentle. Her joy is absolutely my joy. And her pain is certainly my pain. The friendship we now have, has been developed one day at a time.  Without Angelia knowing any of the backstory, she shared with me something I'll never forget! She recalls that same freezing and dark night, where she was alone crying in her hospital bed. Praying all day for God to help her feel something. When all of a sudden just when she's about to go to bed, she hears a knock, and 2 young girls come in. She remembers being frightened with our unfamiliar faces and says everything went mute for her.  All she remembers is hearing a voice come to her head and her heart that said, "You don't have to be scared, Angelia, they love you. They love you." Right there means everything to me. It means God trusted small, unhelpful me to love his daughter. && He blessed me with His love that could cast out all fear from the room.  From that moment on, our friendship has been built on that love. Real, gracious love. I have come to really know Angelia. and She trusts me.  Everyday I call her she utters, "How did you know I needed you today?"  Every time she lets me brush and braid her hair she says, "Sister Rich you know you're the ONLY one who I let touch my hair!" because of the abuse she faced as child.  Every time we leave she asks for a big sister rich hug, although she normally rejects physical touch.  What has occurred over the past 5 months, that occurs now in the 100th trip to the hospital or the behavior health facility or her living room, has brought me closer to my Savior than ever. His love has been present since the day I first saw her name on a 10 page list, to the countless times I'm with her now. God will lead us to bind up his broken hearted, to lift up the heads who hang down, and to love those who others pass by. And in the process, your own wounds will heal, because I know mine did.  This work is so much greater than me, and you. And it is real. If we allow our lives to be guided by our Father in Heaven, He will indeed GUIDE them. He will take us places we never thought we could be, and lead us to people we so desperately need. I leave my witness that the Saviors love is real. I know that there are people to your right and to your left who are hurting. Maybe they're feeling small, unhelpful, or alone. Maybe they just lost a loved one, overwhelmed financially, are struggling in their family. Maybe they are filling with doubts, don't feel they fit in, or are wounded by the decisions of others.  Whatever it may be, there are lives to bless, wounds to heal, and neighbors to LOVE.  &&There is no more time to waste.  ALL MY LOVE,  ox sister rich