Sometimes a Broken Heart is Better Than a Hallelujah

Okay so I only have time for a few quick notes about last week so, here goes...

·  We had our Great Kentucky Louisville Mission Christmas party yesterday. It was really fun an awesome. There were a lot of name tags in that stake center (like 270). I got to see Sister Griffiths, Sister Lloyd, Sister Cox (eee!), Elder Peck, and Elder Hill. Poor Elder Hill is in West End which the ghetto of Louisville. They're all doing great and loving their missions. 

·  One of our investigators missed her baptismal date on the 20th because she's been struggling really bad emotionally, because no one in her family really loves her. So, we've kind of been out of contact. Well, we finally found her again and she's taking lessons with us and we're trying to make her feel better. I think that she just needs the Holy Ghost in her life so she really really really needs to be baptized.

·  We won't be in contact with L until after the holidays. 

·  R is kind of hiding from us. 

·  We're moved in! (Ask my family for my address if you so would like) But, the plumbing doesn't work. So, I've been washing my hair in the sink and we use the bathroom at our old apartment or at members' homes. Other than that it's a great house! Michele is the member we live with and I love her to death. She's awesome. 

·  I am struggling. Today was the first morning I really wanted to go home. As I write this I know how silly it sounds. I've just been feeling like I'm not a good enough missionary. Yes, I know I've only been out three weeks. Yes, I know I'll get better. Yes, I know missionary work is HARD. Sister Ward generally takes over the lesson when we teach and when she turns to me to say something my mind goes blank. I'm starting to go numb to the doors that are closed and the "We have our own religion", "You don't know Jesus", "No, thank you", "I'm happy right now", "This church fits my life better", "I don't believe in Mormonism", etc, etc. Maybe I'm not so numb because I get really depressed sometimes. I don't want to go home anymore, but I really hope that I can actually become a great missionary. All I know is that I am very much humbled.

·  We went Living Christmas Card caroling with the Zone Leaders (Elder Black and Elder Geary) again. That's always fun and we meet some very nice families. 

·  I finally saw horses! We went to Goshen for a dinner appointment. Goshen is the place where the houses are so big that I wet my pants. They're huge and expensive. They're surrounded by gorgeous ranches with horses that probably cost more than my life is worth. If you Google Lousville, this is he place that shows up in the pictures. 

·  No, still have not had fried chicken. 

·  Yes, I have started to say y'all. 

·  Other lingo I have no mastered: usn's. 

·  I made chocolate covered pomegranate clusters. Yes, they're delicious. 

·  I GET TO TALK TO MY FAMILY ON CHRISTMAS!! 

·  There's a package at the mission office that I'm not allowed to step outside my area to get...rrrrr. Hopefully, some very nice member will be willing to get it for me.

Okay, I love you all!!!!!!! I'll talk to you on CHRISTMAS!!!!)  

No, I Have Not Seen a Single Horse

It's been two weeks since I've last written. Blegh. Things are going swimmingly! We left the MTC at 3:30 am (said goodbye to Elders Proctor, Steed, and Kozub who are going to Alberquerque, New Mexico) and flew out at around six. We had a layover in Atlanta, Georgia and then landed in Louisville, Kentucky in the late afternoon. Sleeping on planes is not the most comfortable thing in  the world. Our President and his wife were there to greet us and they are so nice. President Brough is absolutely hilarious and a great man. Sister Brough constantly has to tell us if her husband is lying about some stories he tells us. We stayed at the Mission Home for a night before the Transfer Meeting in the morning. The best part was eating real food. Not MTC food! No, it was not fried chicken. I haven't had any fried chicken, yet. 

The Transfer Meeting was scary and exciting. The mission has over 200 missionaries and most of us were gathered in the church building next to the Mission Office. The sad part was saying goodbye to Sister Cox, Griffiths, and Lloyd. I miss my adopted brothers too.  Sister Cox is now serving in Indiana! Woo! I forgot where Sister Lloyd went, but Sister Griffiths is in my Zone and I get to see her every now and then. :) 

I'm serving in the Westwind mission. I'm in Omaha county and our apartment is in Crestwood. I can't give the address because we're moving on Saturday into a member's home. We kind of live in the ghetto part of town so it's a good thing. Someone even tried to break into the apartment the day before I got there. 

It feels just like Washington without the rain. It's overcast all the time and very chilly. Replace all the evergreens with other trees and there's Kentucky. 

We live in the rich part. If anyone does have an accent it is very slight. The houses are massive in Goshen and what we would consider really well off is the lower middle class. 

It's only in Western and Southern Kentucky that the accent is thick and people don't have teeth. 

My new companion is Sister Ward and she is awesome! President Brough (rhymes with' rough') definitely picked out the right one for me. She's outgoing and has the energy of a living pixie stick. She's super nice to me and calls me her baby. So, she's my mission mom (sorry Mommy). I'm learning a lot from her and we're becoming really good friends. We're even going to the same school. She even wanted to major in Deaf Studies and ASL! Coincidence? 

We live right above C who is a recent convert. She is really sweet and gave me a bracelet and a Washington cross-stitch pattern. So far I've met a few of the recent converts. The Scott family (they're awesome) and Anne and Blake (super nice, strong, and cool). Our investigator's are Donna, the Kumar family (they're Hindu!), and many others that I have not met. 

We tracted into the awesome big black man named R. He's a baptist, but he actually had been reading the Book of Mormon since the last missionaries in the area visited him. It was a little miracle because his wife had passed away and he was one page away from where Alma talks about the Spirit World. Coincidence? I think not! We do this thing called a Prayer Approach in which we ask people if we could pray together. It really works because it invites the Spirit and more people are willing to do this than listen to us. I said the prayer with R and he really liked what I said. We tried to run into him on Saturday again, but he was probably at the Baptist church Saturday meeting. The Baptist church is larger than the Louisville temple. We call it the Great and Spacious. 

The thing about Kentucky is that everyone knows Jesus. Everyone has a dog. Everyone and their dog has already been saved by Jesus. The biggest struggle for me is having the door close because they already have their own religion. One man kind of told us that we didn't know the right Jesus because we believe in the Godhead. Sister Ward says I'll eventually become numb to it after a while. She's been out a year this Wednesday. It kind of sucks because a lot of people think that they are perfectly happy where they are. They've already been saved. Not many people will accept that there is a way for them to be much, much happier. Most of the time our encounters with people are discussion about how our religions are similar or we clear up some false things they've heard about the Church. The Spirit flows in and out of those conversations. 

I'm confident that if we keep trying and working hard, Heavenly Father will lead us to those who are ready to receive the gospel. 

Like the other day! We were looking for past investigator's in our area and we tracted into L. She is a really sweet twenty year-old who is attended some classes at college and is looking for a job. She hasn't seen missionaries since 2013. After talking to her for a while we found that she is looking for some purpose and direction in life. She's been picking up the Bible, but only attends church with her parents every now and then. She wanted to learn more about God' plan and the Church. She agreed to meet with us for a Church tour and a short lesson on Wednesday! Pray that she actually shows up! 

I got to meet the ward (Crestwood 2nd) at the Christmas party. Sister ward and I decide to match that day. They are a really big ward. In fact they remind me of Sunrise Ward in Puyallup. They're really nice and friendly. I like them a lot. 

The Bishop's name is Bishop Bednar. He is the friendliest and nicest person on this planet. His only facial expression is happiness. Oh, and his dad is Elder Bednar. Which is awesome! 

I got to give a talk on Sunday about building the kingdom of God. It was kind of a last minute preparation, but the Spirit took over which was awesome. 

A quarter of the ward is Hispanic so the Hermanas (Hermana Wilkinson and Hermana Jensen) translate during the meeting. It's pretty cool and the Hermanas are awesome. They're really nice and they eat at our place for lunch sometimes. 

The Elders in our ward are Elder Black and Elder Geary (he just recently left the Navy for his mission and he really looks like a military man). They're really nice. We went Living Christmas card caroling with them last night and we'll be going again tonight. 

The sleep schedule was difficult at first. Going to bed at 10:30 and waking up at 6:30 is a struggle, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. 

More news to come! I love you all! Keep us in your prayers! 

Love, 
Raye

Let the Lower Lights Be Burning

Once again it is P-Day. I have enjoyed immensely your letters and have treasured them up. I like to show all the Sisters your letters and they love hearing about you guys. I'm happy Thanksgiving was awesome for you all! Tell Josh and Emilee to quit it with the spoilers of Mockingjay, haha. 

On Tuesday I had the opportunity to sing in the MTC choir as an alto. It was an an amazing experience. We sand "Nearer My God To Thee" and it is now my favorite song. The best part was we got to sing for Elder Dallin H. Oaks when he came to speak for the devotional. He gave a great talk and I absolutely loved it. It's interesting how whenever he looked in my general direction he looked like he was staring into my soul, haha. 

Everything is still going great here at the MTC. I'm enjoying gym time. We play four square, basketball, and run laps around the upstairs track. It's helping me lose what I gained from all that chocolate milk, haha. I'm weaning myself off very slowly. The best part about here is that the showers always have hot water. 

Thanksgiving was awesome! I missed you all terribly, but managed to count my blessings and our district had a great time. We had a nice breakfast, but we quickly left so that we could be in the choir for the devotional. Unfortunately, we were too late to grab a seat so we sat on the chairs on the floor by the bleachers and listened quietly to them practice "Come Thou Fount". We were a little bummed, but then were asked to be ushers. After we did that we were given the seats in the second row right in front of Elder David A. Bednar! He gave such a great talk and the Spirit really touched me. (He's just as short as I imagined), After the devotional we had a service project in which we made casserole packets for the Utah Food Bank for children who need food on the weekends. It was super fun and they let us listen to pop LDS music. We then went to a Thanksgiving show thing in which we listened to music from missionaries and a few short talks. Lunch consisted of turkey slices, green beans, potatoes and gravy, rolls, pumpkin pie, and cranberry sauce. I miss the canned cranberry sauce from home ;). We then got to watch 'Meet the Mormons' which was an awesome movie! Please watch it. I loved it. 

Sister Cox and I have been called as Sister Training Leaders for the Zone. We've been working with Elder Peck and Ritchey (The Zone Leaders) in preparation for the new missionaries that are coming in on Wednesday and the foreign missionaries arriving tomorrow. We're so excited. I hope that we can work together to be great leaders for the Sisters.

We had a Skype chat with a member of the church earlier this week for a bit. Her name was Sister Finch and apparently she lives in Yakima and home teaches with Aunt Erin and has taught Cole in Seminary! Small world, huh? We had a great lesson and discussion with her. She is so sweet. 

Our temporary investigator, Will, finally accepted the commitment to pray and read the Book of Mormon. The only thing that softened his heart was the Atonement. He was a challenge because he only took the lessons because his Mormon friend said to try it out. The experience really strengthened my desire to place the Savior at the heart of every lesson, because He changes hearts. Not me. We are done teaching Will since Jordan will be back today. We're going to teach him the Plan of Salvation. More than anything I hope that the Spirit will be there. 

On Sunday we got to hear from Sister Sheri Dew in Relief Society. She is such a wonderful lady and has a spirit of fire when she bears her testimony. I don't know why she isn't married yet, but I know whoever the Lord has for her will be rockin'. Her talk was wonderful especially since it was on the Priesthood. She gave me greater knowledge and understanding about how it works and I'm glad I'm able to use it in my life. 

We also watched a talk by Elder Bednar called "Characters of Christ" and after that I felt like I needed a real change of heart. I'm trying to be less selfish every day and try to help my companion.

And now, things I'm thankful for: 

A Bed: There are mattresses here! I have two cuddly teddy bears, two blankets, and I'm always warm. 

Food: The food here is free and I'm never hungry. (Well, sometimes I miss breakfast because of gym time) There's always chocolate milk, ice cream, and jello. 

My Companion: She's a rough riding, farm-girl, tomboy, and my buddy. She is smart and has an amazing testimony of the gospel. She takes everyday in stride and never lets her disease get in the way. For everything that I lack she makes up tenfold.

My District: What a fun bunch! We are the best of friends and enjoy every minute we have in class and during doctrinal study. 

My Family: I love you!!! 

My Friends: And I love you!! 

The Gospel: Alma 26:35-37. Need I say more? 

Jesus Christ

The Atonement

The Restoration 

The Book of Mormon 

The Plan of Salvation

Heavenly Father 

The Holy Ghost 

The Bible 

The Love of God 

Missionaries 

Kentucky

My District President: President Gines! Woop! 

I could go on and on, but I am very grateful for everything that is happening in my life and on my mission. We leave December 8th for Kentucky and I'm nervous, but am so excited to get out there and bring the world His truth. I'm excited to fall in love with the people there. Sure it will be hard, but I'm planning on having an awesome time in the Lord's vineyard. Nothing would make me happier. 

All my love from the MTC, 

Raye 

It is Affectionately Known as the Dork Dot!

11/24/14

It's P-Day!! It's weird to think that I've been here at the MTC for only a few days. Is it five? I don't know. Day one was an emotional roller coaster, but I have my nametag, room, and companion. Woo! The food was great at first, but an Elder told us that it slowly gets worse over time and I am beginning to attest to that. However, I have had at least two glasses of chocolate milk every meal since I figured out they have it twenty-four seven. It's so good! 

So, my companion is Sister Cox, which is great because I already know her! We're almost best buddies now and work great together in companion study and other things that I'll be mentioning. The other sisters in our district are Sister Lloyd and Sister Griffiths. Sis. Griffiths is an absolute riot and shares my love of superheroes and Doctor Who (She's the one with the short light hair). Sister Lloyd is really sweet and is obsessed with chocolate. (She's the dark haired one in the pictures). 

The coolest part of the first day of being a missionary was being in the orientation room with 700 others that had arrived on Wednesday. You would have gotten chills from hearing all of us sing "Called to Serve" and "We'll Bring The World His Truth". The Spirit here is so strong and I LOVE it! Everyday is an opportunity to study and feel it. Disneyland is not the happiest place on earth. It's the MTC. The lines are about the same though, haha. 

The Elders in our district are awesome! They're like brothers to us. There's Elder Hill (blonde short hair), Elder Proctor (dark hair and eyebrows) ( I actually remember him from PBD! He danced on the Youth Show team with Johnny last year before he moved to Idaho), Elder Peck (tall, dark hair, looks like superman), Elder Ritchey (spiky blond hair), Elder Steed (short, dark hair and glasses), and Elder Kuzab (He actually arrived here yesterday because there's seven feet of snow in Rochester, NY where he's from). By the way we took off our dork dots after day one. We were tired of people welcoming us to the MTC. Our district is definitely family now. We sit together at lunch, go to devotionals together, and we do doctrinal study as a group. It's amazing how well the Elders treat the Sisters. I have had a door opened for me more times than I've opened one. They also get very protective of us, because they do love us as sisters and that's awesome! 

The first class I went to was on People and My Purpose where a large group of us learned how to teach an 'investigator' during role-play. The object was to invite people to come unto Christ by finding out what they need in their lives and not just teach the lessons. Since I've been here Sister Cox and I have never taught a perfect lesson. At all. The Spirit is definitely the best teacher and I tell more cool stories soon. i'm using my journal to try and tell you all that I can. We had a quick tour but it took us two days to figure out where everything was. I did laundry today. Woo! 

I cannot express how amazing the Spirit is here. It's only been a few days and you can already see the change it has made in us as missionaries and people. Our teachers are Sister Howard and Brother Sorensen. Bro. Sorensen is one of the shortest men I have ever seen. He's a foot shorter than me but has a spirituality that practically punches you in the face. He's really funny. Sis. Howard is really sweet and says"y'all" a lot which is only preparing me for Kentucky. 

Sister Cox and I have been teaching 'Jordan' as our progressing investigator twice now and we have another appointment with him today after dinner. He's actually Bro. Sorensen who's acting like an investigator he taught on his mission. Jordan is 23 years old and is a father of a little six month old baby boy named Nash. He's nervous about being a father and worried he won't do a good job at it. His cousin is a member of teh Church and Jordan wondered how his cousin was doing so well at being a dad. He referred Jordan to the missionaries. It has been a nerve-wracking and amazing experience teaching him. On Saturday he willingly prayed with us and we're hoping that he has been continuing to do so. Today we'll be teaching him the plan of salvation because we feel he needs to know about the atonement because he's having doubts that Heavenly father will listen to him after everything that he's done. We're ready for anything her asks us though. Even though it's a pretend scenario teh Spirit is teaching us how to recognize promptings and helping us know what it feels like. The Spirit has actually put words in my mouth several time sand recalled to my mind stories and parables that have actually helped our investigator's understanding. It's just so exciting to help someone get closer to Christ. 

Ok, awesome story time! So we were doing role play with Elder Peck and Ritchey in which each companionship would give an excuse as to why they didn't want to be baptized and the other would try to convince them otherwise. When it was time for Sister Cox and I to teach them. After they had been convinced, Elder Ritchey told me that the only reason his heart had been softened and he couldn't make any more argument against us was when I had opened my scriptures and left them opened. Laying on the pages was a small picture of Christ that I kept in that section. It just testified to me how much the Spirit testifies of truth and is the real teacher, not me or Sister Cox. Christ is the center of everything. That's the simple truth. D&C 88:77. 

The other day Sister Lloyd was feeling very unworthy to be here to the point where she burst into tears. She is wonderful and deserves to be here but has had a history of self doubt and inadequacy. So, she asked for a priesthood blessing from all of the Elders in our district. Seeing those young men use their priesthood authority to comfort Sister Lloyd was one of the most powerful things I've seen here. Elder Proctor, who is a goofball, gave the blessing and I knew that he was so in tune with the Spirit because I felt power in his words. Sister Lloyd is much better now and doing great! 

Sister Cox and I taught a member on Friday. The most amazing thing happened. As we were having a companion prayer before we met him something said in the back of my mind 'Holy Ghost'. And that was it. We were going to teach a lesson on prayer. So, I told Sister Cox my feelings and we taught about prayer then asked him about how he felt about the Holy Ghost. He leaned back and said, 'Well....um," and he had this kind of skewed perception of how the Holy Ghost works.  Well, we taught him what we knew and later Sister Cox told me that he was getting a bit emotional during the last bit before we left. 

On Sunday we got to listen to Sister Marriot (First Counselor in the YW Presidency) and Brother Allen (Managing Director of Missionary Department). Both gave powerful and amazing talks that have truly inspired me. 

I am witnessing miracles here! It is wonderful! Right now as I write this my heart is filled with how much I love it here. I'll be here for three weeks before we leave so I get to enjoy the sweet spirit here, my replacement family, and the chocolate milk. 

I have attached pictures from our dorm and our Sunday walk to the Provo Temple. It is freezing! It's also the first time a lot of the missionaries here have seen snow. Actually never mind I don't know how to download the pictures from here. 

I LOVE YOU ALL! I miss you so much and I'm glad that daddy is already seeing blessings. They are overflowing where I am. I've loved your letters and am so grateful that I have chosen to serve, 

The church is true. The book is blue, Christ loves you. 

All my love in the world,

Raye

Dear Blog,


So, I had wanted to wait a while before opening my letter, but I believe my mother has less patience than I do. Who can blame her though? To be honest I guess I was too nervous to actually open it. Here before me was, essentially, my future. Who I will become over the next year and a half would be based upon this location and these people I would soon serve. I was terrified. I still am, but in a different way.

A lot of people had asked me, "Where do you want to go?"

"I don't know," I would reply.

"But if you could choose, where would you want to go?"

"I don't know. I guess foreign would be cool."

Honestly, in the beginning I wanted really badly to go foreign and to learn a different language. There's something fun and very exciting about that. It's somewhere I would have never been before and probably never go again in my lifetime. Plus, everyone thinks foreign missions are way cooler than stateside. I guess I wanted to be cool (as shallow as that sounds) and have an exciting experience.

As soon as my papers went in my attitude changed. I didn't care all that much. I knew God would place me somewhere where I could serve and be the most helpful bringing His children the gospel. This feeling intensified as I held my white envelope in my hands.

While my family was setting up Skype and phone calls with pretty much everyone I could think of I quietly slipped off into another room. I prayed to Heavenly Father that I would have an outpouring of gratitude for anywhere that He would send me. After I finished I didn't feel different.

For some reason everything becomes more stressful when there are many eyes locked onto everything you do. I opened my letter and flipped it under the envelope so that I had to read everything sentence by sentence. No cheating. No looking ahead.

 

Lousiville, Kentucky...Oh. my gosh! I'm going to Kentucky! I finished reading the whole letter and glanced back at my location at the top. Was I just a little bit unhappy that I wasn't going to Japan? Absolutely not. I felt at peace. I wasn't nervous, but generally felt good about where my Heavenly Father is sending me. 

I'm extremely excited to go to the MTC, meet my first companion, my mission president and his wife, and the beautiful country that I'll  be spending 18 months in.

Thus, I have adopted one of the motto's of Kentucky as my blog title.

I hope that as I go out into the field that I will be the instrument that the Lord needs me to be. I will sincerely try to prepare myself to be a great missionary and to share the things that I hold dear. I know I could never do it without God and Jesus Christ. 

Sincerely, 

Raye 

Dear Blog,

So, as I begin writing this I guess that it should be done as a letter since that's how this started, isn't it? I figured even though there will be a few times in which I will write in this blog myself I still feel a desire to write about the key points leading up to my mission starting with one. 

When President Thomas S. Monson first announced the age change for sister missionaries from 21 years to 19 I was excited. Before then, I had not considered it. I figured that if no guy wanted to marry me by then...well, what the heck, I'd go. Something clicked that day though. I knew it was something I was to think about, but I never seriously did until my senior year of high school. Maybe it was because that's when they push you to start considering your future. It was more than that though. I wanted to do it, but I was scared. Of what? Well, I was afraid of leaving home, my family, friends, a quick slip into college life at UVU, and the comfort of everyday living. It was more than that though. I was afraid of something unknown. I'm not a talkative person. Approaching people is hard for me. I didn't think that I could be good at that kind of stuff. I still don't, but I'm working on it.

With all these fears (or excuses, now that I think about it) I still got on my knees and asked. My answer came very, very, very slowly. I didn't expect it to come fast anyway and I let the question float around in my head. I waited patiently.

The answer came in a way I wasn't expecting. My mother was watching the Women's General Broadcast on her iPad. It was a recording, because she had missed the actual live showing. I decided to watch even though I was still clinging on for dear life on the title of 'young woman'. I don't remember the talks. I do remember the music. As the choir sang I suddenly received an impression in my mind to read my patriarchal blessing, I had thought this before, but not in this way. So, during one of the songs I made my way to my room, took my blessing out my my 'special things drawer', knelt down, and read...slowly. I cannot describe what I felt when I finished. I was elated and felt like I knew something. I cannot tell the details, but over and over I read about my responsibilities of my tribe and the things regarding sharing my testimony, being a leader (something I'm not yet, but hope to become), and being a light to others. Things that I was supposed to do. I do not think of myself as great or overly spiritual or extremely faithful. If you can understand one thing it is this. Heavenly Father is good to me more than I deserve. I take no credit for the things He shapes and has shaped me into. The promises I have been given are not something that I boast. These are the things the God has been so gracious as to bless me with and to help me decide on a mission.

I cried. I admit. With bowed head I thanked my God for my answer.

Much later that senior year was the hardest I had ever been tested in my life. I tripped and fell. I stopped reading my scriptures and saying my prayers. I enjoyed church, but it wasn't the same. I lost whatever light I had gained from years of spiritual preparation. Thinking back, I feel sorrow at the thought of the things I missed and the people I started hanging out with at school.

Everything was really difficult, because I had lost that spiritual connection. I wanted it back so bad. But, with the example of certain individuals, my parents, the scriptures, and my God I got back up. Not without my older brother, Jesus Christ, to hold my hand.

We moved from Puyallup, WA to St. George, UT. I hated it. I admit. I miss my friends and family, but I honor my parents decision, because it's probably one of the best things they did for me. I got a job, strengthened relationships, and I visit the temple grounds on my days off for a few hours to sit and read the scriptures. It is here that I really felt myself being stitched back together.

It was then I felt a remembrance of the stirrings I had felt when I had received my answer to that question. "Should I serve a mission?" I knew that I was supposed to go. Not only that, but I wanted to go. So, I scheduled my interview with the bishop and then the stake president. I felt excited again. After hours, days, and weeks of trying to get back on my feet to feel ready and worthy to be an instrument in the Lord's hands it finally happened. On my final interview with the stake president, I handed him my medical papers and was told they, along with the rest of my information, would be sent to church headquarters. I would receive my call in a large white envelope on September 12th, 2014. Clutching that envelope in my hands I suddenly felt a sense of hopelessness. Just as I could not have regained that love, spirituality, and faith that I had worked so hard to gain over the years from my Heavenly Father there was no way I could do this by myself. Deo Gratiam Habeamus. Let us be grateful to God.

35 Now have we not reason to rejoice? Yea, I say unto you, there never were men that had so great reason to rejoice as we, since the world began; yea, and my joy is carried away, even unto boasting in my God; for he has all power, all wisdom, and all understanding; he comprehendeth all things, and he is a merciful Being, even unto salvation, to those who will repent and believe on his name.

 36 Now if this is boasting, even so will I boast; for this is my life and my light, my joy and my salvation, and my redemption from everlasting wo. Yea, blessed is the name of my God, who has been mindful of this people, who are a branch of the tree of Israel, and has been lost from its body in a strange land; yea, I say, blessed be the name of my God, who has been mindful of us, wanderers in a strange land.

 37 Now my brethren, we see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in; yea, he numbereth his people, and his bowels of mercy are over all the earth. Now this is my joy, and my great thanksgiving; yea, and I will give thanks unto my God forever. Amen.

-Alma 26: 35-37 

Sincerely,
Raye France