Farewell Talk

I gave my farewell talk today, and there are a lot of people that I care about that weren't able to be there for it.  So, I'm going to put it here so that everyone will have a chance to read it. It's kind of long, so, if you don't feel like reading 6 pages of my thoughts, that's fine. But (!) if you want to read the best farewell talk ever (!) here it is. :)

[ insert cheesy joke/introduction of myself that should make people laugh ]


Brother Jacobs asked me to speak on Elder L. Tom Perry’s talk titled, “Finding Lasting Peace and Building Eternal Families.”

Elder Perry starts off by saying:

“Our journey through life has periods of both good times and bad. Each presents different challenges. How we learn to adjust to the changes which come along depends on the foundation on which we build.”

All of us want to find peace. This world is crazy. Life is hard. People can be mean, and rude, and ungrateful. We live in a world where happiness is rare, where evil abounds, where wars are raging, where people fight and argue over the teeniest things, where people are selfish and greedy and are never satisfied with what they already have. This world is a scary place!

Sometimes I look around me and try to figure out if it is possible for me to go hide in the woods or mountains somewhere away from the world and safe. But I know that’s not what I’m here on earth to do.

We are all here for some reason or another. We can’t just hide from life. We need to live so that we can fulfill our potential. But in order to do that we must find our own peace first. Because how on earth are we supposed to deal with this crazy world without it?

In 1908 Charles Edward Jefferson wrote,

“The world is crying out for something, it scarce knows what. Wealth has come, and the world is filled with inventions of human skill and genius, but we are still restless, unsatisfied, and bewildered. If we open the New Testament we are greeted by these words, ‘Come unto me and I will give you rest, I am the bread of life, I am the Light of the world, If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink, My peace I give unto you, You shall receive power, You shall rejoice.’” 

So, how do we find peace? We turn to the Savior! Our Wonderful Savior who LOVES us and DIED for us so that we could find the peace that the rest of the world is searching for! It’s really a very simple concept, we all know this. It’s one of those things that we hear over and over and over. But, in this world, especially in these Latter Days, it’s a hard concept to internalize.

When I was in Primary, I knew all the primary answers to life’s questions. Go to church, say your prayers, read your scriptures. But I didn’t really take them to heart until recently.

I went to church every Sunday. I always have. But why? Why should we come to church every Sunday when we hear the same things every week?

These are the kinds of answers we sometimes need to think about. Because I believe that through these simple motions of praying, coming to church, and reading our scriptures we will be able to find the peace we need to make it through this earth life.

So, why do I come to church every Sunday? Most importantly because of the sacrament. To cleanse myself from my sins of the past week. Also, to hear the lessons I’ve heard all my life. One of the best ways to learn is by repetition. Other reasons are to take a vacation from the world and just focus on the gospel. To remind myself of the covenants I’ve made, to meet with friends who have the same standards as me. To build up the ward so that we are more family then friends. To become the brothers and sisters we call ourselves. We shouldn’t just come to church because we are supposed to come to church. We come to church to strengthen us against the world.

Why should I pray every single day? 

Because it brings us closer to Heavenly Father. How are we supposed to recognize Him when we die if we’ve never talked to Him? Sure, He knows all of our troubles without telling Him, but the relationship that we gain from our personal daily prayers is SO important. It helps us to recognize when He is trying to communicate with us. It keeps us accountable. Also, planning your day is easier when you say everything you plan to do, to your Heavenly Father every morning. Through prayer you can talk through your problems, you can ask for help.

Have you ever seen the painting of Christ knocking on the door? It’s called Jesus at the Door and painted by Del Parson. If you look closely you’ll notice the door doesn’t have a handle. It’s symbolic of Jesus Christ knocking on our door. He wants to come in to help us and give us peace, but the only way for that to happen is to let him in. Because the door only opens from the inside, another reason we pray is to let Him in.

 Why should we read our scriptures?

Elder Robert D. Hales once said, “When we want to speak to God, we pray. And when we want Him to speak to us, we search the scriptures.”

The scriptures tell countless stories that we can apply to situations we have in our lives. We can use the principles taught in the scriptures to guide us in our decisions every single day. The scriptures can comfort us, can help us, can teach us, and on and on. We need the power we gain from reading our scriptures every single day. That is why we have been encouraged to do so by our prophets.

These three are all ways to contribute to having lasting peace. When we do these things we start good habits, we have strength against temptation, our minds are purer, our spirits invigorated. We start to realize what our purpose here on earth is, we can look at the bigger picture. Our fears go away as we learn to depend on the Lord. Through this we can have the peace that we need as we see that nothing in this world can affect us as long as we have Jesus Christ on our side.

Later in his talk, Elder Perry tells the parable of the Wheat and the Tares, from Matthew 13. The wheat is good, the tares bad, however in the beginning stages of growth, both look the same. The farmer has planted his wheat and while he slept, an enemy planted tares all among the wheat. The servants didn’t know what to do, so they asked the farmer if he wanted them to go gather the tares. Knowing, that would end up hurting some of the wheat, he told them to wait until the harvest when they would be able to easily tell the two apart and keep them separate. Saving the wheat and burning the tares.

Elder Perry believes this parable applies to our day. After reading the parable he said, “That old enemy of all mankind has found as many devices as he can think of to scatter tares far and wide. He has found ways to have them penetrate even the sanctity of our own homes. The wicked and worldly ways have become so widespread there seems to be no real way of weeding them out. They come by wire and through the air into the very devices we have developed to educate and entertain us. The wheat and the tares have grown close together. A steward managing the field must, with all his or her power, nourish that which is good and make it so strong and beautiful the tares will have no appeal either to the eye or the ear. How blessed are we as members of the Lord’s Church to have the precious gospel of our Lord and Savior as a foundation on which we can build our lives.” 

In the past few years, I have figured out ways that work for me in finding peace.

I started praying not only morning and night, but also all throughout the day. When I’m sad, when I’m struggling with homework, when I need help on tests, when I need courage, when I’m grateful, etc. When you have a constant prayer in your heart, and talk to Heavenly Father all day long, you remember that He is always there to listen to you and help you and bless you. This brings me peace.

I also look around for Tender Mercies. They are everywhere when you look! One day, I was walking to campus for an evening class that I didn’t feel like going to. I was having one of those days where I just felt sad. I had no reason to be sad, I just was. I was feeling sorry for myself and at the bottom of this long hill, we call “Freshman Hill”, I said a teensy prayer that went something like “I’m sorry Heavenly Father, I shouldn’t be so ungrateful, and I feel like I always pray to you asking for things, but I’m in a bad mood right now and I don’t know what to do, please help me.” I kept walking and at the top of the hill was a deer! Which is something that occasionally happens, but not often and I just instantly felt so loved because it’s such a small thing but I felt like Heavenly Father had sent me a deer to cheer me up. He loves us so much! He has blessed us with so many beautiful little tender mercies. I know that I feel peace when I focus on those rather than the negatives.

Another thing that I do when I am feeling overwhelmed is mentally take a step back. I stop to think about everything. I look at my world with an eternal perspective, and all of a sudden everything is okay. Sometimes while working on projects for school until late at night I worry and stress out over this ONE project for ONE class and at the time, in the moment I feel like my life depends on doing well on this project. But it doesn’t. If you think about it. This is ONE grade of many, in ONE class of many, in ONE semester of many. When I look at it that way, I can step back and back and back and realize that one grade is not going to affect my eternal salvation. It won’t affect my kids, it won’t affect my chances at marriage, it won’t affect my job 10 years from now. It’s just one teeny tiny speck on my eternal life. And that’s kind of how everything we do is.  

Life is full of ups and downs, but if we base our foundation on Jesus Christ and His gospel, nothing else really matters as much. Through Jesus Christ, we can find Lasting Peace. And we have a huge head start on the rest of the world because we already have the gospel. We have prophets to guide us, scriptures to read, we know how to pray and we have the spirit to comfort us. We have a wonderful ward. And no matter where you go you can always find a ward just as wonderful as this one. Every worry that we have can be eased with the gospel. With faith. We are so blessed, we have no excuse to not search for that peace. Unless you want to be miserable, but I don’t see why anyone would.

Now, for just a minute, I’d like to finish off by talking about how I came to my decision to serve a mission. I have never ever wanted to serve a mission. In fact, while the mission age change convinced many girls to decide to serve missions, it made me not want to go even more. A mission was not in my plans. I don’t like talking to strangers, I don’t like trying new foods, change scares me, I’m not very fit, and I’m not very brave. I went to a year at BYU then I came home for the summer. Then at the end of the summer I went and stayed with my cousins, before my closest cousin left for his mission. I was there for his farewell talk and when he was speaking, for a second I saw a glimpse of myself on a mission. Something that had never happened before. I have never been able to see myself as a missionary. But that tiny glimpse changed everything. Not at once, though. That glimpse terrified me. I really didn’t want to serve a mission. 

Throughout the week, I started praying asking about what I should do. I never really got a yes or no answer. The only thing that changed was my attitude. Every day that I prayed for help, my chances of serving a mission got higher. Before that farewell talk, it was 0 %. No chance at all. But after a few days of praying it went to 30% then 50% then 70% and when it got to about 75% I made the decision to at least start my papers. Because I could always back out, but if I did decide to go I didn’t want to have to wait too long.

When I started that, everything worked out so smoothly that it almost made sense that I was supposed to serve a mission. Somehow I was able to skip out on having to get my wisdom teeth taken out, which was one of my fears for serving a mission. It also made sense that even though I prayed all summer long for help earning enough money for 2 semesters of college, I was only able to save enough for one. I finished my papers in two weeks. Which is really fast for mission papers. I submitted my papers and my mission call came. I was a tiny bit disappointed when I was called Stateside, but then I remembered that I’ve always wanted to go to Washington. I didn’t have to worry for the rest of the semester while I finished my classes about going somewhere totally new, with a new language, and weird foods. I’m just going somewhere with a similar culture so that I can focus fully on the gospel.

Sometimes in the past few months, I have wondered what on earth I’m doing. But then I remember those people who don’t know what I know. They don’t know about Heavenly Father, they don’t know about Jesus Christ, they don’t know about the Atonement, or the Book of Mormon. They don’t have the blessings of the temple, they don’t have the protection of the spirit. They don’t have the happiness and peace that I have. Somewhere in Washington is someone that needs my help getting on the right path, maybe there are multiple people. And that’s what I remind myself when I start to feel overwhelmed.

I know this church is true. I’m so grateful for that knowledge. I’m grateful that I was taught as a child to come to church, to read my scriptures, to say my prayers, to listen to the prophet, to have faith, to do what is right, to make the temple my goal. I know that I have never been happier in all my life then am when I do these things. I feel blessed every day knowing that my family is eternal, that I have the gospel. I am grateful for the prophet Joseph Smith, for restoring the gospel so that we could have it and know it and live it. I’m grateful for the prophet now that gives us guidance from our Heavenly Father.  I’m so grateful for the Atonement and the love that Heavenly Father has for me. Because of my testimony and my happiness, I am willingly going to serve a mission. It was my own decision. There was no pressure. It’s just what I need to do, because knowing that there are people around us that don’t know what we know, breaks my heart. If I didn’t know about God, I would feel SO alone in this scary world and there are so many people that don’t know. I hope to change that.

I never planned to serve a mission, and never thought I would be able to. But as D&C 4 states: “If ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work…and faith, hope, charity, and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work.”

I meet those qualifications, so, I’m going to Washington.

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