WEEK 3 - A Miraculous Week Full Of Divine Orbits, Crossing Axis

To me, miracles happen all the time. Although they may seem to be only occurring within the Bible or Book of Mormon as extraordinary feats of divine power that have ceased since the emergence of the earliest centuries that saw human improvement whether philosophically or technologically, I still believe that miracles are all around us, they're just more difficult to observe. More than a couple miracles happened this week that I'd like to highlight within this email. 

Firstly, I had one of the most spiritual experiences of my entire life on Sunday. I have struggled with forgiving myself for all of my life, and on Sunday I received one of the most powerful answers to my prayers. While I was exploring the topic of prophetic conversion (essentially when prophets of the scriptures get converted), I found myself reading the talk, “Have I Truly Been Forgiven?” by K. Brett Nattress. The talk may be one of my favorites as it references Alma chapter 36 and 3 Nephi 17 and the conversion of the prophet Alma. In many ways, I relate a lot to Alma the Younger, so the Spirit directing me directly to his conversion was overwhelming. What followed was my reading of 3 Nephi 17 that describes Jesus’ healing of a city. The people of this city plead with Jesus to stay with them, as He has many more cities to visit and help, but he decides to stay and “tarry longer with them…” I decided in the midst of my studies to try exactly as Alma cried to the Heavens in prayer. As I did so, I felt the overwhelming mercy of the Savior consume my body, the Spirit enveloping my entire being. In between teary cries, I asked Heavenly Father if I had truly been forgiven and He answered: Yes. I asked my Savior to have mercy for me and He answered: I will. Although there are other lost sheep to find and tarry with, He stayed back for me. He will heal us as He has healed me. Through prayer, all things are possible. I have been forgiven and my soul has been healed. He tarried to heal ME. 

My second miracle is the ability God has given me to be able to withstand the relentless sexist, homophobic, racist, and ableist–and pretty much every other offensive descriptors you can think of–comments from some of the boy missionaries in my district, specifically in my dorm of three other people that I live in. I'll share a quote from a conversation that happened the other day pertaining to female artists like Taylor Swift, “All women singers are hoes.” On top of comments like this, multiple times have I overheard disgustingly homophobic conversations about the LGBTQ+ community and racist comments about other missionaries on our floor (we have a lot of non-English speakers who have come to the MTC to learn English from Tonga, Japan, Mexico, the Philippines, Brazil, and so many other places). God has blessed me with the ability to stand strong and help to share the love He has for all of His children with these missionaries in my district. I have been able to support the sister missionaries in my district, even though not even the district leader (the guy in charge of all of us) respects them because they are women, and stood up for the communities they target. It has been a process but I hope to continue educating them and showing them how they can and should love these communities as Jesus would because, and I mean this with as much love as possible, these missionaries are the part of the problem with the reception of the Church and the negative Church culture. Their negligence and uneducated ways have to stop and I think it's a miracle that I am able to continue to love them through God's help. 

My third miracle has to deal with what we call “Tuesday Night Devotionals.” Every Tuesday night at the MTC, we have a general authority of the Church speak to us. This time, it was ELDER SOARES. For those of you who don't know the significance of this name, Elder Soares is an apostle in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Just like when Jesus walked the Earth and had twelve disciples, we still have those disciples. Elder Soares is one of them. Essentially, he's like the present-day Matthew of the Church. He gave this extraordinary talk about joy and how joy is a choice. I know I've had problems with joy in the past so this was super cool to be there to hear from him. 

My fourth miracle has been the blessing of the Gift of Tongues. I've picked Spanish up so quickly and the only reasoning I can attribute it to is the Gift of Tongues. Right now, after only 3 weeks of Spanish, I know more Spanish than I ever could have–and I took 3 years of Spanish of college Spanish in high school. It's gotten to the point where I dream in Spanish and it is insane. 

My fifth miracle has to do with reuniting with my favorite missionary of all time. The day was Wednesday and that meant new arrivals of missionaries at the MTC. My district had been assigned to help these missionaries find their rooms and give them a tour of the campus. This sharpened to also be the day that I knew a missionary was coming to the MTC. After hours of waiting for her to arrive, she finally did and with the miracle of coincidence, I saw her say goodbye to her family and tour the MTC. It's crazy to me how the Lord blesses us in the smallest ways such as these. Like, I didn't have to see Hermana Dana, but I did. This leads me to the title of this week's email: A Miraculous Week Full of Divine Orbits, Crossing Axis. 

I believe that each of us have divine pathways in our individual worlds. Sometimes, the Lord places two orbits within the same trajectory of each other, creating a crossing of axis. These crossings of each world's axis are divinely appointed coincidences. I hope to continue to see these miraculous coincidences on my mission and I hope that you all can see them in your own lives, too. 

Sorry for the didactic email (Dean would be proud), but I hope you all have a wonderful week and LOOK AT THESE PICTURES. 

If you want to see all the pictures ever, go here. 
HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM:


If you want to see just this week's pictures go here. 
WEEK 3:

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