Utah Living: Callings, Blessings and Revelation

Life lessons... everybody has to deal with them and unfortunately they aren't always our best friends. It's always been interesting to me how issues can be dealt out among even the best of us, and how life can feel like one big game of Russian Roulette. As sad as that is, it's really opened my eyes to a brutally painful fact regarding this dispensation and our generation. Both negative and positive opportunities are presented to us every day, and every day our faith and strength is tested. We were saved for this time because our Heavenly Father knew that we would be strong enough to handle what we would be facing and how horribly mislead these generations would come to be. The way I see it, either you can sink or you can swim. I, with my choice to have been baptized and become a fully dedicated member of this church have decided to swim, and I don't plan on giving up until I've reached that promised tropical paradise at the end. All my life I've been taught that the harder you work the better reward you get at the end and the happier you feel. But it seems like most people have failed to receive this information, which has just lead to more defeat, anguish and straight up laziness.

As it got closer and closer to time for me to pack up my life at home and leave my perfect town of San Diego California for the famous little town known as Provo Utah, questions and doubts started rearing their ugly little heads. "Things are perfect here, just stay!" "Why are you moving? Is it just for your mormon school?" "You don't even know who you are or what you want, you're just blindly following your church and that's stupid!". The ridicule got worse and worse as the time got closer and closer and that's when I realized that this indeed was the best decision that I could have possibly made during this time in my life. I've always been taught that when you're on the right track, Satan always tries his best to bring you down and that's when he works even harder than usual. Now, I've known for almost a year that moving to Utah was something that I needed to do, and honestly besides realizing that I needed to join the church and go through with my baptism, coming to the Utah conclusion was my first time dealing with personal revelation. And I have Elder Kirchhoefer to thank. But even though I never received an answer to why I needed to move, just that I needed to move, it made it a little harder but a lot more exciting. To this day I still don't know why I was supposed to come here. But I'm here to figure out why. So I suppose I'm working towards figure it out while I am here.

I am a strong believer in To Each Their Own, and Don't Ask Don't Tell. I've never been somebody that's quick to judge or think differently of somebody just because I heard something from a He said She said situation. I've been given plenty of reasons in my life to give up and stop swimming, as have plenty of other people in the world and even my own siblings have had it harder than I have. That's to say, we are some pretty strong people because we are still alive and well. I've just chosen to take the road less traveled and dedicate my life to the Gospel and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But in order to be ready to receive the Gospel I had to be incredibly humbled, and through that I've received so many blessings in my life just in the past year and a half since I was baptized. I've met incredible people, made great choices for happiness and have become incredibly involved in the church with my callings and the relationships that I've managed to make through my ward and the mission!

Even though we have agency, everything happens for a reason. Everybody has to spread their wings and fly eventually and I just happen to be doing this with a bit more spirit than most people would think to. I know I never got to explain to some of my friends and family why I left. I hope some of you are reading this and will understand why I made this decision. I'm not just here for my Mormon School or to blindly follow my church, I came here because God called me to be here and I know that nothing but good can come from this. I'm sorry to those I may have hurt during my last few weeks or months being home and I'm sorry that I never really explained myself, especially to some of my family. I just feared more rejection and in order for me to have gone through with such a huge spiritual step in my life, I needed to get away from all negativity. I love you all though, I love all my old friends and I will love all the new friends and family I make while I am up here. I hope that I can be a positive example to you, I know things in our life and family haven't always been the best and we've not always been the happiest, but I pray that I will be able to become a better person while I am here so when I come home I can better serve. I want to do my best at making sure my family is happy and well off and I know that I am exactly where I am supposed to be in order to do so.