D+C 4 - The Sun Will Shine

OH FAMILIA!!!

Hello, hello! HELLO!

It has been wonderful hearing from of course. I am so grateful for the letters, emails, and mom, that pop-up elder package was muy fubloso! I ate way to many cookies. THANK YOU! and the snacks are PERFECT, seriously, at the end of the month you are always running a little low on monies, so thank you. I feel your love and support and i am happy to hear about all the different activities. Sledding looked way fun kiddos! Jeshua you look so handsome! You too ganae, very sly! hehe. And thank you for such a wonderful fhe activity. really lifts us up doesn't it! I have named the "pop up elder" Obediente! So everytime i see him, i go OBEDIENTE! to help us be 100% obedient. And the little stuffed animal in my stocking from christmas is named STEADFAST. So i sleep with steadfast and obediente every night---i am well taken care of.  I am well taken care of by the Lord as well.

Family I could hardly wait to write you this week because i had an epiphany---and it will change the course of my mission, and the rest of life. Its changed everything. :) I am so happy to tell you all about it. 

Most of the things i learned came from the talk "The Fourth Missionary"--so if anything i say sounds super inspiring, know that it came from that talk and that teacher. 

In D&C 4 verse 2:

 2 Therefore, O ye that embark in the ^aservice of God, see that ye^bserve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand ^cblameless before God at the last day.

you know how the last few weeks had been rough? I kept trying to work harder, be more obedient, and just keep going---and it just wasn't working! It wasn't clicking! I prayed and i felt reminded to read this talk that this sister gave me in my first transfer. It was like 24 pages and I had tried reading it and it never stuck. But when i read it this time, i felt so taught!

I had been serving God with all my MIGHT, and with all my STRENGTH.  I was working, I was doing what needed to be done, I was truly performing  my duty---and all was going well. But I had not been serving him with ALL my HEART and MIND. My heart and mind have often times been in the work, but they have often times been at home, or in the future or even in the past. I often thought, I wonder if so and so will still be home after my mission? Or I am going to learn how to paint, and become yoga instructor, or MY FAMILY IS SO CLOSE! I can't wait to see them again, i can't wait to take them on a tour, its gonna be wonderful to be a return missionary! I can't wait to be a mom! When I'm a mom i am gonna do this this and this :) and how i have really felt the affect of not having voice lessons, singing and music yada yada! All of these wonderful righteous desires, but do you see how my mind and my heart often trailed elsewhere? I was doing what i was supposed to be doing, but there was a part of me that just wanted to get through it, so that i could get about doing what i wanted to do. My heart and my mind was in conflict with what God wanted for me. I was giving Him everything, but He already had all of that. My talents and time---He gave me those, with every breath, its a blessing, every talent and gift, He gave me. Everything was already His---except one thing, my will. My heart and mind are unique, and He respects that, and the only thing I can give Him is my will (my agency per say), my heart, my mind, my thoughts. And He will make SO MUCH more of me.  I can only make something human, He can make something Godly. I am learning how to give Him all of me, everything, I can't have one foot at home and one foot in the mission. And when my desire became NOT to be a great missionary, but to be a SERVANT of the Lord, something changed. I was happy, but i was peaceful, I felt the Holy Ghost burning inside my heart, I felt heaven's approval. This is what He needed, He needed me to give Him what He didn't have---because you can't change or mold, or BLESS something that you don't have. Now He is blessing my very heart and my very mind, not just my strength and might. Now He has my heart, and my mind, my thoughts, and I feel so humble and blessed. 

In the talk it says, "Elder Holland teaches that great swimmer once said when asked his secret of success, "I kick when I don't want to kick, and I stroke when I don't want to stroke."...The difference between the third and fourth missionary is that the third missionary  will kick and stroke because it is his duty, because that is what is expected of him and he will hate and resent it., while the Fourth Missionary will kick and stroke because he knows that it is the only intelligent thing to do."

The glory of God is intelligence isn't it? So be intelligent, be glorious. 

So now, I am kicking, I am stroking, and i'm not fighting anything inside that is wanting to do something else, I am kicking and stroking as much as i can because this is how Christ can help me, and this is how I can help others. It has made all the difference to know what I am witholding and knowing what I need to give. "Your world is in your head. Get your head right and your heart will follow, and you will be right." Honestly, it has made me FEEL like gold, I feel golden-ness around us when we walk and talk because I have finally been able to surrender myself to heaven's hand, to not just do it because its right, and i love missionary work: but to do it, to serve because its the glory of God, and I love Him. I love the Lord.

To offer heaven's hand to others, to reach and see and listen to them, and discern where "in their quiet heart is hidden, sorrow that the eye cannot see" but then to see it and feel it with heaven's guide, and then love them has been a blessing far beyond measure. To be on the errand of angels, or declaring the terms of repentance---if declaring how through faith and consistency on the path brings the joy and peace of heaven into our very mortal lives has made all the difference on Temple Square. To let go, and be His servant is all i want. 

We are here, planting seeds, alongside heaven's hand, and the Sun will Shine. The Son will bless those with faith, and how He can make us grow. The Sun Will Shine, thus, I will sow. With ALL my mind, with ALL my very might! with ALL my strength, and with all my heart. May He chasten my soul till I shall be in perfect harmony with Him, and His ways. 

I LOVE YOU AND I HOPE YOU KNOW IT!!! 

Love

Sister Osorio