God Loves His Children

Whoa. I have sold my soul to the Son of Man and given away my belongings in the process. It is Monday morning (early--maybe around 3 or 4 a.m) and I am writing a rough draft of this email in my journal. I am doing this because I have a story for you. I can't not tell you (we just learned about double negatives in Czech--sorry, I guess it's going to my head) because I feel compelled to. There's a big balloony feeling in my chest that's wonderful, and just uncomfortable enough that I must do something about it. So, here I am, just doing . . .

There is another Sister living in my room. Her name is Sister ------. She is going to the Utah St. George mission. She should have left last week with the rest of her group, but she is having some difficulties I don't know much about. She is something of an odd ball. As we were creating our Harry Potter world, Sister Stratton and I named her Moaning Myrtle (this is very unChristlike, I am all too aware). She sometimes likes to be a martyr. Once she watched us play volleyball from a balcony above during gym. We caught her eye and invited her to come play (well, this was mostly Sister Stratton--she's great), quite enthusiastically, if I do say so myself. Sister ------ declined and remained up there alone. Later she told us she didn't want to play because she was feeling lonely. Go figure.
Sister ------- is a convert--was baptized in April of 2007. She's not particularly attractive or amiable. She doesn't seem like she would make much of a missionary because she is always napping. She tends to disclose very personal facts very openly. But I know the Lord loves her. The is how I know:
On Wednesday, Sister Stratton and I found ourselves in some sort of funk. We didn't quite feel like representatives of Christ. Largely because we were too caught up in ourselves. This we openly admitted. I found myself, I am ashamed to say, enjoying being the "trendy" Sister missionary. I wore both the sweater you sent me and the shirt Beks gave me and had little room in me for much other than vain thoughts when I did. Sis Stratton had similar feelings about things. But this was not why we came to be missionaries!
Sister Stratton talked of the Anti-Nephi-Lehis and how they buried the things that were keeping them from the Lord. We decided to do the same, or something similar. So we found a box and put some of our "great and spacious building" possessions in it. She put in her eyeshadow. I put in some headbands and a hair clip that seemed to attract too much attention from other Sister missionaries (the Elders never care, of course). I felt okay about this.
Later that night, as I prayed, I knew it wasn't enough. I fought an inner battle with my own vanity and finally put that birthday sweater in the box. I tried to do this discreetly so I wouldn't have to explain myself to anyone. I prayed longer and felt that I should add Bekah's gift(a shirt)to the box too. This I fought for a while--it seemed so stupid! Other missionaries were just fine with their own cute clothes--the branch president's wife had even told me she liked it! It was definitely not against the rules.
Suddenly I realized my own ridiculous vanity and pride. When the lights went out, I quickly grabbed the shirt and threw it on top of the dresser where we'd stowed the box before I could think about it much longer. I didn't feel great yet. I kind of felt that I wouldn't be completely over it unless I gave it all away somehow. This was an unappealing idea, to say the least. The thought crossed my mind to give them to Sister -------. It was a stupid idea--they wouldn't fit her anyway.
The next day began my and Sister Stratton's Book of Mormon challenge. Because of a very inspirational Large Group Meeting, we decided that reading the Book of Mormon all the way through before we left the MTC would really help us become the representatives of Christ we wanted to be. This has been going on for several days now.
Saturday night I felt myself getting sick. Blech. I didn't sleep so well that night. Lack of sleep and sickness put me in what I'd like to call a "fragile state". Fragile to emotions and fragile to the Spirit. The cold was annoying, but only hindered the day mildly. The Spirit was there. It was Sunday. Good feelings grew and culminated throughout to a very grand high during a fireside by the celebrated violinist Jenny Oaks Baker (Dallin H. Oaks' daughter). We stayed afterward for a film they were showing. It's peculiar, because before the fireside a screen displayed the four films one could attend at various locations afterward. After the fireside, the options changed. Three of the new four options I had already seen recently. So we watched part three of a documentary following missionaries in California. It's almost my new favorite movie. At one point, a Hispanic woman investigating the Church describes how she feels the Spirit--like there's something far too big inside her chest, pulling and stretching to come out. But a very good feeling. This was how I have always felt the Spirit. Exactly.
Scene.
I tried to sleep last night, but the cold kept me awake. I had dreamt that I kept pulling things out of my nose, only to wake and find I'd been sleeping with a tissue up there. I was so tired and angry and ill, and I prayed a frustrated prayer, took the only nasal decongestants I had (non drowsy!), blew my nose, and tried to sleep again. Every time I laid my head down, my nose completely plugged up so that breathing was not an option. It's like the Lord was playing that trick on me that younger siblings sometimes do in movies--pinching my nose while I'm sleeping so I'd have to wake up (or die). Finally I got out of bed, grabbed my scriptures and begrudgingly began to work on our Book of Mormon goal in the lobby.
"Get a pen". That's what He told me. I ignored it sulkily and read on until the thought came quite clearly to me: "Ashley, I need to talk to you. Go get something to write with." So I did. I opened my journal and began reading 1 Nephi again. I was led to Jeremiah 7: 23-24. ["But this thing commanded I them, saying, 'Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you. But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward".] I felt the Lord was trying to tell me something, but I was all mean emptiness inside, so I began to write about that. And my thoughts were taken to Sister ------ and my box of things I'd sacrificed again. And that very feeling the woman had described in the video came to me (it was unmistakeable, now that someone else had described it just so). I was overcome by the Lord's love for Sister ------- and His need for her out in the field.
Instantly, a thousand things came to my memory at once--how the film had been changed last minute so I could hear that exact description of feeling the Spirit, the calculated timing of our Book of Mormon goal and our Anti-Nephi-Lehi sacrifices, the crazy thought that I'd had to offer Sister ------- my sacrifices. I remembered the blessing Grandpa Bellows had given me--that my health would be good according to my obedience. I ignored that first feeling, and now the Lord had used my health to wake me up!
I gave Sister ------- the clothes. And my favorite locket of Ma's that I always wear. (Sorry. I needed to). Just after that, Sister ------ found out she was getting sent home to sort things out.
I just thought it incredible that the Lord would alter MY life so severely in order to tell Sister ------ she's loved. You should have seen her face when she tried on the clothes. She told me she'd wear the necklace every day. I can't believe how much that mattered to her.
I'm so full of the Spirit right now I could throw it up.
THE LORD LOVES HIS CHILDREN. He will go to GREAT lengths to tell them that. I don't have any time left, but I just had to tell you. I love you SOOOOOO much.

Ash