Leaving the Branch....

This November marks 12 years since this branch was formed. Hundreds of people have called this their branch while they were here. Dozens have found their eternal companion amongst the members of this branch. Over a thousand Sunday school, relief society and priesthood lessons and discussions about the scriptures have been given. As a branch, we’ve rejoiced and celebrated the good times, such as weddings, engagements, job opportunities, and baptisms. We’ve also mourned the loss of members, or family members who have passed away. We’ve served, celebrated, and said hello and goodbye more times than I care to calculate. During my time here, I’ve had 4 branch presidents, at least 9 different branch counselors. I’ve had and been part of the 8 Relief Society Presidents that we have had. And I can’t even remember how many Elders Quorum presidents we’ve gone through in this branch.

As I prepare to leave this branch, I want you to know 10 things. 10 things I wish I’d known when I joined this branch.

1.    People will come in and out of your life. Some encounters will be brief, some will be longer and some will last a lifetime. Some encounters will confuse you and some will even hurt, a lot, and the hurt may linger for a long time. But the Lord will bless you with some of the most amazing people because of this branch. I’ve met doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, accountants, and even someone who now animates for Disney. Each of these people have brought their own experiences to the branch table and fill my life with so many wonderful memories.

2.    Depend on prayer. In a conference talk in April of 1992, then Presiding Bishop Robert D. Hales said “Prayer is an essential part of conveying appreciation to our Heavenly Father. He awaits our expressions of gratefulness each morning and night in sincere, simple prayer from our hearts for our many blessings, gifts, and talents. Through expression of prayerful gratitude and thanksgiving, we show our dependence upon a higher source of wisdom and knowledge—God the Father and his Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We are taught to “live in thanksgiving daily.”
Communication with our Heavenly Father is essential to our growth and happiness on this Earth. If you find yourself having a great and amazing day, pray to the Lord and thank him for all that is good in your life that day and pray for a way to share your happiness with someone else. If you find yourself having a not so stellar day, pray to the Lord and thank him for the good in your life. Pray also to be guided to what you need to do in order to make your day better. If you find yourself having a really terrible day, pray to the Lord and thank him for the good in your life.
This last year has been very difficult for me. 2 days after receiving my endowments last fall, I was issued the calling to serve as the Relief Society president for a 2^nd time. The next day, on a rainy day much like today, both of my families homes flooded because of power issues with the sump pumps. A few days later, as we were deep into the cleanup efforts, my mother was taken to the hospital by ambulance and had to have near emergency surgery. As I sat in the waiting room alone, I prayed. I knew that what was going on with my mom was serious and it scared me. So I prayed and I was blessed with a feeling of peace and calm that I so desparately needed. Within a week and a half after that, my dad broke his ankle trying to make room for many of the posessions that had been stored in the basement until the flood.

3.    The Lord will bless you with people to help you. Durring that difficult and laborious time of getting the homes back in order, members of the church steped up to help, providing meals and much needed manual labor as neither of my parents could lift heavy objects and relocate them to various parts of the home. I am so grateful to those who came to help, or who helped from a distance by being a listening ear when I needed to talk. The Lord has blessed us with Branch leaders and their wonderful wives who are wonderfully spiritually strong people. Several years ago, I was given some unexpected news from someone I know. That news hit me like a stack of bricks. I needed someone to talk to about it because I didn’t know what to do or how to help out the individual. While driving home from work that day, I knew exactly who I could talk to. I called up my branch president and asked if I could come to his home to talk. While I waited in his livingroom, his kind wife and I sat and discussed various different things. When he arrived home from the errand he had been running, we sat down in private and talked. Though he did not know exactly what to do, he knew that we could pray and he offered a prayer. That prayer was a great comfort for me and I will ever be grateful for that family’s open door policy.  

The Lord will bless you with friends, and even inexperienced Relief Society Presidents and Elders Quorum presidents. As some of you are away from your family, this branch will become your family. It is not meant to replace your family, but to temporarily fill a void you may feel when you are away from your own.  It will also bless you with home and visiting teachers. As I went through the trials of the last year, I have truly seen how the Lord has blessed me with people around me to help me. Though I want to thank each one of you individualy, there are not enough tissues up here for me to do so.

4.    Never underestimate how much you as a home and visiting teacher mean to those you have been assigned to visit. Let me start by saying, I am in no ways a perfect visiting teacher. I’d like to share an experience that happened many years ago. I was living with 2 other sisters from the branch. We each had different visiting teachers. One of my roommates visiting teachers faithfully came each and every month to our apartment to visit with her. Mine did not. On one particular day, her visiting teachers came while I was in the basement doing laundry. As I walked up the stairs, I could hear them talking. Not wanting to disturb them, I sat on the stairs and waited for them to be finished. Needless to say, I sat on those uncomfortable wooden stairs for a long time. As I sat there, I began to cry, wishing my visiting teachers cared enough to come visit me.

As you all have home teachers, and as you sisters have visiting teachers, do not  be afraid to ask them for help. Ask them to give you a blessing when you are going through difficult times in your life. Going through this last year, I’ve had the opportunity to ask my home teaceher for a blessing and I still remember many of the words spoken to me in it. Help your home and visiting teachers to help serve you by letting them know when you need help! And to those home and visiting teachers, make yourselves known! You have been given the opportunity and duty to visit with and serve some of the Lord’s children! Do not shirk that heavenly responsibility.

5.    Never underestimate the power of attending the temple. The temple is a beautiful place full of love, power and blessings. When I found out that my family would be going to Utah to spend Christmas and New Years with our family out west, I was excited. I really wanted to do an temple session with my grandmother. She and my grandfather served as temple workers in the Salt Lake City Utah temple for many years. I knew it may be too difficult for my grandpa to join us because of his health. When my mom would make her weekly Sunday evening phone call to grandma in the weeks before we left, I would remind her to ask grandma if she would want to do a session or if she had set it up yet.
After arriving in Utah, we talked about going to the temple. It was decided that it would probably be grandma, mom, and myself doing a session together on New Years Eve or the day before while my dad stayed home with grandpa to make sure he stayed out of trouble. (You never know what kind of trouble a spunky 89 year old grandpa will get himself into.)
During the trip, my grandmother's back had started hurting. The day before New Years Eve, we decided that with my family as tired as we were from all our gallivanting and my grandmother's back, we would probably not make it to the temple on this trip. Even though I suggested that it might be nice to sleep in on New Years Eve and just spend the day at home relaxing and playing games, a part of me was still a tiny bit disappointed that I would not be able to go to the temple with my grandma. We were all tired or sore and I just didn't want to inconvenience anyone by insisting that we go. We went in to have prayers with my grandparents before bed and found my grandpa, an aging WW2 vet,  laying on the bed, reading a book about B-15 fighter pilots. Grandpa loves to read so this was not unusual. We all went to bed, anticipating sleeping in and relaxing the next day.

     Well the Lord had other plans....
In the middle of the night, my grandfather woke up and was having difficulty falling back to sleep. Apparently the book he had been reading before bed reminded him of one of his brothers who had passed away several years before (Don or Garth.) He woke up my grandmother and told her that he wanted to go to the temple that day and that they needed to go to the temple about once a week. Around 6 am, my grandmother called my father and told her that grandpa wanted to go to the temple that very morning. Dad came and woke me up, slightly waking up my very confused sisters who began worrying that something had happened to grandpa in the night. After assuring them that Grandpa was fine and that he wanted to go to the temple, I got up out of bed, showered and dressed. 

     The highlight of my entire trip to Utah was seeing my 89 grandfather walk slowly, but independently into the celestial room, sit down next to my grandmother and hold her hand. I teared up then and I tear up now. I don't know how long we will continue to be blessed with both of my grandparents on this earth, but I know, by their example, their dedication to and testimony of the temple work.

If you have a current temple recommend, go to the temple as often as you can. Go with friends. Go alone. Make it a personal group goal of attending the temple each month.
If you do not have a current temple recommend, get one. Put your affairs in order so that you may obtain one and enter the house of the Lord and feel the peace and love that comes from serving in the temple.

6.    This branch will bless you with numerous opportunities to grow by serving thouse around you. You will grow and you will be blessed as you serve this branch in whatever calling the Lord has given you at this time.  I recall a time when I was serving as Relief Society President the first time at 23 years old, one of my counselors. She was a newer convert to the church and during a meeting with me, expressed the feeling she felt now that she had been set apart. She said “It’s like I have a new pair of ears to hear with”. Many of you will be asked to serve in callings you may not feel comfortable with. You may not see yourself as the type of person who would be amazing at that calling. I know I didn’t. I cried after I accepted the position of Relief Society president the first time. I definitely had a Newl K Whitney moment of “I do not see a relief society president in me”. I have definitely learned over the last 11 years that the Lord does not always call the qualified, he qualifies those who he has called. The Lord knows our weaknesses and shortcomings. He gives us callings so that we can learn to overcome those and become better people. 

7.    Those around you in this branch are/have/will go through similar trials, struggles and experiences as you are/have and will. Do not be afraid to turn to those around you for help or reach out to help. Many of the points I am discussing today have to do with the people in the branch. When home and visiting teaching routes, are chosen, names are not just pulled out of a hat or throw darts at a board. The routes are prayerfully considered. The Lord knows who needs to be companions with who and who they need to visit. The Lord knows what each of us needs in order to grow and he gives us responsibilities and experiences with others to help us grow in to who he needs and wants us to become.

8.    Sometimes it is the seemingly smallest acts of faith that make the biggest impact in your life.

9.    If you meet that special person while in the branch, great! Congratulations!. If you don’t, inf you find yourself like me, sometimes happy and sometimes lonely-ly single, Great! Congrats! You are blessed with the opportunity to do so many things! Perspective has helped me through the lonliness, frustration and pain and has pointed my focus on how I could improve and serve.
There was a time in my life when I was dating a great return missionary. We enjoyed being with eachother. He helped me as I started a new job. As a worthy priesthoold holder, he even gave me a blessing when I needed one. Time went on and his thoughts turned to marriage. However, mine did not. I was not ready and I knew I still had a lot of growing up to do. I look back and think about how much I have learned and grown since that happened.

10. Know, remember and understand that the Lord knows and loves you. Elder Richard G. Scott said Just when all seems to be going right, challenges often come in multiple doses applied simultaneously. When those trials are not consequences of your disobedience, they are evidence that the Lord feels you are prepared to grow more (see Prov. 3:11–12). He therefore gives you experiences that stimulate growth, understanding, and compassion which polish you for your everlasting benefit. To get you from where you are to where He wants you to be requires a lot of stretching, and that generally entails discomfort and pain.

When you face adversity, you can be led to ask many questions. Some serve a useful purpose; others do not. To ask, Why does this have to happen to me? Why do I have to suffer this, now? What have I done to cause this? will lead you into blind alleys. It really does no good to ask questions that reflect opposition to the will of God. Rather ask, What am I to do? What am I to learn from this experience? What am I to change? Whom am I to help? How can I remember my many blessings in times of trial? Willing sacrifice of deeply held personal desires in favor of the will of God is very hard to do. Yet, when you pray with real conviction, “Please let me know Thy will” and “May Thy will be done,” you are in the strongest position to receive the maximum help from your loving Father.”

I leave to you this branch. I’ve helped care for it for nearly 12 years. Now it’s up to you. A few weeks ago, during munch and mingle, we were discussing what we want the branch to look like, size wise, by the end of the year. This is a torch I pass on to you. As an outsider, I will still support this branch and it’s members, however the task of continuing to make this branch a welcoming and inviting place to be on a daily basis is up to you.