What do you want to be as you grow up?

With Companion Sister Opeda

June 12, 2013 was the day I entered the mission field here at Temple Square in the Utah Salt Lake City Temple Square Mission.  The last year has been filled with so many questions from guests from around the world.  At first, with Sister Lin, most of them were in Mandarin, so I reverted most of the questions back to her :) Some of the most common questions we hear each day--

• "Wow, how many pipes are in that organ?" (11, 623 in the tabernacle organ)
• "Are you allowed to get married?" (yes! We believe that families can be sealed in the temple for time and all eternity.  The family is the most important unit is society and is one of the powerful ways how God shows His love!)
• "Where does the Prophet live?" (Somewhere here in Salt Lake, however he is always out traveling God's children throughout the world as a witness of our living Savior, Jesus Christ.)
• "What do you do in the temple"? (We make higher promises with our Father in Heaven. We testify that through making covenants that He has required us and blessed us with the opportunity to make, we can come closer to Him, receive blessings and return to live with Him again as families.)
• "How long did it take to build the temple?" (40 years, from 1853 to 1893)

Yet, mixed in between these questions on the surface from the hundreds of people we see and meet each day, there are questions and comments each day that illuminate the truthfulness of the gospel--

• Just yesterday a woman said, "Never in all my life, have I seen so many young women so happy.  You all are doing something right here."
• "Why are all the Mormons I meet such driven people?"
• "How can we bring the light each of you have to touch all the world?"
• "We never want to leave Temple Square. Why does it feel so good and so comforting to be here?"

• 

  Making smoothies with Sister Opeda!

With each person, the Spirit directs us how we can respond to help them to know that everything we share, everything we have, is something that was already paid for by their Savior and made possible through their Father in Heaven's great plan for each of His children.

I think of the questions that God as our Father might have asked us before we came to this earth--

• What do you want most when you go to earth?
• What do you want to learn?
• How can I help you to never forget me and your Savior even when you're away? You need to know I'm still always here.
• How can I help you and always let you know my love is there?

With Father's Day coming up, I think of the questions my own amazing Father has asked me throughout my life.  In one specific instance in kindergarten, I came home just crying and looked for the nearest and best place to be comforted--my Dad's lap.  I remember crawling up, sitting there and him looking at me with a smile and yet with such concern.

"What's wrong Kels?" he said.

"Tomorrow is career day at school and I don't know what I want to be when I grow up," I responded as I cried.

"You can be anything," he said with a smile.

My eyes got bright and big, as they still do, "Anything?!"

Laughing now and holding me closely he said, "Yes, of course, anything."

As I got older and went through different things throughout my life, my Dad and I have been able to talk and see that it's not really what we want to be when we grow up, butas we grow up. I really know and have come to see through the thousands of people I have been able to meet and talk with during my time as a full-time missionary called to serve in both the Temple Square and Reno, Nevada missions, that the gospel of Jesus Christ will give us the steps to take as we grow up. The Atonement of our Savior is infinite, we cannot put limits on it by our time or expectations, but it is there to create growth where our desires are pure and our faith is in Him.

Learning in Sister Malavasi's District Meeting! So blessed to see Sister Gearheat all the time too! yay!After another wonderful security training with President Harmon!

I am so grateful to know that my Father in Heaven's love for me is reflected through His Only Begotten Son, His called Prophets and Apostles, through His trust in me as one of His representatives, and with Father's Day coming up--through the love that my own Father here has for me.  I am so grateful for my Dad, Vaughan Briggs, and the lessons he has taught me through my life.  That he isn't just there for when I grow up, but as I grow up.  His love has taught me so very much about the reality of my Father in Heaven's love.

To both of them I wish the ultimate Father's Day.  A day where they know they are loved by their children, when they know we respect, honor and cherish them, and when they know that never, ever could we or will we be able to do without them.

Happy Father's Day, Dad and to all the Dads out there!

Love Always,

Sister Briggs

SHOUTOUTS: Sean Burton, Cami Jensen, Grandma Jeanie, Mom & Dad, Robert Donakey, Brother & Sister Donakey, Ken & Tawny (congratulations! Happy father's day to you, Ken!), Sara, Mary, Becca, Barry