We got letters! In the mail! Handwritten, insightful, long letters from Elder Scott. Some might think this is no big deal, but where Elder Scott has been serving, finding a post office (Serpost in Perú) let alone stamps can be cumbersome, so our letters are typically in the form of a weekly email. This was a most happy surprise to discover last week.
Each letter had special messages written for the recipient, and mine included a talk he recently read titled: Stand Up Straight, Smile, Remember Who You Are given by Matthew O. Richardson at a BYU devotional in October 2016. In the devotional Brother Richardson shared four personal mementos he has used in his daily life to, "Continue his quest to stand up straight, smile, and remember who he is." Elder Scott's letter to me focused on memento 4 titled, "You Gotta Believe"
To start off this story, Brother Matthew Richardson shared that at the time of this event he was a young, married student studying at BYU and father to a new child. He was starting to question what path he should choose for a career. Despite extensive research, interviewing people in different fields to try and narrow down a field of study, nothing seemed to be clicking. Even after much prayer and fasting answers weren't forthcoming. After struggling to find direction for some time his wife asked him if there was anyone he could think of who might help him with this decision. He immediately thought of President Jeffrey R. Holland, who at the time was President of BYU, but he knew that was just a dream. President Holland was a very busy man, and Matthew was only one of over 30,000 students on campus at the time. Why would President Holland want to waste time answering the question of some random student he had never met? How would he even approach him? Does one just blurt out, "Um, excuse me President....Will you please tell me what I should major in?" That excuse didn't detour his wife who counseled her husband to find him and talk to him about his concerns.He didn't take her advice, and for the next 7 months Brother Richardson continued to struggle to find an answer.
He was starting to give up hope that he would ever be the recipient of personal revelation, even though he knew that God would answer prayers that were said with real intent, he no longer felt an answer would come to him. In his misery he started to feel alone and helpless, and on one particularly bleak night, after finishing a class he taught, he proceeded towards the exit to walk back to his apartment. Of course as he opened the door he was greeted with a downpour of rain, and unfortunately Brother Richardson had not come prepared with an umbrella to help him stay dry. In this depressing moment he grumbled to himself, "Typical, just typical." And proceeded to cover his head with a newspaper he was carrying and start the walk towards his home. Within seconds the newspaper was a pile of pulpy mush, and Brother Richardson was soaking wet. He started to walk even slower realizing there was no hope now, so he might as well catch pneumonia.
It was at that moment he heard a voice call out, "You need this more than I do." Brother Richardson looked up to discover President Holland holding out an umbrella out for him to use, and then President Holland offered to give him a ride home. Brother Richardson gratefully climbed into the car where he was also greeted by Sister Holland. They asked him where he lived, but Matthew found himself embarrassed to say the name of the complex he and his wife helped managed. It was old and not very impressive, but as he told them the name, the Holland's started to chuckle. Turns out they too had managed those same apartments when they were undergraduates at BYU. In fact, their first child was born while they were living there. This stunned Brother Richardson. He could not believe the President of BYU and his wife had lived in the same complex that he and his wife now lived in. This was a man he had admired for years, and it was hard for him to comprehend that his life was ever anything but charmed. He was quite perfect in his mind, and he imagined he never had a worry in life.
A polite conversation was struck up as they drove to the complex, and Brother Richardson finally got the courage to ask, "President Holland, have you ever been so discouraged that you didn't know if things would ever work out? Did you ever worry that you might not make it after all?"
President Holland responded, "Yes, I did." and Sister Holland piped in, "Yes, Matt. Really." This was a bit shocking to Matthew. As the Holland's pulled up to Brother Richardson's apartment, President Holland put the car in park so him and his wife could turn around to face Matthew. They talked for a bit longer, and at one point President Holland looked at Brother Richardson and said, "Matt, part of your problem is that you don't believe....Oh I'm not talking about your testimony. You just believe that God will work mighty miracles for everyone but you."
He was right! And with President Holland's typical fervor he said, "You gotta believe, Matt. You gotta believe." It was at this moment that memento 4 came to be. Brother Richardson discovered that God is aware of each of us, and we gotta believe that to be true.
Elder Scott was very impressed with this story, and shared his own advice to echo the words of Brother Richardson and President and Sister Holland: "Many times we believe and know that Heavenly Father works miracles daily. But, do we believe and know that He can do them in our lives as well? Do we truly believe this? And if not, why? We need to believe this for ourselves We need to believe that he can work miracles for us. We need to never lose the hope or forget this. We need to believe that Heavenly Father can make miracles happen in our very lives. Not just bless us, but literally work miracles for us. We need to believe that He can make anything happen. That He watches over and protects us. That He always is here for us, every moment of every day. We need to believe. We have to believe."
Sometimes you have a child who sends so many photos, that when you go to add a few to the blog hundreds of photos come up with just a number sequence, and no photo to accompany it 😂When that happens, you randomly select a few from the thousands, and see what surprises you get. These are in no particular order since I didn't know what I was loading, but it looks like you'll get photos from his visit to a llama and alpaca farm with Family Castillo, some Perú countryside pictures, and a few photos with some of the other missionaries serving in Trujillo South. I'm actually quite surprised that a few of my favorites popped up.
