This talk was given in church Sunday, July 20.
I appreciate all the people who've come today to support Graig and I as we speak right before we leave on our missions to Honduras and El Salvador. It's a little scary to think Graig and I will be in another country in a few days - we fly to the Mexico MTC on Tuesday. But God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of faith, and if any of you are afraid of something in your future, I invite you to trust God to catch you as we each take our leaps of faith into the unknown.
I've wanted to serve a mission my whole life. I wanted it so much I sometimes questioned my true motivation for starting my papers. What if I was going for myself, for the chance to see new places and experience a new culture? I didn't want the foundation of my mission to be built on something as shaky as myself. I wanted to be built on Christ, so that when the winds of adversity come - and I've been assured they will - I wouldn't be tossed to and fro, but I would be able to stand strong and tall. As tall as I ever get, anyway.
I prayed to have the right motivation for going - which in my mind, means I'm going because I love the Lord and all His people. I prayed to
know that my own motivations were unselfish. I was still struggling with this on the day I got my
mission call. It took three weeks for me to get that letter, and let me tell you, it was the longest three weeks of my life. I didn't know this at the time, but my mom had been praying hard too. She asked the Lord to just confirm to me that wherever I was called was where God needed me to serve.
Both our prayers were definitely answered. When I read the words of my call: "Dear Sister Henrie, ... you are assigned to labor in the El Salvador San Salvador East Mission," the thought came to me:
Duh, of course
you'd be called to El Salvador. I guess that was my own spirit talking to me; I think I knew before I came to Earth that I would serve a mission in El Salvador.
The Holy Spirit connected with me too. Usually, the way I feel the Spirit is by feeling as if my whole body is electrified (Heavenly Father knows subtlety is lost on me), but this was more intense than I'd felt it before. A warmth exploded in my chest. I didn't come down from cloud nine for weeks after opening my call, and my BYU roommates will testify of that.
Because of this experience and many others, I know God answers prayers. I hope He'll answer another one today and guide me through the Spirit to say what somebody may need to hear.
The Spirit is an essential part of any missionary work, and when Bishop Faddis invited me to speak I asked if I could talk about personal revelation. He said, "Could you talk a little about preparing for a mission, too?"
The two actually go hand in hand, because in order to touch people's hearts and teach effectively, you need God to guide you by the Spirit - and you need to love them.
How do you feel the Spirit?
So, first up - how do you feel the Spirit? It talks to everyone differently, in the way each individual can best understand. I've already explained a little about how I know I'm feeling the Spirit when all the hairs on my arms stand up and I feel warmth course through my whole body. But sometimes it communicates with me in another way, too; the Spirit gives me clarity of thought, where my mind stays calm in potentially dangerous situations and somehow I know what to do. This has kept me out of serious trouble with my mother lots of different times in my childhood. Kiera could tell you - she was there for most of them, and I know she felt the same clarity of thought.
One time this happened was when I was babysitting my three siblings at home. We used to have this decorative box, about the size of a box of tissues, with candles in it. The box was full of pretty leaves and twigs and the candles were scented. Well, we had the candles going and I guess they'd burned pretty low because suddenly the leaves in the box caught fire!
It should have been a paralyzing situation because I wasn't very old, maybe 13, and I'm afraid of fire, but I
wasn't paralyzed, and neither was my brother Graig. He immediately went to the sink and got a cup of water. I talked him out of dumping it on the fire right there because I had a thought that we should take it outside first. I didn't question the thought because it just felt natural, and so I got a pair of oven mitts and took the box outside to the back porch.
With the box safely on the porch, I backed up a safe distance and let Graig pour the water on it. But it didn't go out, it exploded!
I realized something I couldn't have known before - that this was a grease fire. You can't extinguish a grease fire with water, and if Graig had tried while it was still sitting on our kitchen table, we probably would have caught the table on fire. I was sure glad I had listened to the thought that told me to take the box outside!
How can I learn to recognize the Spirit?
It's taken me pretty much my whole life to learn how to recognize when the Spirit is speaking to me, and I think that's the case with most other people as well. It isn't always easy to discern your own thoughts from heavenly communication, but one thing that really helped me was by really trying to pay attention during church meetings. It's sometimes harder to feel the Spirit during the week with school and work distracting you, but it's fun to practice on Sundays when the only distraction is my own failure to concentrate on what's being said.
As I paid closer attention, I started to learn some things: the Spirit never fails to testify of truth, and because true doctrine is taught by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I was able to receive a personal witness of truth from the Holy Spirit during many lessons. The Spirit also suggested lots of changes I could make in my life to help myself feel closer to the Savior, or taught me more about a topic in an illuminating "lightbulb moment." Sometimes those teachings were unrelated to what was being said and were instead more about doctrinal questions I'd been thinking about.
How can I feel the Spirit more?
I was talking to my dad about how someone can feel the Spirit, and he said that having the pure love of Christ helps you to feel the Spirit. If you don't think you feel the Spirit, perform a service for someone. When you serve, the Spirit will tell you how much God loves that person. You will feel the Spirit more in your life.
"If you don't know how to be a missionary, but you have the pure love of Christ, you'll be fine," my dad said. "Pure love is loving people without reservation, despite what they may have done to you."
I know Graig and I will be okay on our missions because of the love we have learned in our family. Graig and I have also enjoyed all the opportunities we've had in the past to share our music with you, and we really appreciate all the service you've done for us - especially in the past couple months as we've been preparing to serve our missions.
Another tip for helping yourself know what the Spirit feels like is to ask God if He's there and if He loves you. The answer will
always be YES! Listen for it. Feel for it.
Preparing to serve a mission
When my stake president interviewed me before submitting my missionary application, he asked me to prepare by beginning to act like a missionary right then. I thought to myself, I don't have a companion. I can't knock on doors all day. I'm go to school full time. I have a job. How can I act like a missionary right now?
But as I thought about it, I had a lightbulb moment where the task suddenly seemed simple. What do missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints do? They look for opportunities to serve others and for opportunities to share gospel teachings. I started to do the same thing, and I was amazed at how many missionary opportunities I had right here in Utah, the Mormon capital of the world. All of you can do the same thing: look for opportunities to serve or share every day. You don't need a formal mission call to act like a missionary!
