Hello all. It was a long but successful week. We are
teaching a lot. A lot. And we're really tired. REALLY tired. But that's how it
should be right?
Chris is making great progress. We had a fun lesson this
week about the law of chastity and the 10 commandments. We brought some other
youth members and it was an awesome experience. We got gelato and just talked
about the laws of God. So fun!!
As the end rushes closer and closer, I feel just about
every emotion on the scale. But I am doing my best to keep my heart and might
and mind and strength here in Milano. The fact that we are so busy really
helps. When I think about going home, it's not the "oh yay so much fun
stuff to do and catch up on" thoughts. It's more like, "oh my gosh
what's about to happen to my life" and "what in the world do I need
to do next?!?!". But I know that God will continue to reveal the oath.
He's made many things clear already about my immediate
purpose when I return home. I'm grateful for personal revelation and for the
guidance of family members and friends.
I wanted to just share my testimony about trials. No
matter what point we are at in our lives, we will be tested and tried. That is
why we're here. We need to have our faith pushed, our limits reached, our
hearts broken. We need to experience sadness. We need to experience pain. We
need to experience the lowest of lows. Without those experiences, we are not
capable of growth or maturing or really understanding the atoning sacrifice of
Jesus Christ. One of ,y favorite questions is, "if God exists, why is
there so much suffering in the world???????"
Because it's such a simple answer. We live on earth. This
is a part of our earthly experience. We signed up for it before we came. Jesus
Christ took a major one for the team (in the most non-sacrilegious way possible) and said, "send me". With this
sacrifice, he became the means by which we can overcome this earthly experience.
Christ suffered all. He felt all. He paid for all. Not a single one of us has
the right to complain, if we really know what Christ did for us. Things may
feel hard and unbearable. But you think for a moment about what Jesus Christ
took on. We have to suffer 1 so that we can understand better what it is that
Christ did for us and feel of his love and have a relationship with him. And 2
so that we can understand what it means to truly be happy. 2 nefi 2:11 "11
For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my
firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass,
neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad.
Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one;
wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no
life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery,
neither sense nor insensibility." It is necessary. But we aren't alone. I
have felt the strength of Christ carrying me at times during the last 18ish
months. I know He lives. I wear his name proudly. I have been wearing his name
since I was 8. And his name will continue to be written on my heart. I invite
each of you to discover and rediscover the healing, cleansing, strengthening,
and saving power of Christ's atonement In your lives.
I love you all.
Love,
Sorella Tokarski
