Letter 5/4/15

Dear Blog,

So this is my last Monday as a missionary, so it's presumably my last post. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what to say. It doesn't feel real yet--it probably won't until I get a giant bear-hug from my dad and my mom cries. I think I might go into shock.

But do you know what? The wonderful thing is that today I have today. Today I am a missionary. I don't want to rob the present of anything with the future. So today I will do my best to lift, encourage, brighten, and share. Today I will be Sister Short and that's the best :)

I have been blessed beyond comprehension out here. I've been loved and helped and I've learned SO much. I love my mission; I love it so much. 

God has worked miracles which I have been blessed with a front row seat to. 

You know, maybe that's the trick of it all. God can do anything which is right--can work a thousand miracles. But maybe he wants us to see them. Maybe he works so hard because He wants us to be part of it.

I know that I have been blessed beyond comprehension, I know that the things I say are true, and I know that anyone who is willing to use their faith and won't give up will know all that I know. 

I love my Heavenly Father and my Savior so much.

Please, if you don't know these things, please find out for yourself.  

#BecauseHeLives

Love,

Sister Short

Letter 4/27/15

Dear Blog;

Can I just say that God is SO nice? I'm being blessed so much beyond reason here. I can't even tell you how much I'm being blessed.

So fun story--our zone out here has a goal to have this week be 100% member present lessons. This means we have to have members at every single lesson we have. So this last week we got to planning. We prayed a lot and tried really hard. And guess what? God told us we can do 26 member present lessons this week :) So, here we go!

I can't even describe all the tender mercies we have seen, but here are a few:

we had a member come to church that we've been trying to help come for months!

We talked to the young men about having a contest to give away Because He Lives cards. we didn't know how they would react BUT GUESS WHAT?! They are all for it! They even decided that they wanted to face off against their leaders :) Rules of the game? The have to see someone take the card. There are bonus points for other things--such as inviting someone to mutual :) The teams can recruit people to join their team. Also; there's a super awesome food prize at the end (the tides of liking this contest definitely turned in our favor when we told them that part). So the battle is on!

We have been having members come up to us and as US if/when we need their help. The members here are AWESOME!

One young woman we absolutely adore (we adore our young women a LOT) went to the temple this last week and we saw her looking so much happier when she came back. It was such a mercy to us.

To be honest, I have NO idea how this next week will work out. I really don't. But I just KNOW that God will help us. I've been praying so hard for peace. I know that He will make it work out.

God has just been so kind to me. I am so blessed.

Love,

Sister Short

Letter 4/19/15

Dear Blog,

I think my favorite part of this last week has been the Active Member Lessons we have done. It's been amazing to me to see the strong testimonies of the members here. I don't know if they realize how much power and influence they have for good in the lives of those around them. It just astounds me the power one member can have--especially a member with an understanding of the Atonement and the blessing that is in their life. When we understand that, we can't help but try and share it. We can't help but invite others to the happiness we have. But it's not just about the knowing about the Atonement: "The power of the Atonement is not limited to knowledge alone.  The Atonement also provides power to do...... And when we fail, it is the power to try again.  Faith of sufficient intensity will always lead to repentance.  We apply the Atonement when we have 'faith unto repentance' "  (Alma 34:15, quote by Brad Wilcox) 

Love,

Sister Short

Letter 4/13/15

Dear Blog

This week I've been thinking a lot about faith. Faith--trust and hope in God and His Promises, and most importantly a firm belief in the atonement of Jesus Christ--proceeds miracles. Truly I have seen even a glimmer of faith be fueled into a powerful force. On the flip side, though, I have seen that a lack of faith is more detrimental than almost anything.

There's a scripture in the Book of Mormon that says "Have miracles ceased?" Then it goes on to explain that if they have then it is because of people's lack of faith.

I've been working my entire mission on my faith. It's what most everything comes down to. That may sound strange but it is truth. As I increase my faith--and especially involve God completely in that process--I find that I am happier. I start understanding things that I hadn't before. I change. 

No matter what amount of faith a person has--no matter if they have even a fleck--they can exercise it and see it grow. That's where everything starts. Faith.

Love,

Sister Short 

Letter 4/6/15

Dear Blog:

Okay I don't know about you all but to me conference gets shorter and shorter every year! This year's was just way too short!

The best thing about general conference to me is that you get out of it what you put in. For example--if you treat it like pajama and snack and nap-time then you'll end up not getting dressed until later and probably feeling sleepy and full. On the other hand, if you go with questions and concerns, looking for guidance, and prayerfully approach conference as a personal spiritual feast then you'll leave spiritually filled. You'll know God is listening to you; you'll feel his love. You'll receive answers to questions and guidance for your life.

One of the talks I loved the most during conference was about "learning the dance" verses "hearing the music". (If you don't know what I'm talking about I HIGHLY suggest this linkhttps://www.lds.org/general-conference/watch/2015/04?lang=eng&vid=4153714715001&cid=9 ) It's not enough to know the gospel steps--it's not enough to recite the "primary answers" (churchprayread--yes we all say it as one word) in a monotone tone of absolute boredom as the answer to everything. It's not enough to give the easy answer. Because knowing the answer doesn't change our heart. Consistently doing those things is how we learn things we never knew we didn't actually know. It's so important. and nobody can make us do it--nobody can force us to learn and grow. Nobody can give or take our faith. We need to grow our own faith--that is how we become truly happy.

Love,

Sister Short

Letter 3/29/15

Dear everyone,

How are you all? :) Good I hope! 

I'm just brand new to my new area! It's weird because I know I only have six weeks here--so I know how long I have to work. I think it's making me somewhat frenzied. Six weeks is really not very long. 

Something I'm coming to be more and more aware of is how everything we are taught in the church are linked. It's easy to look at a doctrine and not understand it. It's so easy. But if we look at every teaching it will inevitably link to a doctrine which inevitably leads back to the atonement of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And the reason for the atonement? The reason is, simply, because God loves us. God loves us and we are His children. Simple. Each and every true doctrine and teaching leads back to that central idea--so when we live that teaching we learn more about God's love and our Savior's atonement. It's not enough to spend our lives living the doctrine. We aren't saved by living the teachings of the Savior or any of his designated prophets. That's not the point. The point is for us to be changed in our hearts to become who we are meant to become. I have seen so much how people miss the point and it's so very sad. But when people get it? That's why I serve. Because when people actually get it they are forever changed. That's what makes it worth it.

I hope each of us takes the opportunities that God gives us to deepen our understanding of the Atonement and our Heavenly Father's love. 

Love,

Sister Short

Letter 3/22/15

Dear Blog,

I'm getting transferred! Off I'm heading to Arkansas and I'm so very excited :) I really feel like I'm meant to be there.

Something that I've come to realize is that when one prays for missionaries, one should specifically pray that they end strong. I've only recently come to realize this but it's a true true true. Our mission President had a conversation with us about ending strong and he told us that the last 3 months or so--the feelings and memories--are what stick with you. I want good things stuck to me.

I know I'm not perfect. I'm not even close. But I'm so glad I am serving as a missionary. I am so glad for the time I do have left. I know it's enough. I know God is in charge of all my life--and I know he is intimately in charge of this time in my life. I can't wait to see what miracles he has in store for me in my next area :) I'm so excited! :)

Prayers would be really appreciated :)

Love,

Sister Short

Pictures

Letter 3/15/15

Dear Everybody,

How are you all? :) How was your week? :) I hope it was great :) 

Mine was really awesome :) I got to see a girl (WHO IS AMAZING) get baptized. She is just 13 and has worked SO hard to be baptized. She has been reading the Book of Mormon and praying all on her own (what 13 year old would do that?!) Anyways, she is just amazing and I am just so proud of her! She's already decided she wants to go on a mission when she gets older :)

Something I've been thinking about a lot is the ideas of testimony and conversion. (I've probably gone through this before) When we have a testimony we know something is "true" or right or correct or "what I should/shouldn't be doing". Being converted is not being able to live without that truth--or, in other words, living true to what you know. You can know the Gospel is true and still now pray, read your scriptures, come to church, or keep the commandments. But once someone is converted to the truth they cannot live without those things in their life--they don't want to let them go. They see the blessings of those things and desire them always. Those things become a part of who they are in such a way that giving them up would make them incomplete. They would not be them. We are each responsible for our own testimony, and our eternal happiness depends on our personal conversion.

Conversion is how we become the sort of being who desires to be in heaven and doesn't get bored and miserable without all the sins of this world. This is a process that we each take part in daily as we choose God. Without this process we can't be who we are supposed to be. Without conversion we do not experience true happiness.

So how do we become converted? Just pray and ask; that's always step one. 

Love,

Sister Short

Letter 3/8/15

Blog;

Hello Everyone! :) Hope you're having a fantastic week!

As for me, I'm looking forward to a great one :) It's whatever you make it right? :)

You know what's something I've been thinking about? I've been thinking about how we, as people, don't ask God enough. (Not ask God FOR enough). Why don't we make it a habit to ask him questions? Not "why me" type negative questions, but genuine "is this right?" and "what would you have me do?" type questions. I think sometimes we are scared of an answer. But, in that case, why don't we ask for faith to overcome our fear? :)

Love,

Sister Short

Letter 3/1/15

Dear Blog,

I wanted to share this thought that my mom sent to me in her email.

Thought for the day - from "Filled With Mercy."  The Atonement guarantees all will survive mortality, but growth is optional. Christ is not forcing progress on us, nor can He change us against our wills. We have the right to accept or reject His offering.  We can acknowledge and appreciate it or ridicule and despise it, but we can't fault Christ for giving us the opportunity to reach our potential.  By Brad Wilcox

I don't think I could say it any better than that. Honestly it is up to us to choose what to do--what knowledge seek and what to do with it. It's our choice how we react. It's our choice what we become.

Read 2 Nephi 2 in the Book of Mormon for more on agency.

Love,

Sister Short

Letter 2/22/15

Dear Blog,

I've had an amazing week. Really it's been miraculous. Do you know what the difference is though? I've just been doing all I can to follow the Spirit. I just trust and do. I'm actually exercising my faith. I feel like I'm fully there--fully trusting. It feels so good. I've never had so little doubt. I don't know if I can even explain. I'm sure I have SO much more to learn, but this is so amazing. It's taken me this long to really let God lead me. It's taken this long for me to understand it and I LOVE it! I just do what He says. I'm not sure this even makes sense but I love this; I love this Gospel, and I love my Savior. I love that I recieve answers to every important question in my life--in God's time. We make things so complicated sometimes but it's not complicated. All we have to do is ASK and SEEK and the answer WILL come. It just will. Because God loves us. Simple.

Love,

Sister Short

Letter 2/15/15

Dear Everyone,

First of all I have a quote for you all that was in my mom's email to me :)

 "The Lord works from the inside out.  The world works from the outside in.  The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums.  The world would mold men by changing their environment.  Christ changes men, who then change their environment.  The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.......    Yes, Christ changes men, and changed men can change the world."

I find this wonderful--you know why? Because it is focusing on the power of God to change not just what we do but WHO WE ARE. Sometimes we get stuck in the things we have to do--but God doesn't want the "bite the bullet" approach to the Gospel (for more info on this read the talk entitled The Fourth Missionary); He wants us to be blessed by it. He wants the tools he has given us to be used. He wants us to be AMAZING.

It's not easy to live up to that right? Wrong. It is. Because all of this is NOT about being perfect--its about BECOMING perfected. It's about change; it's about being polished up. Each of us is already extraordinary; each of us is already of divine origin filled with eternally divine potential. That's not in question. The question is whether or not that is enough for us. Do we choose to accept or deny that potential? To accept it we must accept Christ. To accept it we must change our hearts through His power. To accept it we must become changed beings--because our divine potential is something we must accept.

We are from divine origin. We have a divine future. We read in John 3:16-17 that God sent his son to save us. He sent Christ so that we can be joint heirs with our Savior. Isn't it simple? We accept Christ and let him change us and we accept the path that we were always meant to be on. We are children of a divine God and we are meant to grow to become like him. That is the point of it all simply put.

Love,

Sister Short

Letter 2/7/15

Dear Blog,

Here's the news (and it's interesting I think!); I'm staying in Pawhuska! (That's not really the interesting part ;) ) The interesting part is that my current companion, Sister Booms, is getting transferred to the (drum roll please!) Marshallese area! That's where I was trained! :) She will so love it! She's shotgunning in with her new companion. Sister Booms is like a linguist in the making so this will be really good :) My new companion's name is Sister Gee and she was trained by Sister Booms' MTC companion and is currently companions with Sister Booms' Trainer! It's just one of those funny knots :) 

I can't really express to you all all the Lord has been blessing us with here. I'm so thankful for His help. We've had so much help here. 

I hope you all will keep me in your prayers and know that all will be amazing :)

Love,

Sister Short

Letter 2/1/15

Blog:

Hi everyone! I hope your week has been good! 

I suppose my thoughts today are about the tender mercies of the Lord. Sometimes we start to overlook God's blessings because they aren't the ones we would choose for ourselves. For instance, I probably wouldn't have chosen for myself that really hard aerobics class in high school (I'm super weak so that was an experience), but I got to feel healthier and strong and realize I could actually exercise hard without keeling over (trust me--I thought I would). This week the Lord was really kind to us in a few ways. One huge thing was that it was like in the 60's and 70's this week--really warm! This was a huge mercy because I accidentally broke the heel of one of my boots. So I didn't freeze! That was a little thing, but it's big to me :) It would be easy to complain that my shoes broke and not even see that blessing. This week I got to study some on the difference faith makes in our expectations and then in our results. I would love to invite each of you to read 1 Nephi 17 and study the actions, outlooks, attitudes, and consequences of Nephi vs. Laman and Lemuel. It's interesting to see how many blessings Nephi SEES that his brothers don't. Each of us can take some time to study that chapter (and other chapters) and find for ourselves something simple to start nourishing our faith and seeing God's hand more clearly in our lives. (I really hope that made sense!)

Love, 

Sister Short

 Thought for the day -  comes from David O. McKay, "Jesus passed through all the experiences of mortality just as you and I.  He knew happiness, he experienced pain.  He rejoiced as well as sorrowed with others.  He knew friendship.  He experienced, also, the sadness that comes through traitors and false accusers.  He died a mortal death even as you will.  Since Christ lived after death, so shall you, and so shall I."  It is nice to know the Lord has gone through everything we have or will go through.  It is so much easier to relate to someone that has shared the same experiences we have. 

Letter 1/25/15

Dear Blog,

This week was wonderful. We set some great goals and worked hard to achieve them. God really blessed us in this.

Today I really wanted to share some thoughts on prayer. You see, I took a little "check your progress" test this morning to see how well I'm doing on some fundamentals of missionary service (revelation through prayer, revelation through the Book of Mormon, revelation through church attendance, etc.) and I saw what I'm struggling with helping those around me understand. It turns out, I am not doing so good on revelation through prayer. So, I've been thinking about prayer. Did you, for example, know that prayer is a commandment? Did you know that prayer is a 2 way communication between you and God? Simply put, prayer is us talking to our Father in Heaven. We can spill out our heart in prayer; we can ask, thank, and just talk. As we pay attention to how we feel when we pray we can recognize answers to the questions we ask. If we ask a specific question we will receive a specific answer. Sometimes it isn't easy to recognize those answers because they can come in many forms--yes, no, wait, you choose, etc. But the most telling way to recognize our answer is through the way we feel. We should pay close attention to the thoughts that come to our mind and the feelings that come to our heart as we pray. We can pray in any time and in any place. Satan may try to stop us from praying, but we can ALWAYS pray to our Heavenly Father no matter what--and we should. These are some simple thoughts about prayer--what do you talk to God about? :)

Love,
Sister Short

1/18/15

Blog:

My thought for the day is this--because God loves us we will receive answers to our prayers. Don't give up. Keep asking and SEEKING and you will find. Because God's love for us is the reason for it all. 

Love,

Sister Short

 Thought for the day comes from the January Relief Society Visiting Teaching Message.  This is a quote from Elder D. Todd Christofferson, "As we walk in obedience to the principles and commandments of the gospel of Jesus Christ, we enjoy a continual flow of blessings promised by God in His covenant with us.  Those blessings provide the resources we need to act rather than simply be acted upon as we go through life...... Obedience gives us greater control over our lives, greater capacity to come and go, to work and create."  I love this thought!

1/11/15

Dear Blog,

I just have a simple thought today. It's the theme (if not exact quote) from a talk I've been reading. It's simple:

God has given you everything and has everything, The only thing he can't have without you giving is your heart and your will. That's all he wants. He doesn't really want your time--he gives you every breath; he doesn't really want your money--he gave you the whole world. What he really wants is you. Once you give yourself, then your sacrifice of everything else he asks is right. That's the point of it all. It's simple. 

Love,

Sister Short

Letter 1/4/15

(Hand written letter from Desiree sent Jan. 5, 2015)

Dear Blog,
     Today I'm just going to do what's on my mind for the blog.
     I think what I've been thinking about is how love is such a powerful thing.  Literally it binds people to each other.  I literally feel an ounce of love could fix a gallon of problems.
     Now don't misunderstand me - I'm not by any means perfectly loving.  No way. But I try again every day.
     We have a perfect example of love in our Savior.  He loved us enough to give everything.
     Everything in the Gospel makes sense because of the love of God.  It's the framework to the Plan of Salvation, it's the reason for the Restoration, and it's the point of the Gospel of Christ.
     The atonement itself - the center of all doctrine - is a supreme act of love.
     God is love - not the superficial, human, flaky mirage of love, but true, pure, perfect, eternal love.
     It isn't love to leave us to be whatever we want.  It isn't love to let us run wild.  It isn't love to be confusing.
     It is love to help us embrace our divine potential.  It is love to teach us wisdom.  It is love to reveal pure doctrine.
     God loves us so much.  He loves us so much that he sent his perfect son to be reviled, demeaned, rejected, and murdered.  Why?  Because he knew.  He knew what that sacrifice would mean to us.  He knew it would save us.
     Love has given us a way.  One way.  The only way.  Love has given us everything we need to know.
     Perhaps it would be best of us to reflect on the question Christ posed to His servant Peter on the shores of Galilee, "Lovest thou me?"
     Then, perhaps, it might be wise of us to reflect on the reply our Savior gave so directly, "Feed my sheep."
     As our heart fill with the selfless love of our Savior, our hearts are changed like unto his.  This is joy.  This is what we are meant to be.  May we each be so.

With love,
Sister Short

Letter 12/27/14

(Hand written letter from Desiree sent Dec. 30, 2014)

Dear Blog,
     So, news of the week!  We had transfer calls and I'm staying here with Sister Booms.  Backtracking though; this last week was Christmas and it was a lot of fun.  We woke up at 6:30 and opened presents.  Lots of wonderful people sent Sister Booms and I gifts.  It's so kind of people to think of missionaries - especially at the holidays.  We were very blessed.
     The most wonderful part of Christmas though is getting to Skype our families.  My little brothers especially have managed to not be so little anymore - they're young men!  Just seeing everyone made me so happy!
     It's moments like these that make me so aware of the love I have for my family.  I just can't imagine that much love to go away.  These feelings are part of how I know of the eternal nature of the family.  This much love can't just end - and it really doesn't have to.  I can't imagine eternity without them.
     If you don't really understand what this means yet, I would invite - and highly suggest - finding out for yourself.  It's of utmost importance.

                                                                                Love,
                                                                         Sister Short