Letter from Jan 18, 2010

Instead of her usual family email, Sami sent an email to Jennie & I in response to a rambling gospel discussion oriented one I had sent them.
Dearest Mother and Sister of Mine(s),

Have I told you lately that I love you? Have I told you just how much I care? Yeah, just imagine I am singing that song to you. I want to give you hugs but I am far away. So I will give you my words of wisdom. Don´t smoke, drink, do drugs, drink tea, or drink coffee. I want to share some of the things I´ve learned from the scriptures but I am so bad at remembering what scriptures I like and I don´t have my marked scriptures with me. But it is really interesting because I had a couple experiences this week with the things you (Mom) were talking about in your email.(I had been discussing why we could not remember our time before we came to earth in an email I sent Jennie & Sami) We have used the scripture in Alma 37 about the Liahona/words of Christ quite a bit this week. And I was talking with one of the members who is having a hard time and wanted to know why we can´t just remember our life before with Heavenly Father because everything would be that much easier. I heard/read one of the apostles say that he prays for trials. When I read that I thought ¨jeez, the leaders of our church are crazy¨. Now I understand a little better that Heavenly Father gives us tough times and trials of our faith to help us grow. It is impossible to become like Him without stretching us. I would like to quote Stephen Colbert when he said something completely different but I will change one word so it will magically apply. ¨Why not stretch ourselves[he actually said ¨the truth¨]? We stretch taffy and that only makes it more delicious¨. He was right! We are only made more delicious in the painful process of trying our faith and our belief. Remember, Jesus never actually said ¨I never said it would be easy, I only said it would be worth it¨, but that is basically what is implied in the scriptures.

This is a poem from a talk by Boyd K. Packer:
There is great meaning in these word entitled “The Lesson.”

Yes, my fretting,
Frowning child,
I could cross
The room to you
More easily.
But I’ve already
Learned to walk,
So I make you
Come to me.

Let go now
There!
You see?

Oh, remember
This simple lesson,
Child,
And when
In later years
You cry out
With tight fists
And tears
“Oh, help me,
God—please.”
Just listen
And you’ll hear
A silent voice:

“I would, child,
I would.
But it’s you,
Not I,
Who needs to try
Godhood.”
(Carol Lynn Pearson, “The Lesson,” Beginnings, New York: Doubleday and Co., 1975, p. 18)
(This has been one of My favorite poems since long before Sami (or any of my children) was born.)

One’s life … cannot be both faith-filled and stress-free. …

“Therefore, how can you and I really expect to glide naively through life, as if to say, ‘Lord, give me experience, but not grief, not sorrow, not pain, not opposition, not betrayal, and certainly not to be forsaken. Keep from me, Lord, all those experiences which made Thee what Thou art! Then let me come and dwell with Thee and fully share Thy joy!’ …

“Real faith … is required to endure this necessary but painful developmental process.”

Elder Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, “Lest Ye Be Wearied and Faint in Your Minds,” Ensign, May 1991, 88, 90.

I love this quote that I found in the January Liahona because I feel like it applies so much to every one of us. Sometimes we forget that life is HARD. It was never meant to be easy. I don´t want it to be easy because that means I´m not learning anything. We have the potential to become like God. Think about that for a few minutes. You, Mom, and you, Jennie, and me (Sami, in case you forgot). We all have the same chance to becaome like Heavenly Father, a perfect god who created us and this earth, other worlds and universes. Then let´s think about where each of us are at right now. Are we close to our end goal of becoming like God? The answer is no (Mosiah 4:11). But the good news is we have everything we need to get through any trial Heavenly Father gives us. And we now that He will never give us a trial without purpose. One of my favorite chapters is Hebrews 12 (maybe that´s because it uses one of the words from my retired vocabulary :) ). But seriously, read it. It really put some thigs in perspective for me. I wrote a really long email. I love you and I hope that you remember that this is our time to learn how to depend on Heavenly Father, not on other people, including ourselves. I love you!! So much!!!

love,
Hermana Smith
aka Sami
¡Heart!