This week was a week of complete angst. Honestly, I guess if a companion isn't making me angsty, my hormones will. But I had a few good experiences that made it so worth it. First of all, I had a spiritual epiphany about feeling the Spirit. I had finished a tour earlier and while I thought it should have been a situation in which I "felt" the Spirit, I hadn't--and it's happened to me with several tours. I was so concerned. Why don't I feel the Spirit? Is my heart not in it? Why isn't my heart in it? I'm giving it as much as I've got (which varies, btdubs, from day to day). And, I did receive promptings about what to say or who to talk to, etc. So obviously, the Spirit is in communication with me. As I was nearly in tears going over this in my mind (because I've been trying so hard this week and it's been hard to try hard), all these thoughts came to me at once and I felt that burning in my heart sensation confirming the truth.
Which is: for the sake of simplicity, let's just say the Spirit can be received in two main ways--through your mind/thoughts and through your feelings/emotions. When people have thoughts they know are from the Spirit, they usually say "I felt like I should xyz. . . " but really, it's more of "I was impressed to .. . ", as that testimony meeting feeling isn't quite there. The reason why I was notfeeling the Spirit is because my true, non-surface emotions have been used to being buried down deep from this past transfer, and are more difficult to access.
I don't know if this is making sense, or seeming overly obvious, but I swear, it helped me piece together some missing understandings about my life. My freshman year at BYU I worried that I never felt the Spirit and I wondered what I was doing wrong. I was doing everything I was supposed to and then some because I was having a rather hard time emotionally. I always wondered why I wasn't able to feel the Spirit--until just now when I realized that I actually had through thoughts. My emotions were simply so depressed--or pressed down, I guess--that I was not able to feel that burning of the heart, sometimes tearful kind of Spirit that I recognized as the main way to feel the Spirit.
Of course, there is nothing bad about "feeling" or recognizing the Spirit through thoughts/the mind only, or maybe only emotion, but I would argue that, at least for myself, a mix of both is necessary to feel truly spiritually whole. For example, I largely believe that music, and other audio-visual type of stuff is mostly a spiritual experience of the heart. The words may be touching or interesting, but the combination of words with music is something of the heart much more than the mind (which is why I hadn't been able to really have the spiritual feelings I normally have when listening to certain types of music).
Maybe this is obvious. But I swear, just wait until you think you aren't feeling the Spirit even though you are doing what you're supposed to, or you have questions/doubts but you're still trying. I've heard from psychologists that there is nothing wrong with being emotional, and it's even important, I just didn't realize it's spiritual significance until now.
Second:
I had an interaction this week at the VC that felt eternal in importance. There was this kid, and he looked like he might be gay, so of course I wanted to talk to him because of how much that matters to me and how it's a pretty hard life, especially for a teen. I make a few side comments and eventually we get to really talking and he just comes out with everything. He unhesitantly (chrome is telling me this is not a word) tells me he is gay (I think he's pretty publicly out), and kind of just all about his struggles with the church--largely just people's lack of acceptance towards him. He says, "Wow, I just met you, I can't believe I'm telling you this," and "You're probably not the right person I should be telling this to. . .( I think on account of the sister missionary thing)" Oh. Oh, au contrair my friend. Little does he know I've pretty much been prepared since birth for this.
The thing is, this kid is incredible. He's unbelievably self-actualized--especially for a gay Mormon teenager--and I can just feel the strength of his testimony and the strength of his character even though he might not realized it, as he doesn't associate with the church. But really, I don't even know how to describe this seemingly small yet quite significant experience. I hardly said anything besides stuff like, "yeah, that's got to be so hard," and other such things. He doesn't even know that I sympathize beyond the average straight person capacity for his situation, and that I have thought and thought and worried and cried for hours on end about the difficulties of being gay, and that kind of thing. So I got his email and then he left. I thought so much about the experience afterwards. I just knew he was gay, that I needed to talk to him, that we would get along. He didn't even question whether I would be accepting of him (and the ideas he put forth, which I am quite familiar with)--it's like he knew.
Like all Visitor's Center experiences, what is to become of this? What is the eternal significance of it? I don't know. But I know it was very powerful that he told me all the things about himself that he did, and that the Lord wanted me to meet him.
Well, ok, those were the two important things, I would say. And they were very important, I think. Sister Garner is great. So loving, and we have great companionship study and great companionship goals.
Love you!
Love, Rachel (ps, my name is becoming weird to me. Sister Ross is totally my new identity. which I accept)
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