The Refiner's Fire

     This last week has been a busy one!  It’s been filled with midterms and projects and lots of activities.  At BYU they have a testing center where we take our tests at, and it’s actually really cool.  It’s the building where the most prayers are said they say (all of that pre-test anxiety, it would be nice to have some divine help).  I was so worried before going in there, that I would not know where to go, or something along that line of thought.  Once you go in though, its pretty straight forward.  I was very pleased to find out right after I turned my test in, that I had done really well on it.  Thats one of the cool things about the testing center.  By the time it takes for you to get downstairs, your score is already posted on a TV, instant results.  I kind of wish in some instances that that was how life was.  Instant results and instant solutions.  Patience is a virtue I defiantly need to work on.  

     Though this has been a good week, it has also had it’s fair share of trials.  A few days ago I found out that my family will be moving to Utah, as soon as they possibly can.  That was really hard for me to accept.  Not that Utah isn’t great and all, but my home is Missouri.  When I think about going home after summer term, I imagine going home to Lee’s Summit, not to some house I’ve never been in before in some town that I am a stranger to.  One thing I personally struggle with is change.  That's mostly human though.  We all hesitate when it comes to change.  To my surprise I have handled being on my own really well, and think I will do fine on my mission.  One constant that I always would look to though is my home, my home would be something that would not change.   Yet now it has.  While out here, I have thought to myself, “Oh, we only have like about 4 weeks and then I’ll be going home.”  But I wont be going back to Missouri, if only to finish packing and say my goodbyes.  How strange a feeling.  Though it has been hard for me to accept, I have found that turning to my Father in Heaven has helped.  He is the most important constant in anyones life.  My parents prayed about this decision and I trust that the Lord will lead us to where we need to be.  For some reason, we are meant to move to Utah, and I know that everything will be ok.  At least a part of me knows that.  I’m still working on it.  I’m trying to get into my head that it will be an adventure, that it will be fun, as I’m sure it will be.      

     This past week I was reading my scriptures and came across one verse that really stood out to me.  In 1 Nephi 20:10 it says “I have refined thee.  I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction”.  It was weird (or really cool) that I was reading that and then the lesson I taught in Sunday School was about trials and adversities that Joseph Smith faced while in Liberty Jail.  I think I may enjoy these topics so much because I am trying to look at the big picture when I’m facing trials, that they will only be for a while and that I’ll grow from them.  Many people do not view trials that way though.  They believe it is God punishing them, which in some cases it is, but really they can be instruments of learning.  By going through the trials and turning to The Lord, then he can “refine” us, causing us to become better creatures.  He is there for us in “the furnace of affliction”, to help us become better people.  When we feel at our lowest, when the heat is scalding, that is when He will assist us, allowing for us to grow the most.  He never puts us into something that He does not think we can over come.  Thats the part that baffles me.  When in trials, some people will go “Woe is me, I’m not going to be able to make it, it’s too much”.  Do they not know that we have the most powerful being ever cheering us on?  He believes in us.  That would just motivate me more to make it out on top.  I don’t know about you, but I am thankful for trials.  Sounds weird but I am.  I know they will shape me in a way that is better, changing me into a better person.  And, like most people, I am always wanting to be a better person.