Wilderness

 I love your letters! It is so wonderful to hear that I have a new nephew! Ah! So crazy! and another January Birthday! Our family loves them.  I miss and love all of my family and hope they are doing well! Keep good tabs on those friends of mine! Sound like you are doing amazing! I  appreciate the pictures of the family that you sent. I didn't get it till Saturday and I have just been dying to write to you about it! I love the family pics so so so so so much! They are wonderful! I smile every time that I get a chance to look at them. I LOVE IT! And every family pic looks so cute! Cali's missing teeth are adorable! 

 

I have trully been enjoying my time here! I love it! I was so happy when transfers came and that I am able to stay with Sister Clark and in the Quince Orchard West area. It really feels like home right now. However, the work can be really difficult sometimes! BUT! I am not afraid of hard work. Sister Clark and I were discussing about Nephi and his family and how sometimes it was easy for his brothers to complain... They would talk about how Jerusalem was so much easier and there it was not as difficult. They had all that they needed and more. God knew that Jerusalem was not the right place for them and that they would need something different, something better. And so He sent them to the wilderness. Now, I don't know how you all feel about the wilderness but it is pretty difficult. They had to learn to survive without all of their things and they had so many trials.. like when Nephi broke his bow. This could not have been easy. The wilderness probably caused many hard moments and many tears. But God knew better that there was a place prepared in their future that would be a promised land! So they had to go through those trials and hard times to help them to grow and to have faith and to truly be prepared for the promised land. And then God commanded Nephi to build a ship. Nephi didn't know how to build a ship. He didn't even have the tools to do it! But God knew that Nephi could do it because with God all things are possible. WITH GOD ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE! And so God helped Nephi to make the tools and to build the boat and God gave guidance to Nephi all along the way. He even gave them a Liahona that as long as they were doing what they should would guide them withersoever they should go. After much time and tribulation and works of faith Nephi and his family made it to the promised land.

 

Comparing this to our lives and our hard times can be so helpful. Look at the love God has for us and the things that He has us go through to prepare us for our futures. Our futures can be a promised land if we but trust in the Lord and bear our trials well. "For we walk by faith not by sight."

 If you get a chance look up and read 1 Neph chapters 1 - 17. This is a great legacy for us to remember and live by.

 I love you all and miss you.

God be with you Till we meet again,

Love Sister Nicole Gordon