Talks- Farewell and Homecoming

FAREWELL TALK

Good morning brother and sisters! I’m Sami Schofield, soon to be Sora Schofield. For those wondering who I am or why I look a little unfamiliar, I moved into this ward when the boundaries changed last year and I left for school pretty soon after that so I wasn’t in the ward very long after the wards changed, so that’s why I might seem a little unfamiliar. I just finished my first year at BYU and I am currently a statistics major with hopes of becoming a sports analyst. I will be serving in the Romania Bucharest mission and I start home MTC next monday after getting set apart next sunday. I get a lot of questions about serving in Romania so I’ll answer a few of them you might be thinking right now. So, Yes, the language they speak there is Romanian and No, I didn’t know it was a language or what it sounded like before my call. Yes, I know it’ll be a hard mission and Yes, I am nervous to serve there and learn a new language but Yes, I am so excited to go and serve people and teach them of God’s love for them. In lieu of father’s day, I feel the need to call out my dad before I start my talk. Anyone who knows my dad knows he is a big softie and always cries while giving talks and I take after him, so at any point if I start to cry, just blame my dad and bear with me. Anyways, I am so excited to go and teach people of the infinite love God and Jesus have for them. That is something that is a big part of my testimony because I hadn’t always known that. In seminary my junior year I had, biasly, the best teachers, one was my mom and one was someone who has been like a second mom to me and a very close family friend. During that semester of the Old Testament they very closely focused on how God’s love was apparent in all the stories told no matter how harsh the story seemed. During the flood, when manna was coming down from the skies, no matter what, God’s love could be found in the story. They really wanted us to know how much God loves us. At the end of the year Sister Dudley gave us all rocks to write something on that we had learned this year or something we have a testimony in, she showed us hers and it was about God’s unconditional love for us. I had no idea what to write on my rock. I felt as if my testimony hadn’t increased at all and I couldn’t tell you what I had learned that year in seminary. I can admit now that I hadn’t paid attention much and didn’t remember much of what was taught. I felt so stagnant. So with all these factors, I had no idea what to write. I wanted to just copy Michelle’s and write about God’s love but the more I thought about it, the more I knew that I didn't fully believe that. I couldn’t tell you with certainty that I knew that God loved me. I really struggled with that. So, I ended up writing something on my rock along the lines of “God blesses us when we turn to Him” because I remembered talking about that a little bit. But I sat there in seminary that day just wanting to know that God loves me but not believing it yet. I then about a month later was sitting in a sacrament meeting with a bunch of my friends, still struggling to know if God truly loves me. Not at all paying attention to the meeting going on in front of me, I decided to read from a book of devotionals that I had brought to church. I turned to a page and read about Jesus’ baptism, a story I’m sure we all know so I’ll spare the details but the perspective this devotional was written through really hit me. The devotional talked all about how Jesus was there before He had gone and done anything miraculous, before He healed the sick, raised the dead or caused the blind to see. However God still came down and said, “this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased”, marking that Jesus is known, claimed and loved. God knew Christ saying, THIS is my beloved son, God claimed Him, this is MY beloved son and God expressed His love for Jesus, this is my BELOVED son in whom I AM WELL PLEASED. God said all these things before Christ “proved” himself or had any sort of resume. He said that He loved Him just for being His child. `This struck me. I remember feeling so strongly that God loved me, that even though I am an ordinary person with no achievements and many mistakes made, I knew for certain in that moment that God loved me. I didn’t have to prove myself or do some miraculous work for God to love me, He loves purely because I am His child. Now it is something that is included in every testimony of mine and everything I have to say about the church and why I am serving a mission. So in case you haven’t guessed yet, I am going to be talking about God’s love for all of us, individually. I thought of a few ways I see God’s love and I want to expand on those today. The first way is through the Book of Mormon as a whole. One of the many reasons I love the Book of Mormon is because of the manifestations we see of God’s love. I love seeing how it so clearly shows the love God has for all of His children. The Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ and shows stories and teachings of Him coming to the Americas. This alone shows the love He and God have for us. He loved all His children enough to send His son to teach those in another part of the world. The Gospel and the teachings and the love wasn’t just for the old world, it is for all His children on every end of the world. Christ comes to America and teaches about His Doctrine and commandments. He is able to teach the Sermon on the Mount, the commandments, the beatitudes and other important teachings in His doctrine. With Christ coming to America and teaching the Nephites those lessons we are able to see His and God’s love for all of His children and how it extends to all of us. This shows that God’s love isn’t confined to one area of the world. God loves us and wants us to hear His word and feel His love. Through Jesus coming to America and the stories in the Book of Mormon we are able to see God’s love for all of His children, anciently and now. While reading the Book of Mormon it may just seem like “oh sure God loves those in the scriptures but not me”. However, the Book of Mormon is a testament that God loves all of His children enough to send them a Savior and have them learn of the doctrine. Why wouldn’t that include you, or us living now? The Book of Mormon shows the individuality and all encompassing love God had. All of Christ's teachings show that His and God’s love extends to all parts of the world, not just the ancient world. God and Christ love all of us and through the Book of Mormon we are able to see the individuality of it. How God and Christ love me and how they love you. Many people look at the Book of Mormon of just other teachings of Christ and the stories of the people in the Americas, and while that is true, if we look a little deeper we really see stories of love. The Book as a whole shows us how God’s love is all encompassing, not confined to one group of people, one part of the world or people who have some miraculous story, it is for everyone. Second is through the stories of people who at first glance don’t have anything in common with us, but in reality, we have everything in common with them.
In the Book of Mormon we read of the story of Enos. He wrestled with God and had to repent of his sins. He was wrestling with his past mistakes and knew he had to repent. Which I think we can all relate too. We have all had to call upon the power of the Atonement and to repent at least once in our lives. Enos was kinda going through it and having a really tough time, but even in the midst of his hard time, God was there. God told Enos that He was there and that He was going to bless Enos due to his faith and his willingness to repent.
God loved Enos so much that He stayed with Enos during his struggles and blessed him and helped him overcome his sins. Because of this story I know that God will be with me during my hard times and will stay with me during my trials. Because of this story I know that God stays. You then hear the stories of Nephi in the Book of Mormon and Joseph in the Old Testament. Both went through various trials and struggled with their families and siblings. Which when we boil it down to the core, we can probably all relate to family and sibling problems. Nephi and Joseph, probably more than us but if we look at the root of the story, we are experiencing the same trials. In both Nephi and Joseph’s stories God was there with them, blessing them and helping them. Why wouldn’t He do the same to us? Why wouldn’t He help us and show us love also? During both Nephi and Joseph’s trials and even during Enos’, God was there, He was helping them and showing them love. We might feel as if God is going to love everyone but us, or He is going to help everyone but us or that, oh He is only there for people in the scriptures, He isn’t going to show up for us. But that is all false. God loves us, helps us. He is going to show up for us every time even when we don’t feel like we deserve it, especially then. In the New Testament we hear of all the stories and miracles Christ performed. Healing the sick, raising the dead and all others. During all those stories we can see the love Christ and God for us. God loved us enough to send a Savior who would heal us and help us. During Christ’s ministry He went and helped people, showing them love and acceptance. He loved and accepted them making sure they knew that they had a place and belonged somewhere, even if that somewhere was just with Him. This is done out of love. Christ made sure that knew they had a place because He loved them and didn’t want them to feel alone or isolated.
God loves us enough to send His son to help us and heal us. Even if Christ isn’t coming down now and physically healing I know that when we turn to them, they will help us and comfort us. One last way that I see God’s love is through what He gives us and all the random and ordinary places that God manifests His love. God loves us so much that He gave us things to remind us of that. He gave us the Earth, our bodies, our families, our friends, and anything else that makes us happy and feel loved. That is all from God. God’s love doesn’t manifest itself in only spiritual ways or only when we are reading the scriptures or at church. More often than not I see and feel God’s love in the ordinary. I feel it when I'm swimming at tahoe at sunset, I feel it when I am talking late at night with my friends, I feel it when my whole family is together. I know that I am feeling God’s love for me during these times because I can feel the happiness I have. I know that that is how God’s love manifests. It manifests in the ordinary things that make us happy because God wants us to love and have joy. Everything good comes from God and I know that when I am feeling happy and good, I am feeling God’s hand and love in my life. A few months ago I was listening to this podcast and on it they talked about all the ways they have come to know Jesus and how they have grown closer to Him in their lives. They explained how they know God and Jesus because people have cared enough to teach them and explain to them the Jesus and God they know. Listening to this I thought about how I know Heavenly Father and Jesus and who has taught me what. I decided to sit down and make a list of mine. I’ll spare you the full list but a few I wrote down were:
I know Jesus because my parents taught me to love Him
I know Jesus because my wonderful friends showed me how He manifests his love through other people
I know Jesus because I have had priesthood blessings that show me that He and Heavenly Father know my situations perfectly
And I could go on for longer but I won’t, but later as I was writing this talk, I saw the list and saw how they all related back to love.
My parents teaching me to love Him relates back to His love for me
My friends and them showing me God’s love shows me that God loves me enough to send me friends and put people in my life that I prayed for
The priesthood blessings I have had show me that God loves me enough to have someone give me a perfect and specified blessing even though they didn’t know my situation.
God’s love is found in the most ordinary places and if we look for it we see that His hand is in everything. I know God loves me because He gave me my family
He gave me my best friends
He gave me the ability to go and serve and teach those in Romania
He gave me my body and the Earth I know that God loves us more than we know and I am so excited to go and wear Christ’s name across my heart while serving in Romania for the next 18 months.
My hope for all the people I teach and for all of us today is that if Michelle were to give us all rocks we would all be able to write about God’s infinite, perfect love for us.
I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ,
Amen

HOMECOMING TALK

Good morning my dear brothers and sisters. I'm really excited to be here and to speak today about Jesus Christ. I just got home a few days ago from the Romania București Mission. These past 18 months have held some of my hardest moments but also my most joy filled days. The lessons i learned in romania are irreplaceable and im grateful i got this opportunity to wear christs name on my heart everyday for 18 months and to grow closer to Him. 

Since today is Christmas sunday, I wanted to focus on the gift that is Jesus Christ. But more specifically the gifts that are made possible to us because OF the gift of Jesus Christ and His beautiful gospel. 

I was to first focus on the gift of repentence along with the gift of change/growth. (Find a place for the scriptures!)

Change and growth is possible through the atonement of Jesus Christ and it may be one of my favorite parts of the atonement. (If im allowed to have a favorite part) The atonement also allows us to repent. It allows for true repentence. Real time. Repenting isnt sometjing that waits. Dont hold off until your nightly prayer or tje next day or week ot whenver to repent. Repent rivjt then and start anew. Every prayer between us and Heavenly Father is new start. Jesus Christ offers the gift of fresh starts and new beginnings. I know that im going to make mistakes but repentence allows me to change that. It allows me to start over. Even if i keep messing up over and over God is proud of my efforts and just wants us to turn to Him in an effort to do better. I understood repentence before my mission. I learned the joy and freedom of daily repentence on my mission. It's a gift we were should never take for granted. One that can literally change lives. Find the joy in daily repentance. It is one of the best gifts we have. 

On my mission i was made someone i never thought possible. I was changed and molded on my mission, beaten down just to get built back up stronger. There were many times on my mission where i felt extremely inadequate but through those feelings and through the atonement, i grew and became someone better and different. Growth and change is truly possible through the atonement. The beauty of the atonement is that we never have to stay as we are. We are not the people we were yesterday and we dont have to be the same tomorrow. We are never stuck as we are, where we are. His atonement works in every aspect and He will come and meet us where we are but never leave us where we are. Elder Kearon recently taught " Everything He said and did provided a new beginning for each of those He healed, blessed, taught, and relieved of sin. He didn’t withdraw from them, and He certainly won’t withdraw from you." 

The next gift i want to focus on is the gift of love. The bible really expresses the love of God so well, it says in some of my favorite verses in Romans 8:38-39: “.For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

 

One of my favorite things to teach was God's love for us. 

If we can fully understand and grasp the unconditional love God has for us, i know our lives will be forever changed. So if no one has told you recently or if you are struggling to know that, God loves you. He knows you. He loves you, speficially you, more than you will ever know. God's love is infinite and unconditional and perfect. No matter who we are, where we are, what we think about ourselves, God loves us. More than we know. Jesus Christ embodies God's love for us. His eternal and infinte atonement and sacrifice is the greatest act of love ever shown. Just like the song I stand amazed quotes, that for me, a sinner, he suffered, he bled and died. 

For us, all sinners in our own way, He bled and died to redeem us. The greatest act of love ever seen. 

I had the wonderful opportunity on my mission to teach a girl named Luiza. We orginally called luiza and she told us she had no idea if God loved her. My comp and i looked at eachother with sad faces but also excited for this oppunrtunity to share our testimonies of this. If anyone remembers i gave my farewell talk on feeling God's love and ended it by saying " im excited to go to romania and tell those people how much God loves them". And that i did. Especially with luiza. We bore testimony to her so powerfully that God knew and loved her. Through this her life changed and sje grew her relationship with God and Jesus in a way she never thought possible.

I know that love changes us. God's love is infinte and reaches all parts of our lives. There is nothing we can do and no where we can go where the love of God can't reach. In the talk I gave before I left on my mission, i shared a story about how I came to knew God loved me. I was a junior in high school struggling to know if I was actually loved by God. I came to know, with surety, that I am. That knowledge has changed my life. It led me to serve a mission and for that i am eternally grateful. I know if we can all know hiw loved we truly are, we will be changed and our connection to God will grow. 

Another gift I want to highlight is the gift of prayer. Prayer and the ability to communicate with our Father in Heaven is a gift that I know I took for granted. Being able to literally have a conversation and communicate with our God, our Supreme Creator is one of the biggest gifts and blessings we can have. My favorite scriptures say

"Yea, and cry unto God for all thy support; yea, let all thy doings be unto the Lord, and whithersoever thou goest let it be in the Lord; yea, let all thy thoughts be directed unto the Lord; yea, let the affections of thy heart be placed upon the Lord forever.

Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day" 

Counseling with the Lord will enhance each of our lives and help us grow our own personal testimony of prayer. Throughout my life my testimony of prayer has grown and on my mission I feel like I really started to understand the power of prayer. There were times when all I could was pray. Hard times where I felt as if I could do nothing else but turn in prayed. Other times where I prayed to Heavenly Father to help us. One of my favorite miracles and stories from my mission started with a prayer. My companion and I were heading home from a lesson and it was starting to get dark. But we still really wanted to find someone new to teach that day. So we stopped on the side of this random park my companion said a beautiful prayer where she said our desires and also said that we will act and go foward on our desires and asked the Lord to help us. So we went forward and saw some people on the other side of the street and starting talking to them, they said no. Buttttt they led us to talking to these two girls who were eager and interested to come. We set up a time the next day for a lesson and one of them came and brought another friend with her, a girl named Elena. We continued to teach Elena and she was able to get baptized in the end of november and is now a member of the cutest little Sibiu branch. She was one of my favorite people to teach. And our story with her all started with a prayer. I know prayer works and that there is power in it. 

The Preach my Gospel missionary manuel says "We pray with faith, sincerity, and real intent to act on the answers we receive. As we do this, God will guide us and help us make good decisions. We will feel closer to Him. He will grant us understanding and truth. He will bless us with comfort, peace, and strength" 

Prayers work and I know God blesses us as we turn to Him. 

One last gift I want to highlight is the gift of joy. Everyone always tells you that true joy comes through Jesus Christ. And to be honest I think I only halfway understood them before my mission. I felt and understood the truthfulness of the gospel and I recognized how I felt in life when I was closer to Jesus Christ vs when I distanced myself from Him. My naive highschool self understood these principles but also just wanted to feel the 'joy' of getting invited out on weekends or doing some things my friends did. My now, slightly less but still a little naive self understands what true joy feels like. Just like Ammon said "but behold, my joy is full, yea, my heart is brim with joy, and I will rejoice in my God" On my mission I feel like everyone knew how much I loved to talk about joy. I constantly mentioned to companions how happy I am and wondered if they felt the same thing. It was favorite thing to talk about - joy found through service and joy found Christ. My very last zone conference we went out on the streets and invited people to come to church with us. It was pouring rain and we were all ill prepared, in our best clothes and best hair and we all got soaked! But im not sure if i ever saw biggest smiles from anyone watching these missionaires come in 2x2. Sharing the joy of Jesus Christ with others brings an unexplainable joy to ourselves. One of the hardest parts of leaving my mission was wondering if I would feel a joy like this again. Through the service to Christ and to God, true joy is truly found. Service changes lives and the opportunity we have to feel joy because of Jesus Christ is a remarkable gift. I know God does not want us to suffer and He wants us to feel the joy. This true, full joy comes through His gospel. Elder Uchtdorf said recently : "The gospel of Jesus Christ is truly the “good news of great joy!"" The gospel of Jesus Christ is joy! I am blessed to have seen many lives change over these past 18 months as they found the joy in Christ. In God's perfect plan. In Christ infinite and perfect atonement. In this perfect gospel. Ive seen my own life change. I know this gospel changes lives. And if we allow it will change ours. We can see the power of the atonement in our lives, how God's love is always there, how our prayers really will be answered and how true joy can be in our lives! Along with many other gifts available to us. This restored gospel with all of the restored truths available to us is a gift available to all of us. I can't express how much graditude I have for my Father in Heaven and for the opportunity to be a missionary in Romania wearing Christ's name on my heart everyday. It was the best decision I have made. 

More importantly I can’t express my gratitude for Heavenly Father for the gift of His Son. Our savior, Jesus Christ is the reason all is possible in our world. His birth was the most important event in human history, coupled only with His atonement. Through His birth and His life we were gifted a gift of our perfect example, our Savior, our redeemer, and the person who knows us personally and perfectly. 

I know Jesus Christ lives and He leads this church.I know this is the true and living church and the true gospel. I know God loves us more than we know. I'm grateful for this Christmas season we have to celebrate the birth of our Savior, the greatest gift of all. I know Christ is our greatest gift we can recieve this Christmas. 

Română 

În numele lui Isus Hristos, amin