I'm back! Onward and upward!

Well, I've been thinking on and off about starting up my blog again for the last couple months since getting back.  I just never get around to it.

There is so much I could write about.  It's amazing to me that I've only been back from my mission about 2 1/2 months.  It feels like a year.  So much has happened!  I worked during December, started going back to Snow College after receiving a great scholarship offer from the music department, started dating again (a bit), got my own phone, and was called to be Ward Mission Leader in my YSA ward to list a few things.  It's been a good couple months!

One of my institute teachers likes to say, "Your mission was a wonderful introduction to the foothills of the Spiritual Himalayans of your life."  I've heard many times that if we are asked to share a spiritual experience and the most recent one we can think of was from our mission, then something is wrong.  We are supposed to be continually progressing.  A mission is not a final destination, rather "a spring board to every other good thing in your life," as my mission president liked to say.

So that's my challenge.  I'm trying to keep having spiritual experiences like I did as a missionary.  It's hard.  I was encouraged by a recent lesson in institute.  My teacher explained that this mortal journey is like a journey through a desert.  Eventually, we come to an oasis with a couple tress and a small stream.  It's a wonderful time! All our prayers are being answered, we're feeling the spirit often, keeping the commandments is easier than ever.  But we're not meant to stay there, and Heavenly Father soon kicks us back out into the desert.  What we can't see is that a little ways ahead is another spiritual oasis, this one with more trees and more streams.  And beyond that one, another even better.  However, the journey between oasis's is hard.  There seems to be a "brass ceiling" between us and Heaven.  Why aren't our prayers being answered as easily as before?  Why are we struggling so much more with temptation?  Are we doing something wrong?

Not always.  The thing is, Heavenly Father wants us to become better, stronger, more like He is.  So He asks us to give more effort to receive the answers, he lets us wander in the desert to try our faith and see if we will stay faithful despite no additional confirmations that it is still the right thing to do.  The more we progress in our journey, the longer those stints in the desert become.  Sometimes, they last decades. But if we will keep pressing forward in faith and allow ourselves to be stretched, we will reach those oasis's and eventually our final destination.

For those with faith in Christ, there are good things to come.  I know this is true.  If you're struggling, hang in there, hold on to your faith, and know that God has a grand plan just for you.