Placing Myself in Heavenly Father’s Hands

This is an English paper that I wrote that is the inspiration for name of my blog. I am the original author and these events really have taken place.


           From preparing for and serving a LDS mission in Buenos Aires Argentina, I have learned how to trust my Heavenly Father, others, and myself. Learning to do so has been a journey that continues even today. I guess this story starts before my mission, actually starting with becoming the person I should have been long before. I had made some very poor decisions in my life that ended up leaving me with several scars and addictions including masturbation and gay porn. Needless to say I had some work to do starting with opening up to let people in and to let go of the monster inside.

            I began my journey becoming a missionary with repentance, not an easy thing to do, nor do I wish anyone such pain and torment. Although the peace and love that’s felt along the way and when all is said and done is worth it. Overcoming an addiction is not an easy task. It requires one’s self to understand the cause, how it started, what the triggers are, diversions, and a big one for me, acceptance--both in terms of accepting what you’ve done and accepting the love and support from others while believing you’re worthless and couldn’t deserve it less. During this time in my life, I spent a lot of time with the local missionaries learning and helping as much as I could. Doing this also kept me focused on all the good in my life and eased some of the pain; being the equivalent of an empty black hole sucking in whatever goodness and light from anyone and everyone around you is no fun.

            After changing my life and having truly found what I had been looking for all along I put myself to finishing the paper work to be a missionary and keeping myself as immersed in the gospel and church as possible. Doing this included continuing to help the missionaries, which at this time I absolutely loved, going to Young Single Adult (YSA) activities, constant scripture study (mostly from The Book of Mormon), prayer, and continuing to trust and place my life in Heavenly Father’s hands. All of these things helped in their own way and the YSA activities helped me to have the right friends and to be in the right spiritual environment.

The constant scripture study not only flooded my mind with almost constant spiritual thought, but also gave me new relationships with the people and prophets of the ancient Americas and Jesus Christ. The constant prayer and really learning how to pray opened several new doors in my life, the first being a father-son relationship with my Heavenly Father, and another being able to listen to and understand the Holy Ghost. Having opened these doors helped me to place my life in Heavenly Father’s hands and trust that even though I may not know or understand something, He does and always will.

            While in the MTC (Missionary Training Center), I started to learn Spanish, a language in which I knew only how to count to 10, and badly at that. While there, not only did I learn just enough of the language to “survive,” but I also started to learn how to love and see people how Heavenly Father does, loving them for all the wonderful things, big and small, feeling their pain and heartache, and wanting nothing more than to take it from them, but knowing from my own experience that some things must be done seemingly alone. This is something that I would experience time and time again as a missionary.

            When I finally reached my assigned mission, I soon found out how little I could speak and more so, the enormity of what being a missionary really meant. I remember vividly my first week, meeting new people, being in a very different land, and feeling as though I couldn’t help a single person and had made an enormous mistake; that Sunday I fell apart and ran from Sacrament meeting a third of the way through. I once again had to put myself into Heavenly Father’s hands and trust that He knew what He was doing. I soon learned to trust my trainer and that he wouldn’t let me down. Looking back on it now, I can see it as a lesson and example that Heavenly Father wouldn’t let me down either.

            After these and many more precious and personal experiences, I have come to learn how to leave my heart open, letting people in and letting go of what I have no control over; how to see people for who they really are and not just how they appear; how to truly pray from my heart, listen for the answer, and then willingly follow that answer whether it was what I was hoping for or something completely different. Most of all, I have learned it doesn’t really matter if I can see the outcome or have control of something, because I know with all my heart that my loving Heavenly Father does and that he will not let me down. This is a precious truth that I hope and pray all can and will learn just as I have, for I know of the sweet peace and joy that it brings.