Elizabeth's Story

My name is Elizabeth and this is part of the story of my life.  So when I was at BYU I really, really wanted to do humanitarian projects and humanitarian nursing and I really loved going and serving, and I looked at people like Mother Theresa and I just thought that they were so wonderful and so awesome, and she is my hero and I wanted to be just like her.
So I started going abroad and doing semesters abroad and as one of them, I went to Romania for four months and I worked in a pediatric hospital and orphanage in caring for abandoned children, most of which had severe disabilities. And I loved it, I fell in love, and I was with a group of BYU girls, and we worked a lot with members of the branch, and we taught missionary discussions, and we were very involved, and we loved experiencing a new culture and doing humanitarian work, and I loved it!  and I really wanted to do humanitarian nursing as earning my degree in nursing, and go and do those things as a career.
And a little while after I got back from Romania probably about a year, a year after I got back, I just had a very, very strong desire that I wanted to go and serve the Lord.  I wanted to do what he wanted me to do, and I wanted to serve and so I really started thinking hard about going on a mission.  So I went one day to talk to my Bishop, the same Bishop that ended up setting Dave and I up a while later, and I went and talked to him and I told him “Bishop, I think that I want to go on a mission, I don’t know if that is exactly what I want to do, but I know that I want to serve the Lord and I think that this might be a good thing, but I’m not really sure.. What do you think?”  And he looked in a drawer and pulled out a stack of mission papers!  And he said, “well, here you go.  Fill them out.”  And I said “oh, that‘s not exactly what I was looking for, I was looking for counsel and direction, and I’m not exactly sure… all I know is that I want to serve the lord.”  And he said, “well you’ll never know unless you start.”

And so I started my mission papers.  And a month later I had a mission call!  I had a mission call back to Romania where I had already gone, and I knew the language and I taught the discussions, and I knew people and I knew the culture.  And when I got the mission call I had very mixed emotions since I had been there before, and  it was a place that I loved the people, but it is also a really hard place, and there is a lot of sorrow, and a lot of suffering there.  But I wanted more than anything to serve the Lord, so I kept going through with it.  I went through the temple, I deferred BYU, and I packed up and I moved home because there was about a month and a half between fall semester and the time that I was going to leave.  And when I left I felt so lost. And even in the temple I kept looking for confirmation to go.  But it never came.  I knew I was doing the right thing and I was still on the right path.
And as part of preparing to go on a mission I really studied preach my gospel a lot.  It taught me how to teach, how to serve better, and it taught me the gospel better, and it taught me to love missionary work.  And those were things I learned in preparing to go on a mission, but when it really came down to it, I really felt like it wasn't the right thing to go.
Through a series of miracles, BYU lost my deferment papers, the college of nursing had someone drop out so they had a spot for me again, because I was going to have to wait until there was a space until there was an opening, and I got back into BYU.  So I wondered, why was that the path that I was supposed to take – even though I was 100% sure that it was turning out right.  And I learned what I learned a little bit later, as I went through this process; going back to BYU, and serving in other ways.

The answer came in an April General Conference talk by President Uchtdorf called “Lift where you stand”.  And I needed to learn to ‘lift where I stood’.  I was really good at running off and going places and doing all these things in other places. But the Lord places each of us where he wants us to be for a reason.  And as I opened my eyes at what needed to be done right around me, right here, right now, through visiting teaching and serving neighbors and friends and family, I was astounded at all the things I was missing, because I was so concerned about other people on the other side of the world.  And those are wonderful children of God as well, but that is not my stewardship to serve, and that isn’t where I needed to be.

Heavenly father wanted me to learn to ‘lift where I stood’ and sometimes that’s a hard lesson to learn, because we often see other people’s lives, and pick bits and pieces from them that are good, and want to make them part of our own lives, and we want to fill our lives with so many good things, and it’s easy to get frustrated when the Lord has something different in mind.   And there’s this quote by C.S. Lewis that I really love, that I’ll share that illustrates this principle perfectly.  “Imagine yourself as a living house.  God comes in to rebuild that house.  At first perhaps you can understand what he is doing.  He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on. You knew that those things needed doing so you are not surprised. But presently, he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is he up to? The explanation is; that he is building quite a different house than the one you thought of.  Throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, building up towers, making courtyards.  You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage, but He is building a palace.”

I love that quote, and I love how we can see those pieces in my own life. Especially in this experience that I had, while I picked one thing that was good- and it was a wonderful, wonderful thing, but it wasn't the best thing for me, and I learned so many things on that path, but most of all I learned that I wanted to serve the lord, and that I was willing to sacrifice who I wanted to be, for who he wanted me to be. And that through those experiences I've been able to serve and to magnify who he has wanted me to be, and I am all the happier for it!