Packed up and ready to go!

So the last day at the MTC has officially arrived. Our stuff is all packed and waiting to go. Today my heart is full of gratitude and happiness and enthusiasm. I'm so grateful for the experiences I've had here at the MTC. A lot of it was really hard but it's going to refine me. I've met and come to love some amazing friends--fellow missionaries and teachers as well. I know it's nothing compared to how the field will be, but even being here at the MTC has been rewarding. Something said in a devotional that's stuck with me: "This won't be a perfect experience. But, it WILL be a perfect learning experience." That was true about my time in the MTC, I'm sure it will be true about my mission and all my life experiences. Sometimes things go wrong, are really hard, come up unexpectedly for the worse, or are just not what I thought it should have been like. But that never means that Heavenly Father isn't aware of me or doesn't love me. 

There's a mormon.org video where a woman was talking about how great the blessings Heavenly Father has for those who do their best. The Plan of Salvation, our purpose here, is so glorious and incredible. What we experience here is not what we will experience forever. This is not the finished product. What's in store for us after this life is so beautiful and healing and full of love--that's why bad things can happen in this life. Understanding the Gospel not only gives purpose to our trials, but it helps us understand that our hardships will be outweighed.

A hymn that I have newly come to love is #335, Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy. I love each verse, but I'll choose to just type up the 2nd and 3rd verses. The words are stirring:

Dark the night of sin has settled;

Loud the angry billows roar.

Eager eyes are watching, longing,

For the lights along the shore.

Trim your feeble lamp, my brother;

Some poor sailor, tempest-tossed,

Trying now to make the harbor,

In the darkness may be lost.

Let the lower lights be burning;

Send a gleam across the wave.

Some poor fainting, struggling seaman

You may rescue, you may save.

I love this. It's so super important to always keep our spiritual lamps burning--we never know what service we'll be able to give.

I'm so grateful to be a missionary. I have faith that the Spirit will attend me as I honestly serve this mission. It's going to change hearts, heal families, and it's going to move forward. I'm grateful to be counted among the "soldiers in the army." It's not about me. It's about Jesus Christ. It's about Malaysia and Singapore--it's about individuals there. Christ heals one by one. I intend to serve people this way. I feel His love. You can too. Pray sincerely several times a day, and never go a day without studying from the Book of Mormon.

Well, gonna go sleep my way across the Pacific Ocean. I love you all.

Love,

Sister Gopinath