This feels surreal. I can't possibly be typing my last letter home. It can't be real. they keep telling me it is though, so here it goes--the last email.
i was going to make a list of some things that I have learned on my mission, but it all just kept coming back to this:
the Number one thing that I have learned out here is that God is real. He loves us. he knows what is best for us, even if it hurts a little bit. There have been certain
situations on my mission that have hurt really bad. I have wanted to scream at God: "Why are you doing this to me?! If you loved me, you wouldn't
do this." Then I will make it through the struggle and thank Him because i see how much it has helped me to grow. Growing pains are real. but if we
didn't hurt a little, how would we be sure we were alive. There is no growth in the comfort zone, and there is no comfort in the growth zone. That is a
true principle. All we have to do is trust in God and everything will work out for our good.
When i first got transferred here to Royal Palm Beach, i was a little disappointed. I thought that I was going to lose all my spanish and that there
weren't going to be cool people here, but i was so wrong. God knew me. HE KNOWS ME. i was supposed to be here. Over the last week, i have
been slowly saying goodbye to everyone and I KNOW that I was supposed to be here. There were lives and families that I needed to touch. i am
so grateful that God sent me here even though i was too dumb and prideful to immediately trust in His will. I don't know how I am going to leave
this place. It feels like I am leaving home all over again.
These last eighteen months have really just helped me to see that there is too much beauty and too much hurt in the world for there not to be a God.
This did not happen by chance. THIS DID NOT HAPPEN BY CHANCE. Our lives and the people in them are there for a reason: to make us better.
To help us to learn and to make us more like Him. There is no way that this all doesn't have a purpose. I know Heavenly Father loves each and every
one of us and he has a plan for each of us. Anyway, i feel like I am rambling. God is real. He loves us so much that he provided us with a hard/beautiful
life to live because He trusts us. He sent Jesus Christ so that when we fall, we can get back up. It is all real. I believe it with all my heart.
word; yet ye shall be patient in long-suffering and afflictions, that ye may show forth good examples unto them in me, and I will make an instrument of
thee in my hands unto the salvation of many souls." I've been doing that for the last 18 months, but I'm still going to be doing it when I get home. I have
learned so much out here. I can't wait to come home and be the person that I have become out here.
So, family, BUCKLE UP. Here I come. I love you so much. God loves you more. Nos vemos en dos dias, familia.
Hermana Gardner
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