Final Post? "There is Yet Another Chapter"

 To my readers (which are few and faithful),

I have not posted in about a month now; I have had many, very significant events happen in my life, the largest of which is my engagement to the most wonderful woman on Earth. I have written many times with the appeal that I need to grow, that I need to mature, that I must draw closer to God; and while all those things are true, God saw fit that I must not be perfect in these things before I moved on to the next stage in life.

It has been a most wonderful 3 weeks. That is the period of our engagement to this point. We will be married for eternity on the 26th of December, just 10-and-one-half days away.

With all these new events, I have never felt pressed to write here since. Usually, each post has been preceded with a push to write on the subject, but this has never happened. So, after much thought and prayer, I have decided to at least discontinue, if not end, this blog.

This blog has been an immense help to me. It has helped me to organize my thoughts, emotions, feelings, and spiritual insights. I have grown much as a result. I am grateful for those that have influenced me so much for good, both intentionally and unintentionally. I am grateful to all those that took the time to read this; this truly was the closest I have ever come to sharing my whole heart to others (with the exception of my fiancée).

But, I feel that this blog has served its purpose. Perhaps at a later time, I may return to write once more. But for now, I bid farewell.

 I leave you with a very special letter I wrote. I wrote this the last Monday of my 2-year mission for the Lord Jesus Christ. It is addressed to my family, but I feel that you may benefit from this also.

I know that God lives. He is our Father, and He has a plan for each of us. As we do our best to follow Him, no matter where we are in our spiritual journey, we will return home.

Until we meet again, God bless you.

Patrick

Dearest Family,

This is something else. I am amazed that the two years have already come and gone. I have enjoyed being devoted to God in [this] great work, but "to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven" (Eccl. 3:1). "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith" (2 Tim. 4:7). I have finished this period in my life, and it is time to move on to the next stage in life.

Before my mission, I thought I would be borderline perfect by the time I came home, and I now realize that is not true. I have changed, I have grown, I have reached remarkable heights, but I have so much farther to go. Before, I believed the gospel, but now I understand it: not to the fullest, but to a degree that I never knew before. I truly see that the gospel is not a one-time sequence of events, but that "faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end" (Preach My Gospel, p.1) is a pattern that we live throughout our lives. So long ago, I made the covenant of baptism and received the Holy Ghost, but "after ye have gotten into this strait and narrow path, I would ask if all is done? Behold, I say unto you, Nay.... Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life" (2 Ne. 31:19-20).

After we enter in at the gate, we are to continue to increase in faith, repent of our shortcomings, keep and renew our covenants, receive another degree of the fulness of the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end, "relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save" (2 Ne. 31:19). We continue on in this cycle for eternity. As we increase in faith, we will repent more, which leads to a greater commitment to keep our covenants, and the Holy Ghost will visit us in a greater power, which will cause us to further increase in faith. And none of this would be possible without the grace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Christ was chosen as the Savior before the world even began. "But, behold, my Beloved Son, which was my Beloved and Chosen from the beginning, said unto me—Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever" (Moses 4:2). If it were not for Christ's Atonement, we would've been lost forever, unable to progress and become like our Father inå Heaven. "O the wisdom of God, his mercy and grace! For behold, if the flesh should rise no more our spirits must become subject to that angel who fell from before the presence of the Eternal God, and became the devil, to rise no more. And our spirits must have become like unto him, and we become devils, angels to a devil" (2 Ne. 9:8-9).

"Wherefore, how great the importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth" (2 Ne. 2:8). I might have been no Ammon; I didn't baptize thousands like Paul, in fact even now I consider myself "slow of speech, and of a slow tongue" (Ex. 4:10) and that "I of myself am a wicked man" (Omni 1:2), but I still feel I was " instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance" (Alma 29:9). I do not understand all the ways of God; I do not see the fruit of my labors, but I trust God used my small, pathetic offering of service for something.

This past week, and even now, I do not realize the end is near. It seems superficial. It seems as though "the time passed away with [me], and also [my mission] passed away like as it were unto [me] a dream" (Jacob 7:26). I pondered the dread that will come from leaving this behind. I have not fully realized how sad it will be, but I feel it will be very sad when the time of realization does come. But then I pondered eternity. The last verse of "If You Could Hie to Kolob" especially provokes comfort:

There is no end to glory;
There is no end to love;
There is no end to being;
There is no death above.

That is what the gospel is all about. That, because God loved us enough to put us on Earth, and because of the infinite Atonement of Jesus Christ, there is no end! There is an end to my mission; that is true and very sad. But I will move up one more rung on the ladder of eternal growth, as we all will. Every time some good event ends, we move on to something grander! We may leave high school, but we enter college. We may leave our mission, but we enter marriage. We may leave our bodies, but we will one day enter into bodies of celestial glory, to live with those we love for eternity, worlds without end.

So, I have much left to do in this life. But "the days of the children of men were prolonged, according to the will of God, that they might repent while in the flesh; wherefore, their state became a state of probation, and their time was lengthened, according to the commandments which the Lord God gave unto the children of men" (2 Ne. 2:21). I still have so much to learn and accomplish, but God has given us as long as we need to accomplish His grand designs. I am not done increasing in faith; I don't have a perfect testimony; I am not a perfect missionary; but I will continue to live the gospel as the redeeming power of the Atonement unlocks growth within me. And I pray each of you do the same.

I know that Jesus Christ lives, and He is my personal Savior, as He is for each of you. I love Him. I have much to learn about Him, but I know He loves me, as does my Father in Heaven, my God. God knows what each of us struggle with and go through, and He loves us with a perfect love. God is always there to invite us one step closer to Him. If we fail, it's ok. If we stumble, it's fine. It does not matter how many times we fall, so long as we match that number with how many times we repent.

I love the Book of Mormon. Pres. Ezra Taft Benson said that we do not need to prove the Book of Mormon, for it is its own proof. I firmly believe that. Anyone that picks up the Book of Mormon and reads it with an open heart and a sincere desire to draw closer to their Maker will know that Book is divine. Joseph Smith was a prophet, and he saw God and Jesus Christ. This Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is the Lord's kingdom on the earth again, preparatory to the Second Coming of the Messiah (Introduction, The Book of Mormon).

So, this mission draws to a close. I am unsure of what I accomplished, but I have faith in God that this will lead to something greater. So, even though this route in my life has ended, and I will never experience something like this again...

There is yet another chapter.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.