*California Adventure* A Light in the Dark

I'm constantly surprised at the amount of stuff that can happen in a single month.This past month has been no exception.

View of the Bay Bridge from Treasure Island

As of today I have been in California for one month - and what an amazing month it has been!! I have spent hours with my wonderful family: held my precious new born nephew, played with his older brother, and gotten to better know my sister and her husband. I have made a fantastic group of friends that have taken me on adventures, constantly make me laugh till it hurts, and helped me to feel welcome in this strange new place. Although California is nothing like my small town in the-middle-of-nowhere Idaho, I'm loving every second. It hasn't taken me very long at all to see God's hand in bringing me out here. I have been learning and growing in ways I could never have imagined back home. This was the right choice for me.

One of the greatest lessons I have been learning since coming out here, is a lesson in hope. For those of you who read my post back in June, "Hope Behind my Walls," you may remember that I was going through a bit of a rough spot. Despite my challenges I held onto my faith that, "I can do all things through Christ which strengeneth me" (Philippeans 4:13). After a while, although I refused to let go of my faith, I began to lose sight of hope. I knew that Christ was there, but I began to wonder if he was there for me. I kept re-evaluating my life, wondering what I was missing. Of course I wasn't perfect, but I felt like I was doing pretty good with the basics. So why was the darkness in my life not yet giving way to light??

A sunflower on Google Campus

At the exact moment I needed it the most, I received counsel to keep holding onto the light, no matter how small it seemed. God could not forget me. He hadn't up to this point, and he never would. So I kept going, and ever so slowly, the world began to brighten around me: like the way the sun begins to melt away the night just before a glorious sunrise. And that was just the beginning.

Almost as soon as I arrived here in California, it was as if the sun burst from behind the horizon, filling my life once again with radiant light.

Life isn't meant to be easy, we are here to be tested. Growth often requires pain or struggling of some kind: if life were easy we would never learn. But God has given us a way through the dark patches of life, and that way is hope.

I use to really struggle with understanding the difference between faith and hope. After all, Paul teaches that, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for..." and Alma teaches similarly that, "...if ye have faith, ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true." But after reading the book, "Believing Christ," and listening to some great talks from this most recent general conference, I re-read the following verses from Moroni 7 with a new understanding:

41 And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise.
42 Wherefore, if a man have faith he must needs have hope; for without faith there cannot be any hope.

Reading these verses from the Book of Mormon, the thought came to me that perhaps while faith is believing in Christ, that he came, that he died, and that he lives, hope is believing that because he did these things, not just for mankind but for me personally, I can become a better person. Hope is believing that no matter what happens, things will work out in the end. Hope is knowing that there will always be a light at the end of the tunnel no matter how dark and long.

I can't believe it took coming all the way out to California for me to learn that, but the Lord works in mysterious ways. And I'm certain that He has plenty more lessons for me to learn before I head home in a few months. In the mean time, although the past year hasn't turned out anywhere close to how I planned, I know that God's plan for me is so much more amazing.

So I guess that's what it means to have hope. :)

A message for everyone at Baker Beach :)