The same thing will happen when I prepare to teach or if I’m asked to speak in a meeting. When I hear myself say something that I have never thought about — or something that gives me pause to ponder, I know it isn’t coming out of my own efforts.  I think some people are impacted by the words they hear — especially when those words come out of their own mouth and into their own ears. Occasionally I will hear myself say something and then say “Stop! I have to write that down — that was really important.”

The Spirit Speaks to (and Through) Me

Let me give you some examples that come to mind. In one of the Addiction Recovery meetings I facilitated for the spouses of pornography and sex addicts, one sister spoke of her extended family wanting to minimize the trauma of behavior that involved family members, and didn’t want anyone in the family to speak about it. This is a situation called “a conspiracy of silence.” Everyone knows and no one is “allowed” to speak of it.  When she finished sharing how upsetting it was that she was the victim and was told not to talk about it, out of my mouth came these words: “I can promise you that more pain is caused by keeping secrets than was ever caused by telling the truth.”

Over the years, I’ve learned that you can “invite” the Spirit to be with you. What you can’t do is “instruct” the Spirit to be with you. You simply can’t anticipate when the Spirit will speak, impress upon your mind, touch your heart, or provide you with the words the Lord wants you to say. Let me illustrate what I mean. One of the sentences in my patriarchal blessing is, “The Lord will magnify you in the eyes of those you teach and they will have a desire to follow your counsel.” I take that to mean that I am not to “magnify myself” by putting a well-prepared script together for a class or a talk.

I have learned to trust this scripture: “Therefore, verily I say unto you, lift up your voices unto this people; speak the thoughts that I shall put into your hearts, and you shall not be confounded before men; for it shall be given you in the very hour, yea, in the very moment, what ye shall say” (Doctrine & Covenants 100:5-6).

Without Purse or Scrip

via Talkspace

As a result of this awareness, and the instruction that the Lord said He would magnify me when I speak (or write), there is instilled in me a commitment that I would never want to lead anyone astray with the words I use. I have been called a “wordsmith” (a person who can effortlessly string words together in a way that impacts the listener(s)) and it has made be hypersensitive to wanting to make sure I don’t use my thoughts and words when I write/teach/speak. The only way I can be sure I won’t inadvertently be a negative impact on someone is to make sure I literally go without “purse or scrip,” so to speak.

One recent experience happened as a result of being asked to speak at the Saturday night session of our stake conference about the Addiction Recovery Program (ARP). I was given about 10 minutes to speak. As soon as I hung up the phone, I went to my computer and started writing down what I thought would be meaningful and would only take 10 minutes to speak about. The conference was still a couple of weeks away, so I felt comfortable that I had a plan for how to present the material. As the time grew near, the thought that came to my mind was “Now we know what YOU want to say — let’s see what the Lord wants you to say.”  

Since my husband and I have been Church Service Missionaries in the ARP for almost 8 years, it wasn’t a subject that I had to research or write down. Because of that, I knew my best preparation was to pray and ask Heavenly Father to allow the Spirit to bring the words that He wanted me to share in my talk — that I would be able to “hear Him.” Then I dismissed it from my mind. The minutes before the meeting, I spoke briefly with our stake president and told him I had no idea what I was going to say and I would appreciate it if he would let me know when my 10 minutes were up. He asked me how I would like him to do that and I said, “Just stand up next to me and I’ll know.” He said he had done that before from time to time and he didn’t seem too alarmed when I told him I didn’t know what I was going to say.

So what do you say to address your stake’s adult congregation to help them understand the importance of breaking the conspiracy of silence around the subject of pornography and sex addition? I remember opening my talk by saying “I’ve been asked to speak about the elephant in the room.” I remember saying that if you don’t have this issue in your life, I can promise you someone in your circle of concern does. By coming to this support group, you can learn how to minister to loved ones with this issue in their life. Our task is to reach out in love and compassion and gather in the very people who we would prefer sometimes to just push away.” Other than that, I have very little memory of what I said.

Using Our Agency to “Hear Him”

To read more of Sonja’s articles, click here.

One of the many topics I’ve pondered is related to the reason we came to earth. I know that the “Sunday school” answer is simple: to get a body. More insight teaches us that as long as we have existed, we have always been endowed by our Heavenly Father to have agency. Some refer to it as “free” agency rather than “moral” agency. Moral agency is an individual’s ability to make moral judgments based on their understanding of right and wrong and to be held accountable for these actions. A moral agent is a being capable of acting with reference to right and wrong. 

We are literally free to choose whether we will live our lives in obedience to the Lord’s commandments, or to strike out on our own and make choices with our limited understanding of the consequences of those choices. I refer to these as either “conscious choices” or “unconscious choices.” You are literally free to make any choice you want; however, the consequences of those choices have already been assigned. As we are told, “There is a law irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—and when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated” (Doctrine & Covenants 130:20-21).

For the purposes of this article, my definition of “conscious choices” is a situation where I have considered the potential consequences of my choice — realizing that, based on the information available to me at the time, there may be additional unintended and unanticipated consequences because I have limited experience and knowledge. My definition of “unconscious choices” is a casual attitude of “I want what I want when I want it” and I have given little or no consideration of the natural consequences of that choice.

As I learn to make conscious choices based on the knowledge and experiences of my life, I begin to see the connection between obedience to laws that unlock the blessings associated with them. The interesting part is that even though I can see that connection, my actions are not attached to the blessing it unlocks. (Have you ever heard someone (or been someone) who said, “I’ll do (fill in the blank) because I need the blessings?) As you evolve, you do it because that’s what brings you joy or happiness. It’s what you DO because of who you ARE. It is your very being. As you get comfortable with this level of obedience to the laws and strive to “hear Him,” you are consciously choosing to co-create yourself with the guidance of Heavenly Father through the Spirit. Since I love metaphors, I think of it as sculpting a masterpiece out of a piece of marble, painstakingly removing the parts that don’t belong to the finished product. 

I’ve long believed that our developmental stages that are healed through the Atonement will leave no scars. I wonder if the only scars we see in the eternities will be on the hands, feet and side of the Redeemer. Perhaps even those scars will be no more.

Sonja Hopkins

Sonja lives with her husband, Dale, on Anderson Island, Washington. She and her husband are Church Service Missionaries serving in the Addiction Recovery Program, focusing on pornography and sex addiction. She is also a certified life coach and teaches “Life Skills for Emotional Self-Mastery” in her stake twice a month. She does not teach you only to process something traumatic done to you in the past; rather, she helps you learn to feel it, heal it, and LET GO of whatever you still do to yourself and to others in order to cope with what was done to you in the past.

I have been pondering the idea of “reading” the Book of Mormon vs. actually “studying” the Book of Mormon.  I even looked up the difference between the two terms. Turns out, reading involves “going through a particular topic to gather information from it.” Studying is “a process where complete devotion of time and energy is dedicated to understand a concept within a topic/subject.

Another component I’ve learned about is the importance of having a goal in mind when you are studying rather than just passively perusing the content. So how would I have a “goal” in mind when I study the Book of Mormon? Let me explain how I learned about that this past week.

Just as many of you may be experiencing, our Sunday worship during the shutdown due to the pandemic includes an online Zoom meeting for our little branch. We spend an hour going through the current Come, Follow Me lesson and sharing various insights of what we read/studied. Typically, the teacher or facilitator of that meeting rotates between the members.

Last week I was invited to be the teacher/facilitator. We were in the lesson covering Alma 53-63 which is referred to as part of the “war chapters.” I have noticed that when I’m asked to lead a discussion, I have motivation to study the lesson rather than simply reading it. The first thing that came to my mind when I saw that it was the war chapters was the memory of a talk given years ago by John Bytheway at Education Week called Righteous Warriors: Lessons from the War Chapters. (He has since published a book with the same title.)

I listened to his talk with great interest as he focused on that subject. I found myself pausing the video and jotting down notes. At the end of the talk, he challenged everyone to begin our own study where he left off, specifically Alma 53-62, which was the lesson for this past Sunday.  He challenged us to find other lessons that he didn’t have time to cover in his talk.  That challenge gave me a “goal” to focus on as I studied… “What lesson am I seeing in this portion of the scriptures?” By the time I got through with my studying, I had highlighted portions that spoke to me about various lessons. Then when I finished the reading, I went back and started writing the lesson I saw there and whether it was spiritual or temporal. Seven typewritten pages later, I was amazed at what I had gleaned because I had a specific goal.

We’ve been taught that the Book of Mormon was not written for the Nephites and Lamanites. In fact, it didn’t become available for hundreds of years after the writing occurred.

When my husband and I first moved into our branch over 16 years ago, I was asked to be the Gospel Doctrine teacher, and that calling lasted for 11 years.  (The Lord knew I would need time to focus on studying instead of just reading.)  During that time, something that I had never before put together came into my mind like a lightbulb going off. For many years, Sunday School has had a four-year rotation between studying the Old Testament one year, the New Testament the next, the Book of Mormon the next, and the Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price for the fourth year. So what struck me was that every year we are studying the Book of Mormon is the year that in the United States we elect a president.  Every fourth year! I don’t believe that is a coincidence!  My curiosity invited me to take a look at where we are in the lesson plan during the months leading up to the actual election. We are in the “war chapters.” The week of the actual election, we cover the nine chapters in Mormon which is all about the final destruction of the Nephite nation.

We know that Mormon abridged the Book of Mormon from records that had been kept by the Nephites for hundreds of years. We understand that the Lord directed Mormon to put specific things in that abridgment for a specific purpose.

Could it be that these war chapters are our primer for the season we are currently experiencing? (A primer refers to any book that presents the most basic elements of any subject.) They are a key to what we must know and what we must know how to do in order to successfully navigate in the season leading up to the Second Coming of the Savior. More importantly, it is the primer for who we must become in order to be useful instruments in the hands of the Lord in this season. It’s not enough to read these things. We are to allow the Spirit to infuse them into our very being and allow them to inform our every step on the journey ahead of us.

There are spiritual lessons and temporal lessons in these chapters that we are to use to measure our spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical preparation for the events leading up to the return of the Savior to the earth.

In the past few years, the Church has launched the self-reliance initiative where we have the opportunity to go through a 12-week course of study (not reading!) about how we can improve our lives and become self-sufficient in these four areas:

• Personal Finances
• Starting and Growing My business
• Education for Better Work
• Finding a Better Job

Most recently, another area of study is focusing on “Emotional Resilience.” Can you imagine the importance of us strengthening our capacity for emotional resilience in our lives to be able to withstand the confusion that is swirling around us?

Eight months ago, none of us could have predicted the changes that would be happening in our world, our country, our state, our communities, our homes. Added to that, we are having earthquakes in divers places, firestorms, hurricanes, tornados, etc. Many people are in an emotional overload or shutdown because their emotional resources have been depleted.

The Lord needs us to be spot on: ready to minister and serve in our communities, to “lift where we stand” to carry the burdens of those around us as we reach out in humanitarian efforts.

Pondering all these various components of our current reality, I was highly motivated to comb through Alma 53-63 and pray for the Spirit to be with me as I sought to identify the spiritual and temporal lessons available there that would give me a guideline for assessing my readiness to lift where I stand. The words were all familiar to me, yet I had never put them together using the lens of “What was the lifesaving message the Lord instructed Mormon to leave with us?”

Seven typewritten pages later, I am certain that I didn’t find all the lessons. When it is time and we are ready, the Spirit will open the eyes of our understanding as we strive to be prepared to serve in the winding-up scenes of this dispensation. There are spiritual and temporal lessons in last week’s lesson that we are able to use to measure our spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical preparation for the events leading up to the return of the Savior to the earth.

President Nelson has made amazing statements that are important to study. I’m going back this week and studying his conference talk from October 2015, “A Plea to My Sisters.”

Three quotes that come to my mind that he has said recently:

To the sisters of the Church: “We need your strength, your conversion, your conviction, your ability to lead, your wisdom, and your voices.”

To the Church’s general membership: “In coming days it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the … constant influence of the Holy Ghost.”

To the general membership: “Let me be very clear about this. If the world loses the moral rectitude of its women, the world will never recover.”

To read more of Sonja’s articles, click here.

I am discovering that I have spent most of my life scratching at the surface of the value of the Book of Mormon.  This past week has taught me that I need to dig deep, with a goal in mind, to unearth the treasure trove of wisdom and instruction that is to be found there. Now I pray for Spirit to bring to my mind a question that I want to find the answer(s) to as I study so that I might be more intentional and focused in my efforts.

I challenge you listen to John Bytheway’s talk and then go through Alma 53-63 and discover your insights of the lessons that are held there. I will include the ones I found here (click the link to download the PDF): Spiritual and Temporal Lessons from the War Chapters. I am certain there are more that I haven’t yet comprehended!

Sonja Hopkins

Sonja lives with her husband, Dale, on Anderson Island, Washington. She and her husband are Church Service Missionaries serving in the Addiction Recovery Program, focusing on pornography and sex addiction. She is also a certified life coach and teaches “Life Skills for Emotional Self-Mastery” in her stake twice a month. She does not teach you only to process something traumatic done to you in the past; rather, she helps you learn to feel it, heal it, and LET GO of whatever you still do to yourself and to others in order to cope with what was done to you in the past.

“Therefore, hold on thy way, and the priesthood shall remain with thee; for their bounds are set, they cannot pass. Thy days are known, and thy years shall not be numbered less; therefore, fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever” (Doctrine & Covenants 122:9).

I have been pondering the current events with a much different perspective than many of my friends. I shared with one friend recently that I no longer wanted her to send me any of the Facebook posts or Messenger files that were focusing on the COVID virus, civil unrest, racial issues, or political arguments. Her short response was: “Okay. So, you no longer want to hear what is truly happening then?” Following is the lengthy response I provided her:

“I’m content that Heavenly Father is in charge. What is happening is going along with prophecy about the end times. At the very best, there is nothing that my knowing the details about that will change the outcome…. and, at the worst, I can fall prey to it by buying into the fear and confusion. I am admonished in my patriarchal blessing to ‘go forward without fear.’ I have clung to that counsel (which I believe is a commandment) my entire life and I’m not going to abandon it now.”

I completely believe what the Lord told Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail (which I quoted at the beginning of this post but will include again here):

“Therefore, hold on thy way, and the priesthood shall remain with thee; for their bounds are set, they cannot pass. Thy days are known, and thy years shall not be numbered less; therefore, fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever.” D&C 122:9

On September 7, 2008, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland spoke about this in his BYU devotional talk “Lessons from Liberty Jail” when he said:

“Every one of us, in one way or another, great or small, dramatic or incidental, is going to spend a little time in Liberty Jail—spiritually speaking. . . . You can have sacred, revelatory, profoundly instructive experience with the Lord in the most miserable experiences of your life—in the worst settings, while enduring the most painful injustices, when facing the most insurmountable odds and opposition you have ever faced….We will face things we do not want to face for reasons that may not have been our fault. Indeed, we may face difficult circumstances for reasons that were absolutely right and proper, reasons that came because we were trying to keep the commandments of the Lord. We may face persecution; we may endure heartache and separation from loved ones; we may be hungry and cold and forlorn. Yes, before our lives are over, we may all be given a little taste of what the prophets faced often in their lives. But the lessons of the winter of 1838–39 teach us that every experience can become a redemptive experience if we remain bonded to our Father in Heaven through that difficulty. These difficult lessons teach us that man’s extremity is God’s opportunity, and if we will be humble and faithful, if we will be believing and not curse God for our problems, He can turn the unfair and inhumane and debilitating prisons of our lives into temples—or at least into a circumstance that can bring comfort and revelation, divine companionship and peace.”

As I read those words, I reflected on how that counsel applies just as much to us today as it did in the early days of the church. The adversary wants to distract us from preparing the world for Christ’s Second Coming. We need to keep our eye on the ball and not be overly concerned (or distraught) about things over which we have no control.

The scriptures are full of events about what happens when the people are fully ripened in iniquity. Over and over we read about how the Lord leads His people into the wilderness and allows the wicked to destroy each other.

Spiritual and emotional resilience are the skills we need to be focusing on now, not wearing ourselves out by attempting to hold back the tsunami of evil, deception, and fear that the Lord is allowing to continue for a season. This is Satan’s last hurrah. He’s fighting for his existence and he’s going to take as many with him as he can recruit. I’m not going to be one of them. There is still much to do to “bear off the kingdom.” I don’t require the blow-by-blow evidence of the breakdown of our society. Dale and I are prepared to stand firm and immoveable to our final mortal breath, and (since we are 70 and 75) we are content to commit our destiny into the sacred hands of the “author and finisher of our faith.”

I spoke in my last blog post about being “tight like unto a dish” in the storms of life. I heard something recently that hit me like a tsunami. You know how sometimes we hear people say “we’re all in the same boat?” We aren’t all in the same “boat” – we’re all in the same storm. Some have a rowboat, some a submarine, some a yacht, some an inner tube. Some are more likely to survive the storm than others. 

One of the things I learned from going through the Church’s self-reliance classes is that Heavenly Father blesses effort. Well, guess what…The Church has recently added (July 2020) another course of study to the self-reliance Initiative Program that is entitled “Emotional Resilience.” It states: “This group is for educational purposes only. It is not group therapy or professional treatment for mental health issues. If you believe you are experiencing chronic issues with depression, stress and anxiety, anger, addiction, or other mental health issues you should seek professional help.”

This course focuses on teaching those specific skills. It takes time to learn and practice those skills so we aren’t reduced to a quivering puddle of fear by the conditions of our world as it teeters on the edge of collapse of life as we currently know it. We are to stand in our power knowing there are legions of angels ready to fortify our efforts after all we can do.

“…You remember and never forget that if our eyes could be opened, we would see horses and chariots of fire as far as the eye can see riding at reckless speed to come to our protection” (Jeffrey R. Holland, “For Times of Trouble,” BYU Speech, March 1980).

So, to me, the question is “How much of a supply of emotional (and spiritual) resilience is in your personal storehouse?” A year? A month? A week? An hour? 10 seconds? Truth be told, we don’t know how much time we have left to reinforce that supply. Fortunately, we still have time to gain and strengthen the skills required to strengthen our resilience and qualify for the help of the Lord after all we can do. The current events in our country, our world, is a blessing and a curse, depending on the level of your resilience. I consider it to be Zion’s Camp 2020. An opportunity to test our capacity to “let not [our] heart[s] be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

I truly believe when chaos reigns (the likes of which we are only beginning to witness) people will follow the leadership of anyone that has a plan. And when people are ripened in fear, they have no critical thinking skills available to them and won’t be able to discern whether a plan is designed to lead them to the Savior… or designed to lead them to destruction.  

As for me and my house, we will spend our emotion and spiritual currency learning, practicing, and implementing all we can to strengthen our resilience. We’ve been hearing for years that “if ye are prepared ye shall not fear.” 

I feel to share my testimony in closing.

My life is my testimony. 

I used to believe the Atonement was applied at the judgment seat before my Heavenly Father when Jesus would speak for me and mercy would cleanse me of all my sins.

To read more of Sonja’s articles, click here.

At the age of 75 I more fully understand that the Atonement has been the source of every tender mercy that has transformed me bit by bit over the years. It has taught me line upon line. It has brought me mercy when I deserved justice.

 The Atonement has informed my lifelong desire to learn and to serve. It has given me the courage to be authentic and allow the Lord to guide me in His path leading to an understanding of how I can be a useful instrument in His hands and become all I was created to be. It has been like a silver thread leading me to my eternal home. I see it working in the lives of my family, in the lives of those I am privileged to serve. I tremble to even contemplate what mortality would be like for anyone without the Atonement. Our Heavenly Father knew we would need all the help we could get to overcome the natural man after all we can do. 

I bear this testimony in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Sonja Hopkins

Sonja lives with her husband, Dale, on Anderson Island, Washington. She and her husband are Church Service Missionaries serving in the Addiction Recovery Program, focusing on pornography and sex addiction. She is also a certified life coach and teaches “Life Skills for Emotional Self-Mastery” in her stake twice a month. She does not teach you only to process something traumatic done to you in the past; rather, she helps you learn to feel it, heal it, and LET GO of whatever you still do to yourself and to others in order to cope with what was done to you in the past.

“And they [the vessels] were built after a manner that they were exceeding tight, even that they would hold water like unto a dish; and the sides thereof were tight like unto a dish; and the ends thereof were peaked; and the top thereof was tight like unto a dish; and the length thereof was the length of a tree and the door thereof, when it was shut, was tight like unto a dish” (Ether 2:17).

In our home, our language shifts a little each time we are reading these passages in Ether. We find ourselves referring to something being “hard like unto a rock,” “strong like unto an ox,” “long like unto eternity,” “light like unto a feather,” and “deep like unto an ocean.”

Something I listened to this past week gave me an entirely new perspective on the concept of “tight like unto a dish”. It was a talk by S. Michael Wilcox from a BYU Education Week talk, “When My Prayers Feel Unanswered.”

I was drawn to this talk as a result of the many times I have heard others say – and wondered myself – “Why don’t I feel like I get answers to my prayers?” He shares a touching story about his childhood prayers that weren’t “answered” until he was a father.

I remember that one of my simplest and most fervent prayers occurred just after I resumed activity in the Church after my oldest child was nearing the age of 8. I remembered being taught that I had a responsibility to assure my child was baptized when he was 8 years old, and I knew I was responsible for being an example to my children. I hadn’t attended church for several years and I felt that returning to activity in the church, especially with a non-member husband, would be a challenge. My simple prayer consisted of just two words: “Help me.” Then it expanded to three words: “Help me understand.” 

That prayer sent me on a journey of learning that eventually brought me strength and understanding. The following decades were filled with life lessons and insights that gradually strengthened my faith as I became ready to live what I was learning. Not just to “know what I needed to know,” but to apply that knowledge into action. Gaining my own testimony was truly “line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little.” It was similar to the concept that until you are capable of understanding basic math, there is no foundation for you to understand algebra, geometry, or calculus.

This talk helps me to realize that God nurtures us and strengthens us between our prayer asking for His help and the point at which we have grown enough to be able to understand when He answers our prayer. Being “tight like unto a dish” is a process that can span years. Each day adds new growth, kind of like when you plant a seed — the first thing that appears is a seedling. Then comes strengthening of the roots and stems, then comes the blossom, and eventually comes the fruit. The fruit represents the answer to prayer.

Sometimes the answer to prayer is “No.” Sometimes the answer is “You don’t need to know that right now.” I’ve found that I can be studying a particular concept in the scriptures and conference talks and it feels like knowledge is being poured into my mind that I feel I’m not ready for yet — so I slam the book shut. Gaining further light and knowledge is a simple phrase that has many dimensions of growth attached to it. It is not the Lord’s purpose to overwhelm us with knowledge we haven’t yet built a foundation to receive.

There is much time and effort required to create a “vessel” that is capable of withstanding the storms of life — a vessel that is “tight like unto a dish.” I think and learn best when I can see a life lesson in the form of a metaphor, or through symbolism. I’ve learned a lot about what the Lord understands regarding my limitations and capabilities by watching the work my husband does in his metal shop. He is a master craftsman with over 50 years of experience being a metal worker. He designs and fabricates complex tools and does structural repairs for heavy equipment. In his craft, he understands the properties of metal and heat and the limitations of stress that a weld can withstand. He understands what makes metal warp as it is welded and how to prevent that from happening. He knows that heat and quenching will harden the metal. He knows what will weaken it and cause a failure in the integrity of the metal. The important part is that he understands what he can safely fabricate and what will not work well for the customer’s purpose. He understands his limitations, the metal’s limitations, and the kinds of structural supports it requires in order to have the strength to handle the stress of the load that will be placed upon it. He’s in the business of building firm foundations and strong structures. If working metal is magic, he is the wizard.

Heavenly Father’s work and glory is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. He knows exactly how to nourish and strengthen us based on our willingness to seek his help and guidance. He knows there are certain qualities of spirit that are only realized in the furnace of affliction. He knows when we need rest and encouragement. He knows when we are strong enough to once again climb the mountain so that we are able to continue on our journey with renewed faith, hope, and purpose. He provided us with the plan of salvation that was specifically designed to fulfill that purpose. 

I delighted in reading a book my brother referred to me. It encouraged me that God knows how to exalt His children. The book description on Deseret Book’s website reads:

“Many Latter-day Saints worry whether they’re capable of reaching the celestial kingdom. Are these anxieties born of a sense of unworthiness, or is it that we just don’t think we can “do it all?” Author Alonzo L. Gaskill believes that such pessimism results from misunderstanding God’s great plan of happiness and what it is that the Lord actually requires of us. In this hope-filled book, he reviews the teachings of the scriptures and modern prophets to instill in readers a greater sense of God’s unfailing love and mercy and of His power and desire to exalt His children. Exaltation may be not only possible but probable!” (Odds Are, You’re Going to be Exalted: Evidence that the Plan of Salvation Work by Alonzo L. Gaskill)

God knows how to build His children “tight like unto a dish” so that we can withstand the storms of life and be willing to learn how to follow His direction so we can travel through the events we are in currently, particularly regarding the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic of 2020 and beyond. 

People may wonder why the prophet isn’t constantly on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or TV telling us what to do. Yet in reality, he (and the prophets and apostles before him!) have been telling us for many years to be prepared in every needful thing. Become self-reliant in your personal finances, your educational opportunities, starting and growing your own business, getting out of debt, keeping the Sabbath day holy, learning to study in your homes, reading the Book of Mormon every day, paying your tithes and offerings, doing your family history, attending the temple, ministering to those around you, healing your family relationships, repenting of your weaknesses… The list goes on and on. 

To read more of Sonja’s articles, click here.

Each of these activities is like a caulking compound sealing the cracks and holes in our personal “vessel.” Being sealed in the temple for time and all eternity serves the same purpose: to prepare us for the storms that life will bring to us. Being refined in the furnace of affliction is the tutorial for putting on the whole armor of God; for gaining the spiritual and emotional resilience to withstand the events that lay before us heralding the return of the Savior.

The Lord never compels obedience. We have the gift of moral agency so we can choose how we want to live our lives. The scriptures tell us, “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” This doesn’t say that the years between training and being old will be a consistent adherence to the “way he should go.” There can be years after a child leaves home when they choose to do their own “research” about how life works. That research can take them through some very tumultuous storms. Life has a way of teaching us valuable lessons when we are willing to learn. For those who resist the lessons, there are additional lessons. When we feel we are drowning in an ocean of pain, it’s an invitation to reevaluate where the leaks are in our dish.

I often reflect on a simple concept: “You are the chooser in your life. Create the day you walk into or you’ll be walking into a day created by someone else.” Each of us can make a daily choice to live principles that are in harmony with the nature of happiness. Be tight like unto a dish!

Sonja Hopkins

Sonja lives with her husband, Dale, on Anderson Island, Washington. She and her husband are Church Service Missionaries serving in the Addiction Recovery Program, focusing on pornography and sex addiction. She is also a certified life coach and teaches “Life Skills for Emotional Self-Mastery” in her stake twice a month. She does not teach you only to process something traumatic done to you in the past; rather, she helps you learn to feel it, heal it, and LET GO of whatever you still do to yourself and to others in order to cope with what was done to you in the past.

I was particularly impressed with this analogy:

“Assuming both the husband and the wife are still invested in “winning the prize” — which in our context is the miracle of the marriage being healed or raised from the dead into a happy and healthy marriage — it is vital [that] both the husband and wife are diligent but wise when it comes to giving to the relationship. Each, as part of their daily personal connection time with God, must do an assessment on their “resources.”

 

Think of yourself as the steward over the supplies in your personal wagon. In your personal connection time with God, do a careful assessment of what you have to offer in the different areas of intimacy. Take an inventory of how much verbal intimacy resources you have. Then look at [these elements:] cognitive (plans for the future you are ready to share), emotional (things from the past you have feelings about), psychological (exchanges of ideas and feelings toward solving a problem), spiritual (sharing inspiration together) and physical (any level of touch and bodily connection).” [This excerpt includes edits made for clarification.]

I would like to expand on this concept of realizing that “I give not because I have not, but if I had I would give.” I believe it aptly applies to any human interaction, whether it be family, friends, or acquaintences.

In my interaction with students/clients, etc., as they are unhappy about a relationship, I invite them to consider what they would do if they needed to buy new tires for their car. Would they go to a grocery store to find them? And, upon seeing that the store doesn’t have any tires on the shelves, would you run screaming up and down the aisles, pulling things off the shelves and have a temper tantrum because they don’t have tires? Or would you consider going to a tire store?

How many times in relationships do we “need” or “want” someone to give us something they simply don’t have?

Case in point: I am a communicator and I enjoy having deep conversations about emotional healing and relationships.  My  husband is a master storyteller, but when it comes to the type of communication that rings my bell, his eyes glaze over. By the same token, when he talks about his work (he is a master craftsman who works with steel and measurements that are right down to within a 64th of an inch in accuracy), my eyes glaze over. 

Whenever he gets me a birthday, anniversary, or Valentine’s Day card, the sentiments bring tears to my eyes. When he finds the right card, he knows it. He knows what will speak to my heart, but he simply doesn’t have those words in his own “internal resources.”  If he had them, he would give them to me, but they simply aren’t there.

Sometimes you just have to “shop in the store” that stocks the resources you need. It is wishful thinking that one person can possibly supply all the needs of another person. That’s why it is so important to identify what your needs are and understand which needs are met and which are not — and then to understand whether it is reasonable to expect the other person to stock those resources in their store.

The article goes on to say:

“If I understand you correctly, I hear that you are asking me to provide you with (fill in the blank). I care about you, so it is important to me that you have (fill in the blank). Unfortunately, after careful assessment with God, I am sad to tell you that I am not able to provide you with (fill in the blank) at this time. I am relieved that we both have access to God and His Son and His Atonement at this time so that your needs will not go unattended to. I do not know how God will take care of you. I am so grateful that [H]e will. I am so grateful that the scriptures tell us “Come unto me” and “I am the well of living life” and “do not rely upon the arm of flesh.” This brings me the comfort of knowing you need not go without even though I cannot currently provide what would take care of you.”

 

Observe and take note that this paragraph could really come across as bitter or sarcastic. Before you say or write something like this to your spouse, be sure to practice it until you can do so with full sincerity.”

What a huge blessing — that we know our Heavenly Father can and will provide us with our most basic needs. That is another dimension of how the Atonement heals and edifies.

How sad is it when someone says or thinks, “I’m not going to give of my resources because they brought this upon themselves.”  Allowing my judgment of another person to give me “permission” to withhold my substance from them is a precarious stance. What about when I’m the one that brings condemnation upon myself? I don’t know about you, but when I review my own list of behaviors leading me to repentance, I don’t want justice — I want mercy.  

Being in a mortal condition, each of us has limitations to the level of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual resources available to us. There will be many times we will fall short of someone else’s needs — as well as our own.

Another important quote from the article: 

“[I]t never occurred to me that my mental investment, my emotional investment, my creative problem solving skills, my compassion and empathy, my ability to get revelation, my skills with fine-tuned discernment and refined communication, etc., are all on the list of “substance” as described in this verse. I must always remember that in the same way water and vegetables come from God for a hard-working farmer, my gifts and talents come from God as well, notwithstanding how hard I work.”

To read more of Sonja’s articles, click here.

Being a lifelong learner is one of my most precious gifts. I cherish seeking for further light and knowledge. To paraphrase Life Changing Services’ article, I pray that none of us will intentionally withhold our resources from anyone on this planet in order to “teach them a lesson.” Those with abundant resources have a responsibility to make those resources available when they can be received and valued. Assuming we can do this to “teach a lesson” to someone who is in need of that resource is a form of pride. When you have been blessed with resources of compassion and long-suffering, I beg of you, please do not withhold resources you have been blessed with from anyone in order to “teach them a lesson.” You do not want to experience the same outcome in the final judgment of God.

I am so grateful to be learning more about the healing and enabling power of the Atonement in life’s day by day. Not only does it compensate for our mistakes and failures, it also heals us from the mistakes and failures of others. Most importantly, it heals those that we may have harmed intentionally and unknowingly. In so many ways, I echo these words: “I give not because I have not . . . if I had, I would give.”

Sonja Hopkins

Sonja lives with her husband, Dale, on Anderson Island, Washington. She and her husband are Church Service Missionaries serving in the Addiction Recovery Program, focusing on pornography and sex addiction. She is also a certified life coach and teaches “Life Skills for Emotional Self-Mastery” in her stake twice a month. She does not teach you only to process something traumatic done to you in the past; rather, she helps you learn to feel it, heal it, and LET GO of whatever you still do to yourself and to others in order to cope with what was done to you in the past.

You didn’t realize, when I was in labor that morning before my Scotty was born, how you taught me about courage when you said, “No matter how much it hurts, you just keep telling yourself ‘I can take it as long as it doesn’t get any worse.'”

Since then, my life has been filled with many opportunities to remember how important it is to never, never, never give up. No kidding! No matter what!

In my childhood, I was imprinted with the belief that men are strong and capable while women and children are dependent and vulnerable. You shattered those beliefs as I observed your unique strength; your ability to challenge the established way. In my eyes, you bridged the gap between Minnie Mouse and Wonder Woman!

I first met you when I was about 14 years old. As I observed you interacting with your children, I was unaware of the lasting impact you would have on my life. 

I didn’t’ have the skills to tell you then all that I was learning from you. I will be eternally grateful for the opportunity to do that now.

You are the champion of children. You are never too preoccupied to be tender with a child. You are uncompromising with any adult who would exploit them. Whether it was your children, my children, or the children of the world, it made no difference. 

You taught me about loving children, honoring children, protecting children, and teaching children. You speak up for the children and, most importantly, you listen to the children.

You see children as priceless treasures and the hope for the future. In the last year of your life, you exhausted your strength taking advantage of the opportunity to be tested for the “long QT gene” in the hope your efforts would somehow benefit your descendants.

You reminded me, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear, and when the teacher is ready, the student will appear.” You were not always a gentle teacher, but you were an effective teacher! You taught me about the power of speaking up and the wisdom of shutting up. You loved me enough to teach me the hard lessons. Your love for me was far greater than your concern about whether I was comfortable or even liked you. 

You understand the law of the harvest and that the growing season is very short. In my own stubbornness, I often refused to learn from anything less than “in my face” lessons. Thank you for getting in my face!

Many of the lessons had to ripen from the bitter to the sweet before I fully understood them. I am quite certain there are great lessons that are still ripening. There are lessons still under the surface of my awareness that I will grow to fully appreciate long into the eternities. You are that kind of teacher.

You taught me how to live: to be curious, resilient, and courageous. From you I learned to challenge flawed assumptions, to discover new depths of understanding. I learned about setting personal boundaries and claiming my own power as I watched the way you claimed yours.

You also taught me how to die; how to simply let go of the unrelenting pain of mortal experience with a heart full of gratitude for the rich and abundant gifts of life.

You taught me to be curious and not take myself too seriously. You showed me how to open to the awareness of not only the obvious lessons, but also the unspoken truths residing just beneath the surface of life. Not only to see what was there, but to wonder about what I didn’t see.

You taught me to question my assumptions and to develop my own critical thinking skills. Our conversations encouraged me to look for the deeper meaning in relationships with family and friends and, most particularly, in my relationship with God.

From you I learned to break the conspiracy of silence and say “No!” when mean-spirited people with few life skills tromped on the unsuspecting and vulnerable around them. Together we learned about forgiveness, recognizing that unskilled people often know not what they do. 

Because of you I found the courage to break the chain of abuse so that the river of life could flow pure once again in our family. I have learned skills that will help my children and grandchildren overcome the effects of abuse in all its crippling forms.

You gently planted in me the seeds of understanding that the worth of every soul is great! I learned the priceless gift of balancing what my head thinks with what my heart feels and the wisdom that is born in the blending of these two powerful forces.

Whenever I discover a newfound truth, it is you with whom I want to share it, because I know you care.

I am convinced that the Lord gives us enough time to learn what we are willing to learn. I learned to be gentle with myself and others, as we wobbled like newborn colts through years of experiential learning. 

I’ve heard it said, “A mind expanded by a new idea never returns to its original dimensions.” You are unique in that you never cease challenging me intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. 

In 2001, at Paul Brown’s funeral when I hugged you and said “I love you and I’ve missed you,” you hugged me warmly and said “I love you too.” Then you pulled back and looked in my eyes and asked, “Who are you?” When I told you, you pulled me back into your embrace. From that moment, our hearts have been united. 

We’ve spent hours in conversation, remembering, sharing insights, exploring new possibilities of learning and teaching. I remember how we laughed about the quote, “You cannot enlighten the unconscious.”

You reach out to me with your comforting presence as I share with you my joys, sorrows, regrets, and vulnerabilities.  I always know the tender feelings of my heart are safe with you and you know yours are safe with me. We have truly been sisters since before time began. I have no doubt you will be close to me always.

To read more of Sonja’s articles, click here.

The last Christmas gift you sent me were the little bottles of face powder that you know I love. Each day when I put on my makeup, I always finish up by brushing on my “Ruby Dust.” By my calculations, the powder will last me for the next 20 years or so. By then, hopefully I’ll be able to greet you the way I did when I called you on the phone: “Can you come out and play now?”

When I was going through my coaching certification, you were with me as I struggled to complete my assignment to write not only words, but also the tune of a new song. You are my most loyal fan — you love to hear me sing.

You possess the capacity for unconditional positive regard for others. You are firm in your own deeply held values and beliefs. You also honor the rights of others to hold deeply to their values and beliefs, even when they differ from your own.

As I remember these words from my song, I think of you…

“I would not interfere with any creed of yours; 

Nor wish it to appear that I have all the cures. 

There is so much to know, so many things are true. 

The way my feet must go may not be best for you. 

I offer you this spark of what is light to me,

To guide you through the dark, 

Not to tell you what to see.”

Thank you for being in my life. 

Thank you for receiving the gift of me.  

Thank you for revealing to me who you really are.

I thank God for you — the wind beneath my wings. 

God be with you ‘til we meet again.

Every time I see the sparkle of mischief in someone’s eye, accompanied by gales of laughter,

Every time I extend unconditional positive regard to another human,

Every time I listen to and comfort a child,

Every time I see the beauty of the world around me,

Every time I begin a new adventure of learning… 

Every time I champion the underdog and challenge injustice,

I’ll be remembering Ruby Colleen.

I love you.

Sonja Lorrigan Hopkins

April 16, 2006

Sonja Hopkins

Sonja lives with her husband, Dale, on Anderson Island, Washington. She and her husband are Church Service Missionaries serving in the Addiction Recovery Program, focusing on pornography and sex addiction. She is also a certified life coach and teaches “Life Skills for Emotional Self-Mastery” in her stake twice a month. She does not teach you only to process something traumatic done to you in the past; rather, she helps you learn to feel it, heal it, and LET GO of whatever you still do to yourself and to others in order to cope with what was done to you in the past.

Things I didn’t say at the memorial…

Let me preface my thoughts by telling you how wonderful it was to see you all again at the memorial. I treasure the opportunity to once again embrace you and see your faces. You are the family of my childhood and I cherish the memories. Thank you for sharing your life with me. The older I get, the more I am reminded of the wisdom of making sure you keep people in your life who remember you when you were young.

I have heard it said that when you share your thoughts and memories of another person, it is really yourself you are describing, not the other person. I have found this to be true. People reveal their own capacity to experience another person when they attempt to describe that person. What they’ve told you is what they comprehended when they shared a few fleeting moments of that person’s total existence. It’s a way of saying “This is who you are to me!”

It’s also been said “a prophet is unknown in his own country” (Mark 6:4, paraphrased). Perhaps in a similar way, we tend to take for granted the people who are so close to us. We may not really come to value or appreciate the little things that express the person’s character and personality. We have so much history with them that they have simply become part of the story of our lives where we are the central figure. Like an intricate pattern on a tapestry, we may tend to look at the side where all the knots and frayed ends are displayed and not take the time to enjoy the magnificent pattern on the other side.

Had I been around Ruby my whole life, I might have been tempted to limit my awareness of her. Although Ruby was in my life over a period of about 20 years, it was generally only for a few days at a time. As I’ve grown and matured, I’ve had many opportunities to reflect on how my values and perceptions have been influenced by the things I learned from her. Not that she sat down to teach me, but what I learned from the things I observed when I was in her presence. 

Perhaps there was little in her life that the world would find noteworthy. She may not be acclaimed as having accomplished any earth-shattering deeds, but Ruby possessed a unique gift for deeply appreciating others and reflecting back the value she saw there. I am reminded of an article I read may years ago where the writer was reflecting on two famous people he had interviewed for magazine articles. He said “I interviewed Sir Lawrence Olivier and came away completely astounded by what a magnificent person he is.” Then he said, “I interviewed Maurice Chevalier and came away completely astounded by what a magnificent person I am.” Ruby had that same ability to make another feel as though he or she was a special person. She could see the person I was becoming, regardless of how mundane my life might seem to me.

My career has evolved over time and is currently in the field of organizational development of large companies, i.e., tracking the demographics of that system and how it all interacts. The current popular view invites us to think of large companies as complex systems where each individual contributes to the broader culture and health of that system. As part of that learning, students are required to look at our own family culture and understand how each person in it contributes to the learning and development of their own life and, ultimately, to the whole family system (culture).

As I began to more fully understand the influences that taught me and shaped me as a person, I realized that I developed largely because of the things I learned from Ruby. After my father (her stepfather) passed away, I never had a connection with her. Over the years, I increasingly felt a longing to find Ruby so I could share with her my awareness of how much she contributed to my life. I recognized I had been telling people for years about the marvelous role model she was for me and I wanted her to know — from my own words — about all the ways she enriched my life. I wanted her to know I truly understood and valued the seeds of wisdom she planted in my heart. I didn’t want her to depart this life without realizing that I “got it.”

I “got it” that I had been influenced by an amazing woman — one of the most precious gifts in my life! She possessed an incredible spirit! I “got it” that she was one of the most curious and teachable people I’d ever known. She had a passion for sharing each new discovery with anyone who was willing to listen. It makes me feel good about myself to know that I “got it”!

I am filled with gratitude that I was blessed to share a significant part of the five years that immediately preceded Ruby’s journey through the veil. For the last three years of her life, I called her on the phone nearly every day in the early morning hours. She didn’t spend a lot of time talking about the physical limitations she was experiencing, although I knew of what was happening to her emotionally and physically. I also understand what it was doing to her spiritually. She never wavered in her unshakable faith in her God and gratitude for the gift of His Son. She was in the company of angels every day.

I spoke with her about her personal struggle with being so vulnerable — a word that did not flow easily from her lips. Although she was acutely aware of this increasing physical vulnerability, she didn’t feel sorry for herself. She was too busy feeling love and gratitude for all that surrounded her. She had joy in her heart and laughter on her lips. She literally could find humor in any situation around her. Mostly she could laugh at herself and often reflected that “what didn’t kill you would make you stronger.” We often joked about how she had already “died” once so she was experienced at how to die. She believed she was given a few extra years to finish up something. She wasn’t sure what, but she knew it was really important.

There are two quotes from Neal A. Maxwell’s message “Enduring Well” that she beautifully demonstrated to me: “Drink from the bitter cup without becoming bitter” and “Rather than simply going through the trial, allow the trial to go through you” (quotes paraphrased).

The morning of the day she passed away, the last conversation I had with her on the phone was about love, hope, and faith. She expressed encouragement for the things that were happening in my life, telling me how lucky my grandchildren were to have a grammy like me. 

Although she didn’t speak of dying, I knew she was ready. She had made her peace with God and she longed to embrace her beloved Jesus. Even though I couldn’t be there at the sacred portal of her passing, I know she was attended by happy, loving, and compassionate angels. She had fulfilled the measure of her creation and was eager to begin the next phase of her eternal journey. I can almost hear the excited voices cascading through the heavens as she broke through the veil: “Ruby Colleen is coming home!”

She departed this world not fully aware of how she would be remembered by her family. She realized she was a woman born before her time; truly an “explorer of this dispensation.” She started her own personal “women’s liberation movement” years before society ever guessed it needed one.

To read more of Sonja’s articles, click here.

Yesterday at Ruby’s memorial, I spoke of the importance of telling your loved ones about the precious gift they are in your life. Yet there were many things that went unsaid, at least in my heart. When I shared with you that “I am a celebration of Ruby’s life,” I only scratched the surface of the gift she is to me.

This morning upon waking, my mind is flooded with the words that still long to be expressed to you. At the memorial service, I failed to tell you all that I experienced Ruby to be. Let me correct that omission now by sharing with you in this letter what I shared with Ruby during these last few years… Her “memorial.”

Sonja Hopkins

Sonja lives with her husband, Dale, on Anderson Island, Washington. She and her husband are Church Service Missionaries serving in the Addiction Recovery Program, focusing on pornography and sex addiction. She is also a certified life coach and teaches “Life Skills for Emotional Self-Mastery” in her stake twice a month. She does not teach you only to process something traumatic done to you in the past; rather, she helps you learn to feel it, heal it, and LET GO of whatever you still do to yourself and to others in order to cope with what was done to you in the past.

As I recall, a woman was relating the story of a family relations class she took in college after she had raised her children. The professor challenged each student to write a “thank you” letter to their mom or dad. He explained that it was important to stretch themselves beyond the “thank you that I was born” phase and really search for the meaningful gifts their parents had provided in their lives. 

The professor talked about how children (from birth to about age 6) simply observe and take in the small world they are part of. We are imprinted with values and beliefs about how “Dads are” or “Moms are” or “children are” when they are incapable of engaging critical thinking or reasoning skills. Then, as we are exposed to the outside world (from 6-13), we add to that initial foundation and begin modeling what we see in our peers, our teachers, etc. By the time we are about 20, we typically “lock in” and pretty much determine the person we are for the rest of our lives. 

He said researchers determined that most people will live out their lives in this frame of mind unless one (or both) of two things happen: 

• We have a significant emotional event that shifts our thinking and impacts our beliefs, values, and behavior, or…
• We make a conscious choice to gain the skills to understand more deeply. A newly internalized value or belief may subsequently change our life choices.

In this article, she related that her father had passed away some years before and that the idea of writing a letter of thanks to him intrigued her. Since they had not always seen eye to eye when she was growing up, it had never occurred to her to thank him.

As she accepted the challenge to stretch herself, she was amazed at how her years of maturing had given her a much deeper perspective about her father. She began recognizing how much he had impacted her values and beliefs.

The article went on to say how profoundly she was impacted by this experience. She realized that every year she was going to write another ‘chapter’ of her thanks. She could now understand that her ability to value her father was directly related to how much she matured as a person and the deeper insights that come with this process of maturing. She understood that the way she experienced her father revealed her development as a person — not his.

“Thank You For the Gift You Are to Me” Letters

The seed of an idea has been germinating in my mind since then. I began realizing how much more meaningful it would be to say “thank you for the gift you are to me” while the person was still alive rather than waiting to share it with others at their funeral.  

This seed came to fruition when my stepsister, Ruby Colleen, came back into my life after nearly 20 years. My father married her mother when I was about 12 years old. Ruby was already a young mother with three children. She was an important, though peripheral, part of my life from that time until I was about 35. It took me several years to mature enough to identify all the many wonderful gifts she had given to me that ultimately encouraged me to consciously choose to change my life.

Once I was reunited with Ruby, we shared a close relationship for another five years until her brush with death in the winter of 2005. During this time, we were inseparable. We made frequent visits to one another’s home and we talked daily on the phone.

We cherished these happy moments together as we both opened our hearts and shared the insights we had gained in our lives. We truly appreciated and celebrated the gift we were to each other. We talked about arranging our lives so we could live closer. We longed to spend endless hours together in the everyday routines of our lives. Although that never actually occurred, we understood that the importance of what we were experiencing could not be diminished by the fact that we lived miles apart.

Years ago I read a wonderful story called Hinds Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard. It’s an allegory about Much Afraid who longs to escape the Village of Much Trembling in the Valley of Humiliation where she lives with her old maid aunt, Aunt Dismal Forebodings. As she strives to follow the Good Shepherd, she is constantly harassed by her two Fearing Cousins, Craven and Cowardly. She longs to climb to the Higher Places, where “perfect love casteth out all fear.” Much Afraid decides to journey up the mountain to the Higher Places. The problem is, she’s crippled from all the years she has spent in the Valley. She asks the Good Shepherd how she was going to be able to climb the steep mountain.

The Good Shepherd tells her that her companions on this journey will be Sorrow and Suffering. She is disappointed because she wants to travel with Peace and Joy. The Good Shepherd promises her that as long as she holds onto the hands of her companions, she will be able to climb. However, should she let go of their hands, her cousins Craven and Cowardly will try to pull her off the mountain. 

Each time she lets go, stumbles, and falls, the Good Shepherd comes to love, teach, comfort, and encourage her. He instructs her to select a small stone and place it in her pouch each time she stumbles and falls. By the time she nears the top of the mountain, her pouch is filled to overflowing and seems an unbearable burden. These stones represent all the hard learning experiences she has endured. 

When she finally gets to the top of the mountain and the home of the Good Shepherd, he invites her to open her heavy pouch. Instead of stones, she discovers each one has been transformed into a priceless jewel of learning. 

Letting Others Know They Have Touched Our Lives

To read more of Sonja’s articles, click here.

As a personal development coach and trainer, if I was ever to create a workshop, I would love to help people unlock the repository of their hearts and celebrate all the gifts in their lives. Our awareness of the value of each of our lives is enriched as we gain the comprehension of how our life meaningfully touched the lives of others. 

Much of the richness of life comes from looking back as we reach our mature years. It seems from birth to about the age of 55 or 60, we are preoccupied with the business of living and just getting through the day. The joy of maturity is having the time — no… taking the time — to assess the treasures we have accumulated along the way. 

The following are the events surrounding my first effort in sharing my gratitude to one of my greatest teachers, my stepsister, Ruby. In the winter of 2005, Ruby collapsed with Sudden Adult Death Syndrome (SADS) while shopping. The ambulance rushed her to the hospital although she had no vital signs. At the hospital they were able to revive her. Her quality of life plummeted at that point and she often expressed that she wished they hadn’t been able to revive her.  As we spoke of her impending death, which happened soon after, Ruby wanted me to know I could express myself at her memorial services any way I wanted to. I knew I wanted to share with the rest of the family how much we treasured our friendship. I wanted the rest of the family to understand the person I experienced her to be.

At Ruby’s memorial service in April 2006 (it happened some months later due to the family being widespread), as I spoke, I encouraged everyone to take the time to share with each other the gifts they are in your life. Don’t wait until the funeral to reflect on the value they are to each other.

After I returned home from the memorial, I realized that there were so many things I had left unspoken. Part 2 is the letter to the family that I wrote after the memorial and finally, Part 3 is my memorial to Ruby. Both will be published in the coming weeks.

I am grateful I took the opportunity to personally share my gratitude with Ruby in the years just preceding her death.  

In the years since then, I have determined to write “The Gift You Are To Me” letters to my parents that have passed, my siblings, my friends, and especially to my sons, granddaughters, and great-grandchildren. So far I’ve only written to my oldest brother and a friend that was a strength to me when I was a single mom (and in all the years since). I cannot emphasize enough my hope that reading these posts will inspire others to consider the value of writing these letters to their loved ones — especially while they are still living.  

Sonja Hopkins

Sonja lives with her husband, Dale, on Anderson Island, Washington. She and her husband are Church Service Missionaries serving in the Addiction Recovery Program, focusing on pornography and sex addiction. She is also a certified life coach and teaches “Life Skills for Emotional Self-Mastery” in her stake twice a month. She does not teach you only to process something traumatic done to you in the past; rather, she helps you learn to feel it, heal it, and LET GO of whatever you still do to yourself and to others in order to cope with what was done to you in the past.

“Tell me, sir, what is a butterfly?”

“It’s what you are meant to become. It flies with beautiful wings and joins the earth to heaven. It drinks only nectar from the flowers and carries the seeds of love from one flower to another. Without butterflies, the world would soon have few flowers.”

“It can’t be true!” gasped Yellow. “How can I believe there’s a butterfly inside you or me when all I see is a fuzzy worm?”

“How does one become a butterfly?” she asked pensively.

“You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.”

“You mean to die?” . . . 

“Yes and no,” he answered. “What looks like you will die but what’s really you will still live. Life is changed, not taken away. Isn’t that different from those who die without ever becoming butterflies?”

“And if I decide to become a butterfly…” said Yellow hesitantly. “What do I do?”

“Watch me. I’m making a cocoon. It looks like I’m hiding, I know, but a cocoon is no escape. It’s an in-between house where the change takes place. It’s a big step since you can never return to caterpillar life. During the change, it will seem to you or to anyone who might peek that nothing is happening, but the butterfly is already becoming. It just takes time!”

. . . Yellow decided to risk for a butterfly. For courage, she hung right beside the other cocoon and began to spin her own.

“Imagine, I didn’t even know I could do this. That’s some encouragement that I’m on the right track. If I have inside me the stuff to make cocoons — maybe the stuff of butterflies is there too.”

(Trina Paulus. Hope For the Flowers. Paulist Press, 1973.)

One day I was pondering this little story and I wanted to understand more about how a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly. 

As ScientificAmerican.com explains:

The caterpillar, or what is more scientifically termed a larva, stuffs itself with leaves, growing plumper and longer through a series of molts in which it sheds its skin. One day, the caterpillar stops eating, hangs upside down from a twig or leaf, and spins itself a silky cocoon or molts into a shiny chrysalis. Within its protective casing, the caterpillar radically transforms its body and eventually emerges as a butterfly or moth.

 

But what does that radical transformation entail? How does a caterpillar rearrange itself into a butterfly? What happens inside a chrysalis or cocoon?

 

First, the caterpillar digests itself, releasing enzymes to dissolve all of its tissues. If you were to cut open a cocoon or chrysalis at just the right time, caterpillar soup would ooze out. But the contents of the pupa are not entirely an amorphous mess. Certain highly organized groups of cells known as “imaginal discs” survive the digestive process. Before hatching, when a caterpillar is still developing inside its egg, it grows an imaginal disc for each of the adult body parts it will need as a mature butterfly or moth — discs for its eyes, for its wings, its legs and so on. 

 

Once a caterpillar has disintegrated all of its tissues except for the imaginal discs, those imaginal discs use the protein-rich soup all around them to fuel the rapid cell division required to form the wings, antennae, legs, eyes, genitals and all the other features of an adult butterfly or moth. 

As I read about what happens inside a cocoon, I was fascinated and I quickly started seeing the symbolism of our mortal life. We experience a similar transformation as we invite the Atonement to work in our lives. I used to think the Atonement only applied to us at the judgment seat when we stand before Heavenly Father and Jesus to be judged — yet as I’ve seen the gospel work in my life as well as in the lives of others around me, I understand the Atonement is the healing, strengthening, transformational power that changes us from the natural man/woman into the amazing person we were created to be. We came into mortality with the “imaginal discs” of who we really are as God created us. Part of that process is growing to the point to where we “want to fly so much that we are willing to give up being a caterpillar” — to want to be reunited with our Heavenly Parents so much that we are willing to give up being the natural man. We want to align our will to the Father’s will.

 I am reminded of something I read in a talk, “Lord, I Love Thy Holy Habitation.”

“The baptistry is the first ordinance room we can experience in the temple. We often speak of baptism as a cleansing process, but perhaps this is wishful thinking on our part. Baptism is not about cleansing so much as it is about dying, for coming to know God will require a change so radical as to be like a death. In this room we submit to the water as we would submit to a grave, a place that returns things to native element, dissolving and breaking things apart until it is all matter unorganized. This is not what we have in mind when we come to Christ for healing. When we have reached the limits of how far our old assumptions will take us, we would quite prefer that God simply make our lives work again and put them back the way they were. That failing, we hope that maybe He can change other people, or that He will change the rules of life itself. What does not occur to us is that He will ask us to change, and to change the very assumptions which we thought made us safe. Yet baptismal waters testify that old ways of understanding who we are, old ways of trying to be safe and in control, old ways of trying to get our needs met. These coping mechanisms must often die and dissolve before we can be reborn as children of Power. 

 

In the temple baptistry, the only temple room in which all the work done is for the dead, we also remember that we are products of an ancestral heritage that may include both access to spiritual blessings, and the blinding, wounding legacy of unrighteous traditions of fathers and mothers. In fact, these traditions are part of what we may have to let go of so that we can claim our birthright in the family of God. So, the baptistry does more than offer new birth to the dead; it also calls us, the living, to engage in the two mortal acts of single greatest worth to our soul: to repent and to forgive. As we repent of the sinful ways we have learned through our experience with our culture and with prior generations, I believe we help release our ancestors and others who have helped shape the culture we live in from spiritual prisons of regret and remorse which they must experience as they see their sins perpetuated in our lives. As we truly forgive them, we may also be ready to forgive ourselves. 

 

When I go looking for God in the baptistry I ask myself, “What needs to die in my life right now so that I can more fully claim my birthright within my heavenly home? To what new freedoms is God calling me? Is it time to give up on the shame that is simply another form of pride? Does my insistence on being in control need to be laid to a permanent rest? Is it time to catapult fear of failure, of loneliness, or of death — fears that enslave my life in unholy ways?” The baptistry reminds us that Jesus knows all about dying, and that we can afford to trust that the hand that pulls us down into the watery grave will also raise us again.” 

 

(“Lord, I Have Loved the Habitation of Thy House…,” Wendy Ulrich, Ph.D.)

To read more of Sonja’s articles, click here.

Processing the experiences we’ve been through is what adds to our wisdom and it’s why it is so important to repent, forgive ourselves, let go of any traces of guilt, shame, blame and judgment about the path we had to travel in order to learn from the things we experience. It was not intended that we would only use the past as a way to denigrate ourselves. 

Looking back at my life lessons, I understand that for those who resist lessons, there are additional lessons. I’ve taken tests I’ve failed and been grateful for the tests I got to take over once I learned more. All the while, those “imaginal discs” born inside each of us are responding to the gift of the Atonement. Heavenly Father didn’t leave anything out of the plan of happiness. 

The Atonement is intended to help us through this laboratory of learning. It was never intended to be reserved for judgment day. President Nelson has said, “[I]n coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.” Becoming the person we were created to be is a process that continues long after we leave mortality. It takes time, experience, endurance, patience, healing, and letting go of the person we were. As Yellow found out, “What looks like you will die but what is really you will still live. Life is changed, not taken away.”

Sonja Hopkins

Sonja lives with her husband, Dale, on Anderson Island, Washington. She and her husband are Church Service Missionaries serving in the Addiction Recovery Program, focusing on pornography and sex addiction. She is also a certified life coach and teaches “Life Skills for Emotional Self-Mastery” in her stake twice a month. She does not teach you only to process something traumatic done to you in the past; rather, she helps you learn to feel it, heal it, and LET GO of whatever you still do to yourself and to others in order to cope with what was done to you in the past.

I believe we go through much of our pain as we are tutored in the sacred work of learning to succor one another. Once learned, our commission is to do so. It is the most humbling experience I know — a knowing that all we can do is “drop the rope ladder” into the abyss of another’s pain. We cannot climb it for them. To attempt to do so is a form of pride. The message we send is that we believe they cannot be successful in climbing it themselves. This is the lie our pride would have us believe.

When my sons were in their teens, I was concerned with how to help them through their struggles. I was reading in Alma 29:1-2:

“O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of my heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance to every people”

Then, in verse 3:

“But behold, I am a man, and do sin in my wish; for I ought to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me.”

That’s when I wrote a note in the margin of my scriptures: “If I could learn it, so can they… Let them.” That thought hit me with power and I’ve been learning how to “let them” ever since.

I can shine a light into their darkness, but I cannot tell them what to see. Life is the ultimate teacher for all of us. Agency is a sacred and powerful component in the plan of happiness. The Lord Himself will not override our agency. It was the adversary’s plan to compel everyone to be righteous so all would return to the presence of our Heavenly Father.  

Heavenly Father knew the struggles we would encounter in this world. He sent us here on purpose and designed this laboratory of learning to teach us, to refine us, to strengthen us. Part of that means going through difficult lessons, failing, getting up again, learning, persevering with the tenacity that would bring us through whatever besets us. As we long for healing, compassion, gentleness, and forgiveness, we begin to understand how to succor others as they go through their struggles.

One of the spouses in the addiction recovery program my husband and I manage for our stake once admitted, “I don’t automatically go to compassion when I encounter my husband’s poor choices. I go to anger, judgment, shattering of trust.” As I thought about her response, I replied, “At your age, you may never have experienced departing from the core values you hold sacred. Maybe you’ve never made a mistake that deeply injured a loved one, that made their life head down a road of pain and remorse. Maybe for some people, compassion isn’t a natural gift they brought through the veil. Maybe until you desperately need compassion for your mistakes, you won’t understand the value of compassion or the soul-wrenching need to be bathed in compassion. Compassion is always appropriate. Always.”

I came across a journal entry I made in 1983. I was capturing the events surrounding my oldest son’s interview to be called on a mission:

“Ordinarily a young man is interviewed by his bishop and stake president on a local level and at their recommendation, a letter is issued from the Presidency of the Church calling them on a specific mission. Because of my son’s background of being abused and the resulting acts of immorality he experienced, it was necessary for him to be interviewed by a General Authority. This was just a few weeks before we were scheduled to have a stake conference and there would be a General Authority in attendance. The time was close at hand to see if he was indeed “ready” to be called on a mission. 

 

My son had expressed to me that he wished he could be called to New Zealand because of the fact that it was an English-speaking foreign mission. It also would be among many Polynesian people whom he had learned to love when he spent two seasons in Hawaii with the Youth Developmental Services during high school. However, since you don’t get to pick where you go, he felt the chances of going there were very slim. 

 

At the last minute, the General Authority who was scheduled to come to our stake conference had a change of plans, so a different General Authority, Elder Gossland, was sent to our stake. What we learned later was that Elder Gossland was the head of the church missionary department and also the executive administrator over the New Zealand mission. 

 

My son was scheduled for an interview on Saturday evening after the evening meeting. My husband, my dad and I were waiting in the hall for him to get finished. Thirty long minutes passed and he finally opened the door. He was still sobbing and motioned for us all to come in because Elder Gossland wanted to talk to us. For one horrible instant, I was afraid he was going to tell us my son wasn’t ready to go on a mission. I was drowned in sorrow because I knew all he had been through.

 

As we all sat down, Elder Gossland looked at my son for a long time and then he looked at me. Then he said “I called all of you in here because I wanted to tell you that your son is a remarkable young man. He has been totally honest with me and I want you to know that what he has been through would have totally destroyed most people. I believe it is because of the love and strength of his mother that he is where he is today.” Then he turned to my son and said, “I want you to know that the Lord is very pleased with you and that all of your sins are forgiven you. You are as pure as the driven snow. I have absolutely no reservations about recommending your son for a mission. My only regret is that I won’t be able to be his mission president. Do you have any idea the kind of influences for good your son is going to be in the mission field? He is truly one of the rare ones!”

 

As you can well imagine, by that time I was emotionally and spiritually wiped out! No mother could have been prouder or felt more blessed than I did. Because of the respect we pay to those called as General Authorities in our church, I couldn’t have felt more blessed if Heavenly Father Himself had said those things, because I believe Elder Gossland was inspired to say what he said.

 

Me, who had felt so bad, so responsible, so inadequate as a mother, had just received acceptance from the Lord. The Lord had accepted my son — the fruit of my womb, the fruit of my labors. He was prepared before the Lord, was acceptable as a worthy vessel to teach His gospel to others. What greater joy is there?

 

As we prepared to leave the room, we shared a thrill when Elder Gossland told us he was over the New Zealand mission and he asked my son if that’s where he wanted to go. To which he replied, “Yeah, but I figured I’d never get sent there ’cause I’d enjoy it too much. I figure the Lord will send me where I’ll be humbled.” (In my heart I felt that Elder Gossland and the Lord felt he had already been humbled.) Just six days later he got his mission call to the Auckland New Zealand mission!

To read more of Sonja’s articles, click here.

What I have learned in the years since then as I’ve watched my sons on their journey to where they are now, being the fathers of daughters and grandchildren, is that they have strength beyond anything I could have wished for them. They have used their agency to learn from life through some difficult challenges and a few rewarding ones. I continue to be proud of the men they’ve become. We are working as a family on the ministry of reconciliation as we pull together to heal the broken pieces.  Both my sons are amazing men who have been through the furnace of affliction more than once. I would have liked to have taken their blows for them, and I know that to attempt to do so would send them the message that I thought was stronger than they are and that is not true. If I could “make it” so can they — so I let them!

Like many families, we have children, grandchildren, brothers and sisters that sometimes seem to be drowning in an ocean of pain. Our responsibility isn’t to somehow erase the pain — it’s to love them, pray for them, encourage them, believe in them, and in the case where they are estranged from us for a time, do all those things and be patient.

Working in the addiction recovery program, my husband and I are learning more and more how to allow the gift of the Atonement to function in our lives and the lives of those over whom we have stewardship. Recovery from trauma isn’t a 12-week course — it’s a lifetime pursuit.

I realize I don’t yet fully understand the purpose of suffering and being refined in the furnace of affliction. I just know that Heavenly Father sent us here on purpose, knowing that we would have agency long before we had wisdom. He knew that this was a critical developmental stage — and it isn’t the last developmental stage. He could take all the pain away and He doesn’t. Rather, He strengthens us as we reach for Him. Most importantly, He sent His Son to redeem us and bring us home. 

Sonja Hopkins

Sonja lives with her husband, Dale, on Anderson Island, Washington. She and her husband are Church Service Missionaries serving in the Addiction Recovery Program, focusing on pornography and sex addiction. She is also a certified life coach and teaches “Life Skills for Emotional Self-Mastery” in her stake twice a month. She does not teach you only to process something traumatic done to you in the past; rather, she helps you learn to feel it, heal it, and LET GO of whatever you still do to yourself and to others in order to cope with what was done to you in the past.