Dear Springville High School, WE CAN DO HARD THINGS!

My dearest friends at my beloved Springville High School,

HOLA MIS AMIGOS!

This week I am doing my letter a little different.  I have really wanted to talk to all of my friends back at Springville High School, two of whom are my own brother and sister.  I have been thinking how my whole high school experience was about trying to figure out about how to FIT IN- how to be the best sports player, get the best grades, and get the solo.  Whos with me here?  Who understands what Im saying?  Without realizing it, our whole experience becomes about fitting in.  We feed ourselves with these accomplishments, or we berate ourselves with the lack of.  I am the MASTER of trying to fit in, not stick out, and live my life based on the amount of accomplishments.  But something is happening to me on my mission that I feel like I wanted to tell my friends.  I think it might help relieve some of the  heavy, crushing pressure of how we judge ourselves.

I have a NEW testimony.  It feels groundbreaking to me, although I know for most people its not.  Ok you might want to sit down for this.  ITS NOT ABOUT FITTING IN!  Its not about having that boyfriend or girlfriend, its not about always making the team, and its not about being the super star.  ITS ALL ABOUT YOU AND GOD!  I promise.  Thats all that matters, in high school and after high school.  I know for a fact God LOVES ALL OF HIS PRECIOUS SONS AND DAUGHTERS!  ALL!   He has equal love adoration and mercy for the kid at Springville High who appears to have the perfect life (which nobody does) as he does for the kid who appears to be in constant turmoil and trouble.  He has a plan for every single life.  EVERY SINGLE ONE.  The kid you ignore every day, is most likely preparing to do great things on the planet that would shock you to pieces.  I have one year and one mission experience on you guys and this is what I have learned in that very short time......ALL PEOPLE DEEP DOWN ARE EXACTLY THE SAME in Gods eyes.  A mission is like a huge highschool.  You get ALL kinds of people.  You have the rich kids, the quiet kids, the rude kids, the models, the nerds, the jocks, the popular and well loved, and the poor and lonely.  Mean kids, sad kids, funny kids, and crazy nice kids.  There is one thing that brings us together if we are humble and will just remember.  We all have pain.  We all hurt sometimes.  We all feel broken in different ways.

I have met so many poverty stricken poor people.  They barely eat and have one pair of clothes.  Can you imagine walking into high school every day with the same outfit????????? Recently I have met some of the richest people I have ever known.  They are very successful in the business world and yet, they also have a tremendous sadness in their eyes.  They are lonely.  It is because they are missing the one thing that will ever fill up the lonliness.  Its not popularity.  Its not an award telling you that you are the BEST ONE.  Its God.  Pure and Simple.  Its a relationship with God.

And this is where a piece of my heart still seems to be back in the high school in Springville.  We think if we look a certain way, or DO certain things, we will be enough.  We will finally be ok.  Maybe, just maybe, we will be sufficient.  HIS LOVE IS SUFFICIENT TO MAKE US WHOLE.  He loves you.  He does not love you on a love meter that changes day to day.  Can you imagine never being able to rely on a God to love you?  Or how much or if he will at all?  No, you have one stable thing in your life that never changes, no matter how much you are hurting or struggling.  HIS LOVE FOR YOU.  HE KNOWS WHO YOU ARE.  I feel impressed to make a plea with my friends back home.  PLEASE LOVE EVERY SINGLE PERSON AT OUR HIGH SCHOOL THE SAME!  Those halls are full of hurting and broken hearts.  I know this.  And its time for the heroes of SPRINGVILLE HIGH SCHOOL to come together and forget popular.  I promise you there are people at school who are really suffering.  You may be to.  If you are, then you are the perfect person to reach out to someone else.  Because you know what it feels like, you will know how  to help.  You just need to be brave.  Outer appearances mean nothing.  Popular kids need love and healing.  Kids who sit alone at every single class and event need love and healing.  Look at people with more love and practice feeling hopeful- happy feelings for yourself.  I know from personal experience on my mission that as you do this, YOU WILL SERVE LIKE THE SAVIOR DID EVERY SINGLE DAY!

I know what you are thinking.  I thought it to.  How can I talk to that kid who barely talks back?  How do I talk to someone who wont make eye contact or makes me feel dumb?  How can I forgive the teacher who gave me an F?  How do I get through constant rejection, or never dating, or someone who broke up with me?  How do I tell my parents I have failed ONE MORE TIME......at a test, at a tryout, at drivers ed;)  How do I maintain my social life and grades and extra activities and not crack?  How do I handle the constant anxiety that I am never good enough?  How on earth do I reach out to make someone elses experience more comfortable when I am struggling so badly myself?  Why do I have to go to seminary, no one ever talks to me?  Why do I have to plaster a fake smile on my face in the hall and act nice?  HOW DO I SHOW UP AT SCHOOL WITH A GIGANTIC ZIT ON MY FACE?  How do I face my coach I just let down in the last game?  How do I tell my coach give me another chance?  How do I graduate with all of these freaking tardies?  How do I show up at school when I just lost one more stupid election?  How can I show up looking so fat?  How can I show up looking so skinny and weak?  How do I go anywhere when I have no friends?  Shes so much prettier than me.  Hes so much smarter than me.  How do I ever find the words to tell anyone high school is really kinda scary and lonely and sometimes sad?  How can I go to school, much less, do my life, when someone in my family just died?  Who could ever understand that pain in a high school?  How do I do homework when there is a divorce going on at home and no one at school knows or cares.  Who could possibly understand that kind of pain?  How do I deal with this sickness or injury that no one pays any attention to but causes me so much heartache?  HOW CAN ONE SINGLE TEENAGER LIKE ME, WITH SO MANY ISSUES, MAKE ONE BIT OF DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD.  HOW CAN A LONELY SOUL HEAL THE LONELY?  It really seems like there is no way.  The fear of it all could literally overtake you.

There is an answer.  I think I had to come all the way to Argentina to find it.  And I cant keep it to myself.  YOU ARE NEVER ALONE.  SOMEONE ALWAYS UNDERSTANDS.  JESUS CHRIST LIVED AND DIED SO YOU WOULD NEVER EVER BE ALONE OR NOT HAVE COMFORT.  HE IS MAKING A WAY FOR YOU TO HAVE AN AMAZING LIFE ON YOUR DARKEST DAYS.

HE WILL NEVER FAIL YOU!

PROVERBS 17:17 A FRIEND LOVETH AT ALL TIMES, AND A BROTHER IS BORN FOR ADVERSITY.

Someday every one of you will graduate and leave that high school.  We all go our separate ways.  We leave our families, we go away for missions or school or jobs.  We get married and we begin our own families.  Guess what I just realized?  It actually gets HARDER!  I KNOW!  I THOUGHT HIGH SCHOOL WAS THE TOP OF THE HARDNESS LEVEL!  I thought it would get easier---darn!

ALL YOU NEED IS GOD.  HOLD ON TIGHT TO HIM.

As a missionary Ive learned doing it afraid is the most brilliant thing we can do. If you feel afraid, its ok, just go ahead and do it afraid.   In retrospect, I have been in Gods hands my whole life.  I wish I had a better understanding on this, I would have done high school less afraid.  I promise you if you do things afraid, and just trust in him, he will lead you to miracles.  You will do things you never dreamed someone like you could do. Don't waste your high school opportunity worrying about your own popularity.  Use it to help and lift others.  BE BRAVE.  You always have God on your side.

DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT BE AFRAID TO FAIL.  JUST TRY.  JUST GIVE A LITTLE MORE.  KEEP GOING.  FAILING LEADS TO SUCCEEDING.  LIFE DOES NOT HAVE TO BE PERFECT TO BE WONDERFUL.

I have failed at many things.  I have spent to much time being a benchwarmer.  And I make lots of mistakes, especially on my mission.  But these things only make you stronger.  I didnt used to think I could speak to strangers in a crazy new language and teach them a lesson in less than five minutes.  But WE CAN DO HARD THINGS SPRINGVILLE HIGH SCHOOL.  YOU, ME, AND EVERY AWESOME KID COMING BEHIND US.  Lets pave the way of people who do hard things to make the world a better place.  ALWAYS LEAVE PEOPLE BETTER THAN YOU FOUND THEM.  If your hurting over anything, endure it with a good attitude, and joy will come eventually.

Hard things can be beautiful.  Be grateful for your personal struggles.  In fact pray to be able to overcome everything sent your way.  Every hard thing brings you close to God.  If you can do hard things yourself, he will put you in the way of others trying to do hard things because you will know what to say and to do to lift them up.

Heavenly Father brushes my hair with the wind in Argentina and kisses my face with the Argentine sun and tells me "Oh Marie you are doing better than you think you are.  Miracles are on the horizon."

High School friends, we were made to do hard things.  Our small community can change the world with what is happening within those walls of seminary and high school.  Your potential is great.  Don't let temporary setbacks erase your ability to see twenty or thirty years into your future of amazing life.  He hears every word you pray.  You are so much stronger and more powerful than you think.  Use your talents and be kind to yourself with weakness.  Serve your peers, ESPECIALLY THE ONES YOU SEE SUFFERING.  But never assume that someone has no struggles.  Just assume they do.  He gives us pain and hard experiences so that we have the lesson made solid to us that we cant do it alone.  We need him.  And he needs us to do his work.

YOU MATTER.  YOU ALWAYS HAVE.  YOU ALWAYS WILL.

If you are ever walking down the halls and feel alone, remember Hermana Terry loves you and is there with you in spirit.  Keep your hope on a brighter and more loving world.  And never stop planning how you will be part of that plan.  I LOVE YOU FRIENDS!

Hermana Marie Terry
representing the Terry family and Jesus Christ (thats what my nametag says ;)


p.s.  If anyone is wondering  if you should serve a mission, you will never ever regret the decision to go.  Carry on!