Katie's Homecoming Talk

Since Katie was only home for a day and a half when she got home from her mission in January, she wasn’t able to give her homecoming talk then, but the Bishop was excited to hear she was coming home in May and so asked her to speak on May 30th. She did an incredible job… so impressed by her ability to speak doctrine and share stories with such eloquence and so much Spirit. We were lucky enough to have Chris and Amy Silva and kids here for the weekend. It made it extra special to have them here to be a part of it. We also sent the Zoom link to our families and so many of them were able to watch it from wherever they were. : )

“I served my mission in Tampa Florida. When I arrived at the Tampa airport, my mission president said, “Welcome to Paradise!” I didn’t understand it at first... but eventually I found out for myself that it really is paradise because it was where I served others 24/7, met some of my greatest friends, learned so much about the gospel and myself, found true joy, and most of all came to know my Savior Jesus Christ. ”

I served my mission in Tampa Florida. When I arrived at the Tampa airport, my mission president said “Welcome to Paradise!” Then the assistants and the senior missionaries and the other missionaries welcomed us to paradise. I didn’t understand it at first.. {missions are hard, it was the middle of august, and I was hot and tired} but eventually I found out for myself that it really is paradise. ...Not just because I served right along the beach or because it's warm all year round. It's not because of all of the palm trees and the gators and the awesome people in Florida...

Florida was really paradise for me because it was where I served others 24/7, met some of my greatest friends, learned so much about the gospel and myself, found true joy, and most of all I came to know my Savior Jesus Christ. 

..If you think about it, after we die when we go to spirit paradise, we will be missionaries helping those who have passed on come unto Christ, so it's only fitting that Tampa was paradise for us. I cannot say enough good things about my mission.

I was asked to base my remarks on Elder Gong’s talk Room in the Inn from the most recent conference. Elder Gong explains how we can apply the story of the Good Samaritan in our life...

As you probably remember, the parable of the good Samaritan is the story of a Levite who was wounded by thieves on his way to Jericho, “leaving him half dead.” Many saw him in need but passed by on the other side of the road. Finally, a Samaritan “had compassion on him”. He nursed his wounds and brought him to an Inn. This good man paid for him to be taken care of and promised that he would repay him for any further expenses spent to help the man.

Elder Gong says, “On our dusty roads to Jericho, we are beset upon, wounded, and left in pain. Though we should help each other, too often we pass to the other side of the road, for whatever reason. However, with compassion, the Good Samaritan stops and binds our wounds with wine and oil…. The Good Samaritan puts us on His own donkey or, in some stained-glass accounts, carries us on His shoulders. He brings us to the inn, which can represent His Church. At the Inn, the Good Samaritan says, “Take care of him; … when I come again, I will repay thee.” The Good Samaritan, a symbol of our Savior, promises to return, this time in majesty and glory.”

I love how Elder Gong compares us to the Levite as we go through trials and also compares us to those who are passing by. Do we turn our heads and pass by when we see someone struggling? Do we stop and help? Do we bring them to the Inn?

There are 5 lessons Elder Gong points out from this parable, that I would love to talk about:

First, [he says] we come to the Inn as we are, with the foibles and imperfections we each have. Yet we all have something needed to contribute. Our journey to God is often found together. We belong as a united community.

This point reminds me of some of my friends in one of the wards I served in. I don’t know if you're supposed to have favorites but I was in the Carrollwood ward for over 7 months so it was definitely one of my favorites. I got to know everyone really well, especially the recent converts. This ward had an amazing group of people that had recently joined the church. We had a gospel class with this group each week. They were very helpful with joining our lessons with our new friends and sharing the gospel with their friends. They relied on each other, their leaders, and Christ to help them adjust and strengthen their testimonies. They each played an important role in our ward. For example, Seve, who was a recent convert of a year, contributed by being our ward mission leader. All of them had callings and ways they used their individual strengths to serve others and help out in the church.

Elder Gong goes on to say, “In [Christ], we find cause to do good, reason to be good, and increasing capacity to become better. In Him, we discover abiding faith, liberating selflessness, caring change, and trust in God. In His Inn, we find and deepen our personal relationship with God, our Father, and Jesus Christ.”

Just like the recent converts in Carrollwood, I found that as we come closer to Christ, we become better and more like Him.

I wanted to quote President Nelson when he spoke about the gathering of Israel: “If you choose to, if you want to, … you can be a big part of something big, something grand, something majestic! … You are among the best the Lord has ever sent to this world. You have the capacity to be smarter and wiser and have more impact on the world than any previous generation!” On another occasion, President Nelson told the youth: “I have complete confidence in you. I love you, and so does the Lord. We’re His people, engaged together in His holy work.

Second, [Christ] entreats us to make His Inn a place of grace and space, where each can gather, with room for all. As disciples of Jesus Christ, all are equal, with no second-class groups.

This point explains missionary work to a tee. Every single person is a child of God. Everyone on Earth heard about God’s plan and chose to follow Christ. Our job now is to help our brothers and sisters remember that plan and come to the Inn. We are part of God’s army helping them come unto Him, feel His love and make covenants so they can receive all the blessings that come with it and return to live with Heavenly Father someday.

On my very first Sunday in Florida, my trainer and I overheard someone asking what he needed to do to join the church. This is when we met our friend Luis, a positive and hardworking 22 year old. We started teaching him and helped him be baptized a few weeks later.

Luis had met a family in our ward named the McHenrys through his career. They became great friends over a few years. The McHenrys never told Luis what church they belonged to, they simply lived the gospel. After a while, Luis started to really notice the way the McHenrys lived and interacted with people. He noticed how he felt around their family and really looked up to them. He wanted to follow in their footsteps and create a life and a family like the one they had. They pretty much adopted him into their family. About three years after they met him, they invited him to church. He didn’t say yes right away, but he later decided to come and loved it. Everything he had seen in their family finally made sense. Luis was the first person I taught all of the lessons to and it was amazing to see how the knowledge he gained made so much sense to him. The gospel brought so much light into his life and you could see him changing. I look up to Luis so much. His dedication to His Savior has taught me a lot. I would like to read a quote he shared with me about his baptism:

Luis Testimony: My decision to be baptized has blessed my life tremendously. Some time after my baptism it really sunk in that I was just given the opportunity to show my willingness to follow the Savior's example, for he too was baptized, even though He was without Sin. What a gift. A gift to covenant with God. This gift I simply could not provide for myself. It was paid for by Jesus Christ and his atoning sacrifice. 

My promise to take upon myself the name of Jesus Christ, keep his commandments, and serve him to the end only seemed right, it felt like my way to give back for the costly grace my Savior gave me.

Simply put, I do feel saved. I feel like a beloved son of God. He’s blessed me in amazing ways financially, emotionally, and temporally, but most of all He has healed my heart to serve and see others as I see myself, a child of God.

Luis is going through the temple to receive his endowments next month so I’m super excited for him!

Third, in His Inn we learn perfection is in Jesus Christ, not in the perfectionism of the world. Unreal and unrealistic, the world’s “insta-perfect” filtered perfectionism can make us feel inadequate, captive to swipes, likes, or double taps. In contrast, our Savior, Jesus Christ, knows everything about us we don’t want anyone else to know, and He still loves us. His is a gospel of second and third chances, made possible by His atoning sacrifice. He invites each of us to be a good Samaritan, less judgmental and more forgiving of ourselves and of each other, even as we strive more fully to keep His commandments. 

At the beginning of my mission, I definitely felt inadequate. I didn’t know if I would be able to do all that God wanted me to do. I learned that all God expects is our best efforts and Christ will make up the rest. In a training, one of the missionaries shared that we often think there is a formula that me + more = Christ... aka how we make it to Christ and how we receive the blessings of the Atonement. When in reality, the formula goes: Me + Christ = More. We don’t need more of anything to receive the blessings Christ has to offer, we are enough. Christ isn’t looking down on us marking up all the mistakes we make, He is helping us through every trial and working with us to help us become more than we could on our own. We find perfection in Jesus Christ.

We once taught a lady named Sylvia each day on her porch. One of the most memorable lessons we had was on repentance. We taught her that no matter what she had experienced or done, she could be cleansed through Christ and move on. You could tell that really had an effect on her. Her past had been weighing on her and when she learned that Christ had paid for her sins so she didn’t have to, she was humbled and overjoyed. That is the good news of the gospel.

I am so grateful for the opportunity we have to repent and keep trying again and again. There is so much hope in the knowledge that we can keep learning and progressing and nothing can hold us back. Alma 5:33 states, “Behold, he sendeth an invitation unto all men, for the arms of mercy are extended towards them and he saith: Repent, and I will receive you.”

• Elder Soares: “As we take Christ’s name upon us, it is expected that we strive to emulate His attributes and change our character to become more like Him each day. The Savior, admonishing His disciples, said, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” If we “come unto Christ, … deny [ourselves] of all ungodliness; … and love God,” then through Christ’s grace the day will come when we may be perfect in Him.”

Fourth, at His Inn we become part of a gospel community centered in Jesus Christ, anchored in restored truth, living prophets and apostles, and another testament of Jesus Christ—the Book of Mormon.

• I love this. Jesus Christ is the center of the gospel. We have a living prophet, President Russell M. Nelson and apostles and leaders who receive revelation for the church and help guide us back to our Heavenly Father. 

• The Book of Mormon is so important to me. It truly is the keystone of the gospel and that peace that most of the world is missing. There were so many people I prayed would just try reading the Book of Mormon, because if they read it and prayed about it they would feel the spirit, they would learn that God loves them and has a plan for them, there is life after death, they will see their loved ones again, Christ is their Savior, and there is hope. There are so many questions that can be answered through the Book of Mormon.

• President Nelson said: “My dear brothers and sisters, I promise that as you prayerfully study the Book of Mormon every day, you will make better decisions—every day. I promise that as you ponder what you study, the windows of heaven will open, and you will receive answers to your own questions and direction for your own life. I promise that as you daily immerse yourself in the Book of Mormon, you can be immunized against the evils of the day, even the gripping plague of pornography and other mind-numbing addictions.”

• Reading the Book of Mormon daily is probably the #1 thing we invited our friends to do as missionaries. I was so blessed on my mission to have time set aside each day to study the Book of Mormon and to feel the effects of it in my life and in the lives of all those I taught. Now it is my responsibility to keep reading it daily so that I can experience peace and continue to grow closer to my Savior. 

• I remember reading the Book of Mormon with one of our friends, Chris. Once he started reading it, everything changed. He found so much peace and absolutely loved learning about the awesome stories and characters in the Book of Mormon. He related so well to Alma the Younger and felt that the story was written for him. There is so much power in the Book of Mormon and I know we are blessed in numerous ways as we read it.

Finally, fifth, we rejoice that God loves His children in our different backgrounds and circumstances, in every nation, kindred, and tongue, with room for all in His Inn.

• One time, on Valentine's Day, my companion and I decided to pass out chocolate hearts with scriptures on them. We were in a nicer area and we decided to hand them out at some local stores. When we got to the barbershop, we went up to the girl at the front desk and offered her chocolate and told her God loves her. She immediately started to sob. She hugged us and told us she really needed that reminder. It was so humbling to know that God can use us to help His children. You never know what someone’s past has been or what their day has been like. Christ loves us no matter what and we are always welcome at the Inn.

It is easy to look at people and make judgments. Maybe we would see someone and decide they probably aren’t ready for the gospel. Maybe they wouldn’t fit in the church. God does not see us like that. We aren’t the judges of who is ready or not, God is. He sees us all as His children who all belong with Him. Everyone is invited to the fold, everyone is welcome at the Inn.

• I would like to share one last story about my friend Karina. My companions and I had just been moved to cover two areas, everything had just been shut down for covid, and we didn’t have many friends to teach… we decided to fast and pray all week for a family to teach. Even though we were stuck inside all day, we worked as hard as we could that week, praying to find a family in every prayer. On Sunday night we still had nothing, we were getting ready to send in our numbers when we got a call from my last area. They said they reached out to a girl who had been taught in the past but hadn’t been ready for the gospel, due to life circumstances. When they called her, she said she had moved to Carrollwood and was ready to receive the lessons. Karina has a daughter named Amara. I know they were the family we were praying for. Karina was taught all of the lessons and baptized 4 weeks later. She had come from a very challenging background with hard experiences. Joining the church changed her life. She all of a sudden had a huge support group from the Bishop, the Relief Society, and yes she was one of the recent converts in Carrollwood ward. She knew that she was loved and that her and her daughter had a place in the gospel and the world.

I know that the gospel is true. I know that each and every one of us is loved by God and that He hears our prayers and has a plan for us. I know we can repent and live again because of Jesus Christ. I know that Christ’s church has been fully restored to the Earth through the prophet Joseph Smith. I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I am forever grateful for my mission and the experiences I had and the ways I was able to contribute to God’s work. I am grateful that I am able to keep learning and strengthening my testimony and helping to gather Israel now. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.