The farewell

Shalyn gave her farewell talk to the Maple Meadows 1st ward on Sunday July 20, 2014.  She had lots of friends come and support her and tell her goodbye.  She did a wonderful job!

My farewell talk July 20^th 2014

Topic: Faith

Master  the Tempest is Raging

Story from Band: Always quiet being told to play louder. To concert band spring tour of senior year. Playing on triangle, barely hitting the triangle, Wilson stopping the whole band “Shay I never thought I’d say this but I need a quieter triangle.” Everyone laughing.  Microphone on triangle. 

How I was given the topic: Few Sundays ago I wanted to see what my topic was going to be so that I could start thinking about it and start getting ideas and write and re write it. When I asked Brother Treanor he told me to take a week and think about if I wanted to choose my own topic. I spent a week thinking about what I wanted and the topic Faith kept coming into my head. The next Sunday I still wanted to see what topic he would give me so that I could see if I should take his or if I could somehow combine the two. So I sent Brother Treanor a message asking what I should talk about, and the first few words of his text were. “How about faith.” So I guess that is what I am meant to talk about. I hope you can all learn something not through me but through the spirit and I hope that through this talk I will also learn more as well. 

Before I really get into my talk let’s talk about the basics of faith.

What is faith? In the Miriam Webster dictionary it says that the definition is loyalty, complete trust and a firm belief in something for where there is no proof.  While these definitions are true there is more of it. In Alma 32:21 it states “If ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.” On the LDS website under topics there are a few more words to what faith really is. Faith is a principle of action and power. Faith means action. Faith without works is dead. Whenever we have a goal that we are working for, we are exercising faith. We are hoping for something that we cannot see.

Faith is a big factor in my life. We all have our own trials but I know for a fact that if I didn’t have faith I would be a completely different person. When I get hurt or really down sometimes I just want to stay hurt. I don’t want to believe that things will get better I don’t even want to feel better but even when I try to push it down in my heart the spirit is still there saying “Shay you know things will get better, hold it out, be positive and stay faithful, everything will be ok.” I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have the spirit whispering those words to me. It just comes to show that God really is in charge and he knows what we need to keep going. 

Now with Faith there were so many ways that I could go about talking on Faith. There are many scriptures, stories, and hymns. For the first week I tried thinking about what direction I wanted to take. Last Sunday I was looking through the hymn book trying to find all the hymns on faith and then writing down their scriptures. It took a long time…It wasn’t till later that day I remembered what my favorite hymn was. I looked under the topic of faith and there it was. Master the Tempest is Raging written by Mary Ann Baker. The story of how this song came about is a wonderful story and is full of faith. 

 In the first verse we can put ourselves in the shoes of the fearful disciples in that boat on the Sea of Galilee.

Master, the tempest is raging!
The billows are tossing high!
The sky is o’ershadowed with blackness,
No shelter or help is nigh;
Carest Thou not that we perish?
How canst Thou lie asleep,
When each moment so madly is threat’ning
A grave in the angry deep?

Now imagine yourself on that boat. Even if Christ was right next to you, if there was a terrible storm outside and you were on a boat wouldn’t you still be scared? I love this verse because it shows that it’s ok to have fear when you are in a scary situation. If the Disciples of Christ feared it’s ok for us to have fear when we are situations. But we can’t stay holding on to that fear.  In these situations we could just sit around and sink and let the storm over take us. But when we exercise faith we take his hand and let him guide us through and we really rely on him to help us get out of these trials. The storm might not stop immediately when we ask for help but it will get better. We always need to remember that. 

The second verse she wrote in memory of her trials.

Master, with anguish of spirit
I bow in my grief today;
The depths of my sad heart are troubled—
Oh, waken and save, I pray!
Torrents of sin and of anguish
Sweep o’er my sinking soul;
And I perish! I perish! dear Master—
Oh, hasten, and take control.

Mary Ann Baker, her sister and her brother were left as orphans when their parents died of tuberculosis. She and her siblings all lived together until their brother was stricken with the same disease. With the little amount of money they had they sent him to Florida in hope that he could receive treatment and recover. In just a few weeks their brother also died. Mary Ann Baker and her sister did not have enough money to travel to Florida for the funeral or to bring his body back to where they lived in Chicago. I can’t imagine how hard that would be.

You can see in this verse that she is asking for help. That is what we need to do. When we bow in our grief and our hearts our troubled those are the times when we really need to look to Christ and ask for help. In the Book called Our Latter Day Hymns The stories and The Messages we can see what she wrote when she was going through her trials. She wrote “although we mourned not as those without hope, and although I had believed in Christ in early childhood and had always desired to give the Master a consecrated and obedient life, I became wickedly rebellious at this dispensation of divine providence. I said in my heart that God did not care for me or mine. But the Master’s own voice stilled the tempest in my unsanctified heart, and brought it to the calm of a deeper faith and a more perfect trust. “

I believe we can all relate this to ourselves. Even if it’s not with every trial we go through there is always that one that hits us the hardest and we feel like giving up would be the best answer, to turn away and to let the trial overtake us. If we could all just have faith and let Christ take control things could go so much better, but we all have those moments. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s ok to feel hurt and fear. But “Faith and fear cannot coexist in the same heart during the same time.” This statement is one I used to worry about a lot because I didn’t fully understand it. I always felt bad when I was scared or when I felt fear because I always felt “Oh I’m afraid that must mean I don’t have faith.” However this is not true, what I have found to be true is that it’s ok to feel fear but if we don’t act on that fear and get it out of our hearts that’s when we don’t have faith. We need to take that fear, knowing that it isn’t what we want and find a way to turn that fear into faith.

The third verse of this song is described as the aftermath of it.

Master, the terror is over,
The elements sweetly rest;
Earth’s sun in the calm lake is mirrored,
And heaven’s within my breast;
Linger, O blessed Redeemer!
Leave me alone no more;
And with joy I shall make the blest harbor,
And rest on the blissful shore.

I feel that this verse portrays the most comfort. Once we get out of our trials, the terror is over, the elements sweetly rest. How wonderful is that? If that’s what we can feel when we exercise faith then that’s all I want to do. I always want to have faith through my trials.

I think that the chorus has a lot of comforting words in it as well. 

The winds and the waves shall obey Thy will,
Peace, be still!
Whether the wrath of the storm-tossed sea,
Or demons or men, or whatever it be,
No waters can swallow the ship where lies
The Master of ocean, and earth, and skies;
They all shall sweetly obey Thy will,
Peace, be still! Peace, be still!
They all shall sweetly obey Thy will,
Peace, peace, be still!

Christ can control everything. When we rely on him no storm will be too strong. No trial will be too hard. Christ overcame the world. He could have stopped it. But he wanted to follow God’s will. Not his own.  This is the same as us. We can’t necessarily stop trials from coming at us but if we know that God knows more than we do and if we can have faith and follow his will, things will turn out for the best. We can all have peace when we exercise faith.

When we have faith we can do anything.  In Luke 17:6 it states “And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamore tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.” We can get through any trial that is thrown at us if we just have faith. With Christ anything is possible. 

I never thought I’d be serving a mission. I only decided about 8 months ago, December of last year that I was going to serve. And what a blessing that has turned out to be. I am so excited to be able to serve in the Texas Houston mission. I know that I will have a lot of hardships and that there will be times full of trials. But I know that if I just have faith and use that faith to make me stronger and use those trials to make me stronger I can do anything. As long as I have faith I know I’ll be able to touch at least a few  hearts. And if that’s all I do on my mission is plant the seed and touch other people’s hearts I will call that a successful mission for myself.

I also know that all of you can get through anything. As long as you have faith and trust in God will you can do anything.

I love this gospel I know it’s true with all my heart. I’m so thankful