That We Might Have Joy: Alicia's Story

My story is simple-- I love my life!  I grew up in a split family and not in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Regardless of whether or not we grew up in the gospel, we always have to go through something that builds our testimony of the truthfulness of it.  Mine started as a teenager.  I had friends that were part of the gang, and I thought about joining.  That didn't happen.  I moved to a small town and kind of discovered who I was.  This is when I found the gospel after discovering that I had a Heavenly Father and a Brother who died for me. This was all new to me.

When I joined the church, I had a goal of marrying in the temple and living my life the best that I could.  Now that doesn't mean I do everything right, but the good thing is that I try every day to be better than the day before.

I served a church mission in the United States after being a member of the LDS church for 5 years. I loved my mission, but where I served, everything is legal.  I thought to myself, "My goodness.  How can the Lord trust me so much to teach the gospel that I still felt new in?"

I soon learned that it's not necessarily about the knowledge but about listening to the Spirit in gaining understanding of what you're supposed to say or do or think or act.  That is the most important thing!  So I taught prostitutes about the law of chastity and drug addicts and drug dealers about the word of wisdom.  I served the best I could.  That was when I really learned how much each soul is worth to our Father in Heaven!  Words cannot describe the feeling of watching someone accept the truthfulness of the gospel.

When I found my eternal companion, I never thought that within the first two years I would get the impression that he would die early.  Four years into our marriage, my eternal companion suffered an epileptic grand mal seizure leading us to the ER very early in the morning and completely changing our lives.  It was there that we discovered an avocado size brain tumor!  We spent one month in the hospital.  Luckily I had taken so many classes and fallen in love with medical terminology, illnesses, etc. so I was able to understand what the doctors were telling me and our family. We didn't have kids at this time.  We actually had problems getting pregnant and were in the adoption process of being selected.  This all ended that morning.  There's a lot of other stuff that I don't feel comfortable sharing about the family around us at that time.

There was a lot of sadness and joy in my husband's family in a week and a half time.  One brother's family fell apart, my husband had a massive cancerous brain tumor, and the other brother found out his wife was pregnant with her first child.

During that process, I was mostly concentrating on my husband and the possibility of the voice of warning that had happened a couple of years prior to coming to fruition.

It was a scary thought, but I had to trust the Lord and the blessings that my husband and I received during this process.  The doctor sent him home to die after a month in the hospital.  They originally wanted to send him into a nursing home, but we said, "No, if he's going to die, it's going to be at home with his family."  He didn't die though!  He got healthier and healthier.  As he was going through radiation and some of the chemo, he was told that he had 1 to 1 1/2 years to live.  He was also told that with this radiation treatment, if he lived 10 years, he would have a secondary cancer caused by the radiation. His mom and I were there when we got that information, and we asked, "Why in the world would we do it then?" But you also come to an understanding that it's a last hope.
You have an understanding that we all die, some people just die a little earlier than others. So when my sweet husband lived eight years longer than they ever thought would happen, I was overjoyed and extremely grateful. During the 8 years, we owned our own business and worked with each other 24/7, we adopted our niece, we spent lots of time at the temple, and we didn't take things for granted. We were in love!

It was very difficult to go through, but I knew my Heavenly Father loved me, and I knew He would never give me anything I could not handle. I knew my hubby's time was up, when it was finally here, and I wouldn't change that. His body was so done. And sometimes watching somebody go through that is enough to be so grateful for the life you had with them and look forward to the one you will have with them. I have been directed in so many ways by my Father in Heaven that I could never forsake the goodness that He has done. Life is hard, but it's supposed to be. Otherwise we would never return to God the way we're supposed to, the way that He planned it, the way that He knew it would happen. There is so much joy in a life of sadness or heartache or difficulty or challenge. The most beautiful thing that we can do to show gratitude to our Heavenly Father for giving us this life is to find joy.

You asked how do you find joy? It's in the little things. It's in the birds chirping after rain. It's the rainbow before and after a rainstorm. It's seeing the light on the other side of that tunnel that seems so dark. It's experiencing watching someone come to Christ, and it's watching someone go to Christ.

One of the most amazing things that has transpired since my husband passed away and becoming a widow at the age of 38 is the fact that my genealogy and his (both of our families are converts) has exploded. I'm talking from having 20 people on my line to now having a thousand and his line having a couple of hundred going to a thousand. These names of our family have connected us in more ways than I ever dreamed would happen. I have struggled so hard to find family members for the last two decades, and I am so grateful that my husband has found them over there and has brought them to me, so we can make that link.  Now that is beautiful!

Yes, I've been through some challenges. This is only within the last 13 years, and there's so much more that I've been through. But these are the main ones that sent me on the path to my Heavenly Father and never forsaking the experiences that I have experienced, good or bad, because all of them have joy.

By all means, I am not perfect. And that is perfectly okay with me, because I am definitely not complete and ready to go back to my Father in Heaven. I am just a daughter of God who is experiencing the joys that my Father wants me to have in order to become the Heavenly queen I am supposed to become. That's my joy!