My "Heart Rendering" farewell to South Africa, and a choice to return home rejoicing!

Sani Bonani.

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Wow.

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That might be the last time I begin.

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with Hello in Isa Zulu.

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thank you for joining me on the

Creative Spiritual Journey podcast.

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Last episode.

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Of our second season, I wanted to record

this farewell to South Africa be before,

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before we returning home, but things

got too crazy and busy to find the time,

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too many sweet souls to say goodbye to,

and oh, that was so heart rendering.

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Heart rendering.

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What does that even mean?

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It is defined as a tearing apart.

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Once again, just as of when we

left home, it took a while for my

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heart to arrive in South Africa.

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Hence, the heart rendering, a

tearing apart again on the return

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home, leaving pieces there forever.

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I wanna share with you an experience

of swimming in the Indian Ocean

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our last weekend in Durban.

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Eric went out and the waves

were big and the sea was rough.

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The tide was high, and, and I thought I

would swim out and join him and, and I

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kept trying to get out and another big

wave would come and tumble me and I would.

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Dive under a few, but I was having a

hard time getting out to where Eric was.

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I was fighting against the waves,

one big wave after another.

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Finally, I yelled out.

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To the ocean.

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Can you just stop for a moment?

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I was being a little dramatic,

but I was emotionally spent from

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saying our goodbyes to friends.

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I can only hope that we'll see you

again and also I was overwhelmed

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with the anticipation of going home.

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What's it gonna be like?

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What's next?

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I'm gonna pause here.

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and to share with you lyrics of a song

titled Cleanse You by Callie Reed.

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This is a song we asked our daughter

Megan to sing at her homecoming because

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it had become very precious to us.

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Many times as we were driving out

to one of the townships and passed

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the fields out to Osso Sweeney, our

hearts were heavy and we were fighting

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against some big waves, and this

song would come up on my playlist.

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It's interesting how that would happen.

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Let me share with you

the lyrics of this song.

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The waves come high.

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My ship is sinking.

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And I'm thinking of letting

go the water's deep.

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And I am grasping, struggling to

hear you, Lord, captain of my soul.

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Why did you lead me here

to this uncharted sea?

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Did you bring me here just to drown me?

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What if I didn't bring you here

to drown you, but to cleanse you?

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He whispers.

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And what if you chose?

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To breathe me and let

this wash you clean again.

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He whispers.

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He whispers, I know the water's deep, but

if you only knew it isn't meant to drown

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you, he whispers, but to cleanse you.

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So there I am out struggling in the

Indian Ocean, an emotional wreck, and

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this song comes to my mind and I just

surrender and a calm comes into my heart.

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And I'm washed into shore

climbing up onto the beach.

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I sat down to watch Eric continue

to frolic in the waves and the

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spirit whispered this to my soul.

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Time is like the waves always rolling

Onward time, our time there was over.

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And a new season, a new wave of our lives.

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Light ahead of us.

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I actually created this

episode While flying home.

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I wanted to share with you the

feelings of my heart and soul as

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we close this chapter of our life.

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Our hearts will forever be tethered

to New Castle District in South Africa

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and the Durban South Africa mission.

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Her people, the land, the

experiences that forever changed us.

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But it's now December, what is it?

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December 16th.

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And we've been home for what, 23 days.

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Most of our home is still in boxes

in the storage unit, things that

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we have lived two years without.

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I don't even know what's in 'em anymore.

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But our mission had a profound way of

teaching us what's really important,

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and you don't storm in boxes and once

again, waiting for my heart to catch up.

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And I hope to get some Christmas cheer and

a Christmas tree up before it's too late.

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I love the podcast, one Heart,

one Soul by Thomas McConkey.

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And ironically, I listened to an

episode the last week on mission titled,

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passing Away In this, uh, script, he

took the title Passing Away from an

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Ancient Scriptures that were found

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a book titled The Gospel of Thomas.

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Yep.

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Thomas, the same one that was one

of the 12 apostles of the Lord.

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And it reads in, uh, Ian 42, which I

believe is just another name for verse

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in Ian 42 of the Gospel of Thomas,

quote, UA Ywa, which is Jesus Ywa

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says, come into being as you pass away.

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Jesus says.

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Come into being as you pass away.

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Okay, again, let me pause here.

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Did you know that when it comes time

for a elder, I don't know if the sisters

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do this or not, 'cause we didn't have

sisters on our mission, but when the

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elder comes time for him to return home,

they call it ke the elder, or he dies.

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Yeah, pretty morbid.

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Much like when the elder comes

into mission, it's like their

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birth and his trainer is considered

his father and the trainers.

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Trainers considered his grandpa.

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You know, there's just this whole

mission language, but anyway,

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they call it passing away.

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So this meditation caught my attention

because we were in the middle of quote,

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being killed on mission and passing away.

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Funny thing, our new mission

president said he wanted to change

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the term to being translated.

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So if that's the case, I'm

now a translated being.

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Let's get back to the gospel

of Thomas Yeshua says, come

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into being as you pass away.

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How do you relate this to yourself?

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Let's just think about it for a moment.

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How do you come into

being as you pass away?

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Or in other words, what transformations

have you undergone in your lifetime?

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What things have you had to

let go of, prune away, let die?

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And what things have you had to bring

a new Sit with that for a moment.

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How have you become new?

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Can you think of a time where

you went through some ordeal?

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Much like our mission, and you weren't

the same person on the other side of it.

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The old you had to die.

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So the new you could come into being.

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You had to let go of something, some part

of you that was probably very painful

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to let go of in order to make the new

passage, much like struggling against the

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waves of time and just allowing it to be,

and yet it wasn't the end of your journey.

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It was a new wave, a new beginning.

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As you come into being In a sense,

what died was something you actually

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weren't in the end, something

that had to die in order for you

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to come more fully into being to

become more fully your divine self.

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As Eric and I drove away from

our new castle home to the

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airport, our mission was finished.

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We talked about how poof, just like

that the wave was over that season

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of our life was passing away, and

how this is true of all our journeys.

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That is how it felt when our

children had grown up and left home.

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It was a type of passing away.

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Maybe you're experiencing a passing away.

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A health or faith or financial crisis,

that too is a type of passing away in our

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life where the life that we knew or we

hoped for changes passes away day by day.

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Moment to moment at all passes

away, but it's never really the end.

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It really never is.

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It's the end.

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We fear it's coming into

being that is happening.

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It's a beautiful plan.

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The wave passes only for

a new one to rise up.

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This is the eternal journey of becoming.

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My first episode I recorded on

mission was titled Embark, which

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comes from Doctrine Covenants four.

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Therefore ye did embark

in the service of God.

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See that you serve him with all

your heart might mind and strength,

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that you may stand blameless

before God at the last day.

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Well, when there is embarking,

there is always a returning

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and the ship must return home.

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. So this is my farewell to that

season of our lives, that beautiful

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experience in South Africa.

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If this was my eulogy of my passing

away on mission, I hope that it would

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be that I loved greatly the people.

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Oh, I loved greatly the people.

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I gave my whole heart, and

I found, and I really did.

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I discovered the beauty and

the joy and the journey.

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It wasn't perfect by any means, and there

were some waves that really tumbled us,

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But that is what I came to discover.

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What it takes to come into

being as we pass away.

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We will now try to serve here with all our

heart, my mind, and strength here where

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we are, and it just will look different.

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It is easy to serve the poor and

the needy and visit the sick and

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afflicted when they're all about you.

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Now it will take some creativity

because the Lord said the poor

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are always among you here.

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They're just disguised behind masks.

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The prophet.

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Russell M.

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Nelson once said, I am

optimistic about the future.

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And you know what?

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I too, I am optimistic about your future,

you listening, my friends and family here,

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and my friends and family in South Africa.

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And our future will be filled with

opportunities for each of us to

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progress, contribute, and take the

gospel to every corner of the earth.

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The prophet continued our savior

and redeemer, Jesus Christ will

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perform some of his mightiest works

between now and when he comes again.

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Ah, don't you wanna be a part of that?

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So my departing prayer for South Africa.

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Keep forward facing.

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Look to Christ with faith.

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Not fearing the waves,

but enjoying the waves.

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The waves of time, and this journey

of becoming of growing and learning.

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Look for the miracles 'cause

they are all around us.

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We experience miracles.

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I love you and I'm forever

grateful for God for bringing us

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together for just a brief moment.

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I never thought I'd consider 23

months in South Africa a brief moment.

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But now the wave has passed and when I

left it felt like such a big sacrifice

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to leave family, friends, or home

and the life that I love so much.

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But what I viewed then as a sacrifice,

I now see as the greatest blessing.

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My heart.

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Our hearts are forever changed.

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We lived with and served with

all our might might mind and

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strength and loved greatly.

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The saints, the missionaries, and

the leaders of the Durban South

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Africa mission, they changed us.

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We can never be the same person

who left home to go and serve

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in far corners of the world.

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I have learned that Yeshua,

our savior, Jesus Christ, is

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aware of every single soul.

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He is in the waves with us.

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This morning as I laid in bed with the

rising of the sun, I was pondering.

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About exactly what emotion

is it that I am feeling.

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I was trying to process

and listening to my heart.

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The word grief came to me.

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I turned to Eric and I asked him, what

did the scriptures say about what the

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missionaries that were returning home

in the scriptures, how did they feel?

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And he said they returned rejoicing.

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Ah, I like that.

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That's what I want.

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I want to return rejoicing.

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Our children, they have told us that we

need to take time to unemotionally, unpack

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and it's true, and give myself some grace.

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'cause I really have felt lost.

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A man without a country.

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And so here I am sharing

this on the podcast.

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I guess there's no better place than

to share your feelings where I have

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friends like you as my sounding boards.

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So today I searched for that

phrase and the scriptures returned

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rejoicing, and I couldn't find it.

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But I'm gonna choose it anyway.

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I want it to be my choice.

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From here forward, as the next wave

of time, hit us again and again.

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I will choose rejoicing.

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I will choose to continue

to love and serve just as we

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did for the past two years.

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God is so good, our loving,

heavenly appearance.

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Have a marvelous plan for each and every

one of us, and it is our here and our now.

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Our savior is not the God of someday.

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He is the God of this day and this wave

and that wave, and he is our savior

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of our grieving and our feelings of

being lost and our heart rendering.

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He was the ultimate example of coming

into being as you pass away with

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his atonement and his resurrection.

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What a beautiful gift of love.

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I choose to breathe him in and return

rejoicing In the experience of seeing

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the beautiful land and the wildlife

of South Africa, she is glorious.

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They're forever imprinted on my heart.

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I return and rejoice in the music I

heard in the hymn sung by the Saints.

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Their testimonies.

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I return rejoicing and having had

the Holy Spirit guide us through

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hard times to teach and to testify.

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I return rejoicing and getting to

know the young elders that we have the

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privilege of serving arm in arm with.

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Oh, what a grand adventure.

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I returned home, rejoicing in the

trials and tribulations we wade

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through because it strengthened my

faith in the savior Jesus Christ.

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I returned and rejoice in the

blessings of serving with Eric.

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My eternal companion mission

tested our medal and it ended

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up refining our marriage.

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We learned to be one.

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Thank you dear friends for joining

Gia and I for another season of the

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Creative Spiritual Journey podcast.

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We are excited to see what the

new waves bring, aren't you?

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I hope to see you on the

trail and of course, because

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it's the season to be jolly.

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I want to end this episode by wishing

you a Merry Christmas and sharing

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with you some of the lyrics from, oh

Holy Night, one of my favorite carols.

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Ah, how can you pick a favorite?

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They're all so wonderful.

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Oh Holy Night.

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The stars are brightly shining.

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This is the night of our Dear Savior's

Birth Long lay the world in sin and

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error pining till he appeared and the

soul felt its worth a thrill of hope.

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The weary world rejoices and yonder

breaks a new and glorious mourn.

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May your Christmas be glorious and

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ahead out before you be merry and

bright in Gia Kanda, you remember?

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in Isa Zulu.

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That's, I love you.