Hayden's Farewell Talk

That song (Where Love Is) is very special to my dad’s family because it was kind of their family song growing up. It was sung at my grandma's funeral and it was neat to see all of my aunts and uncles sing it, and I thought it would be neat to have it sung again. Plus I think it goes along with the missionary theme because love comes first in everything as a missionary.

I wanted to first begin by saying how excited I am to serve a mission. I've always wanted to be a missionary since I was a little kid. I am excited to wear the badge.  I am excited to proclaim that Jesus is the Christ, our Savior, and through his suffering and dying on the cross, otherwise known as the atonement, all things can come to pass, even our returning to our Father. I have gained this testimony throughout my teenage years. My first year of seminary we studied the New Testament, and reading through it, I had found something dear to me, my Savior's love. It makes me grateful for my wonderful parents who have taught me well and have given me the foundation to then find out for myself if what they taught was true. I know what Nephi means when he says he was “born of goodly parents”.

To say the least a mission means a lot to me. It's something I'm taking very seriously.

With all of this said I was tempted to not show up today. Really I was reluctant to give this talk. I haven't done anything yet. What if I'm not adequate enough, what if I don't know enough, what if I'm not mature enough, what if I fail?  My insecurities have been attacked severely in these past couple of months. Lots of sleepless nights, and plenty of emotional High stress days.

*serious*

But I have realized that this talk is probably more for me then for you.

It has sometimes made me wish that I didn't care this much about my mission.

But, this isn't the first time that I have gone through this. Probably not as big of a deal as this, but there had to be a place to start. In hindsight my childhood and into my teenage years have been nothing but proof of what the Savior wants of me and his plans for me. Especially these last two years, the Lord's hand has been everywhere in my life. I have seen how if I live my life the way he wants me to opportunity and peace are given. The primary source of this is through my Patriarchal Blessing. My Patriarchal Blessing is what has helped me through the rough times of my teenage years and is what has given me the image of the person that I want to be, along with guiding me throughout my life.

I remember the day that I got my Patriarchal Blessing. My grandparents and parents came with me to receive it. I remember when our Patriarch put his hands on my head and began talking, it was like the spirit had just dropped an anvil upon me. There have been fewer times of when I have felt the spirit as strongly as that. My blessing mentions a lot about my mission, it talks about how if I work hard and really LOVE the people that Angels will walk with me and that the people will hear me.

One of the biggest ways that my blessing shows the Lord's hand in my life is about the timing of my mission. Basically what it implies is that you focus hard on your mission and then when you get back you will be guided in what you want to do. At the beginning of my senior year  My parents were making me focus on college, they asked the questions where do you want to go, what schools are you going to apply too, which well isn't a bad thing but when they asked me these questions it stressed me out, it didn't feel like the right thing for me to be focusing on. Every time they would bring it up I would feel uncomfortable. I knew that it wasn't right for me to do and I tried to convince them but they wouldn't listen. It just had felt wrong to me and I knew what my blessing had said. Finally my parents read my blessing and realized like an epiphany that my blessing addressed this issue and that I was right about not needing to focus on college until after my mission. After that everything just started falling into place. We knew I was going to go on a mission right out of high school. Once they had realized this we were on the same page and then everything had just started to fall into place with both preparations for my mission and school, the hand of the lord was evident. This was undoubtedly the Lord showing his plans for me.

After realizing this I started to see how these last two years have been preparing me for my mission. There was a couple of months where I would have five church meetings every Sunday. I was thrown into leadership positions all across the board, whether it be school, basketball, Priest Quorum etc. I also have learned what it feels like to have a full day everyday for an extended period of time.

I have mentioned love and it's importance in regards to missionary work. There is a great poem about this that i want to share with you, it also happens to be my dads favorite poem.  It goes like this:

Abou Ben Adhem may his tribe increase

Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,

And saw, within the moonlight in his room,

Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,

An angel writing in a book of gold --

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,

And to the Presence in the room he said

What writest thou? -- the vision raised its head,

And with a look made of all sweet accord

Answered “The names of those who love the lord”

“And is mine one? Said Abou. “Nay not so.”

Replied the Angel, Abou spoke more low,

But cheerily still, and said “I pray thee, then

Write me as one that loves his fellow men.”

The Angel wrote, and vanished. The next night

It came again with a great wakening light,

And showed the names whom love of God had

Blessed,

And lo! Adhem’s name led all the rest.

President Lewis who you have already seen on the stand today, has helped me understand this fully.  President Lewis has brought our Priest Quorum close together. He has helped us create a brotherhood that I will always remember and cherish. He got us together as a quorum 30 minutes before every mutual activity, and we would go visit less active boys in the ward to check up on them, tell them that we care about them, to fellowship them and to love them as the Savior would. This has taught me a lot about missionary work and the love of our Savior. I truly believe that President Lewis is a blessing from God to our Priest Quorum, he has done amazing work.

I have talked a lot about hard times and having to get through them. This last year has been the most challenging for my family. I'm not saying that to be woe is me or to say our lives are sad, that is just the way it was this last year.  It was non stop stress and tensions were high. Without the Lord's help we definitely would not have made it through it.  2 Nephi 31:20 says..

20 Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.

This explains that having a steadfast faith in Christ and having a perfect hope that things will be ok as well as a LOVE of God and all men, we shall have eternal life if we endure to the end. My family has applied this scripture to our lives in the last year deeply.

Bush Family, this scripture reminds me of the story of our beloved Patience and the way she lived at the end of her life. She was the perfect example of this as she battled through cancer. She is truly one of my greatest Heroes.

All of these things give me comfort that when the mission gets hard, and it will get hard, Spanish alone will make it hard, but it gives me comfort to know that the Lord is on my side and will help me through even the most hardest struggles.

In my first missionary interview with Bishop he told me that a purpose of missionary work is to get people to the temple to receive their temple ordinances. I have only just learned the importance of the temple when I had received my endowments a month ago. That ordinance is very sacred but it is so important and necessary for our salvation, as well as being sealed to our families forever.  

I love going to the temple, it has allowed me to take a step out of this terrible world and to be able to just go and feel the holy comforter.

Like I have said I have been struggling.

So the temple has been my escape. The first week that I was endowed I went to the temple everyday. I love it there. This last week I had a very special experience in the temple. I had gone to the Provo City center temple with one of my friends. We ended up having to wait an hour for the next session. Which I was fine with because it is a really neat temple, and I had only a few chapters in the Book of Mormon left so I got to finish it. So as we sat in the chapel and I had just finished the Book of Mormon I began to sit there and ponder. You see I have been praying a lot recently to Father to be able to overwhelmingly feel the spirit because I have been having a really hard time and needed some extra comfort. So here I was and all of a sudden the greatest feeling of peace had come over me and I had this feeling that just told me, Hayden you will be ok, you are going to go on your mission and have an awesome experience as long as you work hard.  This is just a minor blessing of the temple which shows how important the temple is. Being sealed to our family's forever allowing us to reach exaltation is what the temple allows us to do, and it is not a wonder why the temple is the a reason for missionaries to to what they are doing.

In closing I want to give a very sincere thank you from the bottom of my heart. I want to thank my friends and their families for always supporting me and being their for me and for putting up with such a weird kid.

I want to thank all of my youth leaders and all of those who have taught me and given me a good person to look up to. You have no idea what kind of impact you have on us young teenagers.

I want to thank my extended family, you guys are the best and have always shown me love it really has meant a lot to me

I want it to thank Bishop and his family for their great sacrifice to serve us all. Bishop there is no one else that I would rather have send me out on a mission than you.

Lastly I wanted to thank my brothers and my parents.

Austen, Dillon I'm going to miss you.

Mom Dad I'm gonna miss you too, thank you for everything, truly you guys are the best parents. I Love you guys.

I hope the people of Queretaro Mexico are ready for me.

All these things that I have said I say in the name of Jesus Christ our savior

Amen.