An Introduction and some musings

This week I have been feeling like I need to write on humility, but what I want to write isn't flowing so I guess I will write about why Pioneer Day became my favorite holiday in 2001 and hopefully what needs to be shared in this post will come forth. But as a bit of forewarning, if you are familiar with Carol Tuttle's Energy Profiling, I am a Type 1 so this post may seem a bit random. :D

Thirteen years ago today I checked my Ricks College/BYU-Idaho student e-mail account after reading the most recent letter from my "missionary" that quite frankly depressed me. So in order to distract myself on Pioneer Day 2001 in a suburb of Seattle all by myself, I saw an e-mail that literally changed my life and my eternity.

A month earlier I had received personal revelation that Heavenly Father wanted me to serve a full-time mission. I KNEW it was what I was supposed to do. I assumed that my "missionary", who had been out for a year at that point, would be supportive of my decision to serve a mission. I had enthusiastically written him the day I received my personal revelation. Because he was serving in Mexico, it took a while for his reply to reach my parents' home in Idaho and then a few more days for it to forward to me in Seattle, where I was working at my summer internship and living with my mom's best friend. When I got home from work that day I got the mail and saw the letter from my missionary. I excitedly opened it and began reading it. My excitement waned as I read something along the lines of, "I think you should wait until I get home so we can make the decision of you serving a mission together." To say I was slightly disappointed is an understatement.

Now that I understand Energy Profiling as taught by Carol Tuttle, I can see that my enthusiastic Type 1 self just wanted my missionary to be excited for me! And that is not what I received. So in my dejected state I decided to login to my newly created BYU-Idaho student e-mail account and go through my BYUI campus e-mails, because no one ever wrote me to my college e-mail account.

Imagine how perplexed I was when I saw an e-mail sitting in my account from someone named "Marc Russell". Who was "Marc"? None of the Marks I knew spelled their name with a "c".

I finally decided to open the e-mail and read the e-mail.

7/12/2001 Hi! How are you doing? I hope this is the Yvonne Withers that's from Idaho Falls ID. I'm pretty sure that you probably don't know me; but I've heard of you. From a New Era article, and I've been trying to find contact information on you and finally was able to get addresses for the students at Ricks. I myself went to BYU and tried searching there many times; but now I'm off to serve a mission in a few weeks in Salt Lake City Spanish speaking. And I decided that even though you don't know me I might as well start writing and whatever I have to say will eventually come out. But at first I would like to say thank you. By now you're probably thinking that this is sort of strange and kind of like you're famous and you could say I'm your first Fan mail. Well as your fan then I'd like you to know that you've helped me out. It's been a while now.... like 2 years or so, but your words came at the right time. (I doubt you even remember what you said) but it was about 'trials' and you said "We are getting close to the Second Coming, so Satan is working harder than ever to tempt us. But not to worry. Why do you think Heavenly Father waited until now to send us to this earth? He knew we were up to the challenge." Right now I can't remember what was troubling me, but I remember reading all of the 'comments' over and over and the end of yours just caught me at a different angle. It's always been hard for me to remain firm between my 'school friends' who drink and smoke and such, and my LDS friends that I had. But it was almost harder for me to remain strong around my LDS friends than my School friends; because my school friends ended up respecting me for standing up for things, while it seemed that my LDS friends ended up critisizing me instead. I've always noticed huge problems with the LDS youth. And truthfully that's why I never liked Utah and the people I knew that lived there. Because among the school while I had 5% LDS they had over 60% and it seemed like the Utah schools were as bad as mine were or worse because people found it hard to stand 'straighter' while everyone justified what 'could' do. And it seems like me being sent to Salt Lake is a way to allow me to respect the members more and what the 'true' way of life is like there. I'm sure you've never had a letter like this ramble on for so long without even knowing the person. Well don't worry I'll wrap it up. You may not check this email and if that's the case I may send you my mission address right before I leave and if you feel like it you could just respond or whatever. It would at least be nice to know that you've actually received this and know that you've touched my life and I'm glad that I can get the opportunity to thank those that touch my life in some way or another. If there's anything you can think of, that I can do let me know. I love music.... playing the piano, and especially singing, sports, and am on the BYU racquetball team. Oh I live in Oregon by the way, I don't know how to describe myself so I won't, just your usual dude, who loves having a blast, while trying to keep people in 'track', and was called a 'model' for a while but they said I'd have to wait until after my mission. You may not have any idea how weird it is writing to someone to who I've been trying to find and I am now finally am able to tell them thanks. Well let's end with that. Thanks Yvonne, just know today and forever that you've helped out someone else in need, too bad you had to wait 2 years, but I hope it's worth something to you, even now. Sincerely, Marc Russell

Sitting there dumbfounded that someone would actually write me a "fan mail", this essentially was my thought process after reading that e-mail:

Wow. The words I felt inspired to write into the New Era Question & Answer section back in August 1998 actually DID help someone else! And I feel like I know this Marc even though we've never met. What if he already left for his mission and forgot to send me his mission address? Then I won't be able to tell him I read his e-mail and I understand him.

So I wrote him back that night. A pretty long e-mail.

Here's the kicker..... remember reading that he lived in Oregon? Turns out he is from the Portland area. I was living in the Seattle area. That's like 2 hours away from each other, or driving from Idaho Falls to West Yellowstone. The next day when I received his 2nd e-mail, I discovered that he had been at the Six Flags Water Park in Tacoma the day I finally checked my e-mail and wrote him back. So when he got home that night and saw my e-mail he stayed up and wrote me back. He was leaving for the Provo MTC in exactly a week.

That week flew by and everyday I looked forward to coming home from work and reading his e-mail and writing him back. He was someone who understood me. I didn't have to explain or defend myself. I could just be me. Most importantly, he DID return the favor and helped me that week by validating what personal revelation is, it is direct communication from God to the recipient and as he pointed out in a later e-mail that week when I was bemoaning how unsupportive my "missionary" was about me serving a mission he simply said, "That's the thing that most people don't understand about personal revelation, it is PERSONAL and between you and God. No one else needs to get involved in your personal revelation."

For a girl who had been seeking approval and outside validation from her parents, teachers and three older siblings her entire life - it was very affirming to have someone else validate my personal revelation without having to defend or show evidences or back up my statements. Marc just accepted me as I was.

That first week we realized that we had been best friends in the pre-mortal life. There was no other way to explain the instant spiritual, mental, and emotional connection we had. Throughout this mission Marc would tell his companions and other mission friends that I was his "best friend I haven't met" and they didn't get it. I did though, and I was SO thankful that Heavenly Father did help me connect with my best friend from before so that we could be a support and a strength to each other throughout out missions.

We wrote for just over three years before we met in person on 26 August 2004. The day after we met we attended an endowment session in the Salt Lake Temple and then afterwards went to the sealing office to make an appointment for our sealing on 27 November, exactly three months later. I'm currently expecting our fourth child who will make her arrival mid-September and we will celebrate our ten year anniversary this Thanksgiving. I have been so thankful for the journey I've been on over the past 13 years since I first read the e-mail from Marc. He is exactly the partner I needed and wanted in this life. He validated me as being someone with worthwhile thoughts and opinions during our three years of writing. He loved me and wanted to marry me before we had ever met in person (that's the other part of our story, we both knew half-way through my mission that we were supposed to marry each other after I returned home). He has cherished me everyday since we finally met in person. But most importantly, he allowed me to remain in my broken state those first few years of our marriage when I was so caught up in my own emotional pain, trauma and drama. He never tried to fix me or the situations I kept finding myself in. He allowed me to feel my emotions without shaming me for them. And most importantly, he has been so supportive of me receiving the assistance I needed in this Earth school so that I could do better, reach higher and begin to honor myself for who I really am, a beloved daughter of God. He continues to be supportive of me as I seek to do the Lord's work here on earth.

There is so much yet to be done as we prepare for the Savior's Second Coming. We are only now beginning to scratch the surface of the momentous work before us. As I was telling Maria the other day, "As more good is created in the world, the law of polarity tells us that there is going to be more evil and darkness in the world."

Referring back to the wise words I received from the Spirit 16 years ago as I was penning my answer to the question in the grey Q&A box, Satan IS working harder than ever to tempt us, to depress us and to thwart us from becoming who we are meant to become BECAUSE we are getting closer to the Second Coming. He doesn't want us to succeed. He doesn't want us to remember who we really are. He doesn't want us to remember how powerful we are and so he lulls us away into carnal security. He instills in us a desire to be apathetic about magnifying our callings or fulfilling the promises in our patriarchal blessings. If he can distract us with mediocrity, then we will simply be one of the many called, but we won't be one of the few who are chosen. "And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them;" (Abraham 3: 25)

At the time when I was first starting my healing journey, my mentor Tony Purcell told me, "I am grateful for the darkest points in my life. If I had continued to live a mediocre life, I never would have hit rock bottom and realized that something had to change." I thought it was weird that he was thankful for the times when he was living in his self-centered world, but as I have gone through the process myself, I see now that his words are true. If it wasn't for the darkness, I wouldn't have ever sought to reach up for help from above. I never would have realized how much Light I was missing from my life. I never would have realized that an ordinary person who hadn't committed serious sins still needed the Atonement in my life on a daily basis. I AM so grateful that Marc allowed me to live in my lower self until I was ready to change. I am grateful for the darkness I have experienced in my life because it was the catalyst for me to humbly seek the Savior's healing power in my own life. A regular person like me who hadn't experienced any major trauma in my life and hadn't committed any serious sins or transgressions still needed the Atonement - and I didn't realize that until I realized how broken and sinful I really was. Yes, I am grateful for the darkness I went through, for as Mother Eve said, "Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient." (Moses 5:11)