Encircled in the Arms of Safety

Hi Fam Fam!
Wow this week has been a bit crazy. And definitely unexpected. I am staying in Hamble River for this next transfer. I got a new companion: Sister Gaston. She is from Paris, France. So she is my second French companion. But man I already love her. She is so sweet. She has been on her mission for 7 months. She has been serving on Jersey for the entire time so far. So this is her first area on the mainland. We are super similar, it's a bit funny 😂.
Thursday: we had dinner at the Norths house, and we brought Patrycja with us, because he is her home teacher. We are really trying to get her integrated into the ward more.
Friday: correlation got cancelled, but that is okay. We were able to go and visit Paul, which was really good we hadn't talked to him in a little bit. Oh Paul... he is so amazing, but he has literally told us that he likes to be difficult. He always says "Sister Lund, I'm like Wasabi, I'm an acquired taste" 😂. I'm like well okay then Paul haha.
Saturday: This morning Kim Smith took us to brunch in Hamble, at the Banana Wharf. I had my first real English breakfast, which was actually pretty good. I am a fan of beans on toast. It is actually really good. This evening we had a dinner appointment with sister Baker. She is the cutest. She is 81 years old, but she acts and looks like she is in her early 70s. She is feisty!
Sunday: it was Sister Velez last Sunday in Hamble River. She is moving to Newton Abbott in Plymouth, and she is going to be companions with her MTC companion Sister Stephenson. She is nervous but excited. She will be great.
Monday: Sister Velez and I went to have lunch with the Sheppards, we always love seeing them. They have become like my "family" in the ward. I love them so much. Then we went and saw Alcina and Paul and Rehana, it was hard for them to say goodbye to Sister Velez because they were really close with her. And then we went to Patrycja and Emilia's. I think it was hard for Sister Velez, and it hit her that she was actually leaving, but I know it will be good for her.
Tuesday: because Sister Gaston was in Jersey, her flight got delayed by an hour. So I went to Havant with Sister Walker and Sister Ripley for the night, on exchange. I got so burnt! I don't even know how! My skin here, oh my days. They found out that I gave Sister Honeycutt a hair cut a while back and so they had me cut their hair, and I was proud of myself. It actually turned out really well... bangs and all haha. I think it was all those hours I watched people cut hair 😂, just kidding.
So this week was great. But it was also a bit hard because I realized again how important it is to not have faith in outcomes. I was reminded of my Savior and the His Atonement. I was able to see that my Savior loves me so much, and that he is there to help me through everything. I was reading a talk from October 2008 called Arms of Safety.
"A family had been taking pictures on a lookout point of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. They heard screams and ran to find that a two-year-old girl had fallen through a railing to a ledge about 35 feet (11 m) below. The little one tried to climb back up, but her movements caused her to slip even farther until she was 5 feet (1.5 m) from a dangerous 200-foot (61-m) drop.
A 19-year-old young man named Ian saw where she was and, using his emergency-response training, knew how to handle the situation. These are his words: “‘Immediately, it all came at me, and I just knew what I had to do. I set down my camera and went up the trail a little ways where it wasn’t as steep, climbed over the rail, scrambled down a bunch of rocks and through brush, and found her.’ Holding her in his arms for an hour, Ian waited until emergency teams could drop down with ropes” to rescue them (“Save Her!” New Era, Sept. 2007, 6). The phrase “holding her in his arms” caught my attention because the scriptures talk about arms--arms of love, arms of mercy, and arms of safety (see 2 Nephi 1:15; Mosiah 16:12; Alma 5:33; D&C 6:20; 29:1). The scripture phrase “encircled in the arms of safety” comes from Amulek’s message to the Zoramites about the infinite and eternal Atonement. He taught that the sacrifice of the Son of God made it possible for man to have faith in Christ to lead us to repent. “And thus mercy can satisfy the demands of justice, and encircles them in the arms of safety” (Alma 34:16; see also vv. 9–15)."
This just made me think of our Savior and that sometimes we want to stand up and move, and try to climb back up, and do what we think is best, but our Savior immediately climbs over the rail, scrambles down a bunch of obstacles, and holds us in His arms for an "hour" or whenever He sees that it is safe for us to move.
I cried when I read this, because I was reminded of how much my Savior loves me, and even though I can't fully comprehend how much He loves me, I know He does. Because I have felt his arms around me, especially on my mission. Sometimes I think my plan is better, as all humans do. But when we can humble ourselves and realize that our Savior and our Heavenly Father know us perfectly, and know how to help us, we are then able to recognize that love, and feel his arms of safety. Heavenly Father has a perfect plan for me and for all of you. Trust him.
I love you. I hope you have a great week. We got this!
Love, Sister Lund