Collet

Wow! This is the last time I'll be sending out a mass email from Romania, because I leave here... today! I'm excited to see family and friends (including many of YOU!) and to be back home, but I am sad to leave my beautiful children behind. What a great summer it has been!

For this email, I decided to make a list entitled:

TOP TEN LESSONS LEARNED IN ROMANIA:

So, here it goes. I hope it doesn't read too much like a sermon! I just wanted to share with you the things I've learned here.

10) "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them" (Ether 12:27)

"For when I am weak, then am I strong" (2 Corinthians 12:10).

During the times when I stopped relying on my own merits and realized my dependency on the Lord, He blessed me with abilities that I could never have on my own. Of course, I didn't always live this way, but I found that when I chose to act in faith, the Lord replaced my fear of my own inadequacies with a testimony of His abilities. I know that I can completely trust in Him, and I am happiest when I do.

9) “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again" (Matthew 7:1-2).

While in Romania, I met so many different types of people with various backgrounds. As I noticed differences in culture, mindset, and behavior, I sometimes wanted to judge people, especially when I disagreed with their actions and saw them hurting someone I love. But I came to realize that I simply cannot be a fair judge. I don't know what it would be like to grow up in circumstances different from my own; I don't know the struggles that others face. The only real answer is to choose to love and forgive; love and forgiveness are granted as a gift from the Lord when we humbly ask.

8) "In the premortal realm, spirit sons and daughters knew and worshipped God as their Eternal Father and accepted His plan by which His children could obtain a physical body and gain earthly experience to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize their divine destiny as heirs of eternal life" ("The Family: A Proclamation to the World").

In my first few days at the orphanage, I was overcome with a witness that the children I met there lived before they came to this earth and, like you and I, they chose to come here. They face trials I could never imagine as part of their daily lives, and in some ways their experience on this earth seems so different from mine, but we are all children of God, and are of equal and infinite worth in His eyes.

7) "And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities" (Alma 7:12).

As part of His atoning sacrifice, the Savior suffered for our sorrows and infirmities in addition to our sins. Because He felt the pain of infirmities of the children that I worked with, He can perfectly succor them as He comforts them with His Spirit. This knowledge is a comfort as I leave my children here, knowing that they will now receive less comfort from other people since there will be fewer people to attend to them.

6) "My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes" (Doctrine and Covenants 121:7-8).

I believe that the children here will be rewarded after this life with eternal life because they have endured their afflictions so well. In the eternal scheme of things, these sufferings really are "but a small moment."

5) "And I am filled with charity, which is everlasting love; wherefore, all children are alike unto me; wherefore, I love little children with a perfect love; and they are all alike and partakers of salvation" (Moroni 8:17).

Little children are perfect. I felt towards them a love which I have never felt towards anyone else.

4) "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love" (Moroni 7:48).

Charity, or perfect love, is a gift from the Father. I feel so blessed to have received that gift and felt some of His love towards His children.

3) "For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father" (Mosiah 3:19).

We are commanded to become as little children, and I am so grateful for the opportunity that I had to see the childlike qualities that I want to emulate. Children are humble because they don't pretend that they can handle more than they really can; they aren't too proud to rely on their parents. I want to follow that example and rely on my Heavenly Father. They are also so honest and so willing and eager to love. I am also grateful for their examples of being quick to forgive, among many other qualities.

2) "There are three parts to the plan. You are in the second or the middle part, the one in which you will be tested by temptation, by trials, perhaps by tragedy. …

“Remember this! The line ‘And they all lived happily ever after’ is never written into the second act [of a play]. That line belongs in the third act, when the mysteries are solved and everything is put right. …

“Until you have a broad perspective of the eternal nature of [the plan], you won’t make much sense out of the inequities in life. Some are born with so little and others with so much. Some are born in poverty, with handicaps, with pain, with suffering. Some experience premature death, even innocent children. There are the brutal, unforgiving forces of nature and the brutality of man to man. We have seen a lot of that recently.

“Do not suppose that God willfully causes that which, for His own purposes, he permits. When you know the plan and the purpose of it all, even these things will manifest a loving Father in Heaven” (Boyd K. Packer, The Play and the Plan [satellite broadcast, 7 May 1995], 1–2).

This life is not all! There are so many inequalities in this life, but, because of the Atonement, they will be worked out after this life. God is both just and merciful, and that will be perfectly manifested.

1) "The family is ordained of God." (The Family: A Proclamation to the World).

There simply isn't another answer. Children need to be raised in families. Any institution or substitute, no matter how good or how bad, can not come close to comparing. Never take your family for granted! It is such a gift.

Well, there you have it! Thank you all so much for your love and support. I could not have had this experience without each of you and the things I've learned from interacting with you throughout my life. I look forward to seeing many of you soon!

Love,

Sara Collet

Hello family!!!

How are you all doing? I hope moving is going well, Matt. Chad and Kellie, what have you been up to of late? Adam and Ashley, how are you? Mom, Dad, Erin, I just talked to you! Hooray!

Here's a bit of an update of life aici în România. This week was interesting-- there are so many ups and downs, but I think that the downs make the ups sweeter, and there is a lot to be learned from both. Sometimes it's just so hard to think about the struggles that these children go through, especially because I love them so much, and it just doesn't seem fair that such amazing children have such undesirable circumstances. When I forget to have an eternal perspective, there seems like a lot of reason for despair, and sometimes it seems like there's no hope. But I know that angels watch over the children that I work with, and though this life is not fair, I know that in the eternities, everything will be fair, through the Atonement.

On a bit of a lighter note, we visited the countryside last weekend in NW Romania, and it was SO beautiful! It was just one of those experiences that rekindled my love for life. It was so refreshing just to look around at the absolutely beautiful scenery, and the group of girls I went with was SO fun. We stayed in a traditional-style house in a small village, and it was just so quaint and beautiful in its simplicity. I will gladly share more of my pictures when I return home, but for the time being I'm just going to attach some of them to give you a taste for the beauty of the countryside and the fun that I had with my friends there.

Vă iubesc foarte mulţ!
Sara

P.S. Matt, I wish you could have been there to really capture the beauty of the countryside! These pictures just don't quite show how absolutely beautiful it was.

P.P.S. Explanation for pot tree-- there are three meanings: 1) it's tradition (not so deep here) 2) it means that there's a daughter living in the home who is ready to get married (because she has lots of pots!) 3) it just make sense (of course!) When you have too much stuff inside, you put it outside and hang it on a tree.