Kinder Surprise

Dear readers

Do you like surprises? I love surprises. Particularly Kinder Surprises. $2.20 is perhaps not worth the amount of hollow chocolate that we buy for in Kinder Surprises, but the real value is what's inside. 

The best surprise I ever had was on Valentines Day 2017, when Lawrence came all the way up from Adelaide to where I lived in Sydney and surprised me at the door. My mum had me get the door pretending it was the mailman. I was so happy to see Lawrence, who also came with his parents, that I screamed NO in disbelief. There is footage of this buried somewhere...

One day, but not today or any time soon, I should like to surprise you all with news that I’m expecting. I can’t wait to lie to your faces and then tell you the truth on social media. Mwahaha.

For every surprise that I’ve had in life, big or small, I’ve found that the Lord prepares me for it. He surprised me by calling me to the land of my parents birth for my mission. He surprised me when Lawrence proposed to me. He surprised me when I was first expecting, and then again when I tragically lost my baby...

I promise you that for each of these instances, the Lord prepared me for it.

With my new calling as primary president I am being surprised a lot. I think it doesn’t matter how much I prepare, how many meetings I have, how much paper I print, something always happens to keep me on my toes. Such as absent teachers. And 9 year olds who can't read. Little children who don't know where their classroom is. And runners. Who wants to run away from primary class? Apparently five year old so and so. Why though? Can I run away from primary, too? Lol, just kidding. Promise, I’m joking. 

But even when unexpected things happen, and they always do in life, the spirit prepares me for it.

When I lost my baby, it was sad. It was so sad. But I had my family, I had my mum. I really needed my mum at the time that I lost my baby.

I'd like to think that perhaps this incident was one of the many reasons Lawrence felt so inspired to take me back to Sydney after almost one year living in the Adelaide Hills. The Lord knew that I would need my Mum, need the quick access to emergency surgery, need to be with my family.

The Lord also prepared me spiritually. It sounds awful to say and I don’t want anyone to think that this necessarily applies to them, but I know now that the Lord knew that I was strong enough to go through with it.

Unfinished drawing I started whilst recovering the second laparoscopy.

My after-surgery pains were so bad that they moved me to another ward so I could scream there and hopefully be more comfortable. Lol. I didn’t feel strong, I just wanted the pain to go away, I asked for  priesthood blessings, I asked for my mum to pray. When that didn’t work, I asked for Lawrence to pray. I just wanted it to all stop. And not even Lawrence praying and asking God to relieve me of the pain worked. That's when I knew that I had to pray.

I’ve been told that I have a gift in praying. It’s strange to think that praying is a skill of some kind, but my mission president said that he loved to hear me pray. And when I knelt down by my hospital bed, the Spirit whispered to me to say my prayer out loud. 

It’s a gift perhaps that saved me that day. Not because I prayed for the pain to go away, but because I listened to the Spirit to know what God wanted of me. And then I prayed for the strength and courage (mainly courage) to withstand how much hurt I was feeling...For the atonement of Jesus Christ to lend me courage that I knew I didn’t have. And He granted. He gave me willpower. And I calmed down. And when I lost my baby for a second time, I wasn’t afraid of after surgery pains. I knew that I could go through it again. Thankfully though, I didn’t have any pains the second time. (Shoulder tip pains are supposedly reduced post-surgery if you move more and walk around. So I made the extra effort to do that the second time round.)

200 years ago, a young man named Joseph Smith felt inspired to pray and ask God which religion he should join. 1820s America was a time of religious freedoms and religious excitement. Perhaps confusing for a young man with a sincere desire to join the church that best represented the original gospel, particularly since all churches have different teachings and different point of doctrines on many things. Isn’t it amazing how the Lord prepared the world to accept His restored gospel? Joseph Smith went into the woods to pray, his first ever outspoken prayer, to ask God which church he should join, when God the Father Himself and His son Jesus Christ came down to answer his question. 

Dear readers, prayers work. I know this is true. But not in the way most people believe. If we pray for world peace, it won't happen tomorrow. And it won't happen at all unless we work towards it. And even then, we could pray for what we believe is the most needed, most holy and worthy thing in the world, but it won't happen until God wills it - and even when it is confirmed that He does want things for us, it will happen in His time, not ours. So every time life throws me a surprise, and there are a lot, I will embrace it, I will look for its value, and I will try not to fall a part.

Written with love,

Eliza Mckellar