About 2 years ago the idea came to me to do a solo
skydive. I had done 3 tandem skydive jumps over the years but this time I felt
to do a solo skydive. It seemed like a craaazy idea but it was also exciting
and I felt good about it. So, I started to look into it. I realized that I
definitely did not have the money nor the time to do all the 7 levels of
certification that are required. But I could do the Level 1 jump which entails
you jumping out of the plane with a coach on either side of you and you deploy
your own parachute and you land the parachute by yourself. I felt good about
that and so I started to train for it.
I went and did some practice indoor skydiving. They
emphasize you keeping an arched form with your body so that you maintain your
stability. It turns out I do not arch very well and I was all over the place in
that facility. After a couple of hours of that I drove home and I thought to
myself, “Wow! That was a lot harder than it looks. And that was indoors.” But I
still felt good about it so I kept moving forward.
I went to ground school where they teach you
everything that you need to know for your first jump including many different
scenarios of everything that could potentially go wrong with your parachute!
That was super scary to me but I remembered that I had felt good about it so I
kept moving forward.
About a week later I showed up to do my last practice
tandem jump before doing my Level 1 jump. I had done 3 other tandem jumps
before this but as we ascended to the 13,500 feet that we were going to jump
from I got so scared. I thought to myself, “Heidi, are you sure this is a good
idea? You don’t have to do this.” But we jumped and we landed and the coaches
were super encouraging and I remembered that I had felt good about it so I kept
moving forward.
We had about an hour until my Level 1 jump and my
coach, Jeremy, came over and we reviewed everything that I had learned in
ground school. Then Lindsey came over, the other coach I would be jumping with,
and we reviewed a little bit more and then it was time for us to do the Level 1
jump. As we started walking toward the plane I had this feeling of subtle calm
and I felt like, “It’s going to be okay, Heidi.” Very subtle. And we got in the
plane.
As we started to ascend to the 13,500 feet that we
would jump from Lindsey and Jeremy had me talk through every step of the jump
with them. Then they had me close my eyes and mentally walk through every part
of the jump and I remembered everything that I was supposed to. Then we hit
10,000 feet and fear just PIERCED me. I was so scared! At this point Lindsey
and Jeremy were having me do deep breathing exercises, “Breath in, breath out.”
And I was like, “This is way beyond deep breathing exercises!” I was TERRIFIED.
But I had felt good about this, right? So I moved forward. We hit 13,500 feet
and Lindsey stepped just outside the plane and grabbed on to my left side. I
moved into the door of the plane and Jeremy grabbed on to the right side of me
and we stepped up and we stepped out and we JUMPED OUT OF THE PLANE!! And I
remembered everything that you’re supposed to do when you first get out of the
plane! And we hit some turbulence but then we hit 5,500 feet and I deployed my
parachute. Jeremy let go and flew off to one side, Lindsey let go and flew off
to the other side. And I counted, “One one thousand, two one thousand, three
one thousand, four one thousand” and I looked up and my parachute was out
exactly as it should be and it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in
my life!
I steered the parachute to the landing area and then I
landed it and Jeremy was waiting there and ran over to me, gave me a big hug
and told me “good job.” And it was awesome! It was wonderful.
In life we receive promptings and sometimes they don’t
make sense to us or seem hard or even impossible to us. But when we feel the
fruits of the Spirit-love, joy, goodness, peace and faith (Galatians 5:22)-we
can be assured that those promptings come from God. And we can always trust
promptings from God. God is all powerful, all knowing-“all things are present”
with Him (Moses 1:6) and He loves us. President Uchtdorf has said, “Think of
the purest, most all-consuming love you can imagine. Now multiply that love by
an infinite amount-that is the measure of God’s love for you” (General
Conference October 2009).
Knowing these things we can move forward in faith and
act on the spiritual promptings we receive from God. But sometimes our faith to
act on those spiritual promptings will be tested. We will come up against
opposition or we will feel fearful. We will worry because we didn’t arch very
well during indoor skydiving or we got scared during ground school. But if we
will remember how we felt when we received that prompting and we will move
forward in faith and continue to act on that prompting from God, He will be
with us. He will strengthen us, His grace will enable us to accomplish what He
has prompted us to do and glorious blessings await us.
We see this in the example of Moses. Moses spoke to
God face to face! And God told Moses that Moses would deliver the children of Israel
from the Egyptians. Three times Moses expresses some doubt to the Lord about
how this will happen. He says, “Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh?”
(Exodus 3:11) The people “will not believe me” (Exodus 4:1) and “I am not
eloquent” (Exodus 4:10). Each time the Lord reassures Moses and even gives him
tools to overcome the things he is worried about. So Moses moves forward in
faith. He goes back to Egypt and goes to Pharaoh and asks him to let the
Israelites go. And Pharaoh says no. And the Lord sends so many plagues to the
Egyptians. And Moses keeps asking and Pharaoh keeps saying no. What intense
opposition to the prompting that Moses had received from the Lord! But Moses
keeps at it and finally all of the firstborn of the Egyptians are slain and Pharaoh
says that the children of Israel can go.
As the children of Israel leave Egypt they come up
against the Red Sea only to look back and see that the Egyptians are pursuing
them. They are now caught between the Red Sea and the Egyptians and the scriptures
tell us that they were “sore afraid” (Exodus 14: 10). They turn to Moses and
say, “it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die
in the wilderness” (Exodus 14:12). The children of Israel want to go back and
they do not want to continue to move forward in faith. Elder Holland commented
on this. He said, “Some days we will be miraculously led out of Egypt-seemingly
free, seemingly on our way-only to come to yet another confrontation, like all
that water lying before us. At those times we must resist the temptation to
panic and to give up. At those times fear will be the strongest of the
adversary’s weapons against us” (Cast Not Away Therefore Your Confidence, BYU
Speeches, March 1999).
As the children of Israel express fear and doubt to
Moses, he turns to them and he says to them, “Fear ye not, stand still, and see
the salvation of the Lord, which he will shew to you to day; for the Egyptians
whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever. The Lord
shall fight for you,” (Exodus 14:13-14). It would not have been better for them
to go back or to give in to their fear.
The Lord places a pillar between the Egyptians and the
Israelites and then Moses stretches forth his hand over the sea and the Lord
parts the Red Sea and the children of Israel enter “into the midst of the sea
upon dry ground” (Exodus 14:22). And
they are delivered.
God is all powerful, all knowing and He loves us. He
will prepare the way and provide the means for us to accomplish what He prompts
us to do. Nothing is too hard for the Lord (Genesis 18:14).
Shortly after I did that Level 1 skydiving jump I was
looking for a new job. I came across a position in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I
thought, “Who moves to Minneapolis?” I’d never thought twice about Minnesota in
my life! But the idea stuck with me and I felt good about it so I moved
forward. I set a goal for when I would give my two weeks notice to my job. The
day I had set to give my notice I received a job offer in Minneapolis. I didn’t
know a single person in Minnesota. But when I had mentioned to my family that I
was thinking to move there my sister said she had a friend, Rachel, who was
going to grad school there. We connected and were roommates along with Shaina
from South Carolina and Nadia from Jamaica who was in Minnesota doing a year-long
internship. I loved my job in Minnesota-it was perfectly suited for me at that
time. And I loved my roommates. What are the odds that a girl from southern
California, a girl from South Carolina, a girl from Utah and a girl from
Jamaica end up living together in Minneapolis, Minnesota? It was not chance. My
roommates were perfectly suited for me at that time and we had a blast
exploring Minnesota for the first time together. The Lord prepares the way and
provides the means for us to accomplish what He prompts us to do.
We have a Savior, who is the Son of God. He is “full
of grace and truth” (Moses 1:6). His promptings to us are true, even when they
do not make sense to us or seems hard or impossible to us, He cannot lie (Ether
3:12). He is full of grace and when we come unto Him His grace is sufficient
(Moroni 10:32) to enable us to act on the promptings we receive, whatever they
may be, and to keep acting on them even when we are fearful or come up against
opposition. “The way is prepared (Alma 37:46)” and He will provide the means and
with Him we can keep moving forward until we reach the promised land.
I know these things are true. I know that God and
Jesus Christ live. In the name of Jesus
Christ, amen.