Sunday, October 29, 2023
Video
Transcript
Good afternoon brothers and sisters. My name is Alexia Faye Peterson but most of you call me Lexi. For the next year and a half, I’ll be going by Soeur Peterson as I serve as a missionary in the France, Paris Mission speaking French.
Why am I going to be spending these next 18 months as Sœur Peterson when there are so many other things Alexia Faye Peterson could be doing? First and foremost it is because I love my Savior. But along with that, it’s because of my heroes, the people I most love and want to emulate. I know serving a mission makes them happy, and I believe this is the best path to becoming more like them.
I’ve heard stories in a lot of Farewell talks describing how they’ve come to realize a mission was the right choice for them. For me, I never had a dramatic moment where I went from being completely against to completely for serving a mission. But I do have a moment I’d like to share with you today which actually happened when I was over halfway done with filling out my mission papers. For context, during my senior year of high school I took the Mahas’ mission prep class every Sunday evening, and that sparked a desire in my heart to start thinking about a mission. As time went on I had prayed about if I should serve a mission, but I hadn’t received any concrete answer. At this point, I was going forward with faith because I did want to serve a mission, so I was filling out my papers without hesitation, but also without any real conviction that a mission was the absolute right choice for me. So, this isn’t really going to be the story of how I decided I was going to serve a mission, it’s more the story of how I decided I wasn’t not going to serve a mission.
But first, let me tell you a little bit about my name.
Anyone who has spent a decent amount of time with me knows this: I love my name, specifically my full name: Alexia Faye Peterson. I love how it sounds, I love that it’s my name, I love writing it in cursive, but it’s also important to me because of my namesake: my Great-Grandmother Faye.
Faye Josephine Spilsbury Eccles aka “Mama Faye” is one of my greatest heroes. Sharp, caring, and full of life, she made an effort to bring our whole family close together. She made each one of her 73 descendants and their 22 spouses know we were each loved by and uniquely important to her. One of the best compliments I’ve ever received is when I was telling my friend about her and she said that she sounded just like me.
Mama Faye passed away this past April from health complications. She stayed sharp and kind and full of life until her very last breath. Life doesn’t feel as full without her presence.
Before Mama Faye died, my aunt Sylvia told her that I was planning on serving a mission. From what I’ve been told, this news made her absolutely elated. Life circumstances prevented Mama Faye from serving a mission of her own, so to know that now a Faye, her legacy, would be able to serve the Lord on a mission filled her up with so much joy.
At first, the importance of this confused me. Yes, I do share a name with my Mama Faye, but I’ll be going by Soeur Peterson on my mission. Even if I thought it was a little trite, knowing how much it meant to Mama Faye that I would be serving others and sharing the gospel was the moment that finally gave me that conviction, the surety that a mission was the best way I could be spending the next year and a half of my life, and simultaneously honoring her.
As I’ve thought about it more—how happy my choice to serve made Mama Faye—I’ve come to also recognize how happy it must make my greatest hero—the Savior—that I am choosing to serve a mission. If it was so important to my great-grandmother that someone who has her name as a middle name is serving a mission, how important will my service be to Jesus Christ, whose name I’ll be wearing over my heart at my every waking moment?
I’m proud, excited, and honestly a little nervous to be trusted to act as a representative of Christ and His church for these next 18 months. I love my Savior, I’m eternally thankful for all that He has given to me and all that He has done for me. It brings me immense joy to think of the people I’ll be able to help by showing them what their life can be like when they follow the example of Jesus Christ.
When we are baptized, one of the promises we make is that we are “willing to take upon us the name of Christ.” We renew this important promise every week when we take the sacrament. What does it mean to take upon the name of Christ? Yes, it’s quite literal when you’re wearing a name tag with Christ’s name on it as a missionary, but in the context of baptism, it means joining His church, it means serving others, loving others the way that He loves them, it means sharing your beliefs in Christ.
Elder Robert C. Gay of the Presidency of the Seventy provides other ideas I love of what it means to take upon us the name of Christ. He says we need to, “Faithfully strive to see as God sees… Do His work and serve as he served… live the two great commandments [love God and love your neighbor,] submit to God’s will, gather Israel, let our light shine before men, and finally, we must trust that His grace is sufficient.”
For me, taking upon the name of Christ is also like me having my great-grandmother’s name. I admire, respect and love her, so having her name makes me want to be like her, and I also want her to be proud of me and how I continue her legacy. It’s like what the prophet George Albert Smith taught: “Honor the names that you bear, because someday you will have the privilege and the obligation of reporting…to your Father in Heaven…what you have done with those [names].” I hope I’ll be able to report that I bore those names well.
In the Book of Mormon, Helaman’s sons, Lehi and Nephi, recalled the words their father told them about their names. Helaman told them, “I have given unto you the names of our first parents,” (or I could say my parents gave me the name of my great-grandmother) “that when you remember your names ye may remember them, and when ye remember them ye may remember their works; and when ye remember their works ye may know how that it is said…that they were good.” Whenever I remember my great-grandmother I remember her works were good, and I have such a desire to honor her legacy.
And just as Jesus Christ asks us to take upon us his name after we are baptized and always remember him, he has done the same for us. Jesus Christ said, “For can a woman forget her…child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee,…behold I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands.” I will be wearing Christs’s name on my badge over my heart, but he wears all of our names on the palms of his hands, in the marks of the nails.
As I’ve said before, the great love I have for my Savior is my chief motivation for wanting to serve a mission. And wow, what a perfect place for me to serve, the France, Paris mission. People have asked me if I requested it and funnily enough, Paris was the only mission I had ever said I specifically wouldn’t want to serve in. The reason? It basically boils down to the fact that it was SO perfect I thought it was a bit cliché. Don’t worry, I’ve felt that it was the perfect call for me from the moment I read it. And apparently everyone else knew all along that it was the most perfect mission for me too.
Beyond my affinity of all things French, I also feel this is the perfect mission for me because it was where my Grand-père served. The first French word I ever learned was Grand-père, which means grandfather in French. My mom’s father, Ammon Richard Lund, served his mission in France, and it completely changed the trajectory of his life, and therefore my mom’s life. During his career in the Air Force, my grandfather was chosen to move back to France to serve as an exchange officer with the French Air Force because he was already fluent in French from his mission. My mom’s family went to live in Strasbourg, France for 3 years, where my grand-père served as a bishop. I never got the chance to truly know my Grand-père—he developed Alzeichmers when I was young—but from what I hear about him, anything I could do to become more like him is something worth doing. Strasbourg, the city where Grand-père served as a bishop, is actually within the boundaries of my mission. There are even people from that ward and area watching this meeting on zoom today. Salut!
And speaking of my mission boundaries, though it is called the France, Paris Mission, the mission actually encompasses the top half of France, the bottom half of Belgium, and all of Luxembourg, so I really could spend my time anywhere in those 3 countries over the next 18 months. I think it would be so cool to be able to serve in Belgium or Luxembourg. Mama Faye’s father, who was a simple boy from Toquerville, Utah, served his mission in Belgium, and that too changed the trajectory of his life. After his mission, he ended up studying at the Sorbonne in Paris, and remained fluent in French for the rest of his life.
Now before I end, I want to thank those of you who are here. When it comes to heroes, you are all an inspiration to me. Thank you to my Young Women’s leaders, Sunday school teachers, and school teachers for your wisdom, insights, and support. Watching from Durban South Africa, thank you to my Grandma Leslie and Papa Don for demonstrating to me the power of missionary work. They are currently serving their 7th Senior mission together. Thank you to my friends from the ward, from highschool, and from BYU for your jokes, your kindness, and your love.
In French, they don’t say “I’ll miss you,” they say “Vous me manquerez” which means “You will be missing FROM me.” That’s true for all of you. And though you will be missing from me, I know I will fill that void with the love of those I serve and grace of the Savior as I serve him with all my heart, might, mind and strength. Thank you for making it so hard to say goodbye, even when I’m going to France.
Au nom de Jésus-Christ—in the name of Jesus Christ—Amen.
