How Could I Serve the Lord When My Family Needed Me?

By Milo Logo-Vaelua

I had to learn how to trust in the Lord, not in the world.

a young woman with a flower in her hair looking thoughtful

In American Samoa, one part of our culture is the expectation that children will help support their parents when they get older. Since I’m the oldest child, I wanted to serve my parents as much as I could.

So when I felt prompted to serve a mission, I immediately thought it wasn’t a possibility.

How could I serve the Lord when I wanted to respect my culture and support my family financially?

Caught between Two Good Choices

I could feel the Spirit guiding me to serve a mission, but nothing added up in my mind. I prayed to ask Heavenly Father how He expected me to serve when it would require me to leave my family and withdraw my financial support.

But I wasn’t getting any direction and felt so frustrated.

Then I remembered a teaching from Elder Robert D. Hales (1932–2017) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He said: “If you have not heard [the Spirit’s] voice speaking to you lately, return with new eyes and new ears to the scriptures. They are our spiritual lifeline.”

I realized that I had been studying my scriptures and saying my prayers with doubt, fear, and uncertainty in my mind. If I wanted an answer, I needed to pray and study with faith in Heavenly Father.

Revelation for Me

With this new perspective of faith instead of fear, I opened to Doctrine and Covenants 31, which contains the revelation Thomas B. Marsh received when he was called on a mission. The Lord comforts him, reassuring him that his family will be OK while he’s gone (see Doctrine and Covenants 31:5).

I was stunned at how similar his situation was to mine. And I felt comfort when I read the Lord’s loving promises to Thomas:

“I will bless you and your family” (verse 2).
“It shall be given you by the Comforter what you shall do and whither you shall go” (verse 11).
“Be faithful unto the end, and lo, I am with you. These words are not of man nor of men, but of me, even Jesus Christ, your Redeemer, by the will of the Father” (verse 13).

I felt like the Lord was speaking directly to me.

I knew that if I trusted Him, my family and I would be blessed too. So, with support from my family, I submitted my mission papers and was called to serve a mission in California, USA.

The Choice to Trust God

Trusting Heavenly Father over the ideas of the world is a choice we make every day.

Elder Paul B. Pieper of the Seventy recently taught: “When our own knowledge and understanding are inadequate, we naturally look for resources to help us. In an information-saturated world, there is no shortage of sources promoting their solutions to our challenges. However, … Proverbs provides the best advice: ‘Trust in the Lord with all thine heart’ [Proverbs 3:5]. We show our trust in God by turning to Him first when confronted with life’s challenges.”

It’s so easy to be afraid in this world filled with so many challenges. I’m guilty of letting my fears eat away at my faith and letting my worries over worldly things consume me. But after this experience, I know that we can always trust in Heavenly Father’s promises.

My family has been thriving since I started serving, and I’m so grateful for that. The blessings I’ve received outweigh my worries.

If we continue to pray, search our scriptures, keep our covenants, and follow the Savior with faith instead of doubt, we will see that we have every reason to trust in Him and Heavenly Father over the world.