From Sickness to Health and Beyond

While recovering from neck cancer surgery, chemo and radiation therapies in Honolulu, HI, I was cared for nearly 24/7 by my friend Tara who was a nurse and Church member. She arranged for my first ever blessing for the sick and afflicted, invited me to church, and arranged for me to take the discussions. She drove me to and from my medical appointments and essentially loved me unconditionally into becoming a church member. 

Eight months after my surgery I was baptized on June 6, 2006. I had already been visiting the Laie Temple Visitor Center every Saturday for six months because I enjoyed feeling the spirit there, especially after watching the movie Joseph Smith--The Prophet of the Restoration, on a weekly basis. A year after my baptism I received my endowment and was sealed to my wife Lori in the Mesa Arizona Temple. 

Eight months later we moved to Chula Vista, CA to accept church employment and the blessings of serving as San Diego Temple ordinance workers, on the high council, and now in the YSA Bishopric. The windows of heaven remain wide open to me and my wife because of our willingness to put first His kingdom. We are blessed beyond measure by His tender mercies and willingness to help us grow spiritually. We look forward to serving a mission together within the next two years wherever the Lord needs us.

Andy Carillo

Chula Vista YSA Ward

God Knows Us Better Than We Know Ourselves

Most of the time our Heavenly Father calls us to serve when we, ourselves, are in great need of something or are going through something that heavily taxes us. That was my experience when I was called to be a bishop. I was going through bankruptcy, I was losing my house and I was going through great financial difficulties, not to mention a supreme level of stress. To top it off, one of our daughters was going through one of those dark moments that youth have and was not making things any easier. Let me tell tell you that the calling at that moment made me feel a strong impression that our Lord was talking to me and saying, you have a testimony I want you to show me, and yourself, how strong it is and how you can put into practice what you have been learning all these years. I took the challenge after some struggle, and knowing that He had great blessings in store if I did that. I could feel that God was preparing me for a higher level in my spirituality. You have no idea how much we pleaded to heaven, in prayer, to be delivered from such chaos. 

Fast forward to today; I can see my life much more centered in Him. My daughter just married in the temple, one day ago, and even though I don't have the house back, my feelings for our Heavenly Father have never been so strong. I can testify you that God really looks after all of us, and is always there to lift us when we think we can not go an inch further. He really knows us. I know that by obeying his will, we receive magnificent blessings that we could not obtain otherwise. 

The gospel is simple but at the same time complex, repetitive (we hear the same messages all the time) but vibrant (when you really start feeling it and listening it, in truth it turns into a complete new experience every time, even if it's the same message), serene but lively; requires faith (something you can't touch or see but feel) but at the same it gives you a security that goes beyond the physical. It makes you feels that God is personal and a very close being that is across a very thin veil. It makes you feel so good all day.

Al Cordova
Otay River Ward