good life with brinley holt

Part of cultivating a good life is being willing to sacrifice the good and the better for the best.

In the course of your life, you will be presented with innumerable choices and opportunities. There will be many choices which will be easier to make because they will be choices between something that is good and something that is not (for example, robbing a bank or getting a job). However, a majority of the choices you will face will be far more complicated than that. As I’ve come to find in my own life, oftentimes you will be given two opportunities or choices which are both good, but which you cannot do at the same time. These choices are so difficult because you always have to sacrifice something good that you want for something better that you need, and it can be very hard to determine which is which.

My whole life, I have always had the goal to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Ever since I was a little girl, I knew that it was something I wanted to do. A few years ago, the leaders of the Church announced that girls would be able to serve missions as early as the age of 19 instead of the previous age of 21. This was such exciting news to me because it meant that I could serve two years earlier. I eagerly prepared myself to be worthy and ready to serve, doing everything in my power to be able to leave as early as I possibly could.

Another big lifelong goal of mine was to attend Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. This was pretty much the school of my dreams for as long as I could remember. I would be lying if I said that my desire to go had nothing to do with the influence of my parents (the most die-hard BYU fans you’ll ever meet). But over time their love for BYU became my love for BYU, and attending that school became one of my greatest wishes. On March 4, 2017, that wish came true, and I was admitted to BYU!! I was so unbelievably excited to start the following fall. I was so excited for all the experiences I was going to have and all of the friends I was going to meet.

Now I’m sure you’re wondering how these two things connect or why I’m seemingly just rambling on about my life. Well, wonder no longer. As part of my goal to serve an LDS mission, my plan was to attend school for a semester and then defer and go on my mission. In order to serve a mission, you have to fill out various forms and paperwork. Then you submit your mission papers and are assigned to a specific area. You are able to submit your papers as early as 4 months before your availability date to serve, which meant that I could turn mine in as soon as September 11.

As soon as I got to school, I spoke with my bishop and obtained access to my papers. I filled them out and submitted them within a few weeks and then anxiously awaited my call. About two weeks later, I received my mission call! I had been assigned to serve in the Papeete Tahiti mission speaking French! This was literally the most perfect mission call I could have possibly gotten, and I was beyond excited to serve. I was assigned to leave the end of February.

I opened my mission call the first week of October, so I still had a few months left in the semester. In those few months, I had the actual best time of my entire life. This was mostly thanks to the people I was able to meet. I made some of the best friends I had ever made in my life, and I instantly loved all of them so much. We had so much fun and spent every day together. I loved my roommates more than life itself, and we all meshed and connected so well. They really became my family.

As the semester was coming to a close, I was hit with the realization that I would be leaving these amazing people for at least two years. This was absolutely devastating to me. How could I leave these people for whom I have such an overwhelming love? How could I live without them for two years? What made it even worse was the fact that they were all planning on serving missions as well, but they would be leaving after the next semester, which meant that they would all be at school together and I would be at home waiting to leave on my mission. I could hardly bear the thought.

At this time, I had to really turn everything I had over to God and rely on Him for comfort. I needed absolute confirmation that this is what He needed me to do. I needed to know for sure (again) that I was supposed to serve a mission and that I was supposed to serve it now. As I prayed and prayed, God told me that yes, this was indeed what I needed to be doing. This is where He needed me and this is what I needed to be doing so that He could do the most good possible through me. Yes, I loved all the people I had met in college, but I was going to Tahiti, where there would be so many more people to love and serve. And I know that the friends that I had made at school are lifelong friends, so our goodbyes at the end of the semester were not final.

It can be so extremely difficult to sacrifice good things for things that are better. It is so hard to leave things that you love. You may not always be able to see the bigger picture, but I promise you that it’s there. God has a plan and He knows where He needs you. If you are ever lost or don’t know what the “best” is that you should be choosing, ask God. He will tell you. For me in this situation, the “best” was serving a mission. For others, it could very well be something different.

As we are willing to sacrifice the good and the better for the best, and as we place God first in our lives, we will be able to experience overwhelming joy and countless blessings. God knows the desires of our hearts, but He also knows our infinite potential, and sometimes the desires of our hearts can hold us back from becoming everything He needs us to be. So trust Him. He will lead you where you need to go, and He will help you become all that you can be.

God is good.

a note from becky

Oh Brinley. She is wise beyond her years, right?? Brinley Holt is the 19 year-old daughter of Kari, who is our product manager here at BH. You might have caught on to the fact that around here, we're all family to each other. So my employee's kids? They feel like nieces and nephews in a way. I don't know how else to explain it, but I truly love my friends' kids ... and I personally find Brinley to be one of the most impressive young women ever. She is sharp. Smart as a whip. Driven. Independent. Soooo fun (you should meet her parents!). And here's my favorite part about her: she exudes LIGHT. Like, truly. Meet her in person one time and you'd know what I mean. She glows because of her love of God, her gratitude for her life, and the choices she makes. We're so proud of her decision to serve a mission and know she's going to have the time of her life in Tahiti as she serves those beautiful people.