May 15, 2016

15 May 2015

Hey Stevie!

This week I had a cool experience about feeling the spirit.  Yesterday was the saturday session of stake conference.  And my friends wanted to do something that night too.  But I remembered back on my experience that I had in the mission when my mission president talked in a Saturday night session of stake conference and he told us that he loves stake conference, and he loves the spirit he feels in them.  It is a special spirit.  He talked about how when he was a new convert (with his wife and little kids) he decided to invite his nonmember parents to go to stake conference because he was singing in it . . . he really didn’t sing but his smart ward saw a new convert that needed an assignation . . . so he was part of the stake choir. His parents came to see him sing, and they felt the spirit so strong during the sessions of stake conference, they decided to hear the missionaries, and shortly after they were baptized. 

Ever since that day i stopped being one of those people who saw stake conference as just another Sunday.  I saw it as a great opportunity to receive revelation.   So I told my friends to come over at 9 o clock till midnight.  I would get home at 9.   And I headed off to stake conference.

I walked in, there was already someone at the microphone so I sat down fast.  Then the man at the microphone started sining.  He sand a Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief.  It was a duet, and much of it was sung accapella.  I felt my Saviors love strongly.  I knew that he loved me.  Then a young women got up and spoke about getting to the end of the race with your torch still lit.  She talked about a moment in her life when her tries to get pregnant through in vitro fertilization failed, and 2 weeks later her brother died.  She talked about how her faith grew everyday as she battled with feelings of grief and pain.  They tried in vitro again, and it failed again, so they turned to adoption and less than 9 months after their first attempt at in vitro as she said “I had my little baby son in my arms.”  I learned so much about how much God loves us, how faith is something that comes one day at a time.  And I thought . . on the mission, it is so easy to build your faith, but after, well, it still is easy, but you gotta think about it a little more, plan it in.   And give the Lord opportunities to help you act on the promptings you have given him.  

Then Cecil O Samuelson and his wife (they were the presidents of BYU but now they are the temple president and matron of the SLC temple) talked.  I love that man because he was the president of BYU during my freshman year, and also because he is a doctor.  I just have something for the general authorities that were doctors . . . anyway, they talked about the importance of going to the temple.  And I realized something . . . when you have a prompting you have to do it right then, or put it in your schedule for the next time when you are not busy.  Or you will forget.  You can receive great promptings of the spirit but if you put them off and then forget about them, you will stop receiving them.  And then I thought of something really interesting.  What if your scheduled out an hour after church and call it prompting time.  And in church you seek revelation as to what you can do for that hour of time.  I think you could really get some cool promptings.   Maybe you would think to read a conference talk that the speaker mentioned, maybe you would think to call or visit a friend, maybe you would actually go through and read the whole chapter of the RS lesson like the teachers of Sunday School and Relief Society always invite their classes to do.   Its kind of a new idea.  I will tell it how it goes next week.  But it works in a lot of situations.  When you go to the temple, you can do it too.  When I get home, I have an hour to do what the Lord needs.  So Lord, what do you need?  I feel like you’d always get a good answer.

My attempts at missionary work were not the best this week, but that is what repentance is for!  I texted this indian family one time that my grandpa brought to my farewell, but I need to be more consistent at reaching out to them.  But my grandpa told me that they loved going to church and felt very good there last week so I just know that they are ready to accept the gospel.  All four of them!!

But I love you so much!  You’re doing great!  Just use the atonement and feel the joy of Christ flowing into your life! (like alma 31.  That still is just the best end of the chapter in the whole book of mormon!!)

Love,

Liza