Dismiss my love

My little brother and I have talked many times about judgement day! The thought of Heavenly Father asking us things is the reason we have or have not done or said things in our lives. 

I often people watch. I enjoy watching people. But I become so sad sometimes when I do most of the time.
I'm a big time talker! And it's the same; when people tell me something, I just get so sad and I think of Heavenly Father and what will He say when the time comes? 

"I blessed you with wealth, why did you live as if you had nothing and just ate beans and bread?"
"I blessed you with a job, why did you quit?"
"I blessed you with a good and healthy body, why did you misuse it?"
"I blessed you with knowledge, why did you teach?"
"I blessed you with land, why did you not till it?""I blessed you with your musically ability, why did you waste it?"
"I blessed you with meat, why did you not eat it?""I blessed you with a home, why did you destroy it?"
"I blessed you with technology, why did you not use it?"
"I blessed you good leaders, why did you not listen?""I blessed you with a kind heart, why were you cruel?"
"I blessed you with goodness, why did you sin?"
"I blessed you with a Temple, why did you not go?"
"I blessed you with the Priesthood, why did you not magnify it?"
"I blessed you with the gospel, why did you deny it?""I gave you commandments so you knew I loved you, why did you dismiss my love?"
"I gave you the gospel so you knew I am here. Why did you dismiss me?"
"I gave you trials to make you strong and for you to find me. Why did you not look for me?"
"I have blessed you in your life, because I love you! I have given you the world because I love you! I have given you the atonement because I love you! I have given you truth and knowledge because I love you! I have given you commandments and rules and trails because I love you, my dear child! Why have you dismissed my love???"

Often when I think of Judgement Day and Heavenly Father, I often picture Him sad and crying. Why did we not listen? Everything good is from God. Everything not is from Satan. Why do people confuse   
the two? Why do people dismiss His love?
We as a human race always need/ want things proven to us to believe. What are we doing to prove to God that we love Him? What will He say to us when Judgement Day comes? Will He ask, "Why did you dismiss my love?"

"God Be With You Till We Meet Again!"

Temple work is a beautiful thing.

When I was a youth we would sing the hymns as we waited for our turn to do the baptisms for the dead. I always loved doing this. The spirit of God is always present at the Temple, but when you sing the hymns; His spirit is so much stronger than.

The Temple President always comes over and has a little talk. This one particular day when I was there, he gave an account that had happened only a few weeks prior to us being there. There was a youth group there singing the hymns and he was just going to pass by, but he stopped to listen to the beauty of the song. They were singing “God Be With You Till We Meet Again” As he looked over, behind the glass, and said it was as if he could see spirits of the people that the work was done for. The spirits were also singing the song, but they were singing it to the youth; and the youth, without knowing it, because they could not see, but they were singing the hymn back to those gone before. They were singing to each other. Tears entered his eyes at the beauty of God’s work and the beauty of God’s love.  He then went on to talk about how often in the scriptures does it talk about how in the latter years (which is now) that the hearts of the fathers turn to the children and the hearts of the children turn to the fathers. This talks about temple work and genealogy. As he spoke, goose bumps appeared all over my body. That usually happens though when I become emotional, and how could I not be? “God Be With You Till We Meet Again” was one of my favorite hymns, and now, it had a whole new meaning!

Words of Solace

Doctrine and Covenants 98:18

“Let now your heart be trouble: for in my Father’s house are many mansions, and I have prepared a place for you; and where my Father and I am, there ye shall be also.”

I love how we can open the scriptures at random and see a verse pop out and it touches are hearts because there, in the words of God that we need to hear.

“The path won’t be easy, but it’ll be worth it” how often have we hear this? Trails are always in front of us and when we thing we have reached rock bottom, we haven’t because another trail is placed before us that’s even worse. But “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”

Sometimes we forget that we are the God Almighty. We have black pages in from of us, when it’s God Almighty that knows the ending of our story. He draws a section at a time using different instruments because He sees the big picture in His head. Only He can know and draw the picture.

Our so very loving Heavenly Father gave us a plan. He gave us a map. He gave us a compass. He gave us a companion.

No matter our age, we always feel that we know best when in actuality, we know nothing.

We have trails for many reasons. I pray that is my rock bottom because I don’t think that I can handle anything worse at this moment in time.

“Let not your heart be trouble…where my Father and I am, there ye shall be also.” Our hearts don’t have to be trouble. We have God on our side. We just have to look at our eternal life and our goal of returning to our Father in Heaven, and knowing that with His help, we’ll get there. That should be comfort enough.

One Less Blood Stain

I have been thinking about Judgement Day. To stand before Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Christ died to save us, He died for our sins. Christ had blood drip from every single pore on His body. There are over 4 million pores on a body. Can you just imagine bleeding from every one? That would be really bloody. . . and painful and gross!

To think that every time we sin, a pore opened with blood gushing out. This is why we have repentance! Repentance stops the bleeding and closes the pore.

I like to think of myself as a good Christian, but I'm not perfect. Recently I have been reminded of certian things that happened in my past. I soon realised, that I have some pretty big blood stains on me. I need to seek forgiveness from some people, and there are others that I need to forgive myself. Forgiveness is not a strong point I have. It takes a lot for me to feel wronged or to be hurt by someone, so when you have, it's a deep cut, and they take a while to heal, if even at all! Some leave scars, and I have plenty of those!!

I have been on a hunt to find some of these people that I have wronged, some of the time, with out even knowing it at the time. But looking back, I can now see that I was wrong. Sometimes, it was on all of us, none of us were right in doing or saying what happened.

As I have been seeking forgiveness from these people, I keep thinking in my head, "one less blood stain. I want one less blood stain."

We need a Push

I want to tell you a story of Ashley.
I remember the first time I saw her. It was in the Singles Ward. She walked into Sacrament meeting wearing a classy grey dress and carried a black bag.
She walked tall, proud, she knew who she was and she wasn't going to let anyone tell her otherwise!
Despite these being good qualities, together, I felt then that she was snob! Always classy, and not really talking to anyone except for the other chick that I also felt was a snob. So she must be one, right?
My first impression of Ashley being a snob couldn't have been more wrong!
We were given our new Visiting Teaching Assignments. I was her Visiting Teacher. Well, at least she would smile at me at church, so she couldn't be too bad.
O my days!!!!!!!! As I taught her, I came to find, that she taught me so much more! She is older than I and had already been thru, what I was currently going thru, so instead of me visiting her, it was more of her visiting me!
I grew to love and adore her!
She wasn't a snob! She had a very kind heart and is the most optimistic person that I know. If you are upset, never will she say 'thats sucks' and move on. No, she is full of encouraging words that despite you wanting to, you smile. :)
She became a very dear friend of mine. Not only is she a friend, but she is my rescuer and a sister.
I had just broken up with my fiancé and where I was living, the contract was up and I could no longer afford it and I feared I would be homeless. I spoke with her about this and I asked if I could stay with her for a while. Thankfully it was not to be a problem! We were roommates for 7 months. We are both night owls and it felt so good to have someone to talk to every night when I came home from work. We would talk for hours.
Since moving away, I often think of those nights. I have no one to talk to at night anymore and I wish that we were still roommates.
She is happily married now tho and is 7 time zones away, so our chats are just emails.
But when I see I have an email from her, a smile forms and happiness fills me!
When we talk about Visiting Teacher at church, Ashley is the one that enters my mind. I have thanked God  so many times for allowing me to be her Visiting Teacher. Otherwise, I don't know if we would have become friends. And if it wasn't for Visiting Teaching, and us becoming friends, I wonder, out of all the times Ashley has come to my rescue, and many times, not even know it, if it wasn't for her, would I have been rescued at all?
She has often told me of how God has to push and shove us in the right direction, and a direction God has to push and shove because we ourselves would not have done so otherwise.
How grateful I am that God pushed me towards her!
I love her dearly and I am thankful to call her a friend! <3

"You forgot me"

I loved this talked!!!!
I thought about all the times that we feel as if God as turned his back towards us and have forgotten us.
I remember there was a time in my life where I felt completely lost and forgotten! Then in my thoughts, it was as if I was turning around and I saw God was standing there behind me and we looked at each other. I could see me asking Him "Where did you go? Did you forget me?" Sadness fills me as I can hear Him say quietly, softly, sadly, "You forget me..." As I realised, that it was I that had my back turned!
I recalled that as I heard President Uchtdorf speak. Whenever I have felt forgotten after that experience, I remember, God never leaves, turns His back, or forgets us. We are the ones that turn and forget Him.
Happiness filled me this time! As he said, 'Never forget, the Lord loves you'! That is all we really need, to never forget 'To be happy now"!!! =D
And that is what I intend to be!

Agony

I had fallen ill with an inflammation of the abdomen and when it attacked me, I fell on the ground. I had tears roll down my face and I wanted to scream, but no words or sounds could escape my lips. I could barely even move. I tried to grab my phone to call someone in my family. They were all downstairs eating dinner with the missionaries having a good laugh, not knowing the pain I was feeling. But I couldn’t, I didn’t know where my phone was! All I could do, was hold myself, and I was slightly rolling around on the floor, in what I would call agony!!!

If I was ever in much pain, I would never say it was agony. Agony was a word that I only heard in church, or when people would talk about Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. And I knew I didn’t feel that bad! But when I was rolling around on the floor, I had thought to myself, this is agony! This is just a slight bit of what Christ must have felt. . .

In Sunday School this one summer day, we were talking about Christ when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane; about the agony that He had felt. The first thing I think of when we talk about this now, is when I had the inflammation of the abdomen, rolling on the floor, unable to speak or move, trying to call out to those I loved that were dear, but it was no use, I had to suffer alone. The teacher asked us to really think about all the pain and sin we have felt and committed over the last couple of months. I personally, had had so much heartache the last couple of months, losing the one I loved more than anything that I ever had before!!!! Wanting to be with him again, but couldn’t. I had cried every day for the last 3 months prior to this lesson because we could never be together again. This heartache was too much for me to bear and I became listless. The teacher then told us to think of all this heartache and all of our sins, and combine all of the feelings and cramp it all in, in only 5 minutes. Could we do it? I could barely handle all this heartache everyday; to cramp all my heartache in just 5 minutes??? No, that I could not do. Then the teacher asked us to think about all the sin we committed the last year. Add all of that to the 5 minutes. Could we still handle it? I had thought I couldn’t handle the last 3 months! Let alone the past year! Then he told us to add all the sin and pain we have ever had in our lives! He gave us 5 more minutes, so we had to feel all of our sin and pain in our whole lives, in only 10 minutes. Could we do it? Now, I’m screaming NO! Next, we had to add on all the sin and pain of everyone in our families! Shoot! I have a big family! And I don’t know all of the sin and pain they have felt! With this, he added 5 more minute, so 15 minutes, all this pain, could we do it? No he said! We are only human, we would die. Now, think of Christ, he had to feel all of our sin and pain that we have felt, and WILL still feel! For all the billions and trillions and so many more than that, that have ever lived, and still need to live, not only on this Earth, but for all of the people in other worlds. He had to suffer all of that pain and heartache in only 3 hours!!!!!!

People were so angry with Christ! They had said that Christ was just a man, He was not a God. But to suffer as he did, of course he was God! He was son of God! He needed that earthly mother, to die, but he needed the heavenly father, to live again!!! He needed that power from Heavenly Father to be able to handle all the suffering in the most painful agony ever known in every world that is!!!!

I felt belittled. I had once felt that I knew somewhat of the pain Christ had felt in the Garden. Here, I knew nothing of!

O how grateful I am, that Christ was perfect and he could, and did, suffer for all of my sins and for all of the sins for everyone! He had to be perfect, otherwise, who would atone for His sins? No one could, we are not begotten of Heavenly Father. It had to be Christ! He said that he didn’t want to do it, “Father, remove this cup from me”, no wonder he didn’t want to! But this is how much Christ loves all of us, he did it anyways. O how we are in His debt!!!! Thank you Christ, for allowing me to live and return to Heavenly Father, thank you master!

Teaching!

So 2 weeks ago, I had the lovely opportunity to teach the YW in my ward!

The lesson was about service in the church.

This I was trying to think of a fun way that I can help teach this concept. But, this is also a serious concept and that is something that I feel a lot of people brush off, but shouldn’t. I’m sure that Christ gets tired; this is why He has us!

I taught the girls that you either serve God or Satan. Therefore, if you do not serve God, you are actually serving Satan. By doing nothing and/ or not serving anyone, you are serving Satan. This concept is actually what I had learned from teaching the lesson!

I was very grateful that I taught. It was a good experience!

It ended fun too! I decided (thank you Kelsey for the idea) to heart attack Bishops door! Ah! But he was not there, so we got to do his whole office!!! A good end to a good lesson!

Thank you girls for supporting me and helping it become easier to teach you!

Ten Cow Wife

Something I love about LDS culture is heart attacks!

After I had broken up with my fiancé of three years and only six weeks before the wedding, I was in a very low and depressed state. It didn’t help that my brother who is my best friend was leaving for marine boot camp at a time I really needed him. In this awful state I was in, I was heart attacked! That definitely made me feel better. On this one particular heart it said that I was a “10 cow wife”! That heart made me laugh and smile! I even hung it up on my wall so I was always to remember.

I, oneheckofalaugh-that’sme, am a 10 cow wife!

Thank you to whomever it was that heart attacked #4’s door!!! =D

To wipe away tears ='[

In Sunday School, I learned something so fascinating! We were talking about how Christ will wipe our tears and how intimate that is. I have never thought of wiping tears an intimate thing! Most of us in class were taken back by this. But then she said, how many people have wiped your tears from your eyes? How many people have you wiped their tears? Sure we all give hugs and kisses and hand a kleenex to, but the act of wiping them, how many people?
This took time for me to think! To wipe my tears, I could only think of 2, out of the many many people that have seen me cry. And how many have I wiped? I couldn't think of a single person I've wiped their tears! I'm the one to give you hugs and hold you or just hand you the tissue.
Not much time passed in class where we all agreed, the act of wiping someones tears from their eyes, is very intimate. This is something that you only do with someone that you love very very dearly.
He is our big brother and He loves us so much that we was willing to be hated, beaten, and crucified so we can live! ! ! That is deep love! He died to wipe our tears, both physically and metaphorically.
Now it's our turn to wipe someones tears.

A Fathers Love

Fathers Day, 2006.

Of course the focus in sacrement meeting was about fathers! I have always had a hard time with this topic because I have never had a father. I have the greatest mother I could ask for, but no father and it always bugged me my whole life! I so despretely wanted one!!!

I couldn't take it. I had to leave the meeting. I went into the kitchen and cried. Next I said a prayer, telling Heavenly Father that this was a hard day for me. I wanted a father that loved me and do things with me. Then the most amazing thing happened. I felt the love of my Father in Heaven!!! The spirit told me I have a Father and He will never leave me! I felt God's love for me! No, I did not have an earthly father, but I have a Heavenly Father!!! I do have a Father that loves me! This is one of the best days of my life! What I always wanted, I always had, I was just looking at it with the wrong eyes. Since this Fathers Day, I have thanked Heavenly Father every Fathers Day (and many other times as well) thanking Him for being my father. He is the only Father I know! And that is ok by me!

My Beginning

I was brought up in the church and I always enjoyed going!

But at the age of 14 I began to doubt the church. Everything seems so bizarre and crazy and I was not sure if I believed it or not.

In my mothers house though, there was no choice; you went to church, seminary, activites, conferences, no buts! So even though I had stopped believing in the gospel, I was still forced to go. My mother and my family were very strong members and I didn't tell anyone in my family I was doubting what I've been taught my whole life, I just went with it. Because I had seen my family's testimony and strength, it was time for me to get my own testimony and no longer rely on my mother. So I did what we have always been taught, you read your scriptures and you pray! This is what I did. Almost 2 years had past and I still struggled. It was as if I knew, but I didnt believe. I couldn't figure it out.

Summer 2004, EFY camp! "Stand in the Light" was the theme. Here is where it started for me! I was almost 16 so they let me be in the 16-17 range instead of the 14-15 range. For this I am very grateful! I loved my group! Our name was 'Fruitful Seasons'! Most of the people in my group already had their testimonies and it is partly because of them that I have one.

Here at EFY, you felt the spirit. Because I had been baptized, I had recieved the gift of the Holy Ghost and had felt it before and I recongnized it although it had been some time since I last felt it. The whole week, right from registration, during meals times, game night, classes, right till the end you felt it. You could almost see a bubble around the campus that we were at. It was game night. I felt the spirit so strongly, at game night! We were playing silly games and doing obstacle courses! Finally it hit me, there had to be something to this church! I paid extra close attention during classes the next few days and didn't just sit there like I had done in the past. I felt this excitment run thru my veins and joy entered my body! Now I was prepared to learn!

At testimony meeting, o my goodness!!!! I couldn't even tell you how many where in group, but as soon as it was said "The time is now yours" there was a line from the front of this very large university class room, all the way to the door! At this point of my life, this was where I felt the spirit the strongest! I felt as if I were to burst in any moment! In the first few minutes, male and female alike, tears ran down all our faces with all the emotion. Here I listened to some people that I met only 4 days prior and I grew to love them so much and admire them, speak of their hardships and how the gospel changed their lives, how it has affected their lives. I was not alone. This is one of the most beautiful experiences I've had in my whole life!

I left for EFY, not believing in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and after feeling the spirit with me for the whole week I was there, I came home, finally believing after 2 years of searching!

Now I had a testimony! This was my beginning!