Lose Yourself in Service

            This post, I am going to write a little differently. I am writing as if I were to a young woman in my ward. Please bear with me because I promise it does hold true to doctrine about service.

Dear Emma,

            Thank you for sticking around me for the last three years. I know this last couple of months have been hard on you and will be for a couple more as me and Aleah are going away to college, but I want to let you know what YOU did for me.
             When you were an incoming beehive, I decided to get to know you. Not just because you had no friends in young women's yet or looked lonely. I decided to become your friend for selfish reasons. I think we had been talking about service. We talked about how a person could find themselves through serving others. True joy can be found when man loses himself in service for the Lord rather than for man.
            I was lonely and had been feeling lonely myself. I was struggling with what to say to my friends. I didn't feel like I was really, truly their friend anymore and at the time I didn't have a lot of friends to begin with, so when I looked around the room and found that you were all by yourself, it was really a blessing for me. Because even though I asked you the most random and sometimes nosy questions and would follow you around till I got a satisfactory answer, you always answered. I don't know if it was because you were quiet and liked having another person to talk to or that you really did like having me around, but I'm glad you didn't get mad at me for sticking to you.
            What I learned from being friends with you, was that what we learn about service is true. I found myself because I served you by becoming your friend. I learned that if someone was willing to dedicate their life to just being someone's friend, they can find happiness.
              I am truly going to miss you. You brighten my life up a little more every time I see you. You have been a bright light to me when I have felt my light dim. I love you. I love being your friend and I can't wait to see the adventures you'll have along the way. Please don't forget that I will always be just a phone call away because you have become one of my best friends. You are one of the best friends anyone could wish to have. You are kind, compassionate and loving. You are always looking out for others.
            Keep being awesome. "You are you and that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you." and don't forget it.

Love,
Emily

Lessons from Young Women's

                         Sitting in my final Young Women's in Excellence, and I can say that I love the young women in my group. Leaders change, but our girls don't leave unless they are graduating out of it and I have grown to love each and everyone of them. I've learned a lot from them and from the leaders.
                         At our Young Women's in Excellence, three of our girls were awarded a medallion for completing their personal progress. For those of you who don't know what personal progress is, it is a little book filled with eight values that we are supposed to complete during our time in young women's. Each value contains six experiences and one project to complete in it. It takes a lot of time and effort to complete it, but it is designed to help each girl grow personally, spiritually and in some ways, physically as well.
As these girls were awarded their medallions, I was thinking about when I got mine. On my mind lately have been the things that I have learned during my time in young women's. Here are a few of the lessons that I have learned over the years:

•  Sometimes you just have to do things a little different.

                          During my time in young women's I have gone in multiple directions in my life. I was in public school, then I did online school for the first two years of my high school experience, but then I came back. But when I came back I decided to graduate a year early and am going to
BYU-I in the fall.
                           It's not necessarily the being different part that I learned. What I truly learned is that sometimes the Lord will tell you that in His plan for you, he wants you to do something a little differently than most. DO IT. Follow the promptings you receive. Prophet Thomas S. Monson tells us that we should never postpone a prompting and Joseph Smith once said that if you follow the feeling or prompting you have, 9 times out of 10, you will be right. It was the spirit.
                           Follow the Lord's plan for you. Even if it is different from those around you, He only wants the best for you, so follow Him.

• Patience is a virtue.

                           This one is obvious, but that doesn't mean it is easy. My patience has gradually increased throughout my time in young women's.
                           There is a girl in my ward who has Tourette's Syndrome. If you don't know what it is, TS is something that causes her to not have a filter and she speaks her mind as it comes to her. She has some nervous tics as well. When she turned 12 and entered young women's, she annoyed me. I knew she had something, but I didn't know what it was. Because I have known her, I have been able to be more patient.

• Open your heart to the spirit.

                            In the Book of Mormon, Lamen and Lemuel had hard hearts. That's why every time something miraculous happened to them, they would forget and it would not increase their faith. I personally have struggled with this. Growing up, I had a mean and hard heart. I am not even joking. I was a brat. Anyhow, eventually I realized how crappy my attitude and I was as a person, so I was able to open my heart. However, I could not have done this on my own. I didn't know how to soften my own heart, so I prayed intensely for a softening of my heart. Eventually, my Heavenly Father allowed my heart to be softened. With a softened heart, I was able to grow in my knowledge and testimony. (A testimony being your belief or faith in something. It is something to share with others. Don't keep quiet about what you believe.)

• Who you are friends with matters.

                             Again, this should be obvious,  but it was something that was hard for me to learn. I had some friends in 8th grade who would talk really negative and introduced me to things that opened up my mind to be extremely curious. Though I didn't do anything necessarily wrong and didn't find the things to satisfy my curiosity, I knew they weren't good things. I think my Heavenly Father pushed me to do online school because He knew I couldn't stop being friends with these girls if I still went to school with them. I would have continued seeing them for a long time and it would have hardened my heart as well as broken my spirit.

                            Heavenly Father cares who I am friends with. He is looking out for me.

• Service is key.
• Be friends with everyone.
• Be kind.
• Spread the love.
• Get to know the quiet ones.

                            These five really go together. I learned them all at once. 

                            I was feeling really down about myself and I didn't really feel like I could talk to any of my friends about it. I just didn't know what to do. But I remember something reminding me of someone who once told me that when they were feeling down they decided to serve someone. Serving someone made them feel better.

                             So I looked around the room, this was during a young women's activity, and my eyes feel upon a new beehive (beehives are girls ages 12 and 13). She had just turned 12 and none of her friends were in young women's yet, so I decided that I would be her friend. She was really quiet and kind of hesitant to talk to me for a while, but eventually we became really good friends. 

                              It didn't matter that I was older than her and in a different age group. What mattered was the fact that we became friends and she wasn't alone anymore. I didn't feel so alone afterwards either. 

                              These five go together because serving others helped me to feel the pure love of Christ which helped me to spread the love and when I was  serving others with kindness and striving to be friends with everyone, I got to know even the quiet girl in the corner who didn't have any friends yet. Through these five things, I could feel Heavenly Father's love for me and for the people that I was surrounded by. 

                                If you'd like to learn more about personal progress, or being something that will help you grow spiritually and teach you things about yourself, I'd encourage you to click on these next words: "Personal Progress". This will take you to a website on LDS.org that will give you more information about it. 

                               I love Personal Progress and am working on it for a second time because there will always be more to learn about the gospel of Jesus Christ and about myself. Though I know myself pretty well, my Heavenly Father knows me better and personal progress has helped me stay with close to the Holy Ghost and close to my Heavenly Father.

The Atonement Even for the Small Things

About a month ago, I went to a state meet for BPA (Business Professionals of America) where I competed in Fundamental Accounting. I had been working for hours so that I could make it to nationals.

I opened my test packet and all of the breath was knocked out of me. I didn't know more than half of the concepts tested. Had I really been practicing all along just not to understand anything on that test?

During the awards ceremony, I was bouncing with anticipation for my event. I didn't actually think that I would get called up, but I had been praying really hard that I would make it to nationals because I know I wasn't the only one who didn't know what they were doing. In fact, when everyone had opened their test, you could literally feel all of the hope go out of the room.

Anyhow, going back to the awards ceremony, I kept waiting and eventually they began to announce my event and I am silent. Which is rare for me, but it was the moment I had been waiting for.My name had been called. But they call 8 people up there and only 5 qualify for nationals.

Once on stage, I could barely hear what the announcers were saying. When they called my name, I didn't realize they had called it till they were already moving on to the next name. I had placed sixth. That was amazing, but not what I wanted. I remembering feeling comforted before that I would make ti to nationals, but here is my shot and I've blown it.

Initially I was extremely sad.

HERE is where the atonement kicks in.

The atonement is what Christ did in the garden of Gethsemane. He suffered for our sins, afflictions and anything that ails us. Because Christ suffered, my burdened became light.

In that moment, just seconds of sadness, I prayed that I would be happy for the people who placed higher than me. That I would finally be able to be happy for people even if it didn't go my way. As soon as I finished that prayer, happiness filled my heart. Positive thoughts flooded into my mind about how hard everyone worked to make it this far in the competition and it wasn't fair for me to be so disappointed when we all deserved to win because we all did the work to get there.

Even though it seems like something so small and maybe even kind of stupid, it was important for me to actually see the atonement at work. I now know that the atonement is real. I knew it was real before, but I had never recognized the works of it. The atonement can be applied in any situation. Nothing bad has to happen, it doesn't have to be about a sin, it could be because of the actions of others. Heavenly Father will answer your prayer to feel the atonement work in your life. Big or small, your burden may be lightened. Your heart can be brought peace, love or happiness. Whatever you need, Heavenly Father can help you get what you need.

Just like it says in James 1:5-6, if you ask of God in FAITH, you will get an answer.

I challenge you to ask a question, or even just to talk to God today. He's waiting to hear from you. Though He already knows our hearts, it's best said when He actually hears how you feel and about your day from YOU.

Follow the Spirit

I haven't posted in a long time, but I wast to let you know that it's not because I haven't been to seminary. I had plans for this, but it has been a hard long year and I think I'm going to do something different than I originally planned on doing with it.

I didn't go to seminary as much as I should have, but I've been trying to keep the spirit with me, so that I could following any prompting he gave me.

In the last year, one of the things that has stuck out to me is the million times I heard people talk about understanding how the Holy Ghost speaks to you. I thought I knew how he spoke to me, but it turns out, I wasn't listening to him like I should have. He has spoken to me in more ways than I can count. 

Just in case anyone is wondering, he can speak through something on facebook, something someone says, or through music. These are just some of the ways the spirit communicates with me. This doesn't include any through scripture study or right after a prayer, but those three are the ones that have stuck out to me. 

I always thought I knew exactly how my life (for the next 10 years) would go when I was like twelve. And for a while it was going how I had planned it to go, but at the end of 8th grade I felt strongly impressed that I needed to do part of my high school career with an online program. Those two years were harder than I normally tell people. I mean I learned nothing from school. When I say nothing, I mean it. I didn't understand what I was reading and in some classes I barely passed. That in itself was a miracle.

Anyhow, I went back to public school as a junior and again I felt a strong desire to change something. I felt impressed to graduate a year early. That's been this year for me. It's been a transition for me and I stopped listening to the spirit after he told me to graduate a year early. That in its self seemed like a gigantic monster to me. I'll be an adult and I'll have to get a job. What else could Heavenly Father expect me to do???\

Heavenly Father was not done with me there. Because I wasn't listening, Heavenly Father sent one of my leaders after me. She talked to me about applying to BYU because I have always wanted to go and she really thought I should go. 

So I applied because when I finally opened up my heart, I knew that was what my Heavenly Father wanted me to do. And then I knew BYU-Idaho was the school for me. I didn't even know if I was accepted to Idaho or Provo, but I knew Idaho was the place for me. Even though it's cold and I hate the cold. (Seriously, guys. When I went to Arizona a couple years ago to visit my grandparents, it was 110 degrees Fahrenheit and I was still wearing a jacket.)

Anywho, my point here is open up your heart to the savior. Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father know what is best for us. If you don't know what to do or you just have a question, then ask it. You don't have to be kneeling. Heck, I don't always kneel either, but ask. Just talk to Heavenly Father. He loves you and only wants the best for you.

I've learned this in abundance this year. I have always wanted to go on a mission. Being stubborn, I decided to ask yet again (because I didn't get a definite yes or no the time I prayed before) whether a mission was right for me. When I prayed the last time, my answer was to go to mission prep because it would prepare me for life whether or not I went on a mission. Either way, in my stubborn mind I thought that if Heavenly Father could tell me that I needed to go off to BYU, then surely he could share with me this little piece of information to put my mind at rest. I really thought my answer was going to be YES, but he responded back with no. When I asked my young women's leader why Heavenly Father would tell me no, she told me he probably just wants me to go a year later than normal or something. As she said those words to me, I felt the spirit confirm to me that I am not supposed to serve a mission as a youth. 

Wow! Say what?!? Heavenly Father that's not cool, right? One of the members of the bishopric in my ward came to talk to me. He said that if the answer is no, then you aren't supposed to go. Don't push it with Heavenly father because he would only tell you no if there was something better for you waiting. 

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Let me recap this for you real quickly. If you keep your heart open to the spirit, then Heavenly Father can let you know what the plan is for you, well at least the part you need to know and then if you follow it, you will find that it really was the best thing for you.

I like to think I'm always right, but in all honesty, I mess up all the time. I don't know what's best for myself half the time. But if we know to what source we can look, then we can receive an answer and Heavenly Father will point us in the best direction for each of us.