Sunday, April 23, 2017

Songs and service.

So, today was the day I performed in sacrament meeting! Unfortunately I have not been feeling well the past few days/weeks, and I woke up this morning with a sore throat and a stuffy nose. I was terrified!! I needed to be able to sing today before everyone goes away for the summer! So I drank a LOT of water, took some medicine, took a little nap, and prayed that I would be able to sing well–even if I got worse afterwards. And it went better than I thought it would! So grateful!! Of course, after that I did spiral downwards in health. I am now super tired and extremely sick. It's fine. I will live. I'm just going to go to bed super early tonight.

So, as I was sitting in sacrament meeting, thinking about the Savior, and my upcoming solo, and being nervous (the STAKE PRESIDENT was at sacrament meeting today), my roommate–sensing my nervousness–leaned over, patted my arm, and said, "You're gonna do great." A few moments later, one of my friends in the ward texted me and said the same thing. TENDER MERCIES!! So grateful for their words and love.

Also grateful for the messages in sacrament meeting:
-If you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, you'll be blessed.
-We need to look for and be those positive examples of obedience.

In gospel doctrine, we talked about spiritual gifts, and there were some wonderful things that were said about them, and about how we can gain them, and I wanted to share some:
-We should be acting in accordance with how God sees us, and how we wish to be.
-God doesn't want us to be down on ourselves.
-You have to put in the effort for the spiritual gifts, to be better and them and to better yourself.
-God needs us to bless other people.

In Relief Society we talked about Elder Bednar's talk from the October 2016 conference entitled "If Ye Had Known Me", and we talked about four things he said can help us come to know Christ.
1) Exercising Faith in Him
Nicole shared a scripture that I loved and wanted to share. It's 2 Chron. 14:11, and my favorite line was "It is nothing with Thee to help". I loved that. Whatever we're going through, as long as we have faith, and as long as we have God to help, it is nothing.
2) Following Him
We need to do the work, put in effort. We need to do our part. We can't just leave it all up to Him.
Sometimes we have to put aside our will to follow Him.
Heavenly Father keeps us where we are because He loves us and knows what is best for us, and what we need.
3) Serving Him
Okay, I learned something new today, and this was way cool. So, Elder Bednar said in his talk, "We grow to love those whom we serve." Mosiah 2:17 tells us that when we are in the service of others, we are in the service of God. Ergo, as we come to love those whom we serve, we come to love God. Well, serving others is my favorite way to serve God and love others, so I'm on the right track! :)
4) Believing Him
Believing Him invites perspective and peace into our lives.
This gospel is an eternal gospel. It will last through the eternities.
Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ will always respect the agency of others.
He knows you. He knows your strengths, weaknesses, desires, hopes, dreams, wishes. He knows what you need to feel loved.  He knows that when you're SUPER sick, you're basically a useless worm.
HE KNOWS. He knows it all. And He still loves you.
I am so grateful for my Savior, who stands by me. I am so grateful for my Father in Heaven, who sends me messages of love and comfort through friends. I'm so grateful for the Holy Ghost, who comforts and calms me when I'm nervous or scared. I'm grateful for the love of my Heavenly Parents, my Savior, and the Comforter. I am grateful for their hands in my life. I'm grateful for the opportunity I had to sing in church today. It was so great to share the message of the song "Beautiful Savior" with my ward and my friends (Fun fact: that song is President Acerson's favorite song). I'm grateful for my family, friends, and roommates. It's been a crazy year, of which I will share a little bit next week, so stay tuned. ;)

I love you all! I wish you a blessed Sunday and a happy week!

Xoxo
Mattie

No comments:

Post a Comment