It is the motivation that is important.

So I decided to take a seven-day fast from social media last week and it was probably one of the best decisions I could have made last week! Especially because I had the privilege of working on two papers, studying for one midterm, and dealing with my first-ever migraine during about 3/5ths of the week. I also bought my graduation announcements, as well as my cap and gown! Graduation is coming up so fast, and yet, not fast enough!

What a weekend! Porter turned 8 and was baptized yesterday! And Tyler had his Eagle Court of Honor tonight. I am so proud of both of them! I am so thankful for my family and for the blessing that I have of being sealed to them for time and all eternity.

Porter and I after his confirmation on Saturday.

I am grateful for my Savior, who lived, preached, blessed, and served His whole life to be an example to us. I am grateful that He loved us so much, He was willing to atone and die for us. I do not believe that He could have even imagined the suffering that He would endure for us, but I am grateful that when He felt inadequate, and didn't want to do it anymore, He said to His Father, "Nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done" and He held on. He wasn't alone, either; He had help from an angel on high, giving Him strength.

I think that we can learn a lot from the experience of the Savior in the Garden of Gethsemane and at Calvary.

When we were first told of the Plan of Salvation, I am sure that we rejoiced beyond belief at the thought of one day becoming like our Father and being able to live with Him forever. But I am also sure that we did not know exactly what we would go through in this life. I am sure we knew we would have trials in our life, but I don't think we would have been able to understand the depths of our trials and experiences.

Much like Jesus, sometimes I no longer want to do my part, but also like Him, I know that God has a plan for not only me, but all of us, and sometimes His plan for others involves me, so I have to ready, and there, to do His will. And even when we feel alone sometimes, we have angels on Earth and in Heaven who are standing beside us and helping us stand.

One thing that we discussed in Sunday School today was that sometimes God tells us to do things that contradict each other, but upon further thought and discussion in my mind, I decided that it's not necessarily that they contradict each other...it's just that we are not thinking about it in the right mindset. Jesus tells us to do things in secret...Tanner said that he thought it meant individually, and one-on-one. Jesus also tells us to let our light shine...I thought that it meant that we aren't supposed to hide or publicize our works. We are just supposed to live our life, and go about doing what we do, and not focus on our appearance to others.

The Lord has shown us that we are to be a person like Him, and we should seek the Spirit and act accordingly. We can learn from those around in how they act and live. We can learn from how they learn from their personal promptings, and we can learn from how they seek God, and His Spirit.

We talked about how we can know the Savior. There's lots of things that we can do, like going to church, reading our scriptures, and saying our prayers, but if we don't believe in what we're doing, and if we don't learn and grow from the experiences, we can't know of Him. If we really want to know Him, we have to be like Him. We have to change our thoughts and hearts to be like His.

God knows us so deeply and intimately that He knows what we need. He is always waiting for us to try to get to know Him! It is up to us to keep that relationship strong.

I love my Savior and my Heavenly Father and am so grateful for the knowledge that I have of their Holiness and Divinity. I am grateful that I have taken the steps needed to change and become more in tune with the Spirit and to become more inline with what They have in store for me.

I hope you all have a wonderful week! I know this week will be better than last week for me and I hope that you all know how much I love you! I hope you also know that I have a testimony of the graciousness of my Father in Heaven, and of the love that He has for all of us. I have a testimony that Jesus is the Christ, and that He suffered in Gethsemane and on the cross at Calvary to save each and every one of us. God is great, and I am so blessed.

Xoxo
Mattie

He answers you in unexpected ways.

Loved today's lessons. Not quite what I was looking for but they were still great. :)

My thoughts during the sacrament today were short but sweet:

I've had much better luck reading my scriptures and praying this week. Still not 100% perfect but I'm working on it. :) I am so grateful for my Savior and for His love and grace. This past week was weird and started off okay (I think...I don't remember) but didn't end quite as well. I hope that I will find answers today as to why things happened/didn't happened. 

I was looking for answers but didn't exactly get the answers I was expecting. I did get answers today but just not what I thought I would get or that I wanted.

The topic in sacrament meeting today was conversion, which is a great topic and I learned some new things.
-We need our Savior to change. We can only do so much by ourselves; we can't fully change in the way that our Heavenly Father knows we can without our Savior. 
-You have to be born again/converted in order to inherit the kingdom of God.
Three things in order to have personal conversion:
-Listen (to the prophets, Holy Ghost, personal revelation, etc.)
-Commit (commitment is often a mental process)
-Do (what's a commitment if we don't act?)
-As we're converted we'll find ourselves doubting less.
-What is your attitude through trials? Do you try to rely on the Lord, or do you complain that you have to go through it?
-Yield your heart to Him daily. Conversion is a daily lifetime commitment.

We talked about baptism in Gospel Principles today. Someone said something interesting that I'd never thought about before. We were talking about one of the reasons for baptism is for a remission of sins. Someone said that when she thinks about remission, she thinks about cancer remission, and how that means it (the cancer) may come back. And you need to take care of yourself. And the same is for the remission of sins–they may come back so take care of yourself. Keep trying. You can get better over time. Another interesting thing that I suppose I should have figured out by myself was that strait (as in the strait and narrow) doesn't mean "straight". It means like rigorous, an uphill battle. It will not be easy. But it will be worth it.

In Relief Society we talked about the doctrine of Christ. Which is:
-Faith in Christ and His Atonement
-Repentance
-Baptism and the sacrament
-Gift of the Holy Ghost
-Enduring to the end
A couple of things that stood out to me today were:
-repentance is a daily process. And we can't expect more for ourselves than He does.
-if we recognize following the doctrine of Christ is the only way, we will be more inclined to do so.

I definitely wasn't looking for answers in any of the topics covered today, but I found some anyway. Funny how that works. I received an answer more in the way I was looking for yesterday but I wanted more of a confirmation in that way today but I got a different answer instead. I'm blessed to have a loving Heavenly Father who knows what I need to hear, even when I was looking for something else. I'm looking forward to my scripture study and prayers this week, as well as trying to find peace. I'm grateful for my friends and family and for their love and support. Life just isn't as sweet without them, and I'm grateful to love and be loved by so many.

Xoxo
Mattie