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

"Where words fail, music speaks."

I decided to do something a little different today. I decided to start my blog post this morning before church, and have it be an all day thing. I actually kind of like it, so I may end up doing it more often, but we'll see. :)

Before Church:
Yesterday I was able to attend my cousin's baptism. As we were singing while we were waiting for him and my uncle to reappear, I could really feel the Spirit. I almost started to cry, because Friday night I had prayed for some answers to be given at his baptism, and they were given in my favorite way: music! I felt so blessed to be surrounded by so many members of my family, and to be surrounded by so many members of the church. I'm so grateful that my cousin has taken the first big step to following and becoming more like our Savior.

One of the things that I like to do on Sundays is listen to a playlist that I created called "Church/Inspirational music". I have two of them, one on my iPod and one on my phone. They have a lot of music from my favorite LDS singers, as well as some Christian singers. It's a great way to bring the Spirit, and I often need many of the messages/testimonies given in the songs. In addition to listening to them on Sundays, sometimes when I'm having a bad day, when I'm having trouble sleeping, or something like that, I turn it on and listen to it. Usually that was exactly what I needed.

I can't really explain it, but music is my language. Especially hymns and music with uplifting messages, including ones about my role as a daughter of God, ways that I can spend my time better, how the Spirit speaks, etc.

Music is very powerful, for both the performer and the listener (I know this because I've been both). We use words to talk to each other, but music is a way for us to speak to our souls. Music brings a calm, peaceful spirit to me, and it helps me relax.

Performing music is a way for me to share my testimony in a manner that I am more comfortable with. Speaking in front of people isn't exactly my forte, and yes, I still get a little stage fright when I am performing, but once I start, that goes away, and it just becomes me doing something I love, and sharing that love with others. It is easier for me to share messages through music. I love hearing others tell me how the message helped them, or how beautiful the music was. That's my favorite part–knowing that I was able to change their life and help them.

During Church:

I was thinking about this during sacrament meeting. The church isn't perfect. Policies aren't perfect. But the Gospel of Jesus Christ is perfect. And I know that it is true. I know that He has placed people in my life that I have needed, and I know that He has given us prophets to listen to. Their counsel and testimonies are great strengths to me. I know that they are special witnesses of Christ, and I know that they speak for Him.

After Church:
Today was fast and testimony meeting, and that ^ paragraph is where my thoughts went while I was listening to people bear their testimonies today.

In Sunday School, we talked about King Zeniff and his people, the story of Abinadi and King Noah and his people, and then we talked about King Limhi and his people, and we started to talk about the twenty-four plates of the Jaredites.

One of the things that we talked about near the end was to not discount your spiritual gifts–your gifts of the Spirit. Yours may not be super big, like the gift of tongues or something, but your spiritual gifts are important.

In Relief Society, we talked about visiting teaching. We watched a video where someone said that (and I'm paraphrasing here) revelation is when it becomes the Lord's work. She said when she gets a thought in her head and she feels it is right in her heart, she knows it is revelation. We talked a lot today about revelation and visiting teaching, but one of the main things I got out of the lesson was just to be there for them. And I feel like I won't have any trouble doing visiting teaching as my life goes on because I am already trying to be there for those around me. Another thing we talked about was that we are all different for a reason. We are also all at different stages in life. And that is okay. Figure out how visiting teaching works for you, and it will be all right. In the end, so long as the sisters you teach feel loved, it doesn't matter how you teach. Just be there for her, serve her, and let her know that she is loved by God, and by you. <3


P.S. I know that the title doesn't exactly cover the messages of the whole post, and I generally try to do that, but it's harder than you think to summarize a whole post that includes several different messages! :)