LDS Smiles

Yesterday was amazing!

I really didn’t want to go to church yesterday. I was feeling sick and only got 5 hours of sleep. I’d stayed up really late the night before working on my talk, which was about Why We Ask People to Read the Book of Mormon. Throughout the week I’d written various drafts, and at 11:49 I had the prompting to toss them all out and start from scratch. I started over and finally had a Sacrament Meeting worthy talk. But then I was so full of the Spirit that I couldn’t just go to sleep, so I read several GC talks, studied in 1 Nephi, and listen to MoTab until I fell asleep around 2. 

Then I had to wake up around 7 to get ready for church. I couldn’t find the right shoes, and my hairspray was all gone, and my 4 sisters refused to cooperate, and we were out of milk, and a zillion other problems all decided to show up. But somehow I managed to get to church five minutes early. 

The meeting started out as usual. My co-chorister (who is amazing) picked out the perfect hymns for this meeting, and As I Search the Holy Scriptures filled the room with the Spirit. After some ward business, the Bishop called me and another young woman to the stand and only then did I remember that I was getting my Personal Progress Medallion! 

After he presented them, we had the Sacrament, then it was my turn to speak. Halfway through the second paragraph I struggled to hold back tears, and by the end I’d fulfilled my prediction that I’d be bawling. The next two speakers were a missionary and high counselor, who both bore strong testimony and had me crying up on the stand the whole time. 

And once again I loved my co-chorister, because the songs he chose went  perfectly with the other talks. Most people don’t even realize how important the music is to the meeting, but being able to choose the hymns and lead them is a way of bearing testimony and contributing to the meeting in a way that no speaker can. 

After we said Amen and went our separate ways, I realized that my Sunday School Teacher wasn’t there, and with the new curriculum, you can’t really get a substitute teacher with no notice (though my teacher missed the memo about the curriculum last week and started teaching from the old manual because our ward is out of the loop), so then I had to choose between going to my mom’s Sunday School class where all my friends were going, or go to my all-time favorite teacher’s class, where I’d have to deal with a bunch of boys and my sister who acts like she’s 6 years old. I ended up going to my mom’s class and had an amazing time. 

My mom is extremely knowledgeable about the gospel, and I was surprised at how doctrinally deep her lesson was, considering it’s the 12-year-old class. We got into deep topics such as if the Holy Ghost ever get a body and the difference between the Holy Ghost and the Light of Christ, and we also spent a long time discussing Boyd K. Packer’s experience describing the gospel as salt. It was the most spiritually filling lesson I’ve had in a very long time, and unfortunately my friends spent the time chatting and seriously detracting from the lesson… but anyway…

Young Women’s was also great. We focused a lot on the Holy Ghost there as well, and shared lots of experiences pertaining to feeling the Holy Ghost. It was wonderful by the end I was having a Spiritual overload and needed to get some of it out by writing, but haven’t really had the chance until right now. 

If every week is going to be like this, I can’t wait until Sunday! 

Not looking forward to bawling while giving a talk tomorrow…

Seminary…

I’m sorry for the rant, but I just need to get this all out and figure out what I need to do about this

I’ve gotten really frustrated with Seminary lately. I started out the school year going every day and it was great. We would have deep spiritual discussions while having fun, but I think around November things started going downhill. Now we spend most days watching movies or talking about stuff completely unrelated to the Gospel. After a week of being out of town I came back for the last day before Christmas break, preparing to be spiritually filled, and I was met with a pancake breakfast and movie review of Lincoln. 

And after being overwhelmed with the Spirit yesterday at church, I decided I would go to Seminary everyday this year. And so I went, and all we did was discuss how much certain people hate the movie Titanic and watch a video on the life of Christ, when I could’ve been more spiritually filled by watching it at home and studying the scriptures. 

And I probably shouldn’t mention the fact that I have lots of bad sleep issues, making me lucky to get three hours of sound sleep a night. And that really affects how much I’m able to function throughout the day. I don’t want to sacrifice my health to spend 30 minutes watching a video with immature teenagers when I could otherwise be getting an adequate amount of sleep. 

And being homeschooled, the logical choice would be home study, in my opinion. I would love to do home study, but my older sister only wants to go to real Seminary, and if I stop going, my dad will stop taking her because of how expensive of a sacrifice it is (Seminary is 12 miles away, and we’re struggling financially right now). It doesn’t affect her sleep schedule because once she gets home she sleeps until noon, but I’m unable to nap once I’ve woken up for the day. 

I guess my point is that Seminary doesn’t seem to be worth the sacrifice to me. I know it can be life-changing for many people, but I don’t see how Veggie Tales, Family Feud, and marshmallow fights are going to change my life. Studying scriptures on my own has changed my life so much more than Seminary ever has. I want to follow the counsel of prophets and go to Seminary, but if the cons heavily outweigh the pros, I might have to find my own middle-ground. 

New Years Missionary Experience

Um…I’ve kind of forgotten about this blog as of late, but last night I had an amazing experience that I had to share! 

We had a Stake Dance last night. I really didn’t want to go because I was feeling sick and I didn’t have the right clothes and a bunch of other reasons. But I’d already invited a few non-member friends, who knew nothing about Mormons except that I was one. 

So I went, and my friends and I actually had a really good time standing awkwardly against the wall, and they even plucked up the courage to slow dance with complete strangers! We had so much fun. 

And at the end of the dance when we were waiting for my dad to pick us up, we were talking and they wanted to know why everyone asked what color their toothbrush was and why we eat green jello. I gave them slightly ridiculous answers. And then one of them remarked on how well behaved everyone was. I started explaining about our standards and what some of them are, and then I showed them For the Strength of Youth and they spent the next 20 minutes reading it. She didn’t really say anything except that it’s really cool, but I could feel the Spirit in the room while she was reading. 

And on the drive home they said they’d love to come to the next dance!