Laughing through life

Note to self - reading in character from the bible during companion study is probably not a good idea.

We were reading Acts 2:37-41 which says "Then Peter ^asaid unto them, ^bRepent, and be ^cbaptized every one of you in the ^dname of Jesus Christ for the ^eremission of sins, and ye shall receive the ^fgift of the ^gHoly Ghost." I may or may not have started being goofy and shortly thereafter both of us were literally on the floor laughing. I have been praying to find more joy in my studies though, so God answers prayers

So yesterday I had to play the organ for Sacrament meeting. Now, usually, the hymns are more along the lines of a dirge. So I said to myself, I'm going to pick up the pace. People even told me to play tempo when they found out I was playing. I was doing alright, my prelude was OK. I messed up a ton, but whatever. So we get to that opening hymn, and the chorister gets up there and I play the intro at speed, and then we are singing and she is fighting me the whole way. I would get almost a measure ahead of her at some points. I just started laughing, and then Sister G. starts laughing and I'm playing, I can barely see, my palms are sweaty from nervousness and it was quite an experience.

Church only got better because Shirly was there!!!! We have been teaching her for almost 7 weeks now, her daughter is a member and she had been to church once before with her, many months ago. She loved it! The talks were especially good. Bro F. (kind of like Mr. F hahahaha) was assigned 3 Nephi 11 and he just went through and tore it apart. His wife spoke on strengthening our families by strengthening spirituality. It was just way good. And our Relief Society lesson was on prayer.

I have somewhat to say concerning prayer. Yes, we use the language of scripture when we pray - with the thees, thines, thous, thys, etc. But that in no way means that you cannot, in your most personal prayers or moments, break down any barriers and speak to our Heavenly Father however you feel comfortable. We were with one of the members that I am very close with and her heart was broken because her Visiting Teaching companion mentioned (in a way that was not meant to offend, but to teach) that she might need to be a little more formal in her prayers. She will refer to Heavenly Father as "daddy," and you know what, she needs that! She has been brought up from a horrible place and she needs to know that she is much closer to her Heavenly Father. She shows the utmost respect for him when she says that. I've noticed that they teach that whole "daughter of a king" thing much more in Young Women than in Relief Society. Yes, he is a King, and we must honor, respect, and revere Him. But he is also our Father, and that means that he understands us personally. Someone in our ward said that we need to be vulnerable in our prayers, to lay it all out in front of him. I like that idea.

"As soon as we learn the true relationship in which we stand toward God (namely, God is our Father, and we are his children), then at once prayer becomes natural and instinctive on our part (Matt. 7:7–11)" (Bible Dictionary).

Now, I step off my soapbox. Sometimes, I wish I had an actual soapbox to preach from...

Also, these are my scriptures of the last few weeks. President read them with me and taught me to ask questions and then to follow all the promptings of the Holy Spirit. As we do this, as we ask and follow, we become "as a child" and "as a saint"

"Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, ^bfeast upon the ^cwords of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will ^dtell you all things what ye should do. Wherefore, now after I have spoken these words, if ye cannot understand them it will be because ye ^aask not, neither do ye knock; wherefore, ye are not brought into the light, but must perish in the dark. For behold, again I say unto you that if ye will enter in by the way, and receive the Holy Ghost, it will ^ashow unto you all things what ye should do." (2 Nephi 32:41)

"For the ^anatural ^bman is an ^cenemy to God, and has been from the ^dfall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he ^eyields to the enticings of the Holy ^fSpirit, and ^gputteth off the ^hnatural man and becometh a ⁱsaint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a ^jchild, ^ksubmissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father". (Mosiah 3:19)

Thank you for the package! I love those apple rings and the crackers and the nuts. I share sometimes. I haven't gotten the AZ pictures as yet, but probably sometime this week. We have interviews with President on Thursday and I am so excited! I learn so much from those interviews. We got a new district leader and he is really pushing us to become better missionaries and to build our testimonies. He challenged us to pray for all the missionaries in our district by name and I can really feel the power of that. Prayer is amazing!!!