One by One

These scriptures in 3 Nephi 11:14-15 have been on my mind all day today:

Arise and come forth unto me, that ye may thrust your hands into my side, and also that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that I am the God of Israel, and the God of the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world.  And it came to pass that the multitude went forth, and thrust their hands into his side, and did feel the prints of the nails in his hands and in his feet; and this they did do, going forth one by one until they had all gone forth, and did see with their eyes and did feel with their hands, and did know of a surety and did bear record, that it was he, of whom it was written by the prophets, that should come.  

 This morning I went with Katie to a Women's Conference at the Institute building.  Sheri Dew was the keynote speaker and she had brought her best friend along with her, Sister Wendy Nelson, the wife of Elder Nelson.  It was wonderful to see the cultural hall filled with women on a Saturday morning.  The Spirit was very strong and we were all spiritually fed.  The theme of the Conference was "Seek and ye shall find."  It seemed very fitting for me at this time, especially since I have been doing a lot of seeking lately.  Throughout her talk, she kept referring back to the idea that we are loved individually by our Heavenly Father and our Savior.  They know us.  They are aware of us.  If we sincerely seek them, nothing will be withheld from us.  She gave us three challenges when she closed:

1. Seek to know how the Lord feels about you.  Read D&C 138 and Abraham 3, and look for the verses that mention the "noble and great ones."  Pray to know if those verses have anything to do with you.
2. Seek to know and understand what the Savior has already done for you.  Read Luke 4:18, Alma 7, and Ether 12.  Read the Book of Mormon cover to cover and look specifically for those things that the Savior has done for you.
3. Seek to know how you receive personal revelation, how the Holy Ghost speaks to you.  Ask the Lord how He will speak to you.  Look for patterns in the scriptures of how others have received revelation.  Seek to have a spiritual experience everyday.  

The three challenges she gave are about basic and fundamental things, but without them, we won't be able to stay firm in our testimonies when the hard times come.  I am excited to take her challenges and learn more about my personal relationship with the Lord and Heavenly Father.

After the Women's Conference, I got to attend a baptism!  One of the girls that lives in the building just across from me got baptized.  It was such a beautiful service.  So many people came to support her.  I felt how pleased Heavenly Father was with one of His daughters who He loves very much for making the decision to follow His Son, Jesus Christ.  It reminded me of my mission and the baptisms I witnessed there.  It was wonderful.

Throughout both of these meetings I had a prompting and strong feeling to go and visit a friend.  I didn't know why and I had a little doubt in my mind, but then I was reminded of a goal that I had set on my mission.  As I was reading in the Sunday School manual about President Kimball I came across the motto that his wife lived by: Never suppress a generous thought.  I decided that I would live by that motto as well.  I saw so many miracles take place on my mission by doing things that came to my mind, that I maybe didn't understand, but realizing that they were good and trusting that the Lord would stop me if I shouldn't do something, I always tried to act.  So today I pushed the doubt out of my mind and went to my friend's home, hoping and praying that there would be a reason.  Turns out, she wasn't home, but I did call and let her know that I had stopped by and that I was thinking about her.  I still don't know why I had that prompting, but the Lord does, and hopefully it was for a good reason.  I couldn't help but think of all of the times that someone has fulfilled this quote by President Kimball for me:

God does notice us, and He watches over us.  But it is usually through another person that He meets our needs.  

I hope to become better at being an instrument in God's hands to meet the needs of others.

After all of this spiritual amazingness, it was time to play!  We were invited to an apple juicing party, but when we arrived, something had gone wrong and they actually didn't have the juicer.  Everyone there was just kind of sitting around being kind of bummed that the activity had fallen through, but Wendi and Tish and I decided to make the best of the situation.  We picked the apples, put the good ones in a wheelbarrow,

 and then played apple baseball with the yucky apples!  It was a blast!

  Then we found some of those old school helicopter toys and played around with those.  We had a great time!

 But of course, someone had to get hurt!  Poor Wendi got hit in the face.  Awww!

 When we found out that there was a piano inside we had to take a few minutes to play!  Pianos are like gold to me!  I miss being at home and just being able to play for a few minutes here and there, so when I get a chance to play while I am in Logan, it is always a special treat!

To end the night, I went to an endowment session at the Logan temple.  It was wonderful, as always, and made me so excited for my temple prep class tomorrow.  I was struck by how much we really mean individually to the Savior.  He really loves us, one by one.