Continually Nurturing

My Testimony - 3/31/2012

Here's a start to my goal of recording my testimony each week (if not every day) for a year... hopefully I can do this!

As I begin, I want to apologize for any grammatical or doctrinal mistakes I make (basically, if I'm a weak human that cannot express my feelings perfectly). I hope as you read my testimony you will remember this, but pay attention to the Spirit with which I bear my testimony.

It's Saturday and my husband is at the Priesthood Session of General Conference. I am home alone contemplating what I've heard from the previous two sessions today while listening to very calming covers of hymns. I think more than anything I want this testimony to reach my family. If I can reach out to more than them, that would be wonderful, but my family is my priority. I love my family.

I have a testimony of the Plan of Salvation. This plan of happiness is the very reason the gospel exists and that an atonement would be necessary. The core unit of this grand design is the family. I believe very confidently that I lived with my Heavenly Father before coming to Earth. In the pre-Earth life, there was a family - we are all sons and daughters of heavenly parents. God set a pattern, then, by providing a way for us and commanding us to have families on earth, and we will have these families for eternity. I believe this makes the design and responsibilities of families very important. I believe the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is organized to help strengthen families and to seal families in the temple to one another so the members can be together forever. I want to be with my family more than just on this Earth, so I try to be obedient to my covenants each day so that I can be worthy of those blessings.

I am grateful for the Plan of Salvation's emphasis on families. I do love my family very much and I think of my relatives very often. I want them to have joy and peace. I want them to be strong through challenges. I want them to also have a knowledge and testimony of the gospel because I believe no other source can provide this reassurance and pure joy. I do believe this. I believe that someday they will also learn or remember these truths that I know and be able to share delight in these things.

I am grateful for my life here and for my loving Heavenly Father. I know that Christ lives. I believe we have a living prophet today to guide us to Him.

I hope this experience of sharing my testimony will help me to improve and to be more Christlike as I remember my beliefs and try to better live them.

I write these words in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Nearer, My God, To Thee by Kyle Henderson

My mission

[If you've read any earlier posts, some of them have been removed for privacy purposes but just to fill in the gaps of entries - I married "guy W" and the whole experience of finding each other, dating, and marrying was very special and definitely guided by Heavenly Father.... so many things that summer lined up for us for the purpose of us getting married. We're very happy, too.]

I've been thinking lately about missions... probably because several of my girlfriends are leaving/have left on missions and because I just fed the elders dinner tonight. Well, I've thought about it more than just recently. I have been referring to my marriage as my eternal mission. I married on my 21st birthday, too (the minimum age for women to serve missions)!

Because I believe I need to be a missionary every day, I thought I might start working on this blog again. When I was in high school and in my earlier years of college, I learned from the MTC and spending time with missionaries that member missionaries are very important. I tried to learn what I could to be better everyday of my life because I didn't like the idea of serving a mission and then stopping my efforts to be a missionary - it's our baptismal covenant to stand as witnesses of Christ always! My hope is, also, that I can be an effective teacher to my children on being member missionaries.

Another reason I thought about returning to this blog was because I think it will be a useful tool for me to share my testimony. Someday, for a year, I would like to challenge myself to record my testimony in my journal each day. I'll hopefully post those journal entries here, too. There are many people I know who are confused, lost, feeling down, etc. and I just hope that my testimony can be a light to guide them to Christ someday.

So here's to a new beginning for this lost blog. Luckily, I can change the blog site name from my maiden name to my married name!