In The Great Wide Somewhere: Butterflies in my Heart

District P-day at the bay

Like Butterflies In My Heart

So much is in my happy heart today

there is Sunshine In My Soul Today

a carol to my

King

Jesus listening

can

Hear

the Songs I Cannot Sing

oh.there's.sunshine.blessed.sunshine

when the peaceful happy moments roll

when

Jesus Shows

His smiling face

There Is Sunshine

In The Soul

Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing Sunshine In My Soul Today

youtube video

Sunshine in the soul is a lot more powerful than the sunshine in the sky

this week especially

-it rained just about all day and all night.

We cracked the window a couple of nights so we could hear it, and the thunder.

The creations of the world both great and small bring me closer to the Creator.

Natural disasters have been known to bring people together, evoke a profound sense of eternal perspective, and open hearts to come closer to the One that gave them life.

I can't help

but think that God's favorite color might be blue

blue skies, blue mountains, blue oceans,

and here in Brewton blueberries!

The blueberry festival is coming up!

but now I'm just rambling so I'll get back on track

"reel it in like a catfish on a wormed hook at the butt crack of dawn"

Monday night we dropped in on the young girl we met at Lilians a couple of weeks ago

Tiffany

She opened the door and let us right in.

As we began to get to know her and talk about what we do and why we do it

we learned some amazing things about tiffany.

She lost her father to stomach cancer about a year ago.

She is one of the most kind people I've met here

and the last thing we learned as we taught her the Plan of Salvation, is that she is so prepared to receive the gospel.

-"This all sounds familiar, like I've heard it before"

-"You have. Before we came to this world, God gathered us together to share with us His plan. This plan. We accepted. As we talk about His plan, He helps us remember what He taught us before we came here so that we know that it's true."

She accepted the invitation to be baptized. We look forward to going back.

highlight of Tuesday was going back to the refferal of the super old Baptist guy that wasn't interested.

We knocked on the door, and after what sounded like a lot of commotion on the other side,

the door opened and Kayla let us in.

Her friend Alyssa was over, and after we got to know them a little bit we started teaching the restoration of the gospel.

Right at the first principle

that God is Our Loving Heavenly Father

Alyssa began to be very emotional.

We explained to her that everyone feels the Spirit and recognizes It differently, but that she was feeling it when she told us while we were teaching she didn't know why she felt like crying but in a happy way.

As we continued to teach the Spirit filled the room and our hearts.

Right before I was about to recite the restoration, I prefaced it a little differently than usual. I know that God was guiding the words.

I will never get used to the feeling of God allowing me to be his mouthpiece so directly, I am renewed with a sense of purpose and awe each time I feel that He is completely taking over.

(after explaining Joseph Smiths question and the scripture he read directing him to pray)

I said something like

"I am about to tell you something in his own words-"

"we memorize this little passage from his personal account of what happened, in order for all of us to even more fully feel like he is right here telling us himself. I promise you, if you open your hearts, while I am reciting what Joseph said, God will tell you in your hearts and in your minds that what I am saying is true. That this really happened."

"I saw a pillar of light

exactly over my head

above the brightness of the sun

which descended gradually until it fell upon me.

When the light rested upon me I saw two personages

whose brightness

and glory

defy.all.description.

standing above me in the air, one of them spake unto me

calling me

by name

and said pointing to the other

this

is My Beloved Son

Hear Him"

The power in that room was undeniable

we sat in silence

Sister Palmer asked:

how do you feel?

Alyssa said she had chills and wanted to cry, Kayla agreed

Later Alyssa described the Spirit as butterflies, but in your heart

which I LOVED because I've never explained it that way -but it's perfect

We continued to ask them about how they were feeling, so that they could recognize that it is a peaceful feeling from God.

As they did we all became very reverent and just enjoyed the Spirit filled room.

They both accepted the invitation to be baptized as Jesus Christ was by someone who holds the proper priesthood authority of God.

We were able to teach Drew and Shelly Wednesday, they are both so smart and hungry for the gospel!

We felt that we needed to focus on the Godhead more than anything, and what makes Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and The Holy Ghost different + what makes them the same.

It was a lot easier to come up with things that make them the same, it reiterated to me just how important unity in our relationships, families, leadership, and church activities/callings is.

Unity with each other and the Savior

"I in them them in me that we may be ONE"

One mind separate bodies, one spirit separate paths, one destination one goal one purpose

Thursday with Roda and Johnny, Johnny who might be one of my favorites ever, started getting a little bashy.

bashy: adj.

a word that Sister Saunders doesn't know for sure is an actual word recognized by Webster or Google but she knows what it would mean if it was indeed a real word and that is this:

bashy: adj

when someone starts to feel the Spirit but has been duped so many times into joining church after church and is finally comfy where they are, but now these two sister missionaries are talking about how the Godhead are three separate beings and the Spirit is testifying that is true so you start to panic a little bit because that truth conflicts with what your pastor teaches at the pulpit/his interpretation of the Bible so you don't want to surrender completely... but maybe if you challenge the two sister missionaries a little bit and they crumble then you can sit back in your chair and justify that the Spirit you felt must be wrong because they can't handle your bashy business.. so you start to contend and pretend on the outside that you believe what you are saying to be true in a nice way, but really on the inside you are trying to prove them right and allow them to testify and have explanations to your contending that confounds you and fills your heart with understanding that tells you that you can actually trust them as servants of God.

This bashyness is similar to when a girl that has daddy issues starts dating a great guy and tries to scare him off to "prove that he won't stick around" when really she secretly hopes that he's the one, then he keeps coming back to help her heal and they end up married for eternity.

basically because the Spirit is awesome and we have heard all of his bashery things before from others, we were able to NOT CONTEND

but confound

two diff things

ask Sherem about that...

it plainly states in the Book of Mormon that Sherem, the antichrist, when trying to prove Jacob, the brother of Nephi, wrong was CONTENDING with Jacob

when Jacob spoke truths of eternity, it states that Jacob was COUNFOUNDING Sherem

Consensus?

"But behold, the Lord God poured in His Spirit into my soul, inasmuch that I did confound him in all his words."
Jacob 7:8

God confounds with the Spirit

Satan contends

Like Sherem, Johnny knows. He knows what he was feeling that day. He was confounded

He allowed us to share our message, he tried to contend some more, but ultimately surrendered :)

He is not venomous at all, and he is humble.

When we answer his questions he admits that what we say he cannot argue.

His wife Rhoda, she is more like King Lamoni

At first she was a little intimidated, then she just surrendered her will and listened to that whole lesson in awe.

She listened to the Spirit; she recognized truth.

She fully accepted the things that her church does not teach about

1. We came from our Fathers presence before this life.

2. We are the two third part of the host of heaven that did not get cast to Earth with the adversary, but were sent here by God one by one to become like him.

3. Just as Jesus Christ taught spirits in prison and they moved to paradise, spirits are being taught now and those of us who are baptized and have the truth will be able to teach those in prison when we die.

4. Jesus Christ was resurrected as a beginning, a path for us to one day follow. We will not just be angels praising God forever, we will be resurrected just as Christ was to inherit all that He has because He suffered the price of the things that would otherwise have kept us from receiving eternal life.

She kept commenting on the Spirit she felt. She made an interesting connection..

God The Father - Jesus Christ - The Holy Ghost

three separate beings - one purpose

Satan, Cain the future ruler of Hell, + the antichrist

three separate things, same purpose

We finished teaching the Plan of Salvation, she commented that she felt enlightened and so glad that we shared those things with her.

Johnny just kind of smiled and said, "I enjoyed this."

love them both :)

Half Mission Conference

MTC buds

Friday we had a half mission conference where Elder Uceda of the Quorum of the Seventy taught us and exhorted us to be obedient.

"As my wife always says, there are no disobedient Gods in the universe."

He had such love and compassion as he taught.

I have a bracelet that my mom gave me that has the scripture Philippians 4:13

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Well I wore that bracelet to this conference and guess what he talked about for about 30-45 minutes?

that scripture

Why did my mom give me that bracelet?

because when I got my wisdom teeth removed, I was very loopy from the surgery and gave a motivational speech on the way home in the car:)

Part of this speech was about conquering fears and how, just because MANY people climb Mt. Everest now, that doesn't make it any less of an accomplishment for another individual that climbs it.

I said something about how just because millions have had their wisdom teeth out, that doesn't mean I'm not a beast for braving that surgery.

I mean wow. I slept through the whole thing, it was super intense people.

lol.

Well at that time doped up I thought I had just climbed Mt. Everest

I concluded my slurred speech with:

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!"

So it is kind of a funny memory of me and kind of because I love that scripture that mom gave me that bracelet.

Well Elder Uceda blew my mind about this scripture.

Some of it's power and meaning has been lost in it's translation.

The direct words translated from Greek to English say this;

instead of

I can do: I have the power/strength to overcome

all things: everything/all things/anything

through Christ: WITH Christ

So all together the more direct translation from it's original meaning would be

I have the POWER to OVERCOME

ALL things

WITH Christ

who strengthens me!

These things really hit me.

Saturday we had the adult session (18 & older) of Stake Conference with him

Elder Uceda challenged us all to take care of the recent converts

they are beautiful and fragile

like a flower

precious, perfect, but fragile.

Saturday night and Sunday for actual Stake Conference was so awesome for a couple of reasons,

Elder Uceda is an amazing teacher!

Being in the Pensacola Stake means getting to see my friends and family in Gulf Breeze!

Bishop Moss and his wife were there, I think I almost squeezed Sister Moss to death :)

I LOVE THEM

I also got to see the Taylors, and Trina Smith and the Mcewans

I love them all so much, it was good to see them again

because we live over an hour away from the stake center, we had permission to sleep over with the Pace area sisters, and I may or may not have mentioned this, but my former compy forever friend Sister Baker is now serving in Pace which is in my District which means every Tuesday I get to see her at District meetings and this certain occasion, catch up with her in their apartment.