Getting aligned. somewhat.

You know I like to go to the Temple weekly.  I strive to arrive.  You also know that I love solitude in travel to the Temple.  I recently decided to take someone every other time with me.  This week was my take a friend week.

I want to share how good the Lord is when we try to do what is right.  I always have an immense amount of soul tweaking that needs to be done.  I also have lots of flaws to be mended.  I feel I've been so busy keeping the home fires burning, in figuring out dealing with our NewNorm, that I've not really done good in the area of service...including VT.  So I'm always seeking answers and guidance and various things for resolution and solution from my Temple session.  I took those same desires with me this time.  Again.  As always.

This week I was sitting on the couch in the foyer, visiting before the session, & my heart was so tender towards my friend.  I just loved her so much and was so glad we were together at the Temple.

The session was well underway and I heard in my mind...always take people with you.  I felt it in my heart as my soul filled with joy.  prepare yourself at home before you go for worship and don't go alone.  I was so happy.  so surprised.  so thankful.  I said within ...How wonderful!  I will do this!!  I could see quiet time at home in preparing to go.  Maybe even on Sunday preparing for the upcoming week of when I would attend.  It just seemed exciting to me to think about.  I could take the sisters that I VT.  I could take friends.  I could render service and feel better about giving and helping others.

I know this is personal and I waited a day to decide to share but I decided I wanted to.  and I did.  A really special thing was the feeling I had that can best be described as pulling a cork out and releasing a wonderful healing elixir that just warmed and covered me and felt absolutely comfy and snugly.  it felt so light and fantastic and it was like releasing something that was jammed and held back, and it suddenly was free flowing.  I felt that I had just moved ahead with a great change, that was unexpected in the way it happened, and yet had been asked for over and over.  I hope that makes sense. I inched ahead but it was a milestone!!

That sweet tenderness of feeling, that gentle comfort, still hovers and I will enjoy each moment that it stays.  I'm hoping it won't be a quick fade.  I'm breathing it in and savoring the feeling.

I read this quote and felt I really understood what he was saying...

  Elder David A. Bednar taught that change “does not occur quickly or all at once; it is an ongoing process—not a single event. Line upon line and precept upon precept, gradually and almost imperceptibly, our motives, our thoughts, our words, and our deeds become aligned with the will of God. This phase of the transformation process requires time, persistence, and patience” (“Ye Must Be Born Again,” Ensign or Liahona, May 2007, 21)

Calmness feels so good!!!

Tuesday night was BookClub and I finally got to go!  I enjoy the women and hearing their take on whatever the read is.  tonight it was To Kill a Mockingbird.   I really enjoyed the book.  I've not read it in years and years and had a much different take than all those years ago.

My life is starting to settle in and I'm seeing how to handle it and for that I'm so thankful!!  I can feel some direction and I know my Temple trip blessings are starting to roll in and I'm so appreciative of thoughts and feelings that are coming to me. 

Still in immersion mode on scripture study and I really like this quote by Elder Bednar.  He was President at BYU-I and also serving as a Seventy.  You will enjoy the entire talk,  here is a snippet....

 "Brothers and sisters, those are the four basic principles I have learned about receiving, recognizing, and responding to the promptings of the Holy Ghost: (1) desire, (2) invite, (3) heed simple promptings, and (4) heed promptings quickly. If you and I have a sincere desire for the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost, invite His influence into our lives through our obedience and actions, and learn to heed simple promptings and to do so quickly, then I testify and promise that we will be able to tell the difference between our own emotions telling us what we want to hear and the Holy Ghost telling us what we need to hear."

(“Receiving, Recognizing, and Responding to the Promptings of the Holy Ghost,” [Brigham Young University–Idaho devotional, Aug. 31, 1999]; byui.edu)

Good morning!

Teaching these lovely Laurels is a challenge.  Not them but the time allotment!  I love the teaching outline of the new program.  I'm comfortable and it's what I enjoy.  The problem that I've seen from the get-go, and it really hit me yesterday, is I'm not with them enough Sundays to build a closeness, establish a feeling of how our class is on a comfort level.  I only teach 2 Sundays a month.  2nd and 3rd.  so when I teach that 3rd Sunday...I'm not in class with them again for 2 weeks.  if there is a 5th Sunday then it's 3 weeks!!  how on earth do you create a sense of security, confidence etc. with such brokenness.  Plus I don't text!  Somehow or other I will figure it out.  Actually I have not been able to figure it out.  So my plan is to go to the Temple (speaking of which...another new film!  3rd one out!), fervently pray and receive some personal revelation through the Holy Ghost.  Which by the way was what I taught yesterday!

Love this quote.  a part of what I read in preparation for my class....

From the True to the Faith Book -

Full enjoyment of the gift of the Holy Ghost includes receiving revelation and comfort, serving and blessing others through spiritual gifts, and being sanctified from sin and made fit for exaltation in the celestial kingdom. These blessings depend on your worthiness; they come a little at a time as you are ready for them. As you bring your life in harmony with God’s will, you gradually receive the Holy Ghost in great measure. The Prophet Joseph Smith declared that the mysteries of God’s kingdom “are only to be seen and understood by the power of the Holy Spirit, which God bestows on those who love him, and purify themselves before him” 

I look forward to seeing what I come up with to unify my class and draw them closer to me at the same time!!

I've shared it before but here is my all time favorite quote about the Holy Ghost by Parley P. Pratt.  I WANT MORE OF THIS!!!!

...quickens all the intellectual faculties, increases, enlarges, expands and purifies all the natural passions and affections; and adapts them, by the gift of wisdom, to their lawful use.  He inspires, develops, cultivates and matures all the fine-toned sympathies, joys, tastes, kindred feelings and affections of our nature. He inspires virtue, kindness, goodness, tenderness, gentleness and charity. He develops beauty of person, form and features.  He tends to health, vigor, animation and social feeling. He invigorates all the faculties of the physical and intellectual man. He strengthens, and gives tone to the nerves. In short, it is, as it were, marrow to the bone, joy to the heart, light to the eyes, music to the ears, and life to the whole being.