Another Great Sunday Meeting

Today was tremendous. Fast and Testimony Meeting was great. A guy came up to the podium and gave a tremendous testimony. He and his wife have an 18-month old baby that's been in and out of the hospital and currently has been there for 3-4 months straight. He started his testimony by saying that he was reading recently about Alma and his people being taken captive. The Lord told them the following (Mosiah 24):

14And I will also ease the ^aburdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as^bwitnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their ^cafflictions.

Then he said, "so that's what I'm up here to do today, to testify of God and that he's there and helps." It was powerful. He talked about how God isn't like us and that's what we want. He is greater than us and that we don't actually want him to do what we want. We really prefer that His will be done. Just as we don't parent our children as a child does, He will not parent us the way we would expect or like. He also said that God is powerful and does help us and when we conform our will to His we are happier.

What a great testimony!!! Hearing something like this inspires me to live better and gives me appreciation for what others are going through. If I only heard one testimony like this every 3-6 months, it would still make every hour of church a good investment.

However, we also had a good Sunday school lesson and great Priesthood lesson. The Sunday school teacher told a story about his son waking up with high fevers for many weeks. Finally he was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis which needed steroids for treatment. The ward held a fast for him prayed for him, and the issue went away just before he started his treatments. The doctors assumed it was a misdiagnosis....

Finally, our priesthood lesson was taught by a single guy who is very faithful and taught about being kind. He shared this message by an HBR blogger about misunderstandings in relationships; very good:

http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2010/07/how-to-avoid-and-quickly-recov.html

I learned a lot this week and was inspired by many people. Many more people need to know about how great this church is and come to it.

Sunday meetings - Finding heroes happens at church

My brother has only a couple of weeks left for his mission. I wrote him the following:

Please enjoy your last moments as a full-time missionary. What's interesting is that now that I'm working, one

of the major goals of my career is to get to the point that I can do full-time missionary work again. You're doing what I want to be doing again (along with Jamie) as soon as life will allow us to do it.

Also, we had an amazing testimony meeting on Sunday. A man read his wife's testimony. She has MS and can barely talk. She has probably spent 40 years in that wheel chair by my estimation. It was a tear jerker to say the least. It was a great example of why we go to church. A common question people have is, "why do I have to go to church for 3 hours every Sunday? I believe I can worship God on my own." They're wrong. You can't worship God "on an island." Worshipping God is personal but also needs to involve helping others come to him. By going to church you get the chance to help others come closer to him and also you will become inspired to do better yourself. Listening to the testimony of a man and woman who have been faithful members for 40 years of his wife going through a debilitating disease was truly powerful. They're such a great example. It's so awesome to find "heroes" in everyday life, and I have consistently found those at church.

Going to church is one of the best things I do every week. I really do find heroes there. I really appreciate the chance to go there. I'm very grateful for our church meetings. Even if there were 3 months of bad meetings (which there aren't), going to a meeting like last Sunday makes it all worth it. The man and woman who bore their testimonies, her written and his spoken, were truly refined. Very powerful people.

Also, I feel like the song, "I hope they call me on a mission" applies again in life. Missionaries are quite blessed....

Have a great day....