Happy Easter!

On this most special day, I wish you all a Happy Easter!  It is the most special Christian holiday that we celebrate because we are rejoicing in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, Our Saviour.

Without this last phase of His life, Our Gospel would be incomplete, but He is Risen.  Not only did He die to atone for our sins, but He conquered death and received a perfect, immortal body so that we could also have a perfected body.  His whole life and work was an example of who we must be and who we can become.

I love this day because it gives me hope.  I have hope in Christ and in His teachings.  If He can accomplish all of these things, and has given me a way to accomplish them as well, I must try my best to do so.  Through Christ, we can do anything.

This video is some of our church's apostles testifying of Christ.  I would also like to testify that I know He lives!  He is alive and has received a perfected body.  I love Him and I want so much to be like Him.

Happy Easter, dear friends!

Mosaic of Christ

As this semester of college comes to an end and my time to report to the MTC grows closer, I have had a lot on my mind.  One of the classes that I chose to take was called "New Testament: The Life of Christ".  For this class, we studied the life of Christ chronologically.  It was the best religion class I have ever taken and an incredibly spiritual experience.  One of the things that my teacher wanted us to keep in mind throughout the semester was how we pictured Christ and what He means to us on a personal and more intimate level.  He called this our mosaic of Christ.

A mosaic is a picture made up of tiny tiles.  Each tile is necessary in making the greater picture, but each is only a tiny piece compared to all of the tiles put together.  When we look at Christ, there are so many different pieces of who He is to us; each piece separately is only a small portion of who He is, but together we get to see the whole image.  

My Religion teacher would frequently ask us to find out what tiles would make up our image of Christ: Friend, Teacher, Saviour, etc.  When we add pieces to our own mosaics, our picture of Him becomes more beautiful and more full.  We may never be able to complete a perfect mosaic of Him in this life, but by starting now, we will be able to see Him in a more bright and full light.

So the question "Who is Christ to you?" has consistently been on my mind.  How do I see Christ?  What do I need to change about the way I look at the Saviour?  What can I do to have His light in my countenance?  I am still trying to discover the answers, but I feel that I am getting much closer now through constant study and prayer.

As I have been preparing to serve as a representative of Him, this has been one of my more important personal struggles:  How am I going to properly represent Christ?  Christ is a Servant of the people.  He never neglects those in need, and He chooses to express love and overlook our shortcomings.  He is kind, patient, forgiving, humble, etc.  I know Christ is perfect because He never tries to glorify Himself.  Christ always glorifies the Father.  He is the perfect example of proper missionary service, and I want so much to be like Him in all that I do, especially as I stand in His stead.  Easter is tomorrow.  General Conference is next weekend.  These are just more opportunities to study Christ as I try to build my mosaic of Him.

I will not try to pretend that I know exactly who Christ is and all that He means to me.  Like I mentioned in my last post, I only came to really know Him less than a year ago.  I do know though that Christ will show Himself unto us if we open our hearts to Him.

[I wrote this poem to explain what this picture means to me.]

Help me change my heart, Lord, to become more like Thee.
I know that I am small, I know that I am weak,
But through faith I can be a different me.
Help me, Saviour, become more like Thee.

Sometimes it is dark, and it is hard to see
The way that I should walk, the path that lies in front of me.
Open up my eyes, Lord, in the dark surrounding me.
Help me, my Redeemer, become faithful unto Thee.

At the end of this life, I pray that I may be
All that Thou hast asked of me,
That I might have become everything that I could be.
Help me, Lord, become an instrument for Thee.

I am at the start of the path leading back to Thee
Sometimes it seems that I might always be,
But if thou wilt, grant me the strength that I now need
To become, Dear Friend, much closer to Thee.

Help me change my heart, Lord, to become more like Thee.
Help me live with kindness and serve with charity.
As I seek for the souls that might have need of me,
Help me, Dear Lord, become all that I can be.

I know that Thou lovest me, Lord, that I plainly see.
Help me, Saviour, become more like Thee.


As we travel through life trying to discover who we should be, we can have hope in Christ.  Through Him, we can find peace and we will never be lost.

I love Jesus Christ.  He is my Friend and Brother.  He waits to meet us after this life, so that He can embrace us as the picture above portrays.  He loves us!  He knows us!  We can know Him, too, by studying His teachings and trying to build our own mosaics.  I pray that we can all gain our own testimonies of Him and His love.

Testimony & Conversion

I should probably share my conversion story.

I was born into a family of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  This is my church, and has always been so.  I was raised believing in the principles and the morals that are a part of this church.  I have always known that the things that LDS members believe in are true, but there is a difference between knowing and feeling.

When I was 17, I read the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ for the first time.  As I read, I felt of its truthfulness.  I knew that the principles and teachings in this book were from God, through His prophets on Earth.  I felt the Holy Ghost touching my heart and mind, telling me that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Lord's church on the earth today, that it contains the most true and correct gospel.

Throughout the next few years, I didn't try to further my spiritual education.  I didn't continue on studying the words of God, I didn't try to invite the Holy Ghost into my heart anymore.  I made simple, small, baby steps...they didn't lead me anywhere specific; I just kind of led myself around in a circle.  By the time I turned 20, I knew that I needed to make decisions about my life, and my religious beliefs.  I needed to either really dive straight in or walk away for good.  I couldn't have one foot in and one foot out forever.  Not really committing to this Gospel was getting me nowhere, and I didn't feel happy within myself.  I decided that I would either invest my heart and faith into this Church, or I would leave and not turn back.  This was my absolute lowest point; this really was my rock-bottom.  I had never felt so lost, alone, sad, scared, angry, invisible, torn, and truly concerned for my soul as I did in this particular time of my life.

One late, late night in the middle of the summer of last year (2012), I had come to wits-end.  I needed to confront my problem head on.  I felt so defeated; I felt as if I would just waste away and completely disappear.  It was awful, and very scary, so I decided to pray.

I knelt down in my bedroom, and I started to speak to what I believed at the time was only myself.  Aloud I prayed, saying, "Lord, are You there?  Are You listening?  Do You even exist?"  I was so overcome with emotion.  I was sobbing.  I bore my whole soul to the Lord, deciding that if He was real, at this very moment He was listening to me.  I cried and cried, sharing my thoughts about my faith and how I felt so lost.  "Lord, I don't know who I am.  I don't know what I'm doing anymore.  I feel so alone and I am so sad", I said, letting Him hear all of my pain.

Many people speak of miracles or signs that persuade them to believe.  There was no audible voice or holy messenger. The Lord allowed me to feel His love for me in a simpler way.

As I continued to cry, I felt a feeling of release.  I felt the weight of all my sadness being slowly removed from my heart, kind of like single bricks being lifted from off of a bigger pile.  I felt warmer and lighter and less fragile, but more open.  As I continued to ask if He was there, the Lord started to speak back.  A simple phrase entered my mind, "I am here.  I am listening."

The Lord was hearing my words, but not just that, He exists!  He is real.  He is real, and He cares enough about me as His daughter to pay attention to my pain.  My Dear Heavenly Father allowed me to let go of a dark piece of who I am that night, and also planted faith in my heart.

Because He was available for me, I was able to establish my faith in Him.  That late night was the first building-block of my Gospel foundation.  What kind of God would listen to the woes of a weak, scared, earthly child?  A just, loving, caring Father would.  Our Father.  I experienced His love in such an intimate and simple way.  I cannot, and will not, deny that God is a living, Celestial Being.  He cares for His children, and has sent us hear to gain experiences, so that we can find our way back to Him.

I am so grateful for the love that Our Heavenly Father has.  He blesses our lives in so many ways that we cannot even recognize them all.  He wants us to learn and grow so that we can become the people we are supposed to be.  He sent His son, Jesus Christ, to this Earth to atone for the sins and sorrows of ALL of His children so that our souls may be made clean and spotless when we are presented to Him (The Father) after this life.  Heavenly Father blessed us with the gift of the Holy Ghost.  This allows us to always feel guided by Him.  It is the way that we feel of God's love.  Heavenly Father gave us our families so that we will not have to travel through life without support and love.

I KNOW that the Book of Mormon is the word of God.  It is true.  The Spirit of Christ is within every page.  We can learn so much about Christ and His purpose, and our purposes, here on the Earth.  We have a prophet, Thomas S. Monson, that leads us and guides us today.  The prophet, Joseph Smith Jr., restored this Gospel to the Earth in 1830 to fulfill a commandment from the Lord.

These beliefs I have shared with you are all true.  I love my Father in Heaven, and He loves each of us completely and unconditionally.  I am so grateful that He answers prayers, and exists to do so.  In the name of Jesus Christ.  Amen.

36 Days and Counting!

Yay! Mission blog!  I started this blog so that my family and friends (you all reading this) would be able to keep up with all that I am going to be doing.  I will be giving everything up to serve a full-time mission, even forms of contact with the people I love.  This blog will fill the gap for most of you so that you all can be a part of what I'm doing while I'm away.

I have 36 Days left until I report to the Provo Missionary Training Center to begin my missionary training.  I will be serving in the Italy Milan Mission from May 2013 - November 2014.  I am so excited to serve as a full-time missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  This is what I have been waiting my whole life for. Ever since I was a little girl, I knew I would serve a mission, and now the time has come!  This is so exciting for me.  Especially because I am serving in the country that I have been dying to go to, speaking the language that I love the most, and being with the people that I already love and want to serve.

I received my mission call on January 20th, and I was extremely happy, surprised, shocked, filled with joy, stunned, flabbergasted, etc.  It was the best day of my life.  I have been preparing and waiting, as patiently as possible, to get to the day when I start my training and begin serving in Italy.

I'm excited to be able to share my experiences with you all.  Thank you for supporting me and being willing to keep updated with all that I'm doing.

I love this Gospel.  I love Jesus Christ, Our Saviour.  I know that this is His church, restored on the earth.  This is His work and I am so glad that I will be a part of it.