Hello world!
So, remember how I said that I finally finished the Faith project for Personal Progress? Well... I liked having posts dedicated to a spiritual experience, so I'm gonna keep doing them. And who knows, maybe I'll end up using posts for another value project in the future, though the subject matter would be different.
All this happened a few weeks ago, starting with the Sunday before Young Women's Excellence Night. It was a great experience that I'd totally be willing to do again.
It was during the YW class in church. In one part of the lesson, the teacher pulled out a paper that she would read off of and asked us to close our eyes. It was like those times in yoga or Health 1 where they said stuff that was supposed to relax you, but instead of things like "imagine being in your favorite place" or something, but more like "imagine the Savior reaching out to you". It'd be difficult to describe everything she had us think about, but I remember it was really powerful, because she gave us a moment to really think about Christ and what he has done for us. I think some of us were close to tearing up, even, and the Spirit was so strong in the room.
After the visualization and stuff, she gave us 5-ish minutes to just soak in the Spirit and read scriptures or something. I actually decided to use that time to look back at some of the Faith project posts, and I realized that I wanted to read off a little bit of one or two of them once Excellence Night came.
And indeed I did! Rena had compiled a video of us doing YW activities over the previous weeks (including some footage from the Sunday before, which I had no idea about!), so we watched that first. I'd been nervous about seeing my part because I thought I'd look really stupid, but I turned out to not look really stupid (except for a few moments later in the video where I made an idiotic face because I hadn't realized the camera caught it but it only lasted a few seconds). My poor mom cried when she saw me talking during the interview after the whole activity with the girls from Chile.
After the video, we all went up one by one to share a short testimony about Young Women's. I think I could've done better, but at least I got to read off a bit of one of my posts and not need to come up with my whole testimony on the spot. I would've freaked out a little more if that was the case...
Anyway, I think I'll quote what it was I read aloud. It was all from "It Is Done":
"A question I was supposed to answer was 'How has Personal Progress helped you in your life?' I'd actually immediately thought back to this, the Faith project, which sadly took over a year to finish, but I'm glad to say is now done.
"At the very beginning I'd been scared of trying to do this, because I was having the hardest time trying to think of experiences to write about. I mean, I don't really remember when I got my testimony for the Church; just kinda felt like I always had it. Unsurprising, since I was born into the gospel and I hardly remember anything from my childhood.
"But, as this project kept going, I realized I have had more spiritual experiences than I gave myself credit for. I'd felt the love and blessings I'd received from God more than I thought. If I only just bothered to remember that day, and how I felt...
"Many times since I've started this project, I've had thoughts that affirmed my testimony in how being part of the Church blesses lives and blesses my own. I can get so frustrated or confused or whatever sometimes, but I can be happy that I know the truth about many things. (...)
"I know that we can see the hand of God working in our lives in both the small and big things (...) if we just try to see it. I know Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are all real and love us very much. I know the Book of Mormon is true and all the modern prophets were called to serve Him. Joseph Smith was not a fake. Nothing ever taught in our Church was made up one day- this is all what Jesus Christ taught and asked of us. The Church is here to make our lives better and happier."
Sometimes I look back at something I wrote and actually impress myself. *chuckle*
This is turning out to be a much more summarized post than I expected. Well, it is WEEKS since all this happened and there's not much I can say about it anyway.
So, the last thing I'll mention today is that the week after(?) I had a cool opportunity with the sister missionaries.
I may or may not have mentioned a family receiving a lesson that I tagged along for in which the dad told us he wasn't sure he'd be able to get himself to read as they wanted him to, though the eldest daughter actually seemed excited by the Book of Mormon. (Yes!!!)
So I went with them the next time they were having a lesson with this family, but it turned out the dad was all alone at home for the moment since his wife and kids went to get groceries. Since I was with them they were able to come in and just talk with him. Even though it's usually better to have the whole family together for lessons, I feel like it was still great to have talked to him because of something that surprised me.
I'd been a bit annoyed when he told us earlier he wasn't good at reading because I thought it might've been him nicely saying he didn't really plan to read. But he explained this time a little more about where he came from and... well... it turned out he really was once illiterate. He said he had to quit school to work when he was quite young and once he was about 15 years old he went to work in Baja California, then some time after that got married and moved here (or maybe moved and got married?). Not only that, but he grew up in one of the areas of Mexico where they actually speak one of the native languages instead of Spanish, and ended up learning some once he was in Baja California, and there was where he started to learn a bit of how to read Spanish too, I think, but I doubt he ever got any actual classes on the language. So, he could technically read the words, but he had trouble actually making sense of what it's supposed to mean, especially with something like the BoM that uses a lot of words that aren't in common speech anymore. I mean, considering all that, it makes more sense why he said he wasn't that good at reading.
We spent that whole time going through the first chapter of 1 Nephi, usually having him read the verses and the sister missionaries explaining what it's talking about. By the end of the lesson (which is of course when his family finally came back home), he seemed actually more excited about seeing what else the book had in store and perhaps felt a little more confident in attempting to read it. That made me happy to see.
I hope I can come along for a lesson with that family again sometime.
Okay, that's it. Probably didn't mean much to any random people out there reading this, but hopefully Future Me remembers this stuff.
I think later today we're gonna be writing our New Year's Resolutions for 2016~ so maybe I'll end up saying what they were later? (Also- we ended up not going to the youth dance. I instead watched the Parasyte live-action movies. So creepster.) K bai!
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