Lessons Learned

Tonight, before I get all ready for bed and such, I thought that I'd sit down and share a few experiences that I've had over the past month and half or so :).

In the middle of December, I was called to serve as the Relief Society President in my ward. Overwhelmed. Blessed. Inadequate. Excited. What? Just a few of the words that popped into my head as I sat in Bishop Weaver's office. It has taken me a good month to get a semblance of a feel for this new responsibility that has been given to me. And even now, I don't feel like I'm anywhere close to where I should be in order to fulfill my calling the way I should. But, I take comfort in knowing that I don't have to do it on my own...and that is Lesson #1.

Lesson #2: I'm just an ordinary person. I haven't done anything to make me famous and I'm not the one to stand out in a crowd, but the longer I live and the more things I experience, the more I realize that sometimes, no, almost always, I learn the most from "ordinary" people. Maybe being "ordinary" is an o.k thing to be.

Lesson #3 is stolen from a phrase you may have heard before...Just Do It.
I've always had a fear of sharing the gospel with people, for fear that they might think I'm "pushing" something on them or that I might offend them. This is not the attitude I need to have. This is the truth we're talking about here, people! I've had the opportunity to share the Book of Mormon with one friend and have had 2 experiences with the missionaries over the past 2 weeks and it has been such a testimony builder for me. It has pushed me from an attitude of "someone else will" to "Just Do It!"

Our ward mission leader has started up a Preach My Gospel Sunday School class and a good 30 or 40 people attend it each week. I've enjoyed it so much and the emphasis that is put on having a testimony of the Book of Mormon is something that I love. This past Sunday the teacher challenged us to something that he lives by every day, and that is to keep a study journal while reading the scriptures. He showed us a full backpack of about 15 notebooks that he had filled and shared his testimony of how much his study of the scriptures has improved since he has started this practice. I've begun my own and it's amazing how much of a difference it makes when you go into your study asking and expecting to learn something new. Lesson #4: Ask for it, you'll get it.

If one thing has become evident to me over the course of the past month, as I alluded to above, it is that ordinary people can do extraordinary things. We're all pretty ordinary and normal,I hate to say it-but with the Lord on our side, anything is possible.You guessed it: Lesson numero 5.

And last but not least, I have a new thing that I love to do. Instead of listening to music while I'm getting ready for church, I'll listen to a few Conference talks. Lately, with this emphasis on the Book of Mormon that I've had in my life, it reminds me of the moving and powerful talk given by Elder Jeffery R. Holland in October's General Conference.

"I ask that my testimony of the Book of Mormon and all that it implies, given today under my own oath and office, be recorded by men on earth and angels in heaven. I hope I have a few years left in my “last days,” but whether I do or do not, I want it absolutely clear when I stand before the judgment bar of God that I declared to the world, in the most straightforward language I could summon, that the Book of Mormon is true, that it came forth the way Joseph said it came forth and was given to bring happiness and hope to the faithful in the travail of the latter days."

I encourage you to go back and listen to that incredible talk. It's amazing how uplifting just listening to these talks over again can be!

Lesson #6:Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Whether it's listening to a Conference talk, staying on track with a homework schedule, our scripture study or keeping up with a running program so you don't make a fool of yourself while running in an insane relay race, repetition is what gets us to do things and realize things that we wouldn't normally.

I know that some of this may not be relevant to you or really even mean anything at all, but as I said in a previous post, 2010 is the year that I try new things, my year to turn over a new leaf. The leaf's turning folks!