TOFW 2019

Hello Everyone!
 
last weekend i went to this really great event called Time Out For Women. my mom, aunt, Sister, and I all went. it was an amazing experience. we have been going for quite a few years now. The theme for this year was "Hear"... it was about different ways we receive revelation and how we can listen and follow that revelation.



Deuteronomy 4:36.

  " 36 Out of heaven he made thee to hear his voice, that he might ^ainstruct thee: and upon earth he ^bshewed thee his great fire; and thou heardest his words out of the midst of the fire." 



There were so many great speakers. Here are a few of the highlights.

• Make silence (away from phones, etc.) a priority.
• Remember, God is aware of you!
• Sometimes the way we receive personal revelation is more important then the personal revelation itself
• 
  
  
• Trust him enough to choose.
• "I'm not perfect, but i was never meant to be.
• God can create beauty from ashes.
• Live with your eyes to the heavens
• GO TO THE TEMPLE!
• Stand ye still, for the battle is not yours its Gods.
• For revelation to start working in your life, all you need is need.
• the Lord will us any way he can to communicate with us, he will meet us in our "places" 
• Pay close attention to what the Lord is teaching you.
• Stop praying that God will take the storm away, and start inviting him to walk through it with you.
• knowing how to listen is just as important as learning how to speak
• Never let yourself get so distracted to pray with intent. 
• take notes when you pray.
• the more we listen to the more we learn to recognize his voice.
• listen to the music of the spirit, the music of Heaven.
• if there be ears to hear, there shall be revelation to experience.
• don't talk back when Heavenly Father tells you that you've done a good job.

i would like to talk a little bit about a couple of those highlights.

First, "Make Silence a priority". We Need to make silence in our lives, where we can just sit, and listen to what the Lord has to tell us. if we are too busy with technology and running around etc. we can not receive that revelation that the Lord is trying to tell us, because we are too busy with the hustle and bustle of life, and the noises of the world that we can hear him. 

Second,  "Trust him enough to choose" one of the speakers told a story about the revelation that she received when she asked if she was to marry her husband, side note: he proposed to her in the Celestial room of the Temple, (i love that and have always said that, that is how i wanted to be proposed to, he took my idea lol) anyways, when he proposed she hadn't quite asked if it was right, and so she prayed really quickly there in her head, and the answer that she got really surprised her. "you choose" those were the 2 words that she heard. so, he trusted her enough to know that she would make the right decision for herself. sometimes, in our lives we ask him for things and we get that same answer, sometimes in different words, but the same revelation, for us to choose for ourselves what we should do. we need to pray with intent, the way that i pray for answers to things and choices that i need to make are this: i ponder and think about the decision that i need to make, and i make that decision, then i pray and tell Heavenly Father what decision i have made, and basically tell him if it is not right, stop me! and every single time, if is not right he has stopped me. he gave us agency for a reason, and we need to use that wonderful gift that was given. we just need to trust him enough to choose. 

The third and last one I would like to talk about is, "Don't talk back when Heavenly Father tell you that you've done a good job" too many times we doubt ourselves, especially spiritually. we get down on ourselves and compare ourselves to others, "shes prettier than me, shes such a great mother, and I'm not, look at all of these people that are married with families, something must be wrong with me.  etc." but in reality nothing is wrong with us, we are doing everything right, Heavenly Father just has a different plan for us than we had for ourselves. So, we need to stop talking down to ourselves, and Don't talk back when he says we are doing a good job. 

PS: i got to meet and take a picture with one of my heroes. Mary Ellen Edmunds, she has spoken at almost every TOFW i have been to, and she is just so amazing! if you have not heard of her, look her up, you will not be disappointed! 

I love to see the Temple

   
 I know its been a few months since I've written on here. Its so hard to write every week, but I will make it goal to do at least every other week, at least to start, then hopefully get back to every week.

              I love to see the temple.

                 I’m going there someday

                   To feel the Holy Spirit,

                    To listen and to pray.

           For the temple is a house of God,

                 A place of love and beauty.

          I’ll prepare myself while I am young;

                  This is my sacred duty.

                    I love to see the temple.

                  I’ll go inside someday.

               I’ll cov’nant with my Father;

                   I’ll promise to obey.

            For the temple is a holy place

            Where we are sealed together.

                                                                                           As a child of God, I’ve learned this truth:

                                                                                                          A fam’ly is forever.

      Tonight I wanted to talk about the Temple, I absolutely love the temple, when I was 21 I was so excited to go to the temple, and of course go on my mission. As soon as I got my mission call, I schedule my session to go to the House of the Lord and receive my endowments. It was such a great experience. There was a lot going on, but I remember most everything, especially how I felt. As I went through the veil and walked into the celestial room (the most beautiful room I have ever been in) and saw my parents there glowing with smiles waiting for me, this overwhelming joy came over me. and not a day goes by that I don't think of that moment. The Temple is my favorite place to be. You can't be grumpy, or sad, or mad, etc. In the Temple, there is no way anyone can be anything but purely happy in there.We are not only helping ourselves but, we are helping those that have passed on gain their salvation.

     Another great story that happened in the temple while I just a kid doing baptisms with my family is this. But first, my grandfather was a convert, and he grew up in an orphanage, so he did not know his family. He spent a lot of his life trying to do his family history with no success, he passed through the veil when I was 11 years old. And not long after, my family started finding all of these names of ancestors, so that we could do the temple work for them. There are still tons and tons of names that my family is finding of ancestors that need their temple work done.  I know that my grandfather has been in the spirit world for 20 years, preaching the gospel to all of my family members there, and more.
   
      I was only 12 or 13, and my family got some of those family names to go do baptisms for. That was the first time I had done any work for my own family. It was myself, my parents and my older sister and older brother. It was one of the coolest things I have ever done, I love doing temple work, but doing temple work for family is just a special thing. Anyways, we had done the baptisms and then we went in to do the confirmations, and as we were sitting in the room listening to the confirmations, my mom and brother had the same vision where they saw our family members saying finally! thank you! with so much joy, because they had waited for so long to have their work done, and it was finally happening.

     I feel as if my ancestors and I had very close to the same experience in the temple when we were able to get our work done, except they had to wait for someone to do their work, but we both had the same feelings of Joy when we finally were able to receive our temple ordinances.

     I cannot tell you how important it is to go to the temple, not only for yourself but for your ancestors and anyone else that has passed on and cannot go to the temple for themselves.

     Just sitting in the temple brings me so much peace and joy, It is where I feel closest to the Lord, it is where I receive answers to prayers, etc.

     The celestial room is exactly how I visualize the celestial kingdom looking and feeling. perfectly white, clean, peaceful, and just beautiful.

 This video explains the temple in such simple yet amazing words, it shows member testimonies of their experiences in the temple.

     "Therefore let the Saints be diligent in building the Temple, and all houses which they have been, or shall hereafter be, commanded of God to build; and wait their time with patience in all meekness, faith, perseverance unto the end."

—Joseph Smith

     "We must build more temples, and we must build them more quickly. This is the season to build temples. They are needed, and we have the means to do so. The Lord will hold us accountable if we do not work with greater accomplishment than we are now doing."

—Gordon B. Hinckley

     "We continue to build temples. We desire that as many members as possible have an opportunity to attend the temple without having to travel inordinate distances."

—Thomas S. Monson

Are we not all Mothers?

Man oh Man am I bad at updating this thing. especially this semester, my homework has been due every Sunday night all semester by 11:59, so I'm going to use that as an excuse as to why I haven't updated my blog in a while. lol

anyways, to day is mothers day. I have a Love/hate relationship with mothers day. I love celebrating my wonderful mother and the many great mothers in my life, but it always makes me sad when it comes around and I am still not a mother. it makes me wonder if I will be able to be a mother in this life. I do have faith that even if I don't get the opportunity to be a mother in this life, but I keep my covenants that I have made with my Heavenly Father I will have all of the same blessings as everyone else. and hopefully I will have the opportunity to be a mother at least in the next life. 

on this mothers day I am going to keep this short at sweet, because Sheri Dew says it better than I could ever dream of, in her talk "are we not all Mothers?" it is one of the most amazing talks that I have heard, and listen to it every mothers day. it helps me to feel better about the fact that I am not a mother. 

I may not be a mother (yet) but I will be the BEST aunt to the greatest children on the planet, and a great sister to my amazing sibling and the best daughter to the BEST parents to ever exist.  and the best Dog Mom I can be ;) I love my wonderful family more than anything! 

here is the talk by Sheri Dew "Are we not all Mothers?"

Atonement, Agency, and Accountability

I know I've been slacking a lot for a while. but, I'm really going to try to update my blog every week. starting today.

ok, so today in church I heard someone way the phrase "FREE Agency" I'm not sure why it bugs me so much when people say that, but it does.  because agency is NOT free. there was a debt paid so that we could have agency. We fought for the ability to have agency in the pre-existance. when we chose to keep our first estate and come here to this earth. Adam and Eve were given Agency in the garden.

Jesus Christ Paid the price for agency. he paid the the price for us to be able to choose. Elder Packer said "had agency come without the Atonement, it would have been a fatal gift". I found this wonderful talk given by Elder Packer on the Atonement, Agency, and Accountability.

Agency, is not just the freedom to choose good from evil, but it comes with consequences. If we choose to do evil, we face the consequences of those choices, if we choose to do good,  we receive those great blessings for doing so.

Elder Bednar said that the principle of Moral Agency is the least understood principle of the Gospel, he said "as I listen to members all over the world define agency this is what they say, its the ability to choose, and I can do what I want" he said "THAT'S FALSE.  in the Pearl of Great Price, in the book of Moses, its defines agency. it reads:

Moses7:32-33

32 The Lord said unto Enoch: Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency;

33 And unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father...

I am sharing a couple of videos tonight. 

I am first sharing the video of Elder Packer speaking on the Atonement, Agency, and Accountability. and I am sharing the video by Elder Bednar, it goes pretty deep so I hope that you understand it. if not, let me know and I will do what I can to help you. I would try to explain agency but there is no way that I can do it as good as Elder Bednar does. I do however urge you to go look it up in the scriptures like Elder Bednar says. there  is so much on Agency in the scriptures that we can learn. go onto www.LDS.org and look it up. I did that, and sooooo much comes up.

I also hope that this post makes sense, but I just wanted to let you all know that Agency is NOT free. it was paid for, and once we make those covenants we are NOT free to do what want. we are commanded to keep those sacred covenants that we make with our Father in Heaven, and if we don't, there are consequences, just like if we break a mortal law, there are consequences, we have the same with spiritual laws. we need to exercise that agency that Jesus Christ paid for with the Atonement, and keep those sacred covenants that we make with our Father in Heaven. I Promise you that as you keep those covenants you will be blessed beyond measure. We have so many blessings coming our way, but ONLY if we exercise our agency and keep those Covenants. I know that Jesus Christ paid that price for us in Gethsemane and that he know exactly how we feel at all times. He KNOWS us! he KNOWS all of us! he LOVES us! 

I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.