Instructive Experiences

My testimony continues to increase surrounding two things: (1) the Lord is intimately involved in the details of our lives; (2) the Lord’s work is hastening and the people around us are having experiences that are leaving them with questions that are leading them to the gospel.

Experience No. 1 – 

This past week, I flew out to NYC. On the plane, I sat next to a woman from NY who is currently living in Park City. She is the COO of a law firm and has prior experience in investment banking at JP Morgan. We had a fantastic conversation, and I left knowing that our meeting was not merely a coincidence. I’m in the middle of making some big decision re my future and have a lot of unanswered questions. Because of her work experience, she was able to speak to my specific concerns in meaningful ways.

As we continued talking, I learned that she now lives with her boyfriend who happens to be an inactive member of the LDS church. We talked about religion, about missions, about eternal families and conversion. To be honest, I have no idea if she felt the spirit or hopped onto Mormon.org when she got home. However, I absolutely believe our conversation will not be forgotten. Though I’m not aware of the details of her life, I know that God is, and I’ve had numerous experiences on both sides where random meetings and meaningful conversations have made a difference.

Experience No. 2 – 

Yesterday I met up with a friend who I met this summer at an internship conference in SF. He is an MBA student at MIT and drove down to NY to visit. Though we have truthfully only spoken a handful of times over the phone and met only once in person before this weekend, we have been able to have great conversations, many of them concerning the gospel. Yesterday after walking around the city, we went to the Manhattan Temple and sat in the church building and talked for a few hours. We talked about church, temples and the priesthood.

We then got into a taxi and rushed to a dinner reservation. In the taxi, he asked me about what I believed about life after death. (His mom passed away when he was 8 years old.) We talked about the spirit world and the plan of salvation and more about temple work and eternal families. Suddenly, our taxi came to a screeching stop. We totally almost slammed into a car. The taxi driver (Bai) turned back to us and apologized – he said he wasn’t paying attention because he was listening to me. His mother also passed away when he was young and in Nigeria. He then went on to talk in detail about the eternal nature of spirits!

I pulled out a piece of paper and wrote down the Mormon.org website and my email address. I told him if he wanted to email me, I would connect him with missionaries, people who he could continue having these kinds of conversations with. Well, I found out that he has already met missionaries and has even been baptized! He kept saying “128 and Lennox” (address of a church building in Harlem). He’s now attending a Catholic Church. I told him he could still meet with missionaries anyway! 

Again, I'm not sure what will happen, and I haven't gotten an email from him. But the point is – of all the taxis in NYC, how interesting that we chose the one with Bai. And though I don’t know and understand everything in God’s plan, I am convinced that the people in our lives (roommates, parents, neighbors, strangers, classmates) are not with us by accident.

--

“Perhaps the greatest reason for missionary work is to give the world its chance to hear and accept the gospel. The scriptures are replete with commands and promises and calls and rewards for teaching the gospel. I use the word command deliberately for it seems to be an insistent directive from which we, singly and collectively, cannot escape” (Spencer W. Kimball, “When the World Will Be Converted,” Ensign, Oct. 1974, 4).

trees and white blossoms

so today i learned something new. :) i was walking around outside enjoying the Beautiful weather! and then i saw this tree with pretty white blossoms hanging over the fence right toward me. i thought the flowers would look pretty in my hair so i decided to break a few off. i kept walking and i was reading a new book at the same time (side note--this is really an incredible book. it is called "gift of the sea" and it is written by ann morrow lindberg. she has a beautiful style of writing that i love because she is able to express things in a clean, unique, and wonderful way.) 

anyway, so i was walking, still holding the little flowers and i noticed after a while that they were now really wilted. and it had only been maybe 15 or 20 minutes. by the time i made it home they were all shriveled up. it made me think about unity again (i was on this unity kick last year). i'm still learning a lot about unity, even though i'm not as focused on it, but one thing i thought of was how little time it took these flowers to become wilted once they were detached from the tree. while walking i think what happened is my hand kept swaying and moving, so maybe the wind had something to do with the wilting of the flowers, but then i thought about how the wind must surely blow the flowers while they're still attached to the tree, but it doesn't seem to have the same effect (they don't seem to get wilted that way or that fast i guess), and i felt like the reason is because of the tree's unity and what it offers to each individual flower so that it is stronger as a whole unit than in smaller/separate pieces. i feel that is a true principle that relates to so many things. 

it also made me think of something that our stake president's wife sister todd said once during a lesson. she was talking about finding balance in her life and how she used to imagine a wheel and that she would separate her life into all of these little triangles so that the wheel would be complete and roll smoothly. but then she realized her life was not a wheel, but more like a tree. she said her life was like a tree because she found balance and peace from being deeply rooted in the gospel, and that everything else extended from her testimony of christ and of knowing who she was. 

anyway, that is something i learned today. i love learning from nature and i love beautiful days!

it's the most wonderful time of the year :)

i love the arbinger institute! it's amazing. everytime i read i learn something i have NEVER thought of before and it is really refreshing.


today i'm reading about forgiveness, which i think is good to think about this time of year. and to share something a little personal, a few years ago i received a blessing from a really wonderful friend, and in that blessing he said something so specific to me. he told me i needed to forgive the people in my life i hadn't forgiven already. really? there are people that i haven't forgiven? who is that? i don't have any grudges or hard feelings against anyone. do i have hard feelings against someone? that's what i was thinking as the words were coming out and sinking into my head. 


and then almost as if in answer to my question came the words, "the people you need to forgive in your life are you parents." 


no way! really? crazy, i didn't even know i was upset with them? i don't feel like i am. 


so that happened several years ago, i think it was 2008, or maybe even 2007. but then a few months ago i was in church and we were reading in the new testament, and i learned this really interesting thing about forgiveness, and what giving our forgiveness may involve.


2 Corinthians 2:7-8
7| so that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, AND comfort him, lest perhaps [or else] such a one [the person you haven't forgiven] should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.
8| wherefore i beseech you [and now this forgiveness involves] that ye would confirm your love toward him.


interesting. and what i personally learned from that is in order to forgive other, my parents, i not only need to forgive them, but part of forgiving is confirming (i love that word confirm) my love for them to them. which honestly i am not always very good it. but it is something to learn and i am grateful for a life to learn it.


anyway, here is what arbinger says about forgiveness that i really liked that adds a few other thoughts/ideas..
when we forgive genuinely, those we formerly accused suddenly become real for us. we sense their insecurity and anxiety; we perceive something of their struggle to show themselves as worthy and acceptable. . . . 


you can see that in an unexpected and odd way we owe to the people we are able to forgive a very large debt. no matter how reprehensibly they may have treated us, they have provided us with a gift. the gift is their humanity. without their humanity to which we are able to open ourselves, we cannot get ourselves emotionally unstuck no matter how we might try. we cannot do it by denying or repressing our feelings or by willing ourselves to feel differently--feelings are subject to our indirect but not our direct control. we are able to do it only by recognizing, respecting, and yes, revering other as they reallya re, in the fullness of their humanity and vulnerability.


SO good. :)

things i'm learning ab christmas :)

lately i've been thinking about what christmas really means to me. tonight at institute we talked a lot about the ways we felt about christmas as a little kid. i thought about it and i remember last year thinking maybe christmas was just more fun as a little kid! sad!


but this past week i have realized that i think christmas is just starting to mean more to me.


something i felt really strong tonight--so amazing--and maybe it's not super christmas related, but it definitely is christ related, i just realize i am so grateful for my trials. and i'm not just saying that! or trying to tell myself that when i don't really believe it. the reason i felt that, which i've felt it before, but tonight in particular is because i noticed that i often just feel this new convert feeling. i just feel like i'm glowing inside and out and i feel such a deep love for the savior and his atonement bc i've learned how much i needed it. anyway, i realized it is BECAUSE of my trials that i am constantly turned to the atonement and i love feeling it in my life and seeing it change me little by little. in other words, BUT FOR my trials (haha! i'm a law school nerd ;D) i would not be able to have that new convert feeling with bright eyes and filling full of truth and light.


so i basically wanted to say--i am grateful for my trials. they have turned me to the savior, to love and appreciate and to know him, and to know more fully myself. i know that he knows our most sincere and righteous desires and that he is doing everything he can for us (thanks catie ^^). 


and i just wanted to say i am so grateful for people in my life who are always teaching me things. thanks you! i learn so much from you! and you didn't even know it :)

remembering the purpose of learning.

"Seek learning, even by study and also by faith." -D&C 88:118