Happy April!

Conference was amazing! I loved it. It was not necessarily everything I was expecting and it didn't answer all my questions about my future, but I realized that it didn't need to. I realized that what it did do was much more important. "And what is that?" you may ask. It gave me direction for how I need to improve myself, what I need to work on, how I need to become better, and that is the most important for me. I have been struggling lately with not feeling things. I know a lot of things in my head, but it has been a while since I have felt the way I want to feel. But I realized something this past week. It started out in my New Testament class when we read this scripture:

"From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then Jesus said unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" (John 6:67-69).

This interchange occurred just after Jesus had given a sermon about His death, resurrection, and the Sacrament. It was "an hard saying" and offended many. However, the apostles did not "go away," because although they did not understand very much yet about Christ's true identity and mission they did know that He had the words of eternal life and that He was the Son of God.

Sometimes in life we will be dished "hard sayings" and we may not understand why or how we will get through them. But I know that never will I be able to fall away because I know and am sure that my Savior lives, that He loves me, and that He truly is the Son of God.

I also was reminded of the whole principle of faith. Ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith. Living the gospel is not going to be, to quote Chelle, "Peaches and Cream" all the time :) You may not necessarily want to do the things you know you should. You may not feel a constant burning testimony all the time. But you can be continually building that unshakable faith that President Henry B. Eyring talked about in his conference talk during the Saturday morning session. That faith is not built by seeing miracles every week or by having amazing spiritual experiences all day long. Instead it is built by integrity, by consistently choosing right.

In essence, I realized that I can't give up trying because I don't feel the desire constantly. I need to make that commitment to always follow the Savior, no matter what, and then, after the trial of my faith, I will receive the witness that I desire.

I know that my Savior, Jesus Christ lives! I know that my Heavenly Father is aware of my needs. They have promised that they will not leave me comfortless, and I believe that! Sometimes we push them away so that we cannot feel their love, but that is because we are not allowing them in, not because they are not there knocking at the door. I hope you all enjoyed conference and if you weren't able to watch it, I highly recommend taking the time to do so. It will change your life.

I've missed blogging! I just spent a few hours perusing the blogs that I fell behind in reading ;) You may not have missed me, but I definitely missed reading about all the amazing people I know and learning from your examples ;) Have a fabulous evening!

General Conference

General Conference is in two weeks from today. I am so excited! I have always loved general conference. It is such an inspiring two days that should be the inspiration for the subsequent 6 months. However, this last general conference was not the best for me. I was still pretty emotionally torn up and I hoped that conference would help heal me. I wanted to feel the Spirit, I wanted to feel Heavenly Father's love for me. In essence, all I was looking for was comfort. To my dismay, I didn't feel what I wanted to feel. I was really disappointed. I don't really know why, but I do know that I did not prepare myself for conference like I should have. I was too busy to really sit down and ponder how I wanted to feel, to think about how revelation could come to me, and be ready to receive it. So, in hopes that I can better feel the Spirit this conference time, I've decided to set some goals that will help me eliminate distractions for the next two weeks.

1). Read and ponder the Book of Mormon every morning for at LEAST 10 minutes. I don't have children, I don't have an early morning job (except on Wednesdays), and I don't have anything preventing me from getting up 10 minutes earlier to have time to dedicate to my scriptures.

2). Read the New Testament every night, at least one chapter. My ward is doing a challenge to read the four gospels and 3rd Nephi before Easter. I've read 3rd Nephi, but I'm still only in Luke. So I need to get a move on and catch up!

3). No more facebook. Yep, I'm going on an fb fast. I know people always do this and sometimes make a big deal out of nothing, but I'm going to try it and see if it gives me a little more time.

4). No more blogs. Haha, this may just result in me having to spend hours catching up when I get back, but I just want to free up more time for homework, which in turn will help me go to bed earlier which will help with both getting up earlier and having a clearer head for studying.

5). No more music except for classical (and I'm still not sure on that...). I never listen to music except in the car, but I figured that for two weeks I can take that out of my regular life.

6). Basically only use internet when I absolutely have to. For quizzes, online assignments, etc.

7). My Mom suggested this and it sounds super appealing but I don't know if I can actually do this... She told me I should go on a boy fast ;) No more dates for the next two weeks. I have a date tonight, but after that I'm really tempted to just be "busy" for the next two weekends. I think it would just relieve some stress and help me really analyze how I'm feeling and give me time to think about what I want. I'm not super set on this one, but I'm going to try it.

8). This will be my hardest: no texting unless absolutely necessary. If I ever need information first, I'll just call and leave a message and they can text me back. I'm not going to initiate any texting. That will show me just how dependent I have become on having someone to talk to constantly. I think this one will help me more than most of the other.

Ok, that's all. Basically it's a media/internet fast. But I never watch movies or TV anyway, and I have to get on the internet for school and work at least once every day, so I had to specify. We'll see how it goes. I need to get my life back in order the way I want it, and even though I know these things are wonderful, and I would never eliminate them from my life for good, I think it will just be a good experiment to teach me to live without them for 2 weeks.

So, my next post will be in April. Let's see how this goes....