Moving!

Okay, so instead of having two separate blogs I am moving to a new awesome "whole" blog! The link is below so that you can continue following me! Hope to see you there! :)

http://eternalconstitution.blogspot.com/

Blessings for Eternity

Tonight I once again had the opportunity of attending the temple with a great group of folks. While we were there I once again experienced the tender mercies of the Lord for multiple reasons. The first thing that happened was while we were doing confirmations. There were a few names that were family last names and when I looked at where they were from, they were either from states on the east coast or England which is where my family is from. While I was talking about this with the people I was in the temple with, a person that was working in the temple mentioned that he was from Nashua, NH and I got pretty excited about that! After we were confirmed for some temple names we went forward with the baptism and confirmations of 31 of my ancestors. I still have more names to bring, but I was so happy I was able to begin the work for my family! I hope this awesomeness continues and that I am continuously blessed like this because it is so awesome! :)

Temple Blessings

This past week I had the opportunity of attending the temple to do baptisms and confirmations for the dead twice, on Tuesday as well as on Saturday. On Tuesday I had the blessing of bring 14 female names to the temple and on Saturday I was proxy for temple names. The 14 names that I brought were divided up between the girls that I went to the temple with and we each did 3-4 names. The temple names on Saturday were from Mexico. While I was in the temple Saturday I had a really cool experience. I was there with three other women and as we were being confirmed, there were last names that I was confirmed for that were familiar last names - each one was the same last name of someone that had wronged me in my life. I felt as though it was a test that God was giving me and instead of thinking about the things they had done to wrong me I tried to think of the good in their lives and that they were children of God. Also, when we were in the baptistry waiting for our turn I was watching the boys that were ahead of us being baptized. As I was watching I noticed that some of the temple names they were being baptized for were from Maine and I got really excited! I also noticed that some of the last names were "family" names that I was familiar with and it made me extremely curious about who submitted the names and my excitement continued. I know that this was a tender mercy from God and that he was showing me his love and care. Over this weekend I have found 80+ names to bring to the temple and I can't wait to get all the work done for my ancestors! I love the temple and after going for the first time in 6 months, I must say it was an amazing experience and helped me appreciate the temple and God's love even more!

Being in Arizona these past few months have been amazing and one of the most amazing things is how often I feel the spirit now. I'm still not in a great environment living in the dorms, but my life is amazing. I have been learning so many things in my institute classes and I love studying the scriptures. This weekend I have been focused on 2 Nephi 30 because of an assignment we had last week in one of my institute class last week. I also am starting to study hope because I think it is a great topic and something that we all need a little more of all the time.

Something funny that I noticed is that back in Maine my visiting teacher was the relief society president and here in Arizona my VT companion is the relief society president. I wonder why God planned it out that way, but I am sure I will find out sometime in the distant (Or near) future!

I really do hope to be able to update my blogs more often, especially because of the great experiences I have been having, but I get distracted by so many other things, especially school and facebook!

Seminary

So, I have decided that instead of remembering for a short time the things that I learn in seminary and then forgetting them that I will post them here. I might just do one post at the end of each week with my favorite lessons, but I am not sure yet. Because I am downstairs and my scriptures are upstairs I will write a bit more about today later, so be watching for that!

Church

Today during sacrament meeting the focus was on loving your neighbor and my sister gave a talk. All the talks were really good and I know that I have a lot to work on as far as loving my neighbors. Also, we had the lesson in sunday school that every mormon has to have before they can become a true mormon. Haha. It was about seedology and we talked about the scientific method a bit. During young women's we talked about choosing a vocation. There are a few vocations that I have thought about, but I will be doing a lot of praying about it because I am not sure how they fit in with what my patriarchal blessing says. I missed the gospel discussion tonight, and there is a baptism on Saturday that I hope to be able to go to.

Personal Progress

For our Tuesday night activity this week we worked on personal progress. One of the things that we did was set a date as a goal to finish all of personal progress by. I set my date for the 3 year anniversary of my baptism (December 31st of this year). I am working a lot on it and I definately see it helping me and it is strengthening my testimony. I am working on one of the 10 hour projects right now that I am really excited about and hope to be able to pictures up soon of it. I don't have much else to say, but I am really excited and will be keeping a lot of updates on that!

Also, I am really excited for Andrew because he was called to serve in Honolulu, Hawaii!!!