Guest Post: Letter to a new convert

Happy New Year's Eve! Tonight I have a snazzy guest post for you guys :) WhitneySue over at Feel My Sunlight has been a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints her whole life and I super love her blog.

Recently, she had this brilliant guest post idea that we write letters to each other. Her letter is titled "Letter to a New Convert," and mine is "Letter From a New Convert," posted over at her blog (see it here!). When she emailed me to tell me about her idea, she said it would be awesome to see different perspectives on being part of the LDS church. She's been a member her whole life, but admits that sometimes life-long members can take the church for granted - talking to new converts helps remind her of why she "first fell in love with the gospel" :)

On the other hand, life-long members can have valuable insights to share with new converts, plus reading her testimony is pretty amazing. Enjoy, and be sure to check out her blog with my post! :D

<3 Marie-Rose

Guest Post by Mikayla: A Conversion Story

Hey guys, so I don't remember if I mentioned this, but a while back I had a reader contact me wanting to talk about the church. She had been attending church for like 6 months, but due to the lack of a ride and her job she had to quit going. She had questions about some things, like the Word of Wisdom, but she was pretty sure the church was mostly true. We sent emails back and forth a lot, and eventually added each other on Facebook and exchanged phone numbers. She just got baptized last Saturday the 13th, and I am SO happy for her. I asked her to write a guest post, and here it is :)

<3 Marie-Rose

Guest Post: Katie's Talk

As promised, Katie's talk from Stake Conference :)

Good evening; I am Katie from the (location withheld) 5^th ward. I am 18, the middle of five children, and my parents were converted into the church after having my two older siblings. This gave me the great blessing of growing up in the church, though we haven't always gone to church consistently. My younger sister is disabled and has to have one of our parents home with her almost all the time. Furthermore, she doesn't have a working immune system, so we can't bring her to church with us. Because of this, only one of my parents can attend church every week with us kids. But, my mom is also a nurse, so when she worked Sundays, us kids would have to be dropped off by ourselves at church. Because I wasn't comfortable being at church without my parents, I often didn't go. Because I wasn't at church often, I didn't know a whole lot about the doctrines. I knew the basics and believed what I had heard, but I felt like I was missing a lot of the knowledge that my friends had.

Guest Post by Eliza: Dare to Stand Alone

Have you ever read Eliza's blog? She writes over at Mark This Day and she is super awesome. (PS isn't her blog name the greatest?? It's a line taken from one of my favorite-est songs ever, "I Will"!) Anywho, if you haven't read her blog, today we're doing a blog swap :) This means that she wrote the following post, and if you go visit her blog, you can see my guest post!

--------------------------------------------------

Hey readers of Hope Always and Pray Constantly! My name is Eliza, and I'm going to be your host for tonight's show. Coming up will be some action you do not want to miss! First, we will visit today's Prophet, Thomas S Monson for some advice about standing up for what you believe. Then, we will take a stroll down Arithmetic Avenue and find out exactly how many people there are as you stand alone. Finally, we'll follow up with some statistics on who you've got surrounding you.

Image source

When Tommy was a boy, he loved his family and was devoted to God. He grew up with a testimony of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and loved the free country he lived in. That patriotism led him to join the army.

The week was filled with gruesome drills and backbreaking activities. Tommy was looking forward to the rest and relief that the Sabbath would bring. On Sunday morning, the sergeant told all the respective groups to meet. "You Catholics, go to the camp and don't come back until three." A large group left. "Jews, meet over there and do your business, and don't come back until three." The numbers were trickling down. "The rest of you Protestants, go to the quarters and don't come back until three."

Confused, Tommy stood watching the rest of the group file into the forest. "Tommy, you're not a Catholic, or a Jew, or a Protestant. You're a Mormon!" Prepared to face the wrath of his superior (for the army is a gruff thing ;) he stood there and watched. He felt the way we all sometimes feel-- alone, with judging eyes scouring us and our hearts beating. (In my case, I would get all nervous and flustered 'oh no, I have to explain myself in front of HIM?!') People may sometimes judge us for not being mainstream or taking the easy road. But we need to stand up for our beliefs, even in the face of our worst fears (big burly men and peers who could make our lives miserable: that basically sums it up ;).

Image source

The sergeant looked over at the lines and yelled "Just what do you men call yourself?!" Tommy answered loud and clear and unashamed "Mormon, sir!" And his voice echoed. He looked around amazed and found that, though he had thought he was alone, there were about a dozen other stripling warriors who were left behind. "Well, go find someplace to meet, and don't come back til three!"

Like President Monson, we may have to face the different opinions of our peers and risk being alone in the process. But, just as Tommy found, no matter how alone we feel as we stand for what's right, we are never alone.

Math time! From this story, we can see that one=one. But...

One+God= enough

Even: One+God=Majority

Even when we feel alone in standing for the truth, even when it feels like no one is with us, God is. Christ said many times in the scriptures:

Be Still, and know I AM.

With Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ on our side, we can do anything. We are never alone.

One last thing though. God has promised us that angels will surround us and minister unto us. Think of how many angels are behind the veil hoping and praying that we will make the right choices! In fact, I am almost positive that if the veil was taken right now, you would see how many are surrounding YOU.

You are never alone when you are on God's side. Remember that there are more beings for God than against them. (Remember the war in heaven? Two thirds chose God's plan ;)

To quote Tommy again:

May we ever be courageous and prepared to stand for what we believe, and if we must stand alone in the process, may we do so courageously, strengthened by the knowledge that in reality we are never alone when we stand with our Father in Heaven. 

Well thanks for tuning in folks! This has been Eliza--signing out. 

Guest Post by Katie: Swapping Trust

Hey guys! We're gonna try something new today :) my bestest friend Katie is gonna write a guest post! Unfortunately she doesn't have a blog I can point you to, but maybe we can get her hooked on blogging after doing this once or twice, yes? :)

<3 Marie-Rose

--------------

Hey everyone, Katie here! I've known for about a week now that Marie-Rose wants me to post on her blog, but I haven't been able to think of something that feels right to talk about. Then this morning it hit me: Trust.

Long story short, I've been treated pretty badly by a few people in the last few years, and I've realized that I still have to trust; trust that God will help me, trust myself and what I stand for, and trust that people are good and kind and want to help. I know you guys know what I'm talking about; you've all been in that place. But sometimes we all need a reminder.

When we go through hard times it's easy to think that we deserve it, that we have to fix it, and that we shouldn't trust the same way again. But if we let ourselves think this way, we are being cheated. No one deserves to be treated badly, it's that simple. But we are all cheated, mistreated, and feel defeated at times. This is where we need to remember that at some point we have mistreated someone else. And we still view ourselves for the most part in a positive way, right? We tell ourselves that it was wrong and that we won't treat someone the same way again. So why wouldn't we trust that others think the same way? Though they mistreated us, it's likely they didn't intend to, it just happened that way. They probably think the same way we do and if we trust ourselves to treat others kindly, why wouldn't we trust others to treat us kindly? And if we trust that other people are good, we have to believe that we ourselves are good. We do good things, believe in good things, and are trying to do what we think is right just like everyone else. And though we hurt people sometimes, we are still good. And sometimes we don't have to fix the problem that was made, and we never have to fix it on our own. Sometimes you need to just leave things as they are and it's not your deal to fix. Sometimes it's the other person's job to do the fixing. And sometimes it's for the best. And if you do need to fix it, you always have God to help. Trust in God is essential to enduring life. Not just getting through, but enduring. God always wants to help us, even if we haven't talked to Him for a while or if we have done something horrible; and sometimes He helps us by making us do things on our own. He always helps. So it's important to trust Him and that He is leading you in a better way than you could yourself. This is something I have learned over and over again lately.

Let's take a moment to think more. I mean, we trusted that His son would come down to save us, didn't we? That that was the great part of His plan that would lead us home? If we trusted in Him and His son before this life, why not trust Him now?

Back to me to show you how this trust thing works. After my period of not trusting anyone like I had, I prayed and God led me down a path of showing major trust in someone. I took a leap of faith knowing that God would not lead me astray from His path. And so far, it has been a big comfort. I am happier than I have been in a while. I know that God always helps me, I know that trusting people brings us happiness and comfort that we are not alone, and I know that God trusts me; He trusts me to follow His will and help others follow His will as well. Trust is a two way street, and when followed, it leads to salvation. We weren't meant to walk alone, so we use trust to endure life together. We swap trust.

Your Friendly Shorty,

Katie :D