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.

Ye are the light of the world (Matthew 5:14)

I realize I've posted on this topic a million times before (see I wanna be baptized, 212 Days, and Eternal Awesomeness) (okay, so maybe not quite a million, but close enough!), but today is the 14th of the month. Three guesses what that means!!

Two months left, guys! I get baptized in two months!! Well, actually that date might be slightly subject to change, as I have a friend leaving for a summer semester at BYU and another friend going on vacation right around that date, but I am determined to not push it back any farther. If anything, I'll move the date *up* :D 

"Excited" does not even begin to describe it. 

OH! Also guess what :)

How to Create Your Own LDS Blog: Church News

A while back, I went to LDS.org and one of the "latest features" articles caught my eye.

How to Create Your Own LDS Blog

Holy smokes! The church has an entire article about why I should be blogging?? Sweet!

Youth groups and non-member friends (and also Valentine's Day)

One of my friends at school (we'll call her Magdalene) is very involved in her church. They have these tournaments that involve memorizing entire chapters from the Bible (and you thought scripture mastery was bad....). She's really good at it, too :)

Anywho, Magdalene invited me to her youth group's Valentine's Day activity (it actually was on Valentine's Day, I just didn't get around to writing about it till now...) . It was really fun :) we had pizza and cookies and watched Princess Bride. I met some new people and got to hang out with some awesome religiously-minded youth. Oh, and Magdalene plays a pretty intense game of foosball. From seeing her in class every day, I had thought she was quiet. That assumption was very very false; she just doesn't talk much in class! 

My point is, sometimes we forget that people of other faiths make good friends, too. I'm guilty of this. Since deciding to convert, I haven't made an enormous effort to hang out with my non-member friends. I do still see them, talk to them, etc, but not as often as I should. I need to work on that. 

Anyone with similar standards had awesome friend-potential. And those of you who don't live in an area densely populated with Mormons, you're awesome at this. I don't live in Utah, but there's plenty of members for me to hang out with. And they're all super amazing. But when they all go to BYU and I go to not-BYU, I need to know how to make non-member friends. I need to be comfortable making non-member friends. 

And also, youth nights are generally pretty fun (in my experience), I don't care who's running them. Why must they all be on Wednesday nights (except the Valentine's one I went to)?? That makes it difficult to visit your friends' church events!! And if you don't visit theirs, can you expect them to visit yours? Once, I made a deal with a friend- if I went to her activity, she would come to seminary. Unfortunately, I had to work and couldn't go with her :( the point is, make an effort :) it just might work :)

That post was totally not what I thought it would be when I started writing. Please excuse my random ramblings :)

<3 Marie-Rose

I love seminary

Seminary is my favorite. Yesterday I had the opportunity to go for the 5th time this school year. It made me happy.

We talked a lot about missionary moments and warm fuzzies :) Makes me want to get a bunch of BOMs to carry around with me everywhere. I love hearing what my classmates (and teacher) are doing to spread the gospel. It reminds me of myself as an investigator. I had many much "I can relate" moments that morning :)

Then we moved on to discuss Mosiah 25. To be quite honest, I was totally lost. I guess it helps to go to class every day, d'you think??

I really liked how we talked about being happy and sad at the same time. 

Mosiah 25:7-11

7 And now, when Mosiah had made an end of reading the records, his people who tarried in the land were struck with wonder and amazement.

8 For they knew not what to think; for when they beheld those that had been delivered out of bondage they were filled with exceedingly great joy.

9 And again, when they thought of their brethren who had been slain by the Lamanites they were filled with sorrow, and even shed many tears of sorrow.

10 And again, when they thought of the immediate goodness of God, and his power in delivering Alma and his brethren out of the hands of the Lamanites and of bondage, they did raise their voices and give thanks to God.

11 And again, when they thought upon the Lamanites, who were their brethren, of their sinful and polluted state, they were filled with pain and anguish for the welfare of their souls.

See? Being happy and sad at the same time. Some examples were shared, as well. One that struck me was from church history, when they had to leave Nauvoo, right after they had finished the temple. They were happy to have finished, but sad to be leaving their awesome temple that they had worked so hard to finish. 

For me, an example of being happy and sad at the same time can be found in the fact that I went to seminary yesterday. I was so happy to be able to go, but at the same time sad because it was only the 5th time I've gone all school year. Ridiculousness, I'm telling you. 

Some questions our teacher asked us were, "how's your revelation coming? Do you recognize the Spirit's influence?" I realized I need to work on those things. I'll have days or even weeks when I feel the Spirit regularly, but then life happens and I forget to be listening for His promptings. 

Anywho. So basically, I love seminary and I really wish I could go more often. Especially cuz it's the Book of Mormon. I grew up learning about the Bible (even though it wasn't the best Bible education ever....), but I don't know the BOM as well as I would like to. Having read it three times kind of helps, but there are confusing parts that I still don't quite get. 

Go to seminary, people! It's an amazing opportunity, and you don't wanna waste it :) 

<3 Marie-Rose

Self Improvement

I need to work on being more outgoing.

I'm usually really shy. I don't go up to people and start conversations. I don't go out of my way to make friends in my classes (I'm not at the same school I was at last year, so I don't know a lot of my classmates). The only time I consider myself to be even slightly outgoing is at work, cuz being a cashier, I kind of have to be comfortable talking to people.

Well guess what. When I go to college, I'll need to be able to talk to people so I can make new friends. I will hardly know anyone when I get there (if I went to BYU, I would know people, but I won't be going to BYU and that's a story for another post).

Guess what else. You can't have missionary moments if you never talk to anyone.

So I need to work on being more outgoing. My speech class is really helping with that. Very few people in the class are quiet. It's like they took all the loud, talkative, friendly people and put them all in the same class. Which makes class really entertaining :) it's actually my favorite class. And being required to get up and talk in front of these people... it forces me to be less shy. I get to know my classmates and we're all super supportive of one another. Plus I can talk to them about my religion :)

*seemingly random change of subject*

The other day, my family went to go get a Christmas tree. After much wandering, we had chosen one and were dragging it back to the barn where the people running the tree farm would shake it out and put netting around it so we could easily get it home. We passed a young family, also dragging a tree. They had only one child, less than four years old, and the parents were having difficulties carrying everything. The tree farm provides everyone with a saw and a measuring stick (so you know if your tree will fit in your living room), and the couple couldn't carry the saw, the stick, and the tree all at once. Plus the little girl was too young to help.

So I walked up and asked if they needed me to carry anything. It's something I would normally only do at work.  I kinda surprised myself. They were super grateful and asked if  I could carry their saw and measuring stick. But that's not the point of me telling this story. The point of telling the story is to prove to myself that I can talk to random people in public. (PS we had been planning on getting our tree a different day and then plans changed, so maybe Heavenly Father had a hand in helping this couple out? It could have been a prompting that caused me to walk over to them...)

Cuz, after all, if you can't talk to people, how can you spread the gospel?

Image source

<3 Marie-Rose

So I'm sure you wanna know how my speech went...

I ended up giving a brief history of the early church- focusing on the First Vision, the BOM, and the official organization on April 6, 1830.

There's two ways to judge how a speech went. Wait, three, I lied.

One- your grade.
Two- how you feel it went
Three- how the audience feels it went

So my grade was definitely not what I thought it was gonna be. I totally expected an A. And that's not just because I'm a straight A student. To jump ahead into how *I* thought it went, I thought I did really well. But I got 86%. Which is totally not bad, don't get me wrong! I just thought I did better.

I had to watch a recording of myself giving the speech. I thought I had a couple things to improve on (playing with my notecards, looking down to check my notes too often, saying "um" too much...), but those were mostly minor. I thought. I was super nervous before the speech, but during it wasn't too bad. I did have a few mini heart attacks, but it went smoothly. I didn't die. It was all good :)

And then my class got to ask questions! They asked good questions. Like if I'm going on a mission (I explained how missions are more optional for girls, and said I don't know yet if I'll go). One asked if I'd seen the BOM musical thing (I said I had not, and explained how we've been counseled not to see it [that's right, yes? I heard that someplace... Maybe New Era?] because it makes fun of us). One thanked me for sticking to facts and not trying to convert them all (I said I know I can't convert anyone. I believe that Heavenly Father is the only one who can convert you, I can just give you information). And lots of other questions!

I don't remember all of the questions, but none of them were rude or argumentative. They were all out of legitimate curiosity. And it made me super happy. I actually got an extra credit point for how I answered the question about the BOM musical, by the way :)

Anywho! My point is- if you approach the subject of religion the right way, some people just might listen to you. I wasn't pushy and I stuck to the basics. I was simply there to inform them so they knew a little bit more about my church. Remember how on the survey they all said they didn't know anything? I hope they know a little bit about the history now :)

<3Marie-Rose

Speech Dilemma

A week from today, I have to give an informative speech for speech class. I know I want to talk about Mormonism, but I don't quite have a topic narrowed down yet. The speech should be 5-7 minutes long.

What on earth can I talk about in 5-7 minutes??

Some ideas I've come up with include early church history, explanation of the BOM/D&C/PoGP books that most Christians don't have, or an explanation of common misconceptions (one of my friends did that last one a year ago, so I don't wanna look like I'm copying hers, but it makes the most sense as a topic....).

I ran into one of my classmates in the hallway after class today. He said he was really interested to hear what I have to say. So that makes me feel more confident in talking about my religion, but it doesn't help me narrow down the subject matter.

When I passed around a survey on Monday asking people what they know and what they want to know about the Mormon church, the most common answers were "nothing" and "everything," respectively. So that totally helped a lot :P

I'm thinking early church history. If I don't go too deep, and don't cover very much time in history, it won't be too long. I'm really worried about going over time. So we shall see how this goes :)

<3 Marie-Rose

The Power of Member Missionaries

I have a testimony of the power of member missionaries. Those of you who are out there, trying to share your beliefs with the non-members around you -- some of them just don't listen, and it's frustrating, isn't it?

Guess what?

Image source

I'm proof that what you do isn't worthless. I have an amazing group of friends who were willing to share their faith with me, and they let me share mine in return, and here I am setting my baptism date.

Ya know what the one requirement is in all of this? Patience. Actually, I lied, there's a second one. Kindness.

Patience means that some people take years to start thinking maybe the LDS faith is for them. It took me at least three years, I think, if I'm doing my math right.

Kindness means that you never push people to believe as you do. It means that you ask questions about what they believe. It means that you accept that some people will never change their minds. It means that you be a friend to everyone, regardless of their religion. It means tolerance, and even more importantly, acceptance. If you come across as pushy and aloof, no one will listen to you. Yes, we believe that the Mormon faith is the one true Church on earth. No, we do not force others to accept this as fact.

Think of it this way.

I was originally Catholic. Now, if a Catholic came up to me to try to bring me back, would they be able to do it? Nope. By the same logic, if I walk up to the same Catholic to try to convert them to Mormonism, could I do it? Nope. Unless Heavenly Father prompts a change in their hearts, there's nothing I can do.

Kay, so now I'm contradicting myself, right? Only kinda. You should always be willing to share your faith with others. And don't feel like you're not making a difference. My friends made a huge difference in my life. But don't expect that your sharing your beliefs will always "work". D'you know what? Being pushy just makes people less likely to hear you.

We all just wanna understand each other a little better, right?

<3 Marie-Rose