Getting Ready: Nervous and Excited and so many other things.....

In order to get this blog ready for this summer, I should probably fill you in on what is going to be happening this summer. I am going to be going to Visakhapatnam, INDIA!!! It's a bit scary to be honest...but also exciting! This will be my first time leaving the country, in way shape or form that requires a passport and visa and plane tickets and so many other things. Let me tell you now, I AM NOT A FAN OF VISAS!!! I really, really don't like visas, unless I have more time in order to acquire said visa. Otherwise, I never want to do this again. Okay, I take that back, I would love to do this again, I just now know what would be required of me to leave the country...and the timeline required to do these things. Also, I don't like getting immunizations.

So, there's that. Moving on! This past weekend was The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' General Conference. I love General Conference, it's actually one of my favorite times of the year, the first weekend in April and the first weekend in October. It's a time when the leaders of my church, President Thomas S. Monson, the Twelve Apostles, and other leaders in the church speak to the members of this church over a series of topics, from the Atonement of Jesus Christ, to repentance, to relying on Christ, and many other things. It's during these times that I relearn how much I love this gospel! Between now and October, I will again forget how much I love this church, but that is why I love General Conference! It reminds me that there is a lot to learn from this time that we have here on earth and I need to take advantage of it. That's part of the reason why I'm going to India actually. I have to for school, obviously, but this will probably be my one and only time that I'll visit a country on the other side of the world for three months and I want to learn all that I can while I am there.

I actually have a friend there right now. She's on the same program that I am going to be doing, the India Study Abroad program, and she's been keeping a blog about her time while there in India. And that something that I want to do as well. I want to be able to write down as much as I can about my days while I am there as well as record my experiences for others to see and read about while I am gone. So that's part of the reason why I started this new blog, that, and I have a new email address so I figured should have my blog with that email address. Just makes a lot more sense.

That's about all that's going on in my life at the moment. Yes, I know, this post is very jumpy and just all over the place, but it's late at night so I'm blaming sleepiness.

Talk to you soon,
Ashley

Obedience to Law is Liberty

Hi again! So, as some people know, I've been writing about spiritual experiences, or trying to at least. And I have a new one to add here. :) It's not often that I have an experience that I want to write about, or I do and I forget to write about it till I've forgotten what it was about. Not this time though!

So just yesterday (Sunday, April 28, 2013) I gave a talk in sacrament meeting in my ward. Mind you, I don't mind talking in front of large crowds. This was my first talk in several years though that was actually planned out and that I had to give. The last time I gave a talk like this was when I was in debate my senior year of high school. I got to say though, it went pretty well. The one thing about giving talks in church though is that I tend to get a little emotional, so I was crying a little by the end of my talk. But I wasn't full on crying, just a few tears were leaking out.

Anyway, what my talk was about was obedience. Bishop Stone asked me if I would talk on obedience, some things from conference, and some personal experiences that I have had with obedience. I agreed, and I already had an idea of what it was that I would be talking about. As the week went by without my preparing for my talk, I would think of things which I would like to speak about, but then they would just leave my mind. So in walks Saturday night. I still hadn't written my talk yet and I still only had a vague idea on what I wanted to talk about. So I started writing things down that I wanted to talk about. It may not seem like I was actually doing anything, but just having a bunch of writing on a certain subject helps me focus on what I want to write about. One of the things that I had written down was where the title of this post came from. the title of Elder L. Tom Perry's talk from this recent General Conference. He talked how obedience to the laws that we are given is what will bring us happiness.

Now that may seem a little backwards to some people, to me it makes sense. It's like obey the rules your parents lay down for you so you don't get grounded. Actually....it's a lot like that. You obey our Heavenly Father's commandments, you will be able to return to live with him again. For those of you who want to listen to his talk, or read it, you can follow this link --> Obedience to Law is Liberty to lds.org to listen.

So I talked about Elder Perry's talk for a bit, and I also talked a bit about a scripture that came to my mind right before I got up to speak. It was Alma 57: 20-21. It's about the 2000 Stripling Warriors of Helaman's Army and how they learned obedience from their mothers. They learned to obey with FAITH. After I explained the story of the Stripling Warriors, I added my own experience. I spoke of how my own mother taught me to obey the law of tithing.

Alex, Momma, and me :)

Now while it may not seem like a lot to some people, but for me, this has had a HUGE impact on my faith. I have always paid my tithing, ever since I can remember. I may not always pay it on time, but I make sure to always pull ten percent out of my paychecks to pay tithing first, before I use the money for anything else. While I was still living at home, I didn't really see any immediate blessings from obeying this law. Once I came out to Utah for school though, I started seeing the blessings. I haven't once had to take out a loan, or go into any form of debt to pay for school. I also haven't had to ask my parents for any money, AT ALL, especially as they need the money more than I do at the moment seeing as my younger sister is to be married in August. My school has paid for my tuition and I get Pell Grants every semester in order to pay for other items. This I know has come about because of my willing obedience to the law of tithing. This has greatly increased my faith in knowing that my Heavenly Father is definitely looking out for me, and my husband as well. This great increase in faith came only because I obeyed the law like my momma taught me. All of that extra money wouldn't have helped as much as my Heavenly Father has. And I KNOW that for a fact! (this is a blog post from my old blog, tinynavajo.blogspot.com. If you want to read through that, you can go there and do so.) Talk to you soon, Ashley