So. The last few months I have been doing an intensive study of my identity. I learned this phrase at an efy training and it changed how I study the gospel: "Questions invite Revelation" and since then I've been asking questions and writing them down before I begin my scripture study. One of the questions I asked was "how can I increase my self esteem and self worth?" IT HAS BEEN AMAZING. GOD SERIOUSLY ANSWERS EVERY QUESTION. Anyway. Through prayer and the Temple and scripture study I have truly come to understand who I am. I am Bethany. I am a daughter of God. It's an incredible truth.
Anyway. As I have come to know who I am and who my Father is, I have come to care and love everyone. Seriously. I know who they are because I know who I am. And for the first time, I have that burning desire for everyone to know who they are. For the first time I can't stand that everyone doesn't know that Jesus died for them.
On a slightly different note, all last year and all this year at efy we are challenged to pray and ask for who we are supposed to share the Gospel with. I have felt so frustrated for two summers because whenever I pray I never feel like I received a name. I have felt very frustrated about my part in the missionary work, because I pray every night for missionary experiences.
I learned from a fellow counselor at efy that one way she has missionary experiences is to talk to and sit by strangers. So that night after I talked to her, I went back to my dorm here in Washington and prayed and told Heavenly Father that I am so serious about this. I want to share the gospel. I want to not be afraid to share it. So I wrote my testimony inside a copy of the Book of Mormon to show Heavenly Father how serious I am and I put it in my backpack to keep with me always and I told Him to please let me know when it was the right person.
Last weekend, after all the kids left, all of us counselors took a day trip to Seattle. (Side note, I am OBSESSED with Seattle. So so so beautiful.) A few of us decided to be adventurous and hop on some random buses to get back to Puget Sound, and when I got on the bus I remembered my promise to sit by strangers. So I walked to the back of the bus and saw this guy and I knew he was the one Heavenly Father wanted me to talk to. So I sat down next to him, and looked at him and in my head I said "this is a Child of God" (to remind myself of his identity and to not be afraid) and I stuck out my hand and introduced myself. He had to pull his earbuds out to hear me and then introduced himself as Rome. I said "oh cool I am named after a city too!" And then we started talking. For an hour we talked on a bus about everything. We talked about school (he studied religion in college) and so I asked him what he knew about Mormons and we talked about my beliefs and we talked about hiking and I told him that we believe God created a beautiful world for us because we are all His children. I told him that the primary children sing I am a Child of God and and the young women say We are Daughters of our Heavenly Father. We talked about how much we both hate Twilight. We talked about bowling, comedy, his relationship with his family and my relationship with mine. We talked about music. We talked about everything. I told him about my role at EFY and what we teach the youth. I wanted him to feel loved.
Before I transferred buses I turned to him and said "Rome I hope you don't think this is weird, but I want to give you this gift." And he took the Book of Mormon and said "thanks! I'll read it!!"
I have a testimony of missionary work. I have a testimony that I am God's daughter. When you know who you are, it is no longer scary to share the truth with everyone.
No comments:
Post a Comment