Well this week.. mostly early this morning I had a very special and personal experience. I want to share it with you.
To start off the ward I am in for the past two months has been planning a temple trip for May 2nd. Every Sunday there is at least one talk about the importance of temple assistance. Feliciano (my papa de chile) has been in charge of getting people signed up to go and asked me if we could go. I immediatley told him no because no one has ever gone to the temple in our mission except at the end of the mission on the way home. He jokingly told me he would ask president, but I told him I would talk to him, that I wouldnt loose anything in asking.
A couple of days ago I was thinking about if I should call him or how I should ask, and felt like it wold be better to ask my district leader and through him contact president. The next day he told me that the zone leader said that the answer would probably be no but that if I really felt like I should ask president that I should write him a special letter today.
Last night I was thinking about what I would say and how I could ask him. I went to bed assuming that I would figure it out the next day. At about 4:55 in the morning I woke up for some reason. When I tried to sleep I couldnt because one of the other hermanas was snoring... Suddenly I remembered that I would be writing president today and began thinking about what I would say and for what reasons we should express that we would like to go to the temple with our ward. All of these ideas began rushing to my mind. Ideas of how we could unite our efforts with the members, gain more trust from them, help them learn how to teach about the temple to the less actives and recent converts, how we could together animate the ward to prepare to attend, how we could use Family Search as a way to organize activites, find new people to teach, and help people learn more about their ancestors.
When I tried to sleep I couldnt and more ideas just kept coming to my head. Finally I told myself to stop thinking because I wanted to sleep and felt the impression to pray. I got out of my bed knelt down and prayed. IT was one of the most sincere prayers I have ever expressed. I told my Heavenly Father my desires to truly help and strenghten the ward here and to help me know if these ideas coming to my mind was the spirit talking to me or my own thoughts. If I should talk to president and ask permission to go to the temple with the ward or just forget about it. I felt the spirit so strongly testifying to me that It was my responsiblilty to carry out this plan to write down all of my thoughts and to talk to president. It was such a strong feeling that I began to cry. I felt that I truly could be an instrument in the lords hands and have never felt so many desires to serve him with all my might. When I finished the prayer I layed down and the scipture by their fruits ye shall know them...every feeling and thought was pointing towards helping people to go the temple of course they were feelings of the spirit.
I noticed that the hermana was no longer snoring and I could finally sleep.
When I woke up I wrote everything down and was again filled with deep emotion. I shared my experience with the 3 hermanas in my house and hermana Jonhston began to express her feelings about family history and how she has seen such a difference in our ward lately and that now is the time to help animate them to attend the temple. We all felt strongly that this was inspiration and so I called president and we are going have a meeting with him at 4 to ask him if we can go and tell him about our plans.
Im not sure if that made sense I have to log off but I just wanted to tell you really quickly.
I LOVE YOU SO MUCH thanks for everything you do. have a wonderful week.
Hermana Parkin