"Heavenly Father is the best matchmaker of them all"

Quote from a visitor. I’m not thinking about making a match for myself, but I thought it was cute and quite profound.

LIGHTENING AND LIGHTENING BUGS….AGAIN!
Some of you more faithful readers may recognize this topic from last yr. The other day I had a cool mid-west experience though. We were coming home from a show and a crazy lightening storm happened. I think it rained for a second but mostly just warm wind and CRAZY lightening everywhere. Me and the other sisters I live with (we moved into the little “sidekick” house last transfer, not the main big one so there’s only 4 of us now) went out and watched it for like 20 min and had lots of fun playing games with the lightening (don’t worry, there were many things taller than us and I wasn’t wearing anything metallic.) Anyway, then when we were going to bed I was laying there awake after I said my prayers (this 8 hrs of sleep thing is a different world. I haven’t fallen asleep face-down on the floor or in my scriptures even once!) and I was still pretty wired from the lightening, so anyway…I was looking around and see tiny but very bright white light in the room. It would come and go and move around the top of the windowsill. All very strange. A list of things it could be. Headlights from far away, a white laser pointer, my mind…..I couldn’t tell. The lightening was still going like crazy outside so somewhere in the back of my mind (I wasn’t going to tell anyone this but I let it slip to my comp) I thought maybe it was a bit of lightening that had gotten stuck in the room in the drapes. I know, it doesn’t make ANY sense. I know. And it wasn’t my FIRST guess, just an option. Eventually I got brave enough to get up and try to get close to the light to see what it was and it came at me then flew around the room, then I solved the mystery. It was so cool though to have lightening outside and this little traveling light inside. Anyway, by the time my comp finished prayers I told her everything that happened (the bug was of course gone) and I just hurredly told her all the things I was guessing it was. A little while later after some silence she goes, (in her Aussie accent), “A piece of lightening got stuck, ay?”

DEAF COUPLE!!!
We had a deaf couple named Eric and Debbie visit and I got to spend a couple hours with them in the VC then our at the carriage ride. They’re newly married and pregnant. She’s just started coming back to church (she actually served a mission in the south) and he’s investigating. He’s planning on getting baptized but has some issues. It was way cool to get to spend so much time with them. I really prayed for the Lord to help me understand. That’s usually the problem—I can sign fine and even interpret but when they sign back my mind goes blank. But He totally helped me and I got mostly everything they said, even if it took a couple times. I wish I was skilled enough to have more in-depth conversations so I could really do missionary work in the way that I would in English but I guess all I can do is study and prepare my hardest and the Lord will make my skills equal to what He needs me for at the time. He knows what I am capable of and if I can’t help them in the way that they need, He will put them in the place of whoever can.

MARTRYDOM COMMEMORATION
We ended up getting to go to 2 programs—one that we do with the Community of Christ down at the Smith Family Cemetary (really good and very interesting to see how their church is so very different with some similar threads) and one at the jail. After the jail one I got to take a tour group through and then later all the sisters went into the martyrdom room as we closed and sang “Praise to the Man” and just had time to reflect. I know that Joseph Smith was not only an unbelievably dedicated servant of the Lord but indeed the first prophet in these latter-days. I think of not only the things that he himself suffered but the things he watched those around him to suffer, and I know that he only had the strength to bear those things because he had the assurance that it was the Lord asking him to go through it. I know that all of the things that he and the early saints suffered have been consecrated to our gain in profound, immeasurable ways.

SUNDAY SOCIABLE
So this year all the young sister missionaries did a musical fireside thing. We did one last yr too. It’s always cool because there’s no better audience than 200 beaming grandparents. We could seriously get up there and do anything and they’d be so proud. :) But plus I love it because the Spirit in the room and the love just radiates because the love that each of the missionaries and visitors in attendance carries. Their testimonies and love of the Savior radiate. The theme was Becoming One in Christ and at the end they did a video with clips of missionaries from all different parts of Nauvoo (performing missionaries, temple, Nauvoo Restoration, gardening, sewing room, teamsters, band, etc.) sharing their feelings about the gospel. Really just reminded me that as we all try to align our will with the Father’s, we become one in Him. We do this by making His highest priorities become our highest priorities and we learn in the scruiptures that His #1 priority, or rather His work and His glory is “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” All of our most sincere, concentrated efforts in that area, whether that’s through parenthood, missionary work, being a good friend or good visiting teacher, will bring us closer to God because we are making our personal missions in life become the same as His.

After the sociable Sis Ludwig had us all over for an impromptu ice cream party. Gotta love it. :)

Ok, love you all!