1:00 p.m.
I was sitting in BDA #20 after the regular choir practice was over. I listened to Jolene (Perrine) and Anna (Haneberg) singing “I heard Him come” (They were practicing for a musical number.) Just like every other time I have heard that song I felt the spirit very strong. I had a great desire to know my Savior personally. It is a feeling that drives the intellectual want I had on my mission to know Him. Back then I felt that I knew Joseph Smith as a person. I understood how he felt and what drove him. (I think those things have given me a better background to know my Lord. Having been released I have a new perspective and more time. I have felt His support in my release and I think I am closer to God than I have been for a while. My choices will determine how close I come to Christ.) I wanted to know Christ that well. Today He touched my heart with a renewed desire to know Him.
I have spent the last two years outside of my mission trying to serve Him as best I could. I have grown in my love for people generally and I have learned to love them as individuals. All this in spite of my excessive faults.
1:30 p.m.
I was walking out of the apartment on my way to church and I reflected on the great calm/peaceful feeling I have felt today and the past few days. I believe the Lord is working a change in me. I have an opportunity now to focus my life on Him and make great strides. I think many of the blessings from the last two years (of service) are to be cashed in now (although I have been blessed during my service as well) . . . at least that is the feeling that I have. I want to remain faithful and become the Man of God that I can be. I know my potential. I want to live up to that potential and make my Father proud.
In sacrament meeting (about 2:00 p.m..) Brother Geoffrey Lighten said, “Do not give up when you get discouraged” and then quoted President Hinkley in saying, “You will be safe as long as you are on the Lord’s side.” He also quoted Mosiah 5:13 “How knoweth the man the master whom he has not served?”
I have worked to serve Him. Now I strive earnestly to know Him.
Christ forgave his apostles on the night in Gethsemane when they could not do so simple a thing as stay awake. How often does he forgive me when I fail to do something equally simple (or more simple at times)?
Bishop Curtis Fillmore said, “Who are you? Begotten sons and daughters unto God. Gird up your loins and become that.”
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