😷💤🤒😰😵

So since I've written you last Sister Davis and I have had a pretty exciting week. When we got home from the temple she proceeded to get feverish and not want to move from her perch in our recliner. I dragged her out of the recliner so I could teach our weekly Book  of Mormon study class. By the end of it, while I was practicing piano for our marathon of baptisms this weekend, she was on the floor begging to go to bed and hacking up her lung. So we went home, and she didn't get out of bed for four days. But, don't panic, after much prayer, a few emergency trips to Walmart for meds, a few righteous priesthood holders giving her a blessing, and a 4 day long nap.... She is relatively well. No more crazy coughing or fever. Life is good 👌🏻

I have had a lot of time to think this week and I have had lots of thoughts running through my brain. This week I have been impressed with how small and simple things make great changes. I think we all have those life changing moments, or defining decisions. A lot of us will look back and define out life by big moments or decisions we had the courage to make. 

During the Book of Mormon class I taught about the last half of Alma 34.  This is the end of a discussion two missionaries, Alma and Amulek, are having with a group of poor people who have been cast out of their synagogues. Their original question was how can we worship God when we cannot enter the houses of worship? Alma taught about true faith, and the actions that result. He taught about prayer and showed them that worshipping God was about a lot more than spending a few hours in a house of worship every week. As the pair taught them more about the Gospel, the peoples' questions began to get bigger. Finally the discussion turned to the golden question of mankind, why are we here? What is our purpose? In verse 32 Amulek lays it out for them,

32 For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors.

He talks about repentance and the small changes we need to make in our lives to prepare to meet God. He also cautions against the ever so popular "death bed repentance" saying in verse 34,

34 Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this; for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world.

While teaching I realized that life isn't all about big life changing decisions. Yes they happen, and yes they are important. BUT what allows us to make those big decisions are the millions of small decisions we face every day. Repentance isn't about one big life changing event. Every decision we make we have a choice to go closer to God or farther away. If we wait for an awful crisis, we won't be able to make the giant leap to God, we need to focus every day on the small things that will help us come closer to him. 

Another small thing that has a big impact on us are our interactions with one another. I have watched someone I love be sent into an emotional tail spin for the last few weeks because of one 10 hour interaction with another human being. Now, yes we have choices on how we react to people and their comments. Yes we choose to be offended. BUT. What if no one said anything that could be taken as offensive. What if we all focus on our interactions and strive to lift, encourage, and inspire one another. There is always a way you can say something, even if correction needs to be given, that will encourage, lift and inspire people instead of  tear them down. People, LIFT PEOPLE UP.  in the words of President Uchtdorf (the cutest, old, German, modern day apostle ever),

"Brothers and sisters, there is enough heartache and sorrow in this life without our adding to it through our own stubbornness, bitterness, and resentment."

(Merciful Obtain Mercy, October 2012)

Don't add more sorrow to people's lives. We are all doing the best we can, with what we have, so lift them up!! Even if You just have the chance to spend 5 minutes with someone at the store, or 3 minutes with them in an elevator. Make it the best 3-5 minutes they've ever had. Smile, compliment them, get to know them. Be in the business of making people's days and the world will be a better place ❤️ 

I will step off my soap box now.

I love you all, the lord loves you, and he loves the people and you. Go share that love with them this week. Go forth and lift, encourage, and inspire!

✌🏻️Sister Reynolds✌🏻️