The Beginning of Believing

I {heart} Greg Olsen so much. When I went to his website this painting just stuck out to me like no other. I suppose I imagine my son or daughter to be in that boy's spot someday. 

A guy from Kel's work (and he's also happens to be in our ward) baptized his wife yesterday. The Spirit was there in abundance. I could tell right when I sat down.  Every time I would glance over at Jennifer (his wife), I just wanted to start bawling. I mean, I love going to baptisms. The spirit is always there and I always feel glad about going afterwards. This time was a little different for me though. I was thinking, "don't cry, you don't even know them that well. They're going to think you're weird. My period must be coming or something. Besides it hasn't even started yet." Then after getting ahold of myself and deciding to look up, I discovered that there were several misty eyes and we weren't even to the opening prayer yet. Hmmm, maybe it's not my impending period, maybe the Spirit is that strong in this room already and I'm just an idiot. Then Bishop Meldrum got up to start the meeting off and confirmed what I had already thought that I was feeling. OK, I'm not going crazy. What a great place to be. The thing that I love about the Spirit is that it isn't only felt by adults, children are able to feel of It too, and probably more readily and willingly than adults sometimes. That was abundantly clear as the service went on.

After Jennifer was baptized the missionaries put a movie in. I hadn't seen it before and I don't know what it was called. It was merely pictures of Jesus in a slideshow type format, with scripture references as the narrative, and of course, the tear-jerker music. As the movie begins to play, the lights are off and all is quiet until the first picture appears on the screen and Beck excitedly exclaims, "It's Jesus!" Everybody politely laughed.  Then it flashed to the next picture with of course Jesus. Through out most of the duration of the movie Beck repeatedly exclaimed, while standing on his chair and pointing, "It's Jesus, look, it's Jesus again, it's Jesus again mom. It's Jesus again. It's Jesus again." And on and on as each picture flashed. There was no stopping him no matter how much half-hearted shushing I did. And honestly, I didn't really want to stifle his enthusiasm anyway. It felt as though he was so proud to not only recognize Him, but with pride that he really KNOWS who HE is and that He is somebody who is really important and significant - not only to everyone, but that He was someone that was really important to him (Beckham).

Meanwhile, I look over at Aubryn who is on the other side of me and to my astonishment, she is just drenched in tears. Now these tears aren't I'm hurt, or frustrated tears. These were honest to goodness sad sad tears. What's wrong Aubryn? I ask while wrapping my arms around her. She replies through her tears, "I just want to see Jesus." OK, flood gates broken. Down come my tears. "I want to see Jesus too!" I reply. After consoling her, I felt so grateful to my loving and wonderful Heavenly Father for this wonderful experience. I am so thankful that we are able to bask in this gospel and enjoy this great plan that has been created for us as families. I am so grateful that the two most precious things in this world to me were touched by His love. Little old us, just a speck in this great universe. He was able to touch a little 2 and 4 year old to bring one to tears with longing and the other to joy through knowing.  I just want my children to know, that I KNOW, HE lives!