Testimony

I bore my testimony today because I realized an entire year has almost passed and I had not borne it once. I shared how I had been  reading a talk from this last conference about challenges and that Neal Maxwell shared that when he was battling leukemia that he had come to him the words that he was given leukemia so that he could teach with authenticity. That really stuck out to me. We know that we are each here working out our own salvation but a huge part of that is helping others work out theirs.  It is part of the covenant we make at baptism. We are given trials, challenges, experiences to help us truly understand, empathize and bless others and truly mourn for those that mourn and comfort those that need comfort. That is how the Savior can succor us. He loves authentically because he has experienced all that we have!  I then shared how much our Heavenly Father loves and blesses us and sends tender mercies that we often times don’t realize.  I then told of my ride back from the store yesterday. I had a fifteen minute drive in busy traffic and unbeknownst to me a little bee had decided to hitch a ride. Well as I was pulling into my driveway I felt a little sting and suddenly I felt a moving around inside my sweatshirt. I threw my car in park and jumped out onto the driveway and was trying to rip off my shirt but with the layers I was having extreme difficulty meanwhile the little ungrateful hitchhiker stung me good this time!  I am screaming and finally ripped that dang shirt off and am running toward the house with just my garments on at this point. Thankfully no one was outside. The boys come running to see what was happening! I didn’t share all of that info in my testimony but the point was that if that bee had stung me on the drive home, I might have wrecked during my ensuing panic. However I was able to get all the way to the safety of my home before he struck.  Now I would have preferred not to be stung but it made me realize I had experienced a tender mercy and if I hadn’t gotten stung I would not have recognized how I had been watched over and protected!

So I had a little red swollen area with a nice little hole where his stinger went in. I was so scared to get in the car today but Rick checked it out and couldn’t see him so I drove to church without further incident today! The irony is that two days ago Rick was telling me that he took care of a runner that got stung on his tongue even a bee flew in his open mouth during his run! I said I have only been stung once and that was 35 years ago! Totally jinxed myself. We were asked to put our pics on the lds tools so I updated mine.