The Life-changing Gospel

The temple open house is over. Visitors asked me when the next time the tours would be for the temple. I said there wouldn't be any more, that after the dedication, the temple would only be open for church members. They seemed very disappointed. Hopefully that will give them enough interest to meet with the missionaries and learn more about what the church is all about. Already so many people have been though and now want to be baptised. Hopefully it was not said in the spirit of the moment, but will be something that will stay with them for their lives and into eternity. For the entire two weeks of the dedication I have been looking forward into running into Halina, who was baptised last January in Voskresinsky. I knew she signed up to volunteer for six days, but, I didn't know when. It seemed that either she was there the hours that I wasn't or vice versa. Then, on my last day there, we were looking around for something random and Sister Garff comes up to me and she says that she saw Halina on her way out of the church and I better run in the rain to catch up to her. And I did. I finally caught up to her in the parking lot in front of the temple, and we were so happy to see each other. She was there with her fiance who was baptized last month - they are getting married in October, right before I go home. I sure hope that I can be there for their wedding. And next year, they will be sealed for eternity in the very temple that will be dedicated this week. I am so happy for her. After not having seen her since last January, I was pleasantly surprised to see how different a person she is inside and out. Having the Holy Spirit with a person really does change them from the natural man into the spiritual man. It is quite evident with her and other people that I have seen on my mission. Including missionaries. We come into the MTC all bright eyed and goofy- and at the end of our missions we have grown so much in the Spirit of Christ. Sister Garff and I were talking about that this morning. How just from serving a mission, how much better mothers we will be. Now that we have had experiences that have weighed us down, lifted us up, and made us stretch in ways that would have taken so much longer to do outside of a mission, if at all. I love this Gospel so much, I have no idea what I would do without it.

-Meagen
8-23-10