Baptism Ahead!

I am so excited! I just had my baptismal interview with Stake President. I am getting baptized on 9/3/2013!

As I sat outside the office waiting for my turn to be interviewed my thoughts went back to 2 years ago. Two years ago today, I sat outside that same office waiting for a different kind of interview. I sat outside waiting for my disciplinary council to begin. I was so sad and yet understood that what was about to happen was very necessary. When I left the office after that council, I was no longer officially a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints but I was still LDS at heart.

Today was a very different experience. I was practically vibrating with suppressed excitement over my upcoming interview. I was ecstatic to meet with Stake President and happily answer the baptismal interview questions with resounding affirmatives. I think he is almost as excited as I am about my upcoming baptism!

6 days and I will be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints again. This upcoming Sunday is the last Sunday I will have to skip taking the Sacrament.  And in a few short weeks I will be able to return to the temple to do baptisms for the dead for the first time since I was 15. And probably even sooner than that I will be able to get my long-awaited patriarchal blessing!!



I just want to close this post by sharing an amazing experience I had yesterday at the temple.

I was studying at home yesterday, on the verge of tears from frustration at these physical issues, and suddenly the thought popped into my head that I needed to go to the temple, which seemed weird to me since I can't go in for a little bit longer. But I clearly recognized the prompting, so I asked a friend to meet me there. We got to the temple and the gates were locked. I was so confused. It was such a clear prompting but the doors were locked?! 
Fortunately someone was in the chapel that is right next to the temple. So we went into the Relief Society room and began studying the part in Preach My Gospel about temples. We had the window open so we could at least see the temple. We had been studying for about 30 minutes when I happened to look out the window and noticed the temple gates were open. I was like "Lets go study on the grounds"
So we grabbed our stuff and walked over to the temple. As soon as we passed through the temple gates I noticed a difference. We went up the hill on the grounds, adjacent to the temple, laid out a blanket and continued our studies in PMG and the Doctrine and Covenants about the temple. It was so uplifting and just what I needed. The longer we were there the better I felt, as we closed our study and prepared to go home, I asked my friend if she thought I sounded better and she was like yeah, you sound almost normal. I felt so much better, abs still hurt, voice is a bit rough, but my peace has been restored.
It wasn't until after I had left the temple that I realized what had happened. I had always thought of the adversary attacking us through temptation, emotional, or spiritual means, but he was using physical means to get to me and Heavenly Father knew I needed to get out of the world (away from where Satan has influence) for a bit and so he sent me to the closest holy place that I could get to, the grounds of the Birmingham temple. Just how much better I felt while on the grounds let me know that these ailments that are afflicting me are no ordinary illness but the adversary's desperate attempt to derail my upcoming baptism.

I am so grateful to live only a half hour from the temple and to be able to go there to feel closer to my Father in times of trial. I just want to bear my testimony that I KNOW the temples truly are the house of the Lord and that He wants us to visit them as often as possible. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.