The House of The Lord

On Monday, Ellyse texted me and told me to leave Wednesday free all day because she had a surprise for me. All she told me was to be ready by 8:30 am and wear church clothes because we were going to do baptisms for the dead at the temple. 

     -Side note: I love the temple. I go every week to do baptisms. 

So I'm ready and Ellyse comes to pick me up at 8:30 Wednesday morning and we go to the Gilbert temple to do baptisms. Nothing out of the ordinary, just like a normal temple trip. Afterwards, we went to Jamba Juice for breakfast. After this, we get onto the freeway and head towards Mesa. We turn onto 1st Avenue and BAM! there's the Mesa temple. We went in and did baptisms in the Mesa temple, too! Mesa schools aren't on spring break yet, so we were the only youth in there! One temple worker asked us if we were from Gilbert because we were on spring break and we said yes. Ellyse mentioned how we went to the Gilbert temple that morning and the worker asked if we were going to Phoenix as well. Ellyse said yes. Well there goes the surprise! I had suspected it, though. For lunch, we went to Sweet Cakes Cafe and then to Milano's Music Store to look around. Then came our long drive to the Phoenix temple. We went and took pictures in front of the temple, then went shopping while we waited for the baptistry to open. We didn't really shop as much as look around. Then came time to do baptisms! It was amazing, being the first time we had been inside the Phoenix temple after it was dedicated. I had gone to the open house, but Ellyse never had the chance, so it was really fun. We had time to kill so we went to Ellyse's grandparents house in Phoenix and ate dinner at Fajitas with them. Then we jammed out to Ingrid Michaelson the whole way home!

I am so grateful for an amazing friend like Ellyse to spend a whole day with me inside the House of The Lord. I love the temple, it's my home away from home. I love The Lord, and being inside His house makes me feel close to Him. 

Love,

Emmalee

P.S. Ellyse is so cool, check out her blog! She was my true inspiration for this blog. ellyseleighannhaws.blogspot.com

Forgive & Forget

On Sunday, we focused a lot on forgiveness. I went to another ward as well as my own to support a friend. In both wards, the talks were about forgiving. In young women's, we had a great discussion about how hard it is to forgive but also how important it is. The most important thing to do is to forgive yourself.

Christ atoned for us so that we could be forgiven by Heavenly Father. He forgives us, so we need to forgive ourselves.

He also forgives others, so we need to forgive everyone for what they've already been forgiven for.

Forgive & forget.

You're just hurting yourself by holding grudges against both yourself and others.

I can't express adequately how strongly I feel about forgiveness. It's easier to just forgive than to hold on to something petty for so long. Christ wants us to forgive so bad. Remember the price He paid so that you could make these decisions. Are you using His gift to its fullest potential?

Love,

Emmalee