Gethsemane

This is gunna be a wordy one. This morning we had the Sabbath. All 82 of us sat in the auditorium that overlooks the Old City and East Jerusalem. We all sang Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing today in choir practice. I couldn't help but smile the whole time. I get to live on top of the Mount Of Olives, in the Jerusalem Center, walk where Christ walked, and enrich my testimony of the Old and New Testament. I always struggled with the Old Testament. But ever since I started to see all the places that these stories happened, I felt something change in me. At night I sometimes can't stop reading the assigned readings for my Old Testament class. I keep on going. I have developed a burning love for every section of scripture I have read thus far. 

This afternoon we went to the Orson Hyde Garden on the way to the Garden of Gethsemane. Oh what a beautiful sight I did see. I quietly contemplated as my group of friends and I walked through Orson Hyde Garden. I was going to where my Savior atoned for my sins, where he bled from every pore, and partook of the bitter cup. All for me and my mistakes.

Orson Hyde Garden

Outside the St. Vincent Church in Gethsemane

The Garden of Gethsemane

In Relief Society we had our lesson based on Elder Holland's talk during October's conference. The First Great Commandment.

"My beloved brothers and sisters, I am not certain just what our experience will be on Judgment Day, but I will be very surprised if at some point in that conversation, God does not ask us exactly what Christasked Peter: “Did you love me?” I think He will want to know if in our very mortal, very inadequate, and sometimes childish grasp of things, did we at least understand one commandment, the first and greatest commandment of them all—“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind.”¹³ And if at such a moment we can stammer out, “Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee,” then He may remind us that the crowning characteristic of love is always loyalty.

To all within the sound of my voice, the voice of Christ comes ringing down through the halls of time, asking each one of us while there is time, “Do you love me?” And for every one of us, I answer with my honor and my soul, “Yea, Lord, we do love thee.” And having set our “hand to the plough,”¹⁷ we will never look back until this work is finished and love of God and neighbor rules the world. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

I love this talk. It has made a huge difference in my life. It is my ultimate goal to have my Father in Heaven say, I see your life, not your title, I believe you truly love me. I know that the Lord is mindful of our every need. I know that he has showed me tender mercies everyday of my life. The least I could do is live a life that bears witness to the fact that above all else, I loved the Lord. I'm not perfect. But that is what the atonement is for. It's here for us to become perfected in Him. I know that this is the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. It is here to perfect, restore, and change the world. Let us all be apostles of the Lord that profess everyday through word and deed that He lives!