I Love Church!

I'm sitting here on the couch relaxing after a busy Sunday and thinking about the day. Sunday's are busy for Jeremy and I. We usually start with meetings around 9 and don't get home until about 3, but for some reason we both love it. On Fast Sunday Jeremy goes with the young men to collect fast offerings and then after church he goes with them to take the sacrament to those who are homebound. He seems to really love this service and of course all the little old ladies in the ward love him because he is so kind, he listens to thier stories, and he uplifts them with his kind words. I can't even begin to imagine what an effect he's making on the Young Men in our ward.

I'm a little stressed out with the preparations for our Primary Program on the 19th. I've never done one before so I'm a little nervous, but today as I watched and listened to the children practice I just knew it would all go well. Our Primary is really growing. Over the last 4-5 months we've had 6 inactive children return to church and two new ones move in. When everyone is there we're up to 24 children! In January we'll have 4 children graduate from nursery so I'm trying to decide if we should split the primary into a Jr. and Sr. group for sharing time. We've always just stayed together because of our small numbers.

Today our oldest girl completed her Faith In God award and just in time to graduate next week to Young Womens. We've become really good friends as we've worked together on her award and I will miss her in Primary, but I'm thrilled for her to attend Young Womens. She's going to love it! We're having a special dinner for her this Friday to say goodbye with her Valiant Class. There are 5 amazing little girls in there.

During Sacrament meeting one of the CTR girls came back to where I was sitting to give me a picture she drew. It had some hearts and said "I Love You Sonja." It meant the world to me and made the extra time I spend to fulfill this calling worth every minute. I also had one of the little boys who is usually quiet and kind but hard to control, just come running up to me after Primary was over and give me a hug and then run away down the hall. It was really unexpected, but so cute! The kids also completed thier scripture reading chart this week. We started a program months ago to encourage the children to read daily from the scriptures and each day they read we filled a big blank chart with stickers. They were so happy to see it fill up and now we'll have a big party to celebrate.

Jeremy and I both feel so blessed to be able to serve. It takes extra time and effort, but it also adds so much to our lives that we wouldn't have otherwise. And we both learn and grow so much. We both feel humbled that Heavenly Father would trust us with such great responsiblity.

We also had Elder Hinckley attend our ward today and that was really neat. He is President Hinckleys son and was formerly the President of our Stake. He spoke at the end of the testimony meeting and it's always a great experience to listen to a General Authority speak. Govenor Huntsman and his family attend our ward as well, but I don't know why.

All of this is simply to say I love church, I love all that goes into it, I love the spirit I feel there, I love how it fills me for another week and keeps me going. I love learning about the Gospel and feeling the spirit confirm to me so strongly that it's true. I love that Christ is at the center of it and His spirit is present so powerfully. I love our ward, how close it is, and how much we feel apart of it. It's where we belong right now. And that feels so comforting. Knowing you're where you're supposed to be and doing what you're supposed to be doing. Again, we have so much to be thankful for!