We went to church today, and we actually got to sing the hymns together as a congregation for the first time in a year! It was a sweet surprise, but today I want to talk about a different sweet thing that happened during our season of at-home church.
The sweet thing was that we got to hear my girls' testimonies quite often and it filled our home with the Holy Ghost.
I recently stumbled on the testimony that my daughter Autumn gave one Sunday as she had written notes to help her say it the way she wanted to. Here it is:
"Testimonies are like baking cookies. We practice baking them for our whole lives until they are perfect.
We start our testimonies by gathering all of the ingredients, like going to church and getting baptized. Then we start mixing the ingredients together, which is like reading scriptures daily and learning in church every Sunday. And then we put it in the oven and your testimony rises and gets stronger, because you are obeying the commandments and getting personal revelation. When you are ready, you will have a spiritual and a strong testimony.
And when they are done cooling, you can share them with your friends, so they can have the same experience that you had. But if you put the wrong ingredients in your cookies, they won't turn out as the cookies you wanted to make...
I know that as we do the right things and be like our Heavenly Father, we will have a strong testimony of Jesus Christ, and we can live with God again. I say these things, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."
I was really touched by the testimony of our resident baker. I know that the Lord sent us to earth to learn spiritual lessons in a physical world. Autumn's testimony is just one example of that!
how sweet. I remember when my youngest son Jeff was a teenager and realized he didn't have a testimony then I found a talk by Boyd Packer that suggested in order to get a testimony, you needed to bear it. If worked for him and he went on a mission and is now a high priest, doing genealogy and raising his family in the gospel...a blessing!
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love this analogy! The part about the cookies rising and strengthening while in the oven because of keeping the commandments and receiving personal revelation was particularly meaningful to me. Thank you so much for sharing this!
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