A Fulfilling Life

In Alma 37:6 he said "By small and simple things are great things brought to pass." Then Sister Marjorie Paye Hinckley said ; "I couldn't possibly have understood this when I was young like I do now. When we look back on decades of life we see that the seemingly insignificant things we do over and over actually weave the pattern of our lives. And if those small and simple things are good, we will end up having lived a fulfilling life - and that is a great thing!"

I know that I quoted Sister Hinckley last week, but, I've been reading her little book again & have loved all of her thoughts on life. And truly what greater source can we learn from that a Prophet of the Lord's wife.

Yesterday in our Young Women's class, the lesson was on Obeying Commandments helps us fulfill our divine rolls. We have one young woman who comes from a less active home. She has made it a goal this year to attend church. She has a number of questions each week & she is very vocal about everything. So, in the middle of our lesson, we were talking about making choices & how important the choices that you make at this time in your life are very crucial to how your life is going to keep on progressing. Such as obeying the word of wisdom & the law of chastity. She all of a sudden goes into a whole bunch of questions about petting & necking, & why is necking so bad. Then she starts asking questions about how we feel about abortion. All the while we have 2 other girls in the class that are just sitting there afraid to say anything. Luckily there were 3 of us leaders in there and I feel like we did a pretty good job with answering her questions with doctrine from our church leaders. Then, she proceeds to ask us if its bad that she is really trying to do everything that she knows how to be rich & famous. She wants to be an actress. She said that she feels like the church doesn't want anyone to be rich or famous, but that all they do is push you into getting married so young & having kids, & that you don't really get to have a life. And that all women need to do is serve their families. WOW!!! Let's just say that we all just sat there. I then informed her that I was 29 when I got married & that I have lived a very full life & that I would not change any of it. One other sister who has a masters degree, told her about how she was able to finish up her schooling before having children & one other leader told her about how she has a bachelors degree & is going to be starting soon to get her masters. We then told her that out of all of this learning & living that we have done, the most joy & fulfillment has come from being a wife & mother.

I have been thinking a lot about this since. Clayn & I have talked about different parts of how this played out. Not quite the lesson that it was supposed to be. But, I hope that we were able to share with her & the other girls how good life can be by living & obeying gospel principles. Life is truly meant to be simple. The gospel is simple & I am so thankful that we have very straight forward doctrine about what & why we believe what we do. There were really not a lot of questions after that, because there is no gray matter in the church concerning these commandments. How thankful I am for this very thing. I know that as I have thought about all this, that my testimony has truly been strengthened by this situation; because I truly know that, as Sister Hinckley said that if the small & simple things that we do in life are good that we will end up living a fulfilling life & that truly is a great blessing!