Spiritual Feasting

This weekend I had the opportunity to listen to two wonderful speakers. Saturday was our Stake Women's Conference. Our Stake RS President invited Chieko Okazaki to come and speak to us. She was amazing!

She was so cute and made us laugh ALOT! Her talk was entitled "Walking in the Sunlight of Peace" and she spoke about the things that we can do to find peace. The main things that struck me was how much of her talk was about happiness and laughter. She spoke about how our Heavenly Father loves to hear us laugh and be joyful. That he wants us to be happy. She read so many scriptures that had the common theme of "make a joyful noise unto the Lord." She also talked about how if we are joyful it will spill over into every aspect of our lives. Our trials obviously won't go away, but we will see them in a different light. She also talked about finding joy in each other.....our spouses, neighbors, ward members and most importantly our Heavenly Father. She said so many good things.....I loved her entire speech and the hour just flew by. I love to laugh and I also feel that our Heavenly Father has a sense of humor. Here are the four main points of her speech...

1. We should rejoice in our faith in God.
"The great truth about God is, He really is our relative and He knows and loves us."

2. We can find joy in listening to the Holy Spirit and acting on our good intentions.

3. Lighten up the heavy times in life by maintaining a sense of humor.
"Take your problems seriously, but don't take YOURSELF too seriously... There is wisdom in not
taking ourselves too seriously."

4. Find joy in the people around us.

and my favorite quote from her is...

"Whatever you have to give is enough...if you give it with your whole heart."

Sunday night, I went to church with Patricia. When she lived here she attended a non-denominational church called Cornerstone. She still keeps in contact with them and they invited her to a special "Friend Night" with a special guest. The special guest was Jim Caviezel.

He is the actor who played Jesus in The Passion. He is also in one of my favorite movies, The Count of Monte Cristo. Anyway, I went with her because I was very interested in what he had to say. It was a very informal setting, he sat up on the stage with the pastor and the pastor would ask him questions about his faith and his life. What I thought was interesting was that he seemed very awkward. I guess I just figured that a Hollywood movie star would be comfortable talking in front of a crowd, but he was very soft spoken and almost shy.

Some of the things that I like that he said, was when he talked about how he is so tired of people being "Fake Christians." That they just talk and talk and expect people to convert to Christianity and that they also give the impression that once you choose to follow Christ you just be so happy and no longer suffer. He feels the most effective way to convert people is through your actions. "People follow those who DO...not those who SAY."
I agree with that statement because I know some people who are constantly telling others how they can improve. I know I am guilty of hearing a talk and thinking "Oh! I wish _______ could have heard this talk! This is just what they need." But conference is for ALL of us and the talks are desinged to teach ME something....even if it is just knowledge about a subject, or compassion for something someone might be struggling with.

Anyway, Jim Caviezel also said that we are ALL called to be saints. There are not just a few select people who will rise up and lead all the others. We are all supposed to be saints and help each other out and be an inspiration to someone. He also shared his opinion that it will be hard and the world will laugh at you or ridicule you. He shared some stories of the many times he has tried to share his faith and people laughed at him. Especially in Hollywood. But, he said that we were not created to fit in....but to stand out and be different.

One of the questions he was asked was how did he manage to live in Hollywood and yet keep his focus on Christ. He started to answer but got sidetracked and he never really answered the question so that was a little disappointing. Anyway, all in all in was a nice evening and it was nice to see a big name actor who was not afraid to do the right thing and tell people that they need to believe in Christ.

Sorry, for the novel, but I just wanted to share my weekend. It felt like it had been awhile since I had been so spiritually nourished and so I really appreciated this weekend and soaked up all the good things that I was taught.