{how the gospel of Jesus Christ blesses my life}

This past Monday night my Grandma Marlene's battle with cancer came to an end as she passed away. This was my grandpa's second wife, but they were married for more than half my life. That next day {yesterday} I went on a tour of our church building {of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints} with the missionaries and a lady who was not a member of our church. The question the missionaries had me ponder in preparation for this tour was, "how has the gospel of Jesus Christ blessed my life."

As we were walking those quiet halls {with Jake jabbering away} and stopped at each picture to talk about it, the sweetest feeling was felt. The only real word to sum up the myriad of emotions I felt of joy, peace, light, happiness, and humility that the gospel of Jesus Christ brings into my life would be gratitude. How grateful I am to know what I know! I couldn't even gather my thoughts as I was walking those halls to come up with one solid answer as to how the gospel of Jesus Christ blesses my life. It is my life. Because of the gospel of Jesus Christ, I know that every day---whether easy or hard---can be made better because of Him. Everything I do and everything I am is because I am a member of His church {mormon.org}.

This woman who we were giving a tour to mentioned how when growing up, her family was caught up in the day-to-day things. Just getting through each day was their goal, nothing more. This made me think of those I went to high school with who didn't know of an eternal plan and purpose to our being here on earth. I remember so clearly one of my friends saying during class how she was going to go to college, get a job, retire someday, and then die, all without really understanding the point of being here at all.

The gospel of Jesus Christ gives purpose to every single day. Because of the knowledge we have, it helps us to become better. It helps us to someday return to be in God's presence. It influences all of our relationships---how I treat Travis and what priorities I set in life. It encourages us to build strong families, set goals, serve our next door neighbor, turn the other cheek, follow Christ's example, strengthen our communities, and to have a perspective that brings peace during hard times. His church has structures set in place in which we are able to take care of each other, to help each other. As one simple example, as a sisterhood in the gospel of Jesus Christ we have what's called visiting teaching---where every single woman is paired with another woman and they are assigned to look out for specific sisters in our congregations, to visit with them every month, to make sure they have the help they need in their lives and to be a friend {and this is the exact reason I didn't have to cook a single meal for weeks and weeks after I delivered each of my babies!!}. Is that not one of the most amazing things? Each congregation or ward you attend of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, will be the same teachings, the same system, the same structure. It doesn't vary based on who is the leader, or what public opinion is. The full truth has been restored, and so everything will be the same across our church buildings across the world {and when you walk into one of these church buildings, you instantly have a new family, a whole new support system}. This amazes me when I think about it. It's all the same because God's the leader, and speaks through a living prophet that's on the earth today.

My grandma has just slipped from this life into the next. Not only does the gospel of Jesus Christ give perspective and joy for day-to-day things, but it also brings peace as we know what happens when we die---it brings perspective to the big things too. Because of Jesus Christ and the restored knowledge we have of him as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we know that this life is not the end. We know exactly where we came from before we were born, why we're here and where we are going. And that is priceless knowledge.

This woman who we gave a tour to said how she believes in God and has seen Him very clearly in her life. He is there; He is with us all. But I know for a fact, that God's full truth---His church---was restored again to the earth in 1820 by the prophet Joseph Smith, and I am now a proud member of it {mormon.org}. We have a prophet today, Thomas S. Monson, just like there were prophets in Biblical times. God's priesthood and church and full truth is on the earth and has been restored to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And because of it we can find happiness each day, in the best or worst of times.