Heidee's Humorous History: How do I know for myself?

I <3 My institute class! Oh my freaking goodness! I can't even begin to explain how much I love it! The spirit is ALWAYS soooo strong in there! :) My last lesson was such a good one! And to think it was all because of one girl. My institute teacher, Brother Barlow, is the type who says "this isn't my class, it's our class." So he always comes prepared with a lesson, but he likes to take the lesson in the direction that we as students are going.

So last class he tells us to please look through this section of chapters and come up with any questions that we might have. The teacher begins answering our questions. And then one girls question at first came as a shock to me.. "What knowledge do we have that can make us truly say that We are the only true church? I'm sure that every church says that, what makes this one REALLY true?" Everyone began raising their hands saying well, we don't dis the other churches, we believe they have the truth just not all of it. And then Brother Barlow quoted President Hinckley When he was asked "How do you feel about the other churches?" and he responded by saying something like this "I think they're great. I would love to have them come to our church so that we could add do the greatness they have." It was an interesting conversation with A LOT of comments. We then turned our focus away from the Book of Mormon, but towards this question. "how do i know for myself?"

I actually commented, because i couldn't just sit there anymore. I had to say the stuff in my heart. I said this. I love that we're talking about this question, because everyone in this room has had that thought at least once in their mind. But that it reminded me a lot of a talk i read by Boyd K. Packer called "The Candle of the Lord." Instead of paraphrasing the part i shared for them. I will quote it for you.

"I will tell you of an experience I had before i was a General Authority which affected me profoundly. I sat on a plane next to a professed atheist who pressed his disbelief in God so urgently that I bore my testimony to him. 'You are wrong,' I said, 'There is a God. I know He lives!'

He protested, 'You don't know. Nobody knows that! You can't know it!' When i would not yield, the athiest, who was an attorney, asked perhaps the ultimate question on the subject of testimony. 'All right,' he said in a sneering, condescending way, 'you say you know. Tell me How you know.'

When I attempted to answer, even though i help advanced academic degrees, I was helpless to communicate.

Sometimes in your youth, you young missionaries are embarrassed when the cynic, the skeptic, treat you with contempt because you do not have ready answers for everything. Before such ridicule, some turn away in shame.

When i used the words Spirit and witness, the athiest responded, 'I don't know what you are talking about.' The words prayer, discernment, and faith, were equally meaningless to him. 'You see,' he said, 'you don't really know. If you did, you would be able to tell me how you know.'

I felt, prehaps, that I had borne my testimony to him unwisely and was at a loss as to what to do. Then came the experience! Something came into my mind. And I mention here a statment of the Prophet Joseph Smith 'A person may profit by noticing the first intimation of the Spirit of revelation; for instance, when you feel pure intelligence flowing into you, it may give you sudden strokes of ideas...and thus by learning the Spirit of God and understandding it, you may grow into the principle of revelation until you become perfect in Christ Jesus.'

Such an idea come into my mind and I said to the athiest, 'Let me ask if you know what salt tastes like,'

'Of course I do,' was his reply.

'When did you taste salt last?'

'I just had dinner on the plane.'

"You just think you know what salt tastes like,' I said.

He insisted, 'I know what salt tastes like as well as I know anything.'

'If i gave you a cup of salt and a cup of sugar and let you taste them both, could you tell the salt from the sugar?'

'Now you are getting juvenile.' was his reply. 'Of course i could tell the difference. I know what salt tastes like. It is an everyday experience-I know it as well as I know anything.'

'then,' i said,'assuming that I have never tasted salt, explain to me just what it tastes like.'

After some thought, he ventured, 'Well-i-uh, it is not sweet and it is not sour.'

'You've told me what it isn't, not what it is.'

After several attempts, of course, he could not do it. He could not convey, in words alond, so ordinary an experience as tasting salt. I bore testimony to him once again and said, 'I know there is a God. You ridiculed that testimony and said that if I did know, i would be able to tell you exactly how i know. My friend, spiritually speaking, i have tasted salt. I am no more able to convey to you in words how this knowledge has come than you are to tell me what salt tastes like. But i say to you again, there is a God! He does live! And just because you don't know, don't try to tell me that I don't know, for i do!"

This story gives me goosbumps! It just reminds me that just because i can't explain how I know, doesn't mean that the truth is not there! We just need to remember that!

The girl again began to say that a lady in her church bore testimony that God blessed her, by not getting cancer, because she had been going to the temple. This girl was upset because her dad was doing all of those things too, but he did get cancer. I really wanted to say this, but didn't end up having time. There is a difference between testing and punishing. Heavenly Father doesn't punish us, because we will punish ourselves enough. There is a lot of ways to look at afflictions. But they ARE blessings. Heavenly Father NEVER gives us something that we can't handle.

It was such an amazing experience for me!

Now on to a differenct subject. I just want to say that I Love Life. :)I love being myself! And i'm not afraid to show it! :) Me and my friend kim went and took pictures of eachother. :) Which we love to do! And it reminded me of this quote.