Blessed Easter

Today I feel very blessed. For everything in my life. In fact, I've been on the verge of tears all day. But today in sacrament meeting is when it hit me the most. First of all, I went to church early today to have an interview with the second counselor, for a calling!!! HORRAY!!! I then in sacrament I was sustained to be a Nursery Leader and I couldn't be more excited! :) As you all know I absolutely LOVE kids! :) Even though we only have two kids in there right now, I absolute love it! :) So today as I started my new calling, we were having the lesson, and Sister Olsen had all these different pictures of Jesus. She would ask each of the two boys who are 17 and 18 months old, "Can you show me where Jesus is?" and with out ANY hesitation, both of them would point to it and smile all huge and say, "Dedus!" and they'd grin and giggle. :) It was the CUTEST thing in the entire world. I love how you can feel the spirit through little kids and how even though they are so little and only know how to say, "Mamma" and "Daddy" they STILL know who our savior and redeemer is! I am SO blessed to have this calling, I couldn't imagine anything better than to be with those two little boys, and being totally surrounded by the spirit every week!

Anyway, back to sacrament meeting. Haha. As the meeting went on, there was a choir number, a talk, two more choir numbers, then I had to sing a solo. Most people don't know this, but even the thought of singing in church TERRIFIES me. Weird right? I lived my whole high school life on the stage singing solos, why would that terrify me? Well I'll tell ya. When performing on the stage, I'm fine because I'm not myself. I'm acting as another person. But when I have to sing in church, I'm not acting. I'm being myself and singing from my heart, not through the character I'm pretending to be. The hardest character to play is yourself. When singing in church I always try to hide it (being why most people never know) but today, I'm pretty sure it showed. I was sick this week and didn't get to practice that much, so that added on to the nervousness.
The solo I sang I found one day while looking for songs on the Internet to record for my Easter CD I've been creating and recording with my voice teacher. I was on "Sally Deford Music" when I found the song titled, "For Me Alone". It was the most perfect song! The whole song was about if only I had wandered from the straight and narrow way, he would have come for me. For me alone. So a GREAT song for Easter. It really is SUCH a beautiful song.


As I was walking up to the pulpit, I had no idea what was going to come out of my mouth. I had sung this song numerous times, I recorded it a couple weeks ago, so I knew it really well. I knew the words, and I knew what it meant, but I had never FELT the words or FELT what it meant. Then, as the music started playing, it hit me. (Big, uh oh. Haha, if any of you had been in the first rehearsal of me singing "Days of Plenty" in Little Women, you'll know why. Haha when emotion takes over me, I can't even BREATH let alone sing, and I just literally SOB and can't ANYTHING out for the life of me!) BUT the show must go on! Next thing I knew, it was the measure before I needed to sing and I was opening my mouth and BOY did I struggle getting it out. LUCKILY, I have no idea how (really I do, haha, the spirit) I was able to buck up and sing the entire song. I only wish that I didn't let my emotions get over me entirely so I wouldn't have missed the key change.. bummer. Also a good thing that I never looked at my family, or I would have lost it COMPLETELY considering my sister and mom were crying, haha. But I did it! I still don't feel that great about how it sounded, because it HAS sounded better. But there was such an amazing spirit about that song. It was just another little nudge from the spirit reminding me that even if I alone had to come down to this earth, the savior would have come just for me. And that I am SO grateful for. I'm also SO grateful that I was able to sing it and share it with my ward on this Blessed Easter Sunday. Ahh I love promptings from the spirit, aren't they great!? :)

It's been kind of a rough week, but after church today, receiving the calling, hearing the wonderful talks given, and being able to seen that song, the cherry was put back on top of my ice cream sundae. I am so grateful for the knowledge of this gospel and the comfort it can bring you in times of need. :) I hope you all had a wonderful Easter Sunday as well!............................. and THAT'S a sip of Livi's Lemonade! :)

and also, because some of you have asked, if any of you would like a copy of my recording of the song, just let me know and I'll give it to you. :) Thanks you guys!