Yesterday in sacrament meeting (the worship service at church), the sister who was serving as the president for the women's organization, called Relief Society, got released.  Church leadership is service-based, and congregation members are asked to serve in various positions for varying amounts of time.  It really got me thinking about the time that I spent serving as the Relief Society president for my ward at BYU.  I know that God needed me to learn the things that I did in that position so that I would be able to be an effective missionary.

Something that this sister talked about is the love that she developed for the women she was serving and the knowledge she gained of the worth of souls.  I want to reiterate what she said.  My responsibilities as the RS president were very service based. I was given the opportunity to see to the emotional, physical and spiritual needs of about 50 girls over the course of the year; girls who were in their first year of college experiencing the same things that I was.  I came to understand the love that their Heavenly Father has for each of them, and how precious and important each of us are to Him.  I was blessed to understand a little bit of that love as I served and came to know these women.  Developing this love helped me to solidify my decision to serve a mission because if God loves me and each of these girls so much, enough to bless each of us with the gospel, then how can I not want to share that love and happiness with others? After learning of how much God loves me, with all of my mistakes, imperfections, and dumb decisions, how can I not share the message of His love with those who don't know?
So thank you to Emily, Rachael, and Tara Kay for helping me take care of our sisters and teaching me how to serve with Christ-like love.  And thank you Ally, Angela, Angela, Anna, Anne, Breanna, Briana, Brianna, Brooke, Cammie, Caroline, Claire, Claire, Courtney, Danielle, Danielle, Deborah, Devan, Elizabeth, Emerson, Emily, Emily, Emily, Emma, Emma, Gina, Hannah, Jessica, Jessica, Kaitlyn Kate, Keena, Kendra, Lacey, Mackey, McKayla, McKenna, Megan, Meghan, Nikki, Rachael, Rachel, Rachel, Rebekah, Sarah, Shelby, Tara Kay, Tiana, Valerie, Veronica, and Whitney for giving me the opportunity to serve you and love you. Thank you for all that you taught me about the gospel and about the love of our Saviour and Heavenly Father. Without each of you, I know that I would not be prepared to serve our brothers and sisters in Italy, and I know that that is were I am supposed to be going.

I love you all so much!!

xx ciao