How I live my faith

I live my faith by attending church weekly (or more often for activities), reading the scriptures daily, and maintaining my relationship with my Father in Heaven through frequent prayer. I strive to be an example of a "believer." In order to do that I make efforts to improve myself each day and try to become more like my Savior, Jesus Christ. My hope/goal would be that through my actions it would be obvious to others that I am a Christian and am trying to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ.

As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints you have many opportunities to serve others. I love this about the Church! As we serve one another we get to know each other really well...we become a "ward family." You definitely learn to love those that you serve.

No one in the church is paid for their service. We have what is called a "lay ministry." Even the Bishops of congregations serve without pay...they typically will have full time occupations in addition to the time they spend serving at church. We feel that we are richly blessed in our lives when we serve this way and I have definitely seen that in my life.

In my many years in the church, I have had the opportunity to serve in many capacities. I have: taught children, taught youth, taught adults, created weekly bulletins for Sunday Service, created quarterly newsletters, organized and put on many large activities, given talks to large congregations, served in multiple leadership positions (e.g. Counselor in a Presidency, Cub Scout Den Leader - Pine Wood Derbys, woot woot!), taught leadership to youth and adults, done missionary work, organized a week-long summer camp for 120 girls, and the list goes on.

My current responsibility is working with the girls ages 12 to 18. I am the President in our local congregation of this group - it's called being the "Young Women's President". I work with 6 other fantastic women in the presidency and our main goal is to help the girls realize that they are daughters of God...that they are of infinite worth and that He is there to help them no matter what comes in their lives. We do this by teaching the girls at Sunday Meetings and also providing weekly activities (called "Mutual"). We also help provide the girls with opportunities to provide service to the community. I currently have 3 of my own daughters in the program (soon to be 4) and I have seen the way the program helps them feel confident in themselves and in their relationship with their Heavenly Father. It is a huge help to my husband and I as we strive to raise all of our children to walk in the ways the Lord would want and to make wise decisions in life that will ultimately make them happy and not miserable. There is a similar program in the church for the young men ages 12-18 in which they are heavily involved in the Scouting program.

In addition to this I always serve as a "Visiting Teacher." This means that another female at church and I are assigned to watch over a few other ladies in our local congregation. We visit them frequently or check in with them to make sure they are ok. If they are in need of help in any way, we provide that help or find someone at church that can help them. I too am assigned Visiting Teachers who do the same for me. It's a beautiful program and I have made life-long friends this way.

I love how well organized the Church is! The programs are the exact same no matter where you go in the world. I have lived in several states and attended many different wards...and no matter where I go they are teaching the exact same principles (they even teach the same lesson across the world on a given Sunday)...and I know, no matter where I go, I will immediately find a new ward family and the exact same structure (programs, leaders, lessons) that I left in my last local congregation (ward). It's comforting to have that consistency in the Church.