Yesterday I was asked to say the opening prayer for Sacrament Meeting. It has been a very long time since I have done that. I had more than 20 hours notice, but of course, I really couldn't concentrate on what to say until we were singing the opening hymn. I had a few things in mind. I felt I would thank Him for the beautiful area that we live, and a few other temporal things and then thank Him for some spiritual things in our lives and definitely remembering the missionaries and those suffering in Haiti.
I started the prayer, "Our Dear, Kind Heavenly Father. . . " then I couldn't say another word, for if I did it would be in a tear-filled, trembling, sobbing voice. I swallowed hard, and took several seconds to gain composure to speak. I was completely surprised at how strongly I felt the spirit. I just wanted to be sincere. In the back of my mind I thought "I need to do this more often . . ." I need to be that sincere. I totally felt like I was speaking to Heavenly Father and I thought about each phrase before I said it. I planned on saying something about our ward family, but I felt completely inspired to talk about buoying each other up and helping each other spiritually. I prayed more specifically for the missionaries from our ward and for our bishopric.
I received 3 or 4 comments about my prayer later that day. Rachele Beck was sitting on the row right next to ours. She said that Shanelle heard my voice and then quietly and quickly folded her arms for the prayer. Janet Barber said that Shanelle and Sienna were so cute today sitting next to each other on the bench before the meeting started. (Jon took all of the kids . . I came 10 minutes later.) I was glad to hear cute comments about them. Shanelle is Sienna's shadow. She follows her around EVERYWHERE and DOES EVERYTHING Sienna does. And Sienna is eating it up!! She is loving every minute of it. It is a great stage.
This is a picture taken in December. It is a Saturday morning where Sienna had dressed Shanelle and did her hair (she was trying to achieve matching hair and outfits.) Sienna did her own her and outfit as well. Shanelle was LOVING it.
