Inspiration so Common it's Almost Intuition

Dear Family,

Yesterday was zone conference--we were asked to prepare three thoughts and then be ready to share them. I thought during the opening prayer that Sister Cook and I were going to be called on to share the Doctrine of Christ--and sure enough, we shared about how the doctrine of Christ has changed OUR lives and how it could change our investigator's lives on a very basic level through these scriptures:

Ether 12:27--eveyone has weaknesses that they want to be made strengths,

Moroni 7:33--everyone needs the power beyond themselves to accomplish their goals,

Moroni 10:32--everyone wants to be complete and perfected, to be filled out and complete and heal their wounds and worries, guilt and loneliness, sorrow, fear,and failure.

We talked about this--then sat down and demonstrated teaching the ideas in a lesson. We chose to teach the mission prez's wife, Sister Chan, and she pretended to be our
investigator(to whom we were planning to teach the SAME lesson THAT VERY NIGHT!)

When we looked into her eyes and said her name and told her that Jesus Christ wanted to reach out to her, Sister Chan started crying.

Afterward she explained that the spirit testified that she KNEW we LOVED her. President Chan told us he knew we were teaching by the Spirit--but urged us all to remember the temporal--to set a DATE.

The amazingER thing is that we had the exact SAME lesson that night with the REAL person--and I was just blown away by the same Spirit in that room.

This individual is so sweet--has a hard time saying how she's feeling and has had a hard, hard childhood. Though the older sibling is a recent convert, they're so so so traditional AND so challenged from their childhood sadnesses that it's hard to be together now.

Sister Cook asked, "If Christ were sitting HERE in THIS CHAIR and he said THIS to you (Ether 12:27)... how would you feel?"

And again, like we all do when we feel the sweet Spirit, lots of tears were shed. It was the most amazing lesson ever--especially in that the Spirit was speaking through every scripture, exhortation, confession and testimony from our lips.

I've really been learning the power of sharing a real experience. Testimony is not sanctified if it is not clarified by a real life experience where the Holy Spirit has testified or at the very least, if YOU are not thinking of that experience when those words drop from your lips. Otherwise your words will fall flat and dull.

Speaking of those, I gave my testimony to a gal from ENGLAND (sooooo hilarious, picture Rita from Flushed Away---exactly the same, exactly the same family situation back in the UK and misses them so much. It was just this week and I was able to really, really share what prayer meant to me because I was able to relate it to my great relationship with Dad. I remember him sneaking in to say goodnight and stretching out on the bed covers to talk and then making me get up and play pool with him late at night and just being there, always, always for me. That memory of family really touched her, and after that closing prayer she said quietly, "I feel so relaxed. Usually I'm not very relaxed!" which I believed! Because that girl had just talked for 2+ hours with barely a break :D :D :D

My life is full of Too many stories and experiences, it's so amazing. The work goes on and God gives us a chance to experience it with Him and every once in a while we get a glimpse from his divine perspective.

Love, Sister Darcey

P.S. New breakthrough this week on my knees with tears: Mom thinks I'm succeeding at my mission, so then it must be that God thinks I am too.