t e s t i m o n i e s . o f . k e l s .

Have you ever been so afraid of something that your natural instinct is to run as fast as you possibly can in the other direction? Once your life becomes centered around running the fear starts to define you. It is in every thought, and every feeling you have. You become so equipped to the mask you wear, as you try to save yourself from your greatest fear -- along with saving others from the effects. Running becomes who you are and everything that you do.Yet the struggle to hide from that fear becomes more intense as the days go on. The mask that you have painted on so perfectly begins to fade. Some may say that the mask you paint on everyday is proof that you're fake; thus throwing genuine out the door without a second thought. When in reality that "mask" is showing who you really are and who you really want to be, but it is just trying hiding all of the flaws and imperfections as well as amplify the good. For me personally, the reason I put the mask on everyday is b...

I absolutely love that "ah ha" moment when you seem to find another piece of the puzzle that fits perfectly into the Gospel Plan. I love it even more when those pieces come in your darkest of days and you realize how incredibly perfect not only His plan is, but how incredibly perfect He  is. I had one of those moments today. I was reading in Alma 32 -- which is an incredible chapter as a whole -- but the last verse was my silver lining. Alma is pleading with the Lord to give him, the son's of Mosiah and his sons strength and in the last verse it reads, "And the Lord provided for them that they should hunger not neither should they thirst; yea, and he also gave them strength, that they should suffer no manner of afflictions, save it were swallowed up in the joy of Christ. Now this was according to the prayers of Alma; and this because he prayed in faith." For some reason the word provided  came with such strength to my mind and I began to think of the pri...

When a missionary hits their last 6 weeks on their mission they start something that is called "My Plan". They set goals for what they are going to do when they go home to continue to grow closer to their Savior Jesus Christ, and not lose the spirit and their testimony that the have worked so hard for over the last 18 - 24 months. One of the goals it has you set is your temple attendance. They don't tell you how often you have to go but they want you to set a goal that is reachable and will still help you draw upon the strength that comes when we go to the temple. I felt prompted to set a goal to go every week at least once. I can't begin to express the strength that I have felt as I have done so. I've been home now for a little over 6 months and I haven't missed a week. There has been times where I was out of town and there was no temple in sight so I attended 2 times to make up for the week that I wasn't physically able to get to the temple.  It get...

In Mosiah 4:6-7 it talks about trusting in the Lord and what happens when we do. I thought about this and thought about how hard it is for me to trust. I don't know what it is but somewhere along the line I went from trusting anyone and everyone to trusting only a select few - and most of those included those people that I actually don't know personally. Haha. yeah, sounds pretty pathetic right? Well as I was reading about trusting in the Lord I realized why I had such a hard time truly trusting a lot of people and I believe and I know that I did trust fully at one point but that trust started to diminish once that person would do something to break my trust. It hit me as I was realizing this our perfect our Father in Heaven really is! He would never do anything to break our trust. Yeah, sometimes we are given hard trials and some people can take that as our Father breaking our trust, but look back on all the times that you really trusted him. When he asked you to sacrifice s...

Okay, I had THE most incredible experience reading my scriptures tonight. I was reading in Jarom, which actually is becoming one of my favorite books, and I only made it 2 verses in until I had something hit me over the head. Jarom is writing and it reads, "It must needs be that I write a little;... for have not they revealed the plan of salvation? Yeah, I say unto you this sufficeth me." (Jarom 1:2). So in essence he says "ya know, I don't really know what to write. The Plan of Salvation has already been written and what else is there to say?" I starting thinking in that instance "why is that enough for him? What does the Plan of Salvation teach us that we need so desperately today?" Oh, I can't even begin with all of the revelation that hit me. I starting making a list of the very most important simple truths that come from the Plan; such as... 1. We learn our relationship to God is not merely as his creations but rather we are literally Hi...

Oh how much I love the scriptures. I love being able to read and find parts that speak to my specifically. And verses that really help me to know my Father more and to know what I can do to be better so that one day I really will be able to live with Him again. As I was reading in Jacob I was able to really feel my Father speak to me through a couple of specific verses and I wanted to kinda just jot down the thoughts and impressions that I had come to mind. The first verse is in Jacob 4:3, and what is even more incredible about this whole process is that even the seemingly little verses or the insignificant ones speak volumes. And when I really seem to study and hunger after the scriptures it is those "insignificant" verses where I feel Heavenly Father speak to me directly. BUT that being said, back to the verse(: What I really loved about this verse is it talks plainly about the scriptures and those lives that were dedicated to the writing them. They talk about how happy ...

I have been thinking a lot about where we as humans turn when life gets hard. Some of us may turn inwards, some may turn to addictive substances, some may try sleep away the pain, (which may or may not be my escape more frequently than I'd like to admit) but most try to do all they can to escape the long traitorous trials in anyway possible and any way that will bring that relief, we desperately want, the quickest. I was reading this last Conference edition of the Ensign (May 2017) and I came across a talk that quickly became one of my favorites. It was given by Elder Weatherford T. Clayton entitled, Our Father's Glorious Plan . In this talk a scripture was quoted that I have thought interesting for quite some time now and I felt that it answers the question above, on where we should  turn in those hard moments. The scripture talks about what our Savior did when He was faced with the hardest trial that seemed as if it may never end. "And being in an agony he [Jesus] pray...