"What [ye] shall say"

I had an interesting experience a little over a week ago. I had been asked to prepare a talk for Sunday Feb, 13th. It was supposed to be on the talk "Every Woman Needs Relief Society" by Sylvia Allred. I had a difficult time preparing the talk, especially the second half. Late Saturday night, I was reviewing what I had prepared and found that the last page of what I had printed had a lot of extra space on it. I had the thought that maybe I should print out the Relief Society Declaration on that page just in case. I didn't think I would really need it as I had a lot of material, but I did it and just did not expect to use it.

The next day durning church, I discovered that I was the last speaker. After the second speaker sat down. I saw that there was a special musical number. I ended up with about 7 minutes left in the meeting to give my talk. As instructed, I had prepared a 15 minute talk. During the musical number I had the thought that maybe I could give the first part of my talk and just use the Relief Society Declaration, discuss it for a minute and then close with my testimony. I could quickly see that there was no way to condense the second part of my talk without rushing through and not giving each point I had prepared adequate attention. I decided to use the Relief Society Declaration in place of the second half. I ended my talk right on time, but was still able to make the talk flow and not feel so rushed. It went just fine and I felt like the message that I was really trying to get across made it out and that perhaps if I had tried to give the second half, it would have made the first half less memorable. I think it turned out better that way as I felt more strongly about the first half anyway.

It was pretty incredible to see the promptings of the Spirit in my life in that way. It reminded me of the scripture in D&C 124:97. The second half says, "...let him be humble before me, and be without guile, and he shall receive of my Spirit, even the Comforter, which shall manifest unto him the truth of all things, and shall give him, in the very hour, what he shall say." I can definitely say that was the case for me. I definitely did not know the declaration by heart and would have had a very hard time cutting the talk down. It was very interesting to have those thoughts come into my mind. They were so subtle that I did not even realize until I sat down after finishing my talk that they must have been the whisperings of the Spirit. It is no wonder I miss those small promptings so often. I almost did not print up the declaration, it was late and I was tired. Yet, I am so glad I did so that the Lord could show me that He is guiding me. In fact, the first month I was in as Relief Society President, I had 2 separate occasions when I stood up after a lesson and bore testimony of what the teacher had been teaching. The words came easily and freely, they were not my own. I do not have the natural ability to stand and speak to a group with eloquence, yet both of those times, it came easily. What a blessing that the Lord guides us and that we have the opportunity to always have his Spirit if we live worthily.

That was a much longer post than I had planned, but I have had the thought several times since this experience that I needed to write about it. I kept putting it off until it occurred to me that perhaps that in and of itself was a prompting. Perhaps I will need to look back and read this later in my life and remember. Anyway, at least I did it!