God loves you!

I love smiling and laughing.  It is so uplifting and releasing.  But even more, I love making other people smile and laugh.  I love helping them feel God's love.  There is almost no greater joy than helping to lift others.

And what is most amazing is that it does not take a huge, expensive, and time consuming project to help someone feel God's love and to help lift them up.  Through the way we live and act we can help others feel of God's love for them.  How?  Like it says in the Book of Mormon, "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass" (Alma 37:6).  All we need are opened eyes and a willing heart.  It may be a smile to a passing stranger, a conversation with a store clerk, a compliment to a coworker, a plate of cookies to a neighbor, a phone call to a friend, an expression of love to a family member, or anything else.  

And as we look for opportunities to lift others, we can become instruments in God's hands in being an answer to their prayer, saying what they needed to hear, helping them not to feel alone, being the encouragement they needed that day, and helping them come to know and feel they are a child of a loving Heavenly Father who cares, who listens, and who loves them.

Since coming on my mission I have really come to understand the impact we can have on other people's lives.  Weekly we go and visit different older members in the ward who live in nursing homes and we sing them songs and share uplifting messages.  I love bringing a smile on my face and a listening ear to help them know that we care and, most importantly, that Heavenly Father is aware of them.  The first time we went down to visit one of these women, she told us she was thinking that morning about why she hasn't been visited before by the missionaries and was wanting us to visit and that same afternoon we walked in and introduced ourselves to her.  Such a miracle and evidence to us all that Heavenly Father heard the prayer in her heart and cared enough for her to send us there.

I know that one of the greatest joys in life is spreading love and kindness to all those we come in contact with.  And I know as we do this we will be instruments in the hands of our loving Heavenly Father to help His children feel appreciated, feel known, and feel loved.  Go out and be the light someone is in need of today!