Post Chicago

So my blog is going to be a little out of order...but I haven't posted my Chicago pictures yet...because I don't quite have them all. Get excited though. It sure was a blast!

However, I have had a few interesting things happen since then that I wanted to remember. The first happened on my plane ride back from Chicago. You know how it goes. Everyone is trying to barge through and get to their seat only to find that they are uncomfortably close to a perfectly unfamiliar stranger. Do you try to strike up some sort of conversation so that the rest of the ride isn't completely awkward or do you just ignore them and pretend that they aren't there until the end of the plane ride when you have to get up again?

Well, surprising to most of you, the "unknown lady" struck up the conversation first. "What a great book," making reference to the 8th Volume of The Work and the Glory that I was currently reading. "Oh yea, have you read it?" "Oh no, but glory...GLORY is a wonderful thing." As she proceeds to pull out a book of her own that had something about proceeding the glory. She began to rehearse to me the great miracles that come by and through glory. "Oh...," I was caught a little off guard. "Actually, this is a fictional book telling the story of my church's history. Have you ever heard about the LDS or Mormon religion?" She looked at me for a moment and said, "Yea, I have. Well that's nice."

Oh boy... Well I read my book for the next 45 minutes and kept thinking to myself... 'Caytee, you have to say something more.' But yet again, the "unknown lady" pulled through for me.

"Do Mormon's believe in Jesus Christ?" (lights coming down, angels singing) "Yes. It's the cornerstone of our religion." (nice one eh?)Well, then she proceeded to tell me about what she believed in and I felt like I was being preached to myself. It was all pretty interesting to me so I listened and prayed for a small miracle to happen so that I might know what to say.

She was telling me about how she became converted to her religion and the miracles and speaking in tongues that she witnessed. I didn't quite know what to say. However, I kept feeling like I should tell her my testimony and how I came to know that it was true.

So I did. Although, my testimony didn't include large instantaneous miracles or people falling to the ground. Rather it was after I had finished reading The Book of Mormon and I was praying to myself as I was visiting my grandfather's grave. I had an overwhelming feeling of joy and happiness that crept to every part of my body and a thought come to my head that "I had always known."Well, after I told her that, I don't know quite what she thought. To be honest, the whole conversation was wonderful. It was a joy to talk to her and answer questions.

I don't know if anything will come of it, but it was a great learning experience for me. I hope that next time I will be a little more prepared when someone asks me, "Do Mormons believe in Jesus Christ?"