Elder Holland came to Town!

SO yesterday I had a really awesome, really hard, really rotten day. But it was LIFE ALTERING! SO Elder Jeffrey Holland came into town... and the place was in a bit of an uproar. But first, the beginning of the day. (O and background; I have been in charge or organizing a trip to a cool cave and the churches/birth place of john the Baptist and it has been quite the undertaking. NOTHING went right in the planning of it) ok I have made a goal to do my scripture study in the morning, the early morning, every day before ANYTHING. Breakfast, working out, class, you name it. So obviously I have not been getting a ton of sleep, but it has been so rewarding. So Sunday rolls around and it didn’t occur to me to do my scripture study in the morning because I was going to church you know. BIG mistake. I just felt like I had a rock on my soul throughout the entire meeting. I was trying so hard to feel the spirit and be teachable and to listen, but every time I had a cool spiritual thought or insight, someone would come up to me and say how they decided not to go on the trip I was organizing and were super rude about it, even though they were the ones who had previously committed to going. I was really stressed about it and it made me so frustrated! I wanted to have an amazing spiritual day! It was even the day of the primary program. Ha-ha hilarious. 14 kids in the primary, and it was everything a primary program should be. Loved it- when the kids sang "Families can be together forever" and "I love to see the temple", it made half the audience bawl- myself included. I’m so excited to have a family. Not in a rush- just excited ;) .So the rest of church was like that: almost spiritual high, then a crashing stressor. Bah! Then came dinner. I walked up to the line all nonchalantly, and was told that elder Holland would be joining us for dinner. What?! Ah! ha-ha we all kinda freaked out. It was like the Christmas anxiety you know. Like "SANTA!!! SANTA'S COMING!!! SANTA! I KNOW HIM!!!!!" but when he walked in the room, this beautiful peace distilled over everyone and even though the room completely revolved around him, it felt calm. Neat experience. Then we had a fireside where he spoke. The beginning musical number was a rendition of "Master the tempest is raging" (which is one of my favs ps) and was THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MUSICAL NUMBER EVER. It was seriously haunting. We have some of the most talented people here I swear. Then after Elder Porter (first quorum of the 70), his wife, and Patricia Holland spoke, Elder Holland hit the podium. Literally. One of the first things he said to us, after kissing his wife's hand and publically thanking God for her existence and daily effect on his life (so sweet), was "Don't you dare go home the same person." his talk stemmed from two things: 1- the scripture in Luke from the end of Christ's sermon on the mount when he says 'be ye merciful, even as your Father in Heaven is merciful. IN all the other accounts of this, the apostles say he said "be ye perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect". Elder Holland then took this to mean that perfect and merciful are synonymous, giving us a conceivable goal and reality of perfection. Wow. k then 2- he took " the most powerful day in the entire BOM", where Christ visits the Nephites and talks about how, when he told the Nephites he was going to leave, the Nephites' eyes welled up with tears as if to beg him to tarry. Christ's "bowels were filled with mercy and compassion".
Some powerful conclusions were: MERCY ALWAYS TRUMPS JUSTICE, and we must all be a little more merciful: say thank you one more time, say I love you one more time, one more kind word, one more smile. It was amazing! I recorded it, but the recording isn't the best. O well! Then after, I got to give he and his wife a hug! Special experience.
O and the field trip thing I was in charge of today turned out fantastic and I know it was 100% by divine intervention. Phew!