Be Thou Humble

Sometimes, I'm a big jerk.

Today, our "Relief Society" activity was listening to Chef Brad talk. He is quite popular during Education Week at BYU and he was coming to talk to us about healthy cooking. But being that yours truly used to subscribe to Shape magazine for years and more recently Women's Health (about all three copies before I discovered how bad it was), and years of reading girly magazines that always feature a "eat all this" or "only this" comparing a HUGE plate of high protein, high fiber meal to a sugary little bit of fat, I somehow felt I knew more than him.

As he talked on and on about over processed food and why it's bad, and told us to cook with more whole grains, I thought, I already know this though! We don't buy that much processed food! Ugh.... and then, all I could think of was, I still have to scripture study, I wanted to do Ab Ripper tonight, and doh, I have about an hour left of work to do and I really want to go to sleep at 10 (Andy has got me into the habit of early sleeping). But somehow, I ended up in the middle of a row quite far back and did not feel right just getting up and leaving. Something told me I should just stick it out despite my mind constantly wandering back to the fact that my computer was in my car, so maybe I could sneak off, do some work, and then come back in time to snag my tray (I made cookies with some special flour recipe of his that they gave me Sunday) and bring it home.

Ugh! That is how I felt. Frustrated, stressed, and stuck! I was fiddling with my phone (I know, not that polite but I was so far back and I had TONS of work e-mails to respond to), and quite ADD.

And then, Chef Brad started to talk about how food can bring people together. He told us about how he does Third Sunday dinners in which he invites a bunch of friends, investigators, recently baptized, and couples who he knows will fellowship. I started sitting up a little taller and if you looked at me, you could tell I was paying attention now. He told a bunch of stories about how it was just food, but it got a lot of people there in his home with other members, and once there, the Spirit did the rest.

This is exactly what I've been praying about. Andy and I recently got called as Ward missionaries and we have both been praying about how we can better fulfill our calling and to be perfectly honest, I have been absolutely lost. How do you share the gospel with more people? How do you find people seeking truth? How do you better help the missionaries? It's almost as if Chef Brad knew I was bored and knew I was waiting to hear his testimony. He went on, and all I could do was feel the Spirit prompting me to take action.

And then Chef Brad reminded us that Jesus first fed people physically, then spiritually.

I want to be like Jesus. I am unsure if I have the funds to do something as big as Chef Brad (his last dinner had about 70 people), but I think we can manage something. We've got awesome neighbors that I REALLY want to share the gospel with but am unsure how to begin the conversation. But regardless of that, I just want to share food with people and have a good wholesome Sunday, so that will be the first and foremost objective of a Sunday dinner. Plus, I don't have many friends in the Ward yet. Hehe.

Exciting!!!

Oh yes, and be thou humble. I definitely thought.. .why am I here, I wish I was there, blah blah, etc. etc. and yet, I was the one who needed to be there because I needed to hear what Chef Brad had to say - maybe not about how to cook healthy, but about how cooking for others can lead to great friendships and even more.