Conference Weekend

Saturday April 3rd- This post does not actually have anything to do with an event special to my time living in London, I would have watched General Conference anywhere I was, but there was something about this year's first Conference session that really touched me.
Yesterday was my roommate Margaret's birthday. We couldn't properly celebrate it because we were all stuck on a coach for 7 hours (more on the North trip in the next post!) so Room 1 (my room and the best group of girls this program has ever seen) celebrated her big 20th bash a day later! We did do a little something on the coach but nothing worthy to be called a party. To make up for it, we went to the Hard Rock Cafe in London today! This is Margaret's favorite restaurant so where better to celebrate? We all shared an appetizer platter and 4 hot fudge brownie sundaes and got the entire restaurant to sing Happy Birthday to her. The only bad thing was that because this is the busiest food place in all of London (it's the very first Hard Rock ever so everyone tourist and resident alike comes here) we waited so long and were put behind schedule to watch the 180th Annual General Conference in the Stake Center like we had planned. It was a bummer to get plans messed up but it turned out for the better in my opinion.
There was the option of going to the Stake Center late, but I did not want to burst in interrupting all the others who were listening to the Prophet while in my jeans and t-shirt that I opted to go home and watch it on my laptop.
I am very glad I did. Even now I am at a loss of words trying to convey how this session made me feel. I think that one reason for my love of this Conference and the Spirit that I felt was because of my getting closer to my Heavenly Father since I have been on my own in a strange place. I have become more dependent on prayer as my main source of communicating with someone familiar when I have felt estranged from my peers, I have become regular in my scripture studies, I have witnessed the power of forgiveness and strengthening of my Heavenly Father, and I have been more able to feel the presence of His Holy Spirit be with me. All of these things, I am eternally grateful for. I have never felt the Spirit in a Church meeting like I did during my private viewing of Conference on my laptop in the Centre's library. I was overcome with emotion more than once and felt with great undeniable assurance that my Heavenly Father loves me the whole time and that feeling stays with me now even after the session closed. I was debating whether or not to write this post because the feelings that I felt are very personal but this is my way of sharing my testimony with you all. I have never truly doubted that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the only true church on the Earth today, and I never will. The feelings I have felt today have confirmed beyond imaginable doubt the truthfulness of this Church. Nothing new was spoken, no new revelation was given, nothing that I did not already know was preached but now (here is where I can not convey my feelings properly through words alone) it is as if I have had all my troubles lifted and will never be melancholy again. Heavenly Father loves me, I am His daughter, I am on this Earth to do His work, I need to serve Him and worship Him through everything that I do. I do not know what is in store for me in the future but He does and that is good enough for me. I hope I will always remember how I feel today, I hope that I will be worthy of all the blessing He has already bestowed upon me and will bless me with in the future, and I hope that all reading this will be able to feel our Father's love for them as well. I love Conference weekend :] Have a great day and know that I love you and so does our Heavenly Father.