Being Bold

As a Daughter of God I have the right to tell my story. As a child of God, you have the right to choose whether to read this or not; this being called agency, something you and I fought for in the preexistence. There were times in my life when I was bold and there were also times in my life where I wasn't and I missed a chance. I realize that I am not always a bold person, so please don't think of me as a hypocrite. Here are some of my favorite moments where I was bold.
My second year of eight grade (yes, my second year...I failed eight grade on purpose; I just gave up and chose to fail, so I didn't fail because I'm not capable, but thats not the point of this story) is when I started going to private schools. There was this girl (I will withhold her name for her sake) who loved to pick on me (or at least she would try). Anyways I remember she wanted to spread a nasty untruthful rumor about me. She told me that the only way she wouldn't spread around this lie was if I helped her out with school. I told her to go ahead and tell everyone, but I know and God knows thats its not true and thats all who needs to know (the words that I wrote probably weren't a direct quote of what I said but its pretty close). You should have seen her face! She was so stunned and if my memory doesn't fail I think her mouth fell open. Anyways when she realized that she couldn't harm me (notice what I said...usually a bully's motive is to try and destroy someones spirit, but if you don't let it bother you, their attacks have no value or no effect on you...just a side note there). She then began begging me to help her out with school and I remember I told her I would help her though (and I did or at least I tried).
This one was just this past summer at efy. It was testimony meeting and I chose to get up and bear my testimony after a huge discussion I held with myself in my head. I remember I got a lot of feedback on my testimony. Towards the end of efy my company gathered in some room and we all said our goodbyes and exchanged our emails and stuff like that. This guy that I didn't talk to at all came up to me and said told me that he was gonna go on a mission (when I was talking to him it seemed as if my testimony had changed his mind about missions and he was like 16ish I think...). Another guy told me to not loose my strong testimony about two, three, four times...IDK. Anyways then came the last day of efy (you know...pick up day) and as I was waking up one of my roomates (I had to only share a room with only two other girls, until someone else moved in which made three others, while everyone else had 6 girls staying in there dorms...just a sidenote there) kept popping her head in my room to see if I was up. I ended up walking over to put in my contacts and walked back in my room and found out why she kept popping her head in my room...she gave me a stuffed animal with a card. ( I really loved having her as a roommate because she was wild but sweet...I remember that I fell asleep on the couch because I have this thing about sleeping with lights on, I just can't do that, and she put a towel under the door to stop the light from waking me up, but since I fell asleep on the couch it woke me up and I started complaining about it and later realized that she had tried to help me...oops!) Anyways back to the story. Now my roommate, well, lets just say that I don't think shes exactly strong in the church (I think she goes, but has issues...well its not my place to say anyways) and she and her friend thanked me and told me what a pleasure it was to be around me and stuff like that (I think she and that other person really meant it...I still have that card).
I will not state when or where this next story took place...well at least not on my buzz. This guy I know (for his sake I will withhold his name) who just did not like Joseph Smith at all. He would constantly trash him, or so it seemed to me, everytime I was near (because he knew I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints). Most days I would just take it and sometimes I would politely ask him to cut it out. I remember one time it really got to me and (I am convinced that this came from the Lord) I turned to him and said "so and so I respect your religion why won't you respect mine" (that was pretty much an exact quote). He couldn't respond to that (you could tell that he would have said something, but nothing came to mind). Anyways I wound up teaching him about Joseph Smith. I was able to teach him that Joseph Smith loved God and the Bible and how he followed God and the restoration (at least I think I taught him the restoration). I knew that day that he felt my spirit. He started looking stuff up about the church throught the website that I led him to and he even was curious about whether nonmembers could go to byu (that was the school that I had my heart set on and he knew that a lot of members went there). I remember that I would help him out with every math test. I made notes for him to help him out on tests to show him what people in my church were like. Everytime he trashed the missionaries I would always ask that he would at least show some respect to them (he is the type of person that would slam the door in their faces). I even challenged him to challenge the missionaries the next time they came to his door and start talking about Christ and the Bible...he hasn't done that. I would love to sit, or stand, here today and tell you that he has been converted, but he hasn't. At least I think he respects us and our religion a little bit more.
Oh my gosh this memory of mine was just so incredible. I met this guy at efy 2006. We became such great, fast friends that people started to think that we were either dating or related. After efy our friendship continued. We talked for years (and we are communicating still today, as much as I feel we should at this time...let me finish the story for you to understand why I want limited communication right now). I remember he asked me a question (I'm actually embarrassed to tell you the question he asked me, but nevertheless, here it goes...) "Do you think that guys who go on missions are hot?" I responded to him that I did and told him about a friend of mine who woke up his mom to go to church and how I just thought it was so cool. Anyways he talked to me a little less and a little less until we just stopped talking altogether for about a year (IDK why, he just did). I encouraged him to go on a mission from time to time. Last november I sent him an email and I hadn't sent him anything in a long time before then. As it turns out, he is now on his mission...now the question is, did I influence his decision by being bold?
To finish this post off, I just wanted to tell anyone who reads this that I know just how much power one voice can have on many.