The Spirit Was There For Me

When I went to EFY, I was struggling. I didn't feel good enough. I felt like I wasn't pretty like all the girls I know, and I didn't feel like my testimony was strong. In my head I didn't feel like the other girls in my ward should be looking up to me. Because at church, I try and act all cool, and it's stupid, and everyone MUST have thought I knew what I was talking about. But it's been really hard for a long time. Earlier in the year I kinda got depressed, and I hid it very well, but I just... felt alone, and then I went to church and school and tried to pretend like I was someone I wasn't. And my spirit kinda dwindled. And my testimony fell away and I felt like It was lost.
I went into EFY last week, a bit lonely and scared. And that first night at EFY Mikael (my roommate and I) were preparing to give the devotional the next morning, and I were singing through all the hymns, and we started singing "How Great though Art" and the spirit was so strong I was just overwhelmed, and we said a prayer together, than I said my own prayer, and prayed that I'd be able to understand myself better and find what I was looking for.
Mikael and I sang "How great Though Art" to our devotional group of 7 other girls, where all of them cried. Then we went to gospel study, and we all went off into different directions and looked through the scriptures and read and... studied! And as soon as I sat down in that glorious sunlight my scriptures opened straight to Luke 15, Which is the parable of the prodigals Son. That seemed odd, I'd already read it in Seminary, but I read through it again, and I know the spirit opened me to those scriptures for a reason, that parable was about the Son who asked for his father's inheritance before he was even dead. He took his money and went and wasted it all on food and parties and such! And then, there was a drought, and all his money was gone, and he ended going to work shoveling food for swine. And at that time pigs were lower than dirt, and it was his job to feed them, therefor he was LOWER than lower than dirt. Then he realized that he was shoveling pig slop, wishing he could eat the pig slop, and the SERVANTS of his father were being fed. So he went to his father, and as he approached the house his father came out to greet him, because he was WATCHING for him, he knew he would return. And the son humbled himself and asked his father to let him become one of his servants because he wasn't worthy to be his son anymore, but wanted food. And the father sent the servants to get the best robe, and to put a ring on his finger, and kill the best cow for them to eat. And then the other son came in from working in the Fields, and was jealous and didn't understand how his father could give the son who had left the finest of things, when he the good son had been working and never left his father's side. And he confronted his father, and his father told him he ALREADY had all the fine things, but that he had never realized it because he had ALWAYS had the fine things!
This is an amazing parable, that teaches SO much. So many different concepts. I SO needed this, and then, the next day I went to the most amazing class, and Brother little opened the talk up with this parable, and he had people act it out, and the lesson was on comparison. And what are the odds that I would open t=o this scripture in gospel study, and then have a whole lesson on it! That was amazing. I am so touched by the spirit, and I understand that I SHOULDN'T compare myself to others! And our heavenly father is here to accept me and he loves me. And all I need to do is hold my head high, and not compare myself to others, because I AM good enough. And that was perhaps the most spiritual thing that's ever happened in my whole whole life, and probably why I LOVED EFY so much! Thank you heavenly father for this experience.