After doing companionship study in the park on April 13, 2024, the missionaries introduced themselves to a group at an adjacent picnic table and shared a couple of verses from Enos with them. Lilly happened to be babysitting with the family at the time. While the family she was with wasn’t interested, Lilly piped up and said she might want to meet with us again.
A few months earlier, Lilly had prayed for some guidance and she thought that maybe this could be God’s way of answering her prayer.
She didn’t know much about the church, but she was an excellent researcher. She remembered a youth in our ward, Anderson Griggs, sharing his testimony with her when having a conversation about religion at a football game. She also recalled her fellow clarinetist, Lilly, being a member as well.
Before her first visit with the missionaries, Lilly had researched even as far as the Word of Wisdom, and she took a particular interest in God’s Plan of Happiness. The missionaries gave her a Book of Mormon, and she studied it. One of her favorite teachers caught her reading it in class and was sure to let her know that it was a, “good book!”
Her family was not very supportive of her decision to keep learning. She struggled to defend her newfound belief to them because it was simply a feeling. Nonetheless, she would come home after school to take a nap, pray, and read her Book of Mormon. She explained the feeling as happy, excited, and calm at the same time.
A few lessons later, the missionaries were teaching Lilly about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the Prophet Joseph Smith. They stood in front of a painting of The First Vision, and despite not planning to invite Lilly to be baptized, the spirit was too strong not to. Lilly was beaming and so excited to be invited to make her first covenant.
As she was preparing, she found herself feeling down and alone in the band room at school. She remembered a song that she heard on a church video of the Knoxville, TN temple. She also heard it the first week she was at church. Hymn number two, The Spirit of God, had quickly become her favorite. She memorized the words, played it on her clarinet, and sang it on that hard day at school.
Her testimony grew day by day, and she could not wait for her baptism day. Lilly was baptized on May 24, 2024. On the day of her baptism, she beamed with pure joy as she listened to her good friend Lilly Jones give a talk on baptism. In her talk, Lilly said she had a thought several months prior to pray for Lilly despite not having talked to her in several months (she is a few years older than Lilly). Her first three missionaries gave her a Book of Mormon with their testimonies written inside.
Attending the temple to do proxy baptisms was another exciting day for her! Along with doing a few baptisms and confirmations, she got to watch someone be baptized on behalf of her grandfather. She said her favorite part was sitting in the lobby of the temple afterwards and just feeling peaceful and happy to be there.
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Barlows in TKM 