An introduction

I am nobody special.

I have never served in a presidency as anything other than a secretary.

I have never had a stake calling.

I never served a mission.

I have never had a dream or seen a vision.

My patriarchal blessing refers to "great plans" but doesn't specify anything about the nature of those plans. Nothing remotely "great" has happened in my life to this date.

I was born to "goodly parents" who raised me in the church.  I was always a "good" Mormon.  I went to seminary.  I didn't date till I was 16.  I asked permission to leave class instead of watch R-rated movie clips.  I went to BYU.  I never went inactive.  I was married in the temple.  I always had a temple recommend.  I didn't swear.  I read my scriptures (most of the time).  I wasn't fantastic at praying because I never felt like it accomplished anything.  I attended all my meetings.  I watched General Conference.  I kept the Word of Wisdom.

In April 2017, while watching General Conference, I grew frustrated with my spiritual state.  The leaders of the church talked about how we should be the happiest people on earth.  We should be living amazingly joyful lives.

That was not my experience.  I felt, if anything, spiritually stagnant, despite being "active."  I didn't feel like I was any happier or better off than people who weren't members of the church.  I felt frustrated, like there must be a higher spiritual plane than the one I was living on, because my life experience was not what the church leaders said it should be.

That started my spiritual awakening.

Up till that point, I was, in other words, just your average spiritually-asleep Mormon girl.