That is what I have been experiencing. It’s this absolutely consuming,

calm, wonderful, joyful feeling that I know is Jesus Christ.

Hi, I'm Amy. And I'm a mother of two little boys.

I'm expecting a baby girl soon.

And something that I really had to work on hard my whole life is controlling a quick temper. And in this 30-day challenge, I really was able to focus on letting Jesus Christ help me with this challenge. And the impact has changed my life forever. And if you have any struggles, whether it's anger or something else entirely, maybe my story can help you too.

I thought about a story that I heard recently from Dr. Russell Nelson when he was training to become a surgeon.

He was in the operating room with a surgeon who became really angry and threw a scalpel and the scalpel landed in Dr. Nelson's arm.

He was okay, but he did learn a powerful lesson.

He said that he decided right then and there to never throw anything in anger, including his words.

And so I've decided that every day for the next 30 days, I'm going to come closer to Jesus Christ. I’m going to let Him cleanse my temple by ridding myself and my home of contention.

Any time I feel an inclination towards anger, my goal is to stop,

to take a little breath, and say a prayer.

Today I found a situation where I wanted to hold on to my anger or my resentment a little bit.

And I felt like I was right, of course, and he felt like he was right. And he's always really kind about this kind of thing, which almost makes me even more irritated.

And I caught myself and, you know,

was going through my process of calming down and saying a prayer and kind of had this moment where I was like, I don't know if I want to let go of this. I don't know.

I don't know if I want to give in to this. And

ultimately, I decided what sign do I want to show the Savior today?

What do I want to do in my relationship with Jesus Christ? And how do I want my relationship with my husband to continue?

A complaint is like a grain of sand. It can start off really small, really natural. But when we let that grain of sand stay there and continue rubbing and building up into more and more complaints, it causes an actual wound. It causes actual contention to come into our hearts.

This 30-day challenge is not just to focus on managing my emotions, which has been awesome, but to go a step further and really be proactive about not even letting the grains of sand come in.

And so after I made dinner and my three- year-old refused to eat it, I said, okay, I'll make you one more thing. I made that. And as soon as I put it down in front of him, he threw it on the ground and made a big mess.

I just knelt down and I said a prayer. I said it out loud even, and I just prayed for strength to help me overcome my frustration.

And then as we were going to bed, my family always prays before we go to bed as a family. And so my three-year-old wanted to say the prayer tonight. And so he was saying his prayer. And in his prayer, he said, Dear Father in Heaven, please help me to not be frustrated

and just gave such a simple but heartfelt prayer. And I realized that he has noticed that I've been doing this.

It says “Being in agony, he prayed more earnestly.”

But his response in this moment of intense agony and pain was not to curl up in a ball and give up or to throw in the towel or to turn away or to blame somebody, you know.

Instead, “being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly.”

And so I too want my response to be to pray more earnestly

and tap into His strength and have His spirit, His angels, His love come and help me through.

And my kids were just in the kitchen eating and they had green smoothies.

And by the time I come back two minutes later,

my one-year-old had taken his smoothie and run into the other room with carpet and couches and our piano and dumped his smoothie all over,

all over the couch, all over the piano, in the piano keys, all over the table.

He had splashed it all over. It was all in the carpet. And so I actually fell on my knees to say a prayer.

A lot of times I'll just say a prayer in my heart or sometimes out loud as I'm going about my day. This time I knew I was going to need some extra strength.

I needed the actual action of kneeling before my Lord and praying.

Asking for strength is a short, simple prayer. But as I stood back up, a peace and a calm filled me.

And as I had this calm and this peace fill me, I was able to just address the problem instead of reacting, instead of getting angry, instead of telling my one-year-old how frustrating that situation was,

I just said, okay, let's get it cleaned up. And the feeling in our home after that was wonderful.

My children were playing happily together. They were coming and giving me hugs. I felt good. Our home felt good.

I've noticed something that I think is really interesting and noteworthy.

My boys play together much better since I've started doing this challenge, since I have tried to be more loving and more conducive of love in our home.

I have noticed that my little boys as brothers,

they get along a lot better.

I have seen Him take something that I’ve struggled with my whole life, that I've tried to overcome my whole life, mostly on my own, just through good habits and being intentional.

And in just the last two weeks, He has changed me more completely than I have ever been changed in my whole life with this one specific thing. And it’s because I invited Christ in. I invited Him to make the difference.

One of my three-year-old’s favorite Bible stories is when Christ stills the tempest. He calls it the “Peace Be Still” story. And just as He has power to still the tempest, to calm the sea,

He has power and strength to calm my tempests, to call my seas, my heart.

But something that I started thinking about this week is the slower to anger moments. Those things that don't bother you at first, but kind of slowly boil until they're just eating away at you and it's really poisonous. But that’s the beautiful thing is the Savior can help us when we’re a volcano erupting right then or when it's something that's slowly boiling to the surface, His power can cover it all.

So I'm learning a lot in this process of having Christ cleanse my heart. And something I'm learning is that it's never ending.

Even after I finish this 30-day challenge that I’m working on,

I won't be done. I will have to continually work on it and hopefully it will be more of a habit than it was before. But it's still something that I'm going to have to really be intentional about.

And so today, for example, I was with my two kids and we were making some waffles and my one-and- a-half-year-old was really tired, was really hungry. And sure enough, he had a total meltdown. And my three-year-old actually was the one that said the prayer.

And it was sweet. All he said is he just asked,

he just prayed to God and he said, We love Luke.

And he just prayed in the name of Jesus Christ and said, We love Luke.

That's all he said. That's his brother's name.

So we lived in heaven a long time ago, but we came back down from heaven and we are going to have a much day and we want to go to church every Sunday.

Now it's your turn.

I think there have been some days of this 30-day challenge where I haven’t been as Christ-centered, and I've just kind of been trying to improve myself by myself. And it really doesn't work unless I am on my knees pleading for the Savior’s help because He is the one that has the power to help me overcome everything. He is the one that can strengthen me.

I've heard that the top 3 or 5 people that you spend the most time with in life, you become like them.

There are studies about spouses or friends that are done that they become like

the people that they spend time with.

And I want to spend time—enough time, all my time with Jesus Christ so that I can become like Him and that I can have His attributes, become a part of my heart and my life.

So that I can have His strength, but also so that I can glorify Him so that I can follow Him.

It'll be really cool to see if this is what can happen over 30 days, what can happen over a year or a lifetime hopefully of doing this and definitely inspires me as well.

Prayer took on an entire new meaning to me over this last month, relying on the Savior's strength and Atonement to help me in those challenging times has knit my heart with His. We’re bound together

almost as like one, one being. Not quite. I’m not there yet, but I can feel His strength in me as if it were just a part of myself. And that has been the most incredible outcome from this. It's changed who I am. It's changed who I want to become.

And it will absolutely be something that I continue for the rest of my life.

This 30-day challenge and the realizations I’ve had about prayer and my relationship with Jesus Christ.

And how my relationship with Jesus Christ can be strengthened through prayer. I will never, ever, ever give that up.

This challenge has been a journey for me. And I want to hear from you.

What have you done to manage your frustration or anger?

I'd love to read through your comments. And don’t forget, there are others who have their own 30-day experiences that they want to share with you. So make sure you subscribe and turn on notifications so that you don't miss a thing.