A Little Lost and Found

Today I was Lost and Found.
I lost my brain this evening as I struggle to put together this analysis paper for school. I never thought it would be SO HARD to analyze what it means to be a woman of the Church. How do you describe and analyze the process by which a girl matures into a woman through the teachings of the Church? I would love to know because I am finding it a very hard thing to do. My paper is due on Friday and I'm just now scrapping together a full-length rough draft. I am grateful to Brian for all his excellent ideas, I would have none of my own. I claim to be a woman. I am a woman. But what made me so? Was it just my age? When did I stop being a girl and become a woman? This topic has so fried my brain that I feel like just dropping it and starting all over again with a brand new, easier, prompt. I don't know what to do :(
I found out a lot of things today. Some things that made me extremely concerned and saddened. Some things that made me want to cry. Some things I found in my heart that I had only had in my head before. I found a desire to have a testimony of my own of the Prophet Joseph Smith. I have never doubted that he was a prophet, but at the same time I did not know with a surety that he was. I found myself at the verge of tears as I urged the sisters to come to know of his divine calling as the Prophet who ushered in this dispensation. I found the words unbidden coming from my heart as I was filled with the Spirit.
I found out tonight that I would not be able to attend the Temple on Saturday as the baptistry would be filled by both the wards assigned. It is a joyous reason to not be let in, to be full of willing and eager young people who are ready to do the work of the Lord, but it is also of great sadness to myself that I am not able to attend. I was REALLY looking forward to going to the Temple again before the year was out. My heart longs to be able to participate fully in the work of the Temple. I know that I am not yet fully prepared to do such, but I am striving within myself to become the woman I need to be in order to partake of those blessings. I am determined to achieve that goal by this time next year.
I found myself touched by the Spirit of the Lord. Knowing that He loves me SO MUCH! That I am his daughter and that He cares for me above all else, despite all that I have done to offend. I find the tears running down my cheeks as I feel the warm and fuzzy blanket of his love encircle me. They are not tears of sadness, but tears of deep gratitude and sorrow for not being the kind of woman I know I ought to be. I reget so much the things I did in the not so distant past that put me further away from the goals I had set for myself.
I found the memory of when I was called to service in Relief Society. How much I treasured the Lord's trust in me. How much I felt forgiven for my previous acts. How much love I have for the sisters in my ward and the people in my life. I was SO GLAD! Yet I broke His trust. I strayed. Worse yet, I put on a face of purity before those whom I had been given the sacred trust of looking after. I lied to myself, and to them, telling myself that I was truly sorrowful for the things which I had done. Yet I soon forgot any real sorrow as I succombed to them again. I had lost my way.
I found myself believing in His everlasting grace. Knowing that it was sufficient for me and that it was mine for the partaking if only I would. I know He lives. I know He loves me. I know Joseph Smith was a Prophet. He was divinely foreordained to usher in this dispensation of the fullness of times and bring to pass the translation of the Book of Mormon. He was a good man. I know that.