Genuineness, Smiling, and Remembering Names

In BYUSA today we had a meeting. Part of our meeting is always leadership training, and today we talked about three ways to "make people like you." The first thing we talked about was being genuinely interested in other people. First off, I love the word genuine. I want people to remember me as a genuine person. I want them to remember me as being genuinely happy, genuinely confident, genuinely loving, a genuinely good wife and mother, but most of all, I want them to think of me as a genuine daughter of God. We then talked about knowing someone's heart. That statement was just included in a sentence, but it sent me on a profound journey. What does it mean to truly know someone's heart? I know it will take a lot of time and work, but what does that mean? After contemplating over this for a while and missing some of the meeting, I knew. Knowing someone's heart is knowing them inside and out. It is seeing their beauty as children of God. Each one of us is created in His image, and each of us are special. As children in Primary we are always told we are children of God. We grow up knowing WE are children of God, but rarely do we realize that everyone else is as well. Knowing someone's heart is realizing that they are just as special as you, sent to this earth at this time to experience their own trials, develop their own knowledge, and hopefully make it back to live with our Father in heaven once again. I loved that. Three words that sunk deep into my heart. I hope one day I can be the genuine person I hope to be, and someone will know my heart. Next came the principle of smiling. I love smiling, but I love smiling with my eyes more. I feel like my eyes sparkle when I am truly happy. Sometimes I do not even have to smile with my mouth because my eyes say it all. Sometimes I am too serious for my own good and forget to notify my face that I am truly happy. I am going to work on that. The third thing was to remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language. I can attest to that. I got an email the other day, and I did not understand why because it just did not apply to me at all... until the last line. It said, "P.S. Megan, thanks for all that you do. I really do appreciate it!" Normally I would have been like, "Oh ok. Sure you do," but with my name being acknowledged, it made all the difference. I could hear the sincerity in the short message, and it made me feel really appreciated. I am honestly just not good with names, but that is one more thing I can work on. I want people to feel just as loved and appreciated as I do when others use my name. So, three things I need to work on: genuineness, smiling, and using people's names. Ready go.