Strict Obedience & the Octopus

In the Book of Mormon we learn of the story of Nephi when he is commanded by the Lord to slay Laban the evil king. Nephi is troubled by this because he doesn't want to have to slay any man. He then learns through the Spirit that "it is better that one man perish then nation dwindle in unbelief". So Nephi was STRICTLY obedient. He was blessed for following the prompting of the Spirit. I was also blessed SO very much for following the direction of the Spirit. I was STRICT in my obedience (which is not always the case I must sadly admit) and I ran as soon as I was told in my mind to do so. Two weeks ago I was standing outside the church building after aerobics visiting with a good friend. My (VERY active) 2 year old, Kylee was standing next to me in the parking lot playing with my keys. She just stepped a couple of steps away from me (towards the direction of Happy Valley Rd-a very busy road). I got the STRONGEST prompting to run! Not walk or even speed walk but RUN! I did as I was told and by the time I reached my much faster child than me I was pulling her off the curb. Within 1 SECOND of pulling her 6 cars sped by. I held Kylee as close as I could to my chest. I sobbed!!!! Then I sobbed more! I could not stop because I realized how close to losing my precious daughter I was. If I would have even stopped to think about the prompting or to question it I WOULD NOT HAVE MADE IT IN TIME! That thought is very scary. But I am so grateful that I was strictly obedient. I'm grateful to my Heavenly Father for giving us such a precious gift as the Spirit! Now a guess a few things I can learn and have learned from this experience is there is nothing to substitute STRICT obedience, that the Spirit can bless and SAVE lives, that I need to continue in my STRICT obedience to the Spirit and maybe most of all KYLEE NEEDS TO LEARN STRICT OBEDIENCE!!
Then this last week at school Mattison did her first school project. She was asked to make a object from the sea using 100 objects in celebration of the 100 days of school. So Mattie and I together made salt clay from scratch. Shout out to my mother in law who gave me the great recipe for the clay...Thanks a million! So anyway she decided she wanted to make a pink octopus. We put 12 cheerios on each of the 8 tentacles and three more cheerios to make her face equaling 100 cheerios. She did a great job and her teacher Mrs. McGinty said she was very proud of her great work. Way to go Mattie! By the way YES she really did do most of this by herself, she is such a great girl and very smart!