humility

in the book of helaman, nephi the prophet is trying desperately to get the nephites to be obedient. even after he prophesies of the killing of the chief judge, they are still wicked and prideful. at one point he is feeling rather down and out. he feels like he is not making even a dent of success in his missionary work when the Lord speaks to him from heaven saying,

"blessed art thou, nephi, for those things which thou has done; for i have beheld how thou hast with unwearingness declared the word, which i have given unto thee, unto this people. and thou has not sought thine own life, but hast sought my will, and to keep my commandments."

~helaman 10:4

the Lord goes on to bless nephi "forever" and to make him mighty in word, deed, faith and works. and to bless him with the sealing powers of a prophet. basically the power to call on God to strike the nephites with war or famine or to remove the war or famine, etc.

my first thought was that i love that the Lord told nephi "i have beheld" thee. he had been watching nephi and all his good deeds and hard work. nephi preached the gospel with unwearingness and it did not escape the Lord's notice. i would like to think the Lord is observing me. sometimes i would rather he not, when i lose my patience with my children or choose to go to sleep instead of read my scriptures at night. but for the most part, it brings much comfort to my soul to be reminded that he is aware of me constantly and knows of my good intentions.

the story continues as nephi asks God to send war upon the nephites, which he does. but after a time nephi notices that it is not making a difference on the nephites humility. they still are prideful. so, he asks God to then send a famine upon the land. and almost instantly the nephites humble themselves, repent and ask nephi to call upon God to remove the famine. and this is what struck me most. nephi is a prophet of God. he has been blessed with the sealing powers. he has already called down a war and famine upon the people, but when he supplicates God to remove the famine, it is not a casual, quick prayer,

"o Lord, behold this people repenteth; and they have swept away the band of gadianton from amongst them insomuch that they have become extinct, and they have concealed their secret plans in the earth. now, o Lord, because of this their humility wilt thou turn away thine anger, and let thine anger be appeased in the destruction of those wicked men whom though has already destroyed. o, lord, wilt thou turn away thine anger, yea, they fierce anger, and cause that this famine may cease in this land."

~helaman 11:10-12

those were three verses of supplication and there are four more of him pleading with the Lord to remove the famine from the land. this pleading and praying and supplicating the Lord by the prophet nephi was such an example to me in how we should pray to Heavenly Father. he wants to bless us, he wants to help us, but no matter who we are, we need to work hard and show our faith and humility.

women

now more than ever, we need women to step up and be strong. we need women who declare the truth with strength, faith, and boldness. we need women to set an example of righteousness. we need women to be "anxiously engaged in a good cause." we need to live so that our lives bear witness that we love our Heavenly Father and the Savior Jesus Christ and that we will do what They have asked us to do. we need to rescue "all that is finest down deep inside of us" so that as daughters of God we can do our part to build the kingdom of God. we will help you do this. as joseph declared, "if you live up to your privileges, the angels cannot be restrained from being your associates."

Barbara Thompson
Second Counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency

prepare

the best preparation for tomorrow
is to do today's work
superbly well.

irony

Outside the Church, most of their peers were against Proposition 8; inexperienced in marriage and child-rearing, they saw no harm in gay marriage.

So when our Latter-day Saint singles heeded the call of the church's leaders to take part in the defense of marriage, they, more than any other group of Saints, were swimming upstream.

They worked hard. They took risks. And many of them paid a price that is heavy indeed.

Many of them lost dear friends -- sometimes with bitter, angry recriminations from people they had once been close to.

It seems ironic that these young Mormons were open-minded enough to be friends with people whose lives were so different from their own; but their friends, in the name of tolerance, could not remain friends with Mormons who merely stood up for their faith.

If the situation had been reversed, if Prop. 8 had failed, these LDS young people would not have rejected their friends who voted to repudiate the meaning of marriage.

And if they had, would they not have been condemned as bigots, for being unable to tolerate someone else voting his conscience?

Orson Scott Card
November 13, 2008

choose faith

several years ago ago a friend of mine had a young daughter die in a tragic accident. hopes and dreams were shattered. my friend felt umbearable sorrow. he began to question what he had been taught and what he had taught as a missionary. the mother of my friend wrote me a letter and asked if i would give him a blessing. as i laid my hands on his head, i felt to tell him something that i had not thought aobut in exactly the same way before. the impression that ame to me was:

faith is not only a feeling: it is a decision. he would need to choose faith.

my friend did not know everything but he knew enough. he chose the road of faith and obedience. he got on his knees. his spiritual balance returned.

it has been several years since that event. a short time ago i received a letter from his son who is now serving a mission. it was full of convictoin and testimony. as i read his beautiful letter, i saw how a father's choice of faith in a very difficult time had deeply blessed the next generation.

challenges, difficulties, questions, doubts--these are part of our mortality. but we are not alone. as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have enormous spiritual reservoirs of light and truth available to us. fear and faith cannot coexist in our hearts at the same time. in our days of difficulty, we choose the road of faith. Jesus said, "be not afraid, only believe."

~ elder neil l. anderson
october 2008 general conference

this concept of making a conscious decision to choose faith touched me deeply. we are always told to have faith, but that isn't always easy. and then we try and pray for it and then feel guilty when it doesn't come. when maybe just telling ourselves that we are making that choice, like it or not, to have faith, would be easier. i truly believe in the power of our words and our thoughts, instead of just casually allowing things to happen to us and saying, "that's the way it's supposed to be." i believe that we create our lives.

spiritual storage

..we each have moments of spiritual power, moments of inspiration and revelatoin. we must sink them into the chambers of our souls. as we do, we prepare our spiritual home storage for moments of personal difficulty. Jesus said, "settle this in your hearts, that ye will do the things which i shall teach, and command you.

~ elder neil l. anderson
october 2008 general conference

better

i feel like general conference was an enormous wakeup call for me. i have been so down in the dumps and sick and tired and hormonal. and very selfish. i felt like i've been in survival mode for the past two months and have only cared about myself and doing what will make me feel better or what will not make me feel sick. what i'm trying to write out here, is that i have been very un-Christlike in my thoughts and actions. and so many talks this morning just hit me smack in the face. forced me into this realization of my selfish ways. how grateful i am for the counsel of our modern day leaders. counsel that i know comes straight from the Lord. i only took shorthand notes during conference and look forward to the full transcripts so that i can get the full quotes, but in the meantime i will summarize what touched me most.

henry b. eyring's talk this morning about unity made a big impact on me.
he quoted matthew chapter 7 verses 1-2:

judge not, that ye be not judged.
for with what judgement yet judge, ye shall be judged;
and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

of course we all want to be at one with Christ and with our fellow saints, to be unified. but, lately i have lost sight of this. i have been thinking rude thoughts and allowing myself to be offended by silly things. i even went to far as to vent to two friends. who were so kind and listened but i apologize to them for it. i need to begin right now to be more Christlike, more forgiving and focus on looking for opportunities to serve others.