Status update on counsel from general conference

I feel like I want to share some things I’ve been doing since general conference in October. For a long time I’ve felt that I needed to do something to get better at following the prophet. For years I have typed so many notes in conference, and then I have never looked at them again once conference is over. Yes, it is sad, but I'm being real here. I could remember the really general counsel...if it got repeated over and over by members around me.  But I lacked initiative and focus. 

This year I felt it was important to figure out a way to make sure that I captured a list of things they counsel us to do and then work that stuff into my task list so that I actually do it.  An urgent feeling has grown in me lately of how important it is to follow the prophet’s counsel. 

So after October conference,  I made the list, and I put them into my task app on my phone and decided on when I would complete them and how often. So far I feel pretty good about how that is working in my life. There are a few things that I haven’t been able to implement as completely as I would like, but I am still trying. 

One of the things President Nelson challenged the women of the church to do was read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year and mark all verses mentioning Christ as we read. At the time, I made a note of the reading, but not of the marking aspect. I started reading, but I was kind of mechanical about it, just trying to get through the 6.5 pages I needed to read for the day. (Eventually I started just reading 7 pages to be safe.)

 I think it was mechanical at the beginning for me because I already read my scriptures every day, so I started it wondering what this was going to do for me more than I was already doing. It forced me to push through more pages than I usually read, and I think I had a hard time continuing the movement when I usually like to ruminate over things that catch my attention. 

Then someone at church mentioned they were doing the marking as President Nelson had said. I went back to look at the talk to verify that's he’d said, and it was. So I decided I needed to do that too so that I could be complete in my obedience. I started just marking instances of “God” and “Lord” and “Christ” and the various pronouns used for God. The first day I did that, I felt something special from that. But then the next days afterward it went back to feeling like a mechanical exercise. But I persisted. And then I got the idea that I should mark everything that God did and said too (not just the whole verses; I wanted to be targeted with my marking). And that made it more special, but I still felt I was missing something. (It was also difficult because I was using a dying highlighter that barely showed much. Once I switched highlighters, marking got easier.)  Eventually I realized that after having read and marked the requisite number of pages, I also needed to look back over the pages to see what I could learn from those markings. That has made it even more special.

The fascinating thing is that this marking exercise is the same thing I would do if I were trying to revise a book to fix a particular problem. (When I was trying to revise some of my fiction (still unpublished), on one of my passes I marked all instances of scenery description to see if I had enough of that and then added when there wasn’t anything there.) 

What President Nelson’s marking exercise is doing is getting us to notice all instances of God’s dealings with the Book of Mormon peoples so that we can learn more about His character and what He can do for us. It is a prophetically-mandated scripture study program to help us notice principles that we might otherwise pass over. The principles we learn will help increase our faith in God.  We need that increased faith in this day and age.

What have you learned from that challenge?

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Come Follow Me: Why is it important to learn about my family history?

I substitute-taught a Sunday school lesson for the 16-17 year olds today. The official teacher asked me to teach a lesson from August instead of one of the July ones, in particular, the one about Family History. I’m going to share some of the things that I did, what I had them do, and what I talked about.

When class started, I asked them to each tell me a little bit about what family history experience they had had. I wanted to gauge their experience level so that I could tell what level of information would be most interesting and informative to them. (Some had done indexing, a few had found names to take to the temple, some were good at finding the green temple icons that indicated individuals who needed temple work done.)

I started by having them read Malachi 4:5-6. This is the scripture about how Elijah would come to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers.

I asked them, what that meant to them. They seemed to have a vague idea that it meant love.

To me, when hearts are turned to each other across generations, there is a curiosity to know about each other, a desire to help the other, to learn about, to connect somehow.  I shared this with them, and then I showed a video called “Family History: What I Found”.

[https://www.lds.org/youth/learn/ss/marriage-and-family/history?lang=eng#video=family-history-what-i-found]

This is a really wonderful video on a number of different levels. (I didn’t explain past the first point to the class, but I will to you.)

1) It shows the process that one young man went through to learn more about his grandfather. He was intrigued by a journal account about the war and what his grandfather hadn’t recorded. This led to all kinds of research to try to understand what his grandfather went through and why he hadn’t written anything a particular experience.

2) It shows (completely without any explanation) a wide variety of different types of family history documentation that we can look for. Only someone who had begun to do family history would notice the nice mix of sources that had been carefully curated for this film. If you were trying to figure out what to put in a personal history, you could watch this movie with the sound off and take note of the types of pictures, home movies, written accounts, and why they were each selected. If you followed those examples, you’d have an excellent, efficient result, and your descendants would probably be very happy.

3) It shows us tangible objects that belonged to our progenitors become more meaningful when we learn the stories behind them. For the narrator of that movie, it was his dead grandfather’s gun that he saw in a picture and which he finally found after an exhaustive search of the house.

To me, that movie shows an example how our hearts begin to be turned to our fathers. We learn something that intrigues us—like a narrative hole in an otherwise detailed account— then we want to know more. (Sometimes the feeling of responsibility isn’t automatically there, but curiosity will do just as well.)

At this point of the lesson, I showed the class a belt buckle that belonged to my maternal grandfather, J. Wallace McKnight. It’s square and has a dark blue stone. My Grandpa McKnight liked gems and minerals, and he had a few belt buckles with interesting stones on them. I like to wear that belt buckle sometimes, and it reminds me of him.

I showed them a pearl necklace that I was wearing. My maternal grandmother, Barbara McKnight, liked gems and minerals too, and she had collected those pearls, but never made anything out of them. When I went through her household articles with my mom, I chose those pearls, and I made a necklace out of them to remind me of my Grandma.

(I also had a copy of a big family history book that I could have showed the class, but I didn’t get to that. If I’d had more time, I might have asked them if they or their parents had anything that belonged to their grandparents or ancestors and asked them to tell about those objects if they had.)

In the church, we often think of family history work as pushing the boundaries at the edges of our tree to find names to take to the temple, but it also involves documenting and recording what we (or others) know about the family around us now so that future generations beyond our lifetimes can know them too. (I wish I could have made this point to my class, but I didn’t think to at the time.)

What got me into family history research?  It took a while. I had a PAF file from my dad that I toyed with, but I never quite knew what to do with it. I wondered where all those names and dates came from and how I could know they were accurate. How did anyone add any information on to their family tree?

Finally I decided to take a class in family history. This was an act of faith for me. At the time that I signed up for it, I didn’t want to do it because I knew it would make me work hard on my family history, and I was scared of it. But I knew Heavenly Father wanted me to learn how to do this stuff, and I had hope that I would look back at the end of the class and be glad I had done it. I had hope that I would be much less intimidated by the prospect of doing family history if I had taken a class in it. (All those things I hoped for, I was actually seeing with the eye of faith.)

The class I took was actually through ASU, and it was a writing class. The class was “Writing Family History Narratives,” taught by a certified genealogist.  The big final project was to write a narrative of every person in our 4-generation pedigree chart, including us. All the assignments were geared toward collecting documents to use for the final project. The narrative was to have citations from primary sources. During that class, we learned about primary sources and interviewing and databases and searching techniques. We learned about immigration and slave schedules and censuses and church registrations and a heck-lot of stuff.  I bugged all my aunts and uncles for family history narratives and a number of stories seemed to appear out of the woodwork that I hadn’t known existed. I wrote my 4-generation narrative (duly cited), and then when the class was over, I heaved a sigh of relief, and didn’t touch family history again for another three or four years.

Then on a chance visit to Familysearch, I noticed that the website had suddenly sprouted a way to attach sources to people in our family tree. Suddenly all my knowledge about sources could be applied in a way that could directly impact me and my family members! I might not know enough to extend the branches to find new ancestors yet, but by golly, I could document things with sources!  I could attach the certificates and narratives I had found, add pictures, and so forth. I could search for sources on Familysearch and add them to individuals on my tree.  So that’s what I did.

One major way that my perspective about family history changed after taking that class was in the amount of joy that I got from the research. Before I took that class, I felt like, “If only I could find a name and take it to the temple, I could feel the joy of family history.” But after taking the class, I discovered that I could feel joy all along the way. Every time I find a new source to attach to an individual on my family tree, I feel joy. (I feel joy even if I’m adding sources to people who have already had temple work done.) The more sources I find, the more joy I feel. When I find new people, I feel joy. When I see an individual is ready to have temple work done for them, I feel joy. When I take those names to the temple…I feel satisfaction.   Do you see? I learned we can feel joy all along the way, not just at the end.

(I gave the youth a very shortened version of the above story)

I told these stories so that the youth could understand some of the roadblocks I dealt with in order to get involved in family history. Roadblocks can be very similar, and I hoped to inspire them to try different things.

I also felt like the youth needed to do something to be active learners in this lesson, so I hit upon the idea of having them try out the Familytree app. 

Familytree is a mobile app created by the Church, and it basically makes your family tree accessible through your phone.  It has a tasks section that will aggregate a list together of people who need ordinances (so you can reserve them), people who have record hints (so you can evaluate the records and attach them if they match), people who are missing information (so you can start your search there and hopefully find more records for them).  This app is a very useful thing. They make it possible to do simple family history tasks ON YOUR PHONE! 

The youth were willing to try to download the Familytree app right there in class, but the church’s wifi was too slow and they got stuck. (If I had been a regular teacher, I think I would have called the students a few days ahead of time and asked them to download the app at home and then we could do cool stuff in class.)

One feature of the app that I didn’t expect was in the “more” section. It was called “Relatives Around Me.” I had a hunch about what this would do, and in class, I tried it out with one of the boys who had the app on his phone. We both went to that section, gave permission for our trees to be shared with each other, and the app calculated how he and I were related.  It turned out that we were 9^th cousins, once removed!  I could tell by how chatter erupted that the class was fascinated by this.

They were all very interested. Some were skeptical, but we could show them the line of ancestors that went back and met at the top in one person. I challenged them to download the app at home and play around with it to see what they could see and do with it. (I also called their official teacher in the evening and told her what I challenged them to do so she could follow up with them next week on this.)

I wanted to show them Puzilla.org, and how I use that to find new cousins and cousin families, but as I was pulling up the website, I noticed the teens had a look in their eyes that made me think they needed a change of pace, so I pulled out an online Jeopardy gameon family history, and we played that for the last 5-8 minutes or so.  They were very interested in that, and it made them think about family history researching methodology, though who knows how long the stuff will stick.... (If I had been a regular teacher of that class, I probably would have inflicted Puzilla on them the next week.)

At the end, I bore testimony that they could have joy all along the way as they did family history work, and that I knew it would protect them from the evils and temptations of the world.

I believe that family history takes a certain special brand of charity to do because you in effect save people who you will never meet during your lifetime (except maybe in a dream or vision or other highly spiritual experience) and who otherwise won’t get a chance to thank you. That special kind of charity will refine us and enable us to make good choices, even leading us to sacrifice pleasures of the moment for the good of future generations yet unborn. We can save past generations through family history and temple work, and we will be given the strength to resist temptations and escape snares whose blighting effects would reach down through generations of descendants.

Thoughts about chiasmus

A few weeks ago I went to an institute class on the Book of Mormon that talked about literary forms in the Book of Mormon. They talked about parallelism and  chiasmus and how John Welch was made aware of chiasmus in the Bible and how he discovered it in the Book of Mormon too. 

I remember my first exposure to the form of chiasmus. A BYU professor taught about it in my Book of Mormon class back in 1998, and at the time I thought it was terribly far-fetched. The teacher pointed out how a whole chapter in Alma was one massive chiasmus, and my skeptical mind doubted this was a real thing and wondered how anyone would have figured it out.

Well, this institute class answered that. John Welch had been taught to see chiasmus in the Bible (see link for 10 minute Youtube video on the story) and had opened the Book of Mormon randomly and noticed repeated two repeated words, then similar ideas above and below that repetition.  He’d stumbled on the middle point of emphasis, and then found the parallelisms that spread outward from there.  The wording didn’t have to be identical; it was the theme that could be repeated.

That made more sense to me.

And then it struck me how fabulous it was that this form was used in scripture. If it is the idea or theme that is repeated, then the exact wording isn’t as important.  In contrast, take the poetic idea of rhyme. A poem that rhymes is very difficult to translate across languages because the same words in another language may not rhyme. You lose part of the cleverness and artistry in translation.  But parallel ideas and themes presented in chiastic form will remain unchanged, no matter the language.

I’ve run across an edition of the Book of Mormon that has actually worked at all kinds of places where parallelisms and chiasmuses appear, and uses indentation to make those forms more obvious.  It’s fascinating to run your eye along the page and see the form. (But it’s more difficult to read.)

And then something else occurred to me.  I remembered Moroni’s lament about weakness in writing and stumbling over word placement, worrying the gentiles would mock his writing.  Could it be possible that he assumed the gentiles would know parallelism and chiasmus and see where he couldn’t get it to work quite right? Could it be he worried the gentiles would dismiss his message because he couldn’t achieve the highest literary form as often as he wanted to?

He didn’t know we would be so much more interested in the flow of meaning than in the form. He didn’t know we’d know almost nothing about the literary structure they were trying to shoehorn their message into. After all, chiasmus is an optimization problem, as a writer tries to structure his message in a pattern of repeating ideas. (There is always a risk that the form will start to torture the meaning and read awkwardly.)  If the Book of Mormon writers ever do chiasmus badly, and we don’t quite see how it goes, it is probably because they departed from the form in greater service to the meaning, and we can be grateful for that.

Meeting Fellow Saints by Seeming Chance

D&C 62’s section heading tells of an interesting incident that was the occasion of that revelation:

Revelation given through Joseph Smith the Prophet, on the bank of the Missouri River at Chariton, Missouri, August 13, 1831. On this day the Prophet and his group, who were on their way from Independence to Kirtland, met several elders who were on their way to the land of Zion, and, after joyful salutations, received this revelation.

When you think about it, Zion and Kirtland were so far apart that there were any number of different routes the two separate parties could have taken that would have resulted in their never meeting at all. And at that time in 1831, the church was so small that the chances of meeting another member were very slim. That being said, with centers in Zion and Kirtland, outside of these two different places there would be a higher chance of meeting other Saints on a line traveling between the two places, but any number of circumstances could have prevented their meeting. So meeting at all was a tender mercy, and I think both parties were probably were aware of that.

In verse 6, the Lord says about their meeting:

Behold, I, the Lord, have brought you together that the promise might be fulfilled, that the faithful among you should be preserved and rejoice together in the land of Missouri. I, the Lord, promise the faithful and cannot lie.

The Lord had brought them together to preserve them and so they could rejoice. I think the same is still true today, even if it is not in Missouri. Unexpectedly meeting or finding other Saints is always a joyous occasion, and when they are close friends it is even more thrilling. I can think of a number of times when unexpectedly meeting other Saints—family, friends, member acquaintances—became a tender mercy and even saved me from feeling a bit low or lonely.

Once I went to the temple for comfort about an old friend who had fallen away. In the celestial room I happened to meet another old friend, one whom I had never expected to see again. That joy swallowed up my sorrow.

Another time I was in the Bankok airport alone, feeling a bit lonely, when I ran into some sister missionaries who were traveling home at the end of their missions. Just being with them perked me right up.

Another time my husband and I were vacationing in an out-of-the-way place in Colorado (Silverton), and the restaurant we stopped to eat at was run by a Latter-day Saint who noticed our BYU shirts. We had a great chat with her. That became one of the highlights of that trip for us.

Once my husband and I were on BYU campus attending Education Week when we ran into my cousin Tamera, who was dropping off her daughter for her freshman year. Considering how crowded the campus can be and the myriad of classes and interests Saints can have, I felt it was a great blessing to have bumped into her. (No, I didn’t knock her down. Haha.) We made sure to schedule a dinner get-together to catch up even more, and we included my siblings who lived in the area. The more the merrier!

It is special to me that the Lord wanted Joseph Smith to know this apparently chance meeting with the other group of elders was not chance. The Lord brings us together to strengthen and preserve us and to lift our spirits to rejoicing. We can expect this blessing to continue far into the future.

Can you tell me of times when you were brought together with other members seemingly by chance (but really by the Lord)?

Some post-conference thoughts

Before conference started on Saturday, I turned on the TV and watched the introductory footage. In the past I have just sort of been bored by it, but for some reason this time my attention was caught as the camera zoomed in on the men and women interacting among the chairs of the general authorities.

I don’t know why I suddenly became so interested, but I did.  In fact, I was RIVETED, watching general authorities chatting with each other. They put arms around each other, they leaned toward their neighbor to chat with them, they pointed out things in the conference center to each other, they occasionally waved to people in the audience…  I saw the women leaders talking in little groups, some extremely close to each other. They held hands, they grasped arms and wrists or elbows.

I loved to see how friendly and affectionate they were. I could see the love they had for each other and for the members.  It was like a little glimpse into heaven.

Also the morning of Saturday conference, I had a general impression of things I was looking for guidance on, but as the Saturday morning session started, I was suddenly inspired to write very specific questions at the top of my notes.  As it turned out, that session of conference had so much stuff in it that directly answered those questions that I was absolutely astounded.  I’m pretty sure that if I had not written my questions, I would not been as alert to pick out the answers.

This was the first general conference in which I watched the priesthood session at home while my husband went to watch it at the stake center. (Previously, I just waited for it to come out in the May edition of the Ensign to find out what the men were talking about.)  I’m grateful I did, even if I didn’t have to.

The music was awesome, as always.  As a sidenote, it seemed we had an unusually large number of musical numbers consisting of different hymns juxtaposed on top of each other or medleys or overlaid contrasting melodies.  (Think “Love is Spoken Here” and “A Child’s Prayer”.)  I wonder how often this type of musical technique is used elsewhere outside of our church. I really don’t hear it anywhere else.

I loved the spiritually stuffed feeling I got at the end of both Saturday and Sunday after listening to all those talks.  Unlike physical food, where one reaches a point that having more is painful, spiritual food still tastes good, even after hours of it. 

Probably the most uncomfortable talk for me was Elder Renlund’s talk in which he talked about not putting off the Spirit’s promptings and following first impressions. Why was this hard for me? Because I am an impulsive person and I continually worry that my first promptings will get me in trouble somehow.  When I was younger, I did things on impulse that I thought were clever or inspired and journaled about those things, and when I got older I looked back and cringed over them.  So I started to institute delay in order to keep myself from doing something stupid.  So I tend to over-think things a lot now.  However, Elder Renlund’s talk has challenged me and I have more learning to do to tell the difference between the Holy Ghost and my own thoughts. I need more experience.

President Monson’s counsel to read the Book of Mormon resonated with me and actually was a second witness to our stake president’s counsel at our ward conference the Sunday before to read the Book of Mormon. So I’m going to do that.

So much to absorb!

In October 2016 conference, I noticed that up to that point I made notes about the conference talks, but I didn’t often reread the them when they came out in the Ensign. Over the last six months I’ve tried to do better at that, and I think I succeeded. I look forward to reading this conference’s talks.

What stuck out to you?

Some thoughts on the gift box object lesson about the Holy Ghost

I’ve been thinking about the Holy Ghost in preparation to teach a lesson on it to 4-year-olds.

The lesson asks me to prepare a gift-wrapped box with a picture inside it of a girl getting confirmed to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. The lesson wants me to give clues to the children to help them discover what is in the gift box.

--This gift given to us by Heavenly Father can’t be purchased with money

--We can’t hold this gift in our hands like a toy.

--This gift is worth more than any other gift a person can receive. (I’m assuming this means tangible gifts..)

--We receive this gift when Melchizedek priesthood holders lay their hands on our heads and confirm us members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

This object lesson is structured very similarly to how it was when I was a child and had the same lesson. As a child, I remember being rather disappointed that there wasn’t something actually tangible in the box that I could take home and play with. (Of course, that was my literal-minded short-term child perspective.)

But today, as I think back over it and compare the lesson of that experience to how I think of the Holy Ghost today, I’m struck by how that object lesson has both inadequacies, and more profound lessons that perhaps children may not quite get, but faithful adults might catch.

I think it is inadequate to express how it isn’t so much us that uses this gift, as it that uses us.  On one hand, it isn’t a tool that we control the use of… but often it allows us to act as God’s instrument.  On the other hand, we must learn to act independently, since it seems we are expected to develop our own judgment and not become automatons.  On the third hand, we still are to trust God enough to set aside our own judgment and follow the Holy Ghost’s promptings when they come. 

When we as members are confirmed to receive the Holy Ghost, we are in effect given a gift very much like an empty box and told it is the most valuable thing we can have.  We have been taught a few things about what to expect, but it can be very puzzling to figure out this gift. Staring at it and expecting it to do something like a dog that does tricks doesn’t work.

And yet we aren’t left completely without directions.  Even though we don’t have a user’s manual for this gift, a quick survey through the scriptures reveals a whole raft of ways that the Holy Ghost can help us.  (comfort, guide, teach, enlighten, constrain, restrain, remind, warn, cheer, calm, testify, seal, strengthen, cleanse…) There are stories to learn from and there are plainly stated principles to follow.  For a gift that is so multi-functional, I find myself thinking of it as a sort of spiritual Swiss army knife, with an unknown and possibly unlimited number of tools on it.  (But again, that comparison doesn’t take into account how we become the tool of God under its influence.)

Yes, the box is empty.  With so much stuff around us, and so much equipment required for modern life, it so helpful that the Holy Ghost requires no tangible equipment to use. I think this object lesson of the gift box is very good at teaching the principle that it is something that can be with us always and can’t be stolen from us (except by our own transgression). 

I’m also struck by how the spiritual communication from our Heavenly Father to us is done so often with that still, small voice.  So often I don’t realize that I have been guided until I look back on an experience and think about it.  I am struck by the Lord’s trust and patience with us His children in that He waits for us to listen, rather than shouting at us.  I’m learning how much my receptiveness depends on my spiritual preparation and using my agency to retain a spiritual focus.

Also, considering I’ve had to fight against intrusive thoughts a fair amount the last 12 months, I’m learning the Holy Ghost is not about mind control.  We invite him; he doesn’t push in every moment. He’s gentle.

Whenever I think about how the Holy Ghost works in my life, at the end, I usually am left scratching my head and worrying a little that I am not living up to my privileges. I can’t shake the feeling that I could use it, or be used by it more if I were a better person. I yearn to gain more experience at recognizing its influence, gaining more clarity.  You probably feel the same.

Will you share with me your experiences with learning how to recognize the Holy Ghost and discovering new things that it could help with?

Some thoughts on the family being ordained of God

This month’s visiting teaching message had the theme of “The family is ordained of God.”  It seems like such an obvious principle, one that everyone should be able to accept.  And yet, I’ve realized that there are people who have serious problems with the idea of family. 

I took a few writing classes some years ago at ASU.  Through a series of events I happened to read the personal blog of one of my teachers and found that in a post she mentioned her personal decision she had made that she would never get married and never have children. (She never said this in class though.)  Yet she had a boyfriend, and from things she wrote, it was clear she had been with him for some years. It seemed odd to me, and a bit of a shame that she wouldn’t want to take that relationship to the next level.  But I didn’t get all judgey-pants over that. I took it simply as data.

Fast forward some years past graduation. This teacher sent me an email asking if I would read and review her new book. I ended up deciding I didn’t have time, but as I thought about her, I went to her blog to see what she was posting about her life. I read about her writing process she went through as she was putting together a memoir. She had an image of a spreadsheet she had made to distill and organize the chronology of her life in her memoir.  From looking at that spreadsheet and the kinds of events listed month-by-month, I realized that my former teacher must have had a very difficult childhood, and that the tempestuous family relationships had continued into her adulthood.

That’s when I realized that for this woman, “family” was probably a term loaded with negative associations instead of positive ones. “Family” was something to escape from and put behind her and heal from if possible.  I sensed that for her, her experiences may not have given her confidence that she could be a successful wife or mother if she followed her main example (her mom). For her, she may have felt it was all she could do to stop the cycle of pain by not marrying and not having children. 

Some people are able to make the cycle of abuse and trauma end with them as they start and have their own families.  But other people, for whatever reason, don’t have the confidence for that.

Family is ordained of God as a means of transmitting knowledge and values to the next generation, particularly to introduce children to the gospel and start them on the path leading to exaltation. But no family is perfect, and some are truly dysfunctional. Some parents teach the right things, but their example subverts the message.  Some parents abdicate responsibility.  Some parents teach well, but their children make bad choices that affect the rest of the family.  Some family members may have weaknesses—emotional/mental/physical—that make it difficult to have a stable family.  There are infinite permutations of interpersonal challenges that are possible.

I take a lot of hope from a statement in the Family Proclamation that says, “Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ.”  I take two things from that.  First, it is a nod to the fact that there can be successful families outside the gospel, but following the principles of Christ’s gospel is the best way.  Second, that language of “most likely to be achieved” tells me that following the gospel of Christ greatly increases the statistical probability of having a happy and successful family even with all the challenges faced.

It seems to me that holding up to world the principle that the family is ordained of God is not about waving around a shiny ideal of perfection (which doesn’t exist). It’s about declaring its great potential as a nursery of formative experience and a laboratory for the refinement of character and connection to others.  We want that laboratory to have the best equipment—father, mother, and children.  We want that nursery of formative experience to include faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities. 

It’s about opportunity, potential, and growth!

Thoughts on President Eyring’s April 2016 talk :Where Two or Three Are Gathered

When I read through President Eyring’s talk “Where Two orThree Are Gathered,” my heart went out to the two individuals whose problem he described of wanting to feel nearer to God:

I know of at least two people listening today who want that blessing with all their hearts. They will try earnestly to draw nearer to the Lord during this conference. They each wrote to me—their letters arriving at my office in the same week—pleading for the same kind of help.

Both of them are converts to the Church and have previously received clear testimonies of the love of God the Father and of His Son, Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. They knew that the Prophet Joseph Smith organized the Church by direct revelation from God and that the keys of the holy priesthood were restored. Each felt a witness that keys are in place in the Church today. They bore to me their solemn testimony in writing.

Yet both lamented that feelings of love for the Lord and His love for them were lessening. They both wanted, with full heart, for me to help them regain the joy and the feeling of being loved that was theirs as they came into the kingdom of God. Both expressed a fear that if they could not regain in full those feelings of love for the Savior and His Church, the trials and tests they faced would finally overcome their faith.

They are not alone in their concern, nor is their test a new one.

I noticed that President Eyring’s talk is full of helpful doctrine and admonitions for those who might be going through this same difficulty.

Note that he says they are not alone in their concern and their test isn’t a new one.  I would almost say the problem is endemic to the fallen mortal condition. We are prone to wander and leave the God we love. Even as members of the church we are still liable to relax and forget the Lord.  And on top of that, we have the challenges of mortality, as President Eyring lists elsewhere in his talk:

All of us have had our faith tested by precious blessings delayed, vicious attacks of those who wanted to destroy our faith, temptations to sin, and selfish interests that reduced our efforts to cultivate and soften the spiritual depths of our hearts.

--Blessings delayed (These can make us feel forgotten by God. Our resentment can rise and it takes faith and patience to overcome this.)

--Vicious attacks (These can make us feel unsupported by God. We want God prove we are right or defend us. Or we might wonder where we can find answers to sudden questions.  It takes courage and trust and patience to overcome this.)

--Temptations (These can make us feel like God’s way is unattractive or not enticing. It takes trust and the capacity to sacrificially mortify the flesh to overcome this.)

--selfish interests  (These can make us feel like God doesn’t want us to have our way or that He doesn’t care about our individuality. It takes humility and sacrifice to overcome this.)

Probably the main point President Erying wanted to make about how we can overcome the tendency to stray and lose our connection to our Heavenly Father comes even before he mentions the problem:

Where and when we feel the closeness of the Savior depend on each of us. He gave this instruction:

“And again, verily I say unto you, my friends, I leave these sayings with you to ponder in your hearts, with this commandment which I give unto you, that ye shall call upon me while I am near—

“Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you; seek me diligently and ye shall find me; ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (D&C 88:62–63).

President Eyring included a quotation from Christ’s parable of the sower about the four different types of ground receiving seed. The seed is the same; it is the ground that is ready to receive it or not.  Likewise, the word is the same, it is our hearts that are ready to receive it or not.

What I really liked was that in his talk he outlined some very quick and immediate steps that everyone could take during conference to soften our hearts and receive and nourish the word.  He suggested we pray throughout conference:

--Pray with those who are praying

--Pray as a speaker approaches the pulpit to receive the Spirit of truth

--Pray as the choir is about to sing

--As speakers are about to end talks, pray that God would give them of right words of testimony to lift everyone

I remember when he suggested this I was very touched, and I tried to do that throughout conference. It did help me feel increased closeness to God.  It also helped me pay extra attention to the speakers’ ending testimonies, and I appreciated them much more than I had done before.

I learned through this experience how important prayer is to increasing our closeness to God.  I extrapolate that this practice of personal, silent prayer can be used not just during general conference, but at all our church meetings as well.

But prayer isn’t the only way that we can do our part to draw near to the Lord. While I was reading this talk, I ended up making a quick list of things I have found help me draw nearer to the Lord:

--Taking the sacrament

--Remembering Christ at various times and places

--Daily scripture study

--Diligent service to others

--Temple worship

--Fasting

Drawing closer to God takes effort on our part. We can’t just drift and wish He were closer. We have to take action and move closer ourselves.

At a very young age (in late elementary school) I noticed the pride cycle pattern in my life, though I didn’t know enough to call it that. I noticed that after a period of trying hard to be good, I would start slacking off and then my spiritual life would go downhill.  With that slacking off would come a feeling of apathy that made church activity annoying.  I didn’t like being in that spiritual condition. 

Each time I noticed this, I had to make a choice to try to live right again.  When I did, I felt closer to the Lord, I felt I was progressing, I felt better about life, I felt happier.

As I got older, this cycle continued in my life, and I began to look for ways to avoid falling into the negative part of the cycle.  When I was in high school, I stumbled across a scripture that said “Weary not in well-doing” and I knew that was the key to escaping the pride cycle and staying on the good side.

President Eyring says something really insightful about our condition when we notice we’re feeling distanced from the Lord:

Those who are saddened by the loss of the joy they once had are the blessed ones. Some do not see the withering of faith within themselves. Satan is clever. He tells those he wishes to be miserable that the joy they once felt was childish self-delusion.

Satan tries to make us think that losing that closeness to God is irreversible. Or he tries to make us think that we’re progressing beyond the need for it.  Both of those messages are lies.

If we notice we’ve lost what we once had, we’re blessed because seeing the problem is the first step toward fixing it.  But to fix it, we have to do our part seeking after the Lord.

We’re more in trouble if we don’t see our own faith withering or if we think we’ve outgrown faith or joy from the gospel. 

1)   The only way we outgrow faith is if we know for certain the truth of the things we once simply believed. 

2)   Since the eternal destiny of Heavenly Father’s righteous children is eternal joy, it is not possible to outgrow joy.  A fullness of joy is our coveted end, not a temporary waystation.  There is nothing childish or self-delusive about true joy.

This talk has been a good reminder for me how much I need prayer in addition to the other practices for drawing closer to God.

Suggestions for teaching:

Read class members the account of the two members writing letters to President Eyring.  Ask them if they have ever gone through that kind of challenge.  Ask them what they would advise those two members if they had been in President Eyring’s position.

Ask class members to brainstorm lies that Satan tells us about our lessening feelings of love from the Lord.  What is false about those thoughts, and what is the truth?

Ask class members what life experiences or circumstances have challenged their faith or made it more difficult for them to feel the love of the Lord in their lives.

Have class members look up the scriptures that Elder Eyring quoted in his talk. What do those scriptures teach that can help with the problem of feeling distanced from the Lord and His love?

Ask class members to share what things they do that help them draw closer to the Lord.  How do these things help?

Ask class members if they followed President Eyring’s counsel to pray for those speaking, singing, praying, or testifying in conference.  Ask them to share what they felt when they did.  Challenge them to try praying at other church meetings similarly.

The Greatness of the Task

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I was feeling burdened a few days ago by the demands of my particular leadership calling in cub scouts, and I felt I needed some scriptures to help buoy me up. I headed for my scriptures with a prayer in my heart that Heavenly Father would help me flip instantly to something that would help me.

Here’s where I turned to:

8 And it supposeth me that they have come up hither to hear the pleasing word of God, yea, the word which healeth the wounded soul.

9 Wherefore, it burdeneth my soul that I should be constrained, because of the strict commandment which I have received from God, to admonish you according to your crimes, to enlarge the wounds of those who are already wounded, instead of consoling and healing their wounds; and those who have not been wounded, instead of feasting upon the pleasing word of God have daggers placed to pierce their souls and wound their delicate minds.

10 But, notwithstanding the greatness of the task, I must do according to the strict commands of God… (Jacob 2:8-10)

This was from Jacob, who was about to deliver a chastity talk and an anti-pride-and-materialism talk to the Nephites.

At first I wondered whether I was going to be admonished for sins that I didn’t realize I had. 

But then what suddenly struck me were Jacob’s words of how burdened he felt by the constraint of the Spirit to follow the commandment to admonish the people. But notwithstanding the great task and the overwhelm he felt as a leader, he waded into it determined to do what the Lord asked of him.

Aha! I thought, Another leader has felt overwhelmed by the demands of their calling. I’m not alone. Not that I’m required to admonish people for their sins right now, but it is neat to 1) find this openness in the scriptures about the burden of leadership and 2) find it right when I needed it.  Heavenly Father had answered my prayer, and that gave me just the encouragement I needed to get back to the stuff I needed to do.

See? Heavenly Father answers our prayers to receive knowledge and encouragement from the scriptures.

I honor and salute the church leaders, past and present, who do their duty despite their overwhelm, and who do it with such grace.  Sometimes it can seem like I am the only one who struggles. Maybe you feel the same in your calling.  Jacob’s words show us his struggle, and then we see his obedience and we can see how the Lord magnified his efforts. That gives hope that the Lord can also magnify our efforts.

Common consent and its blessings

And all things shall be done by common consent in the church, by much prayer and faith, for all things you shall receive by faith.  (D&C 26:2)

This affirms the law of common consent, when all church members vote on whether they consent that someone be ordained, or set apart of a calling, or maintained in an office, or to ratify a change, such as accepting something new be added to the standard works.

I notice that common consent is not the only thing required. It also enjoins the Saints to use much prayer and faith. A mere consenting vote would not be sufficient to fully sustain someone in his or her calling.  Sustaining comes from continued support and faithful following of leaders.

I learned this some years ago by seeing something different when I was employed by a government agency in Austin, Texas. Our department held periodic lunch parties, and I was chosen to lead the party committee.  I felt honored, but I was inexperienced in leading.  When two older employees decided that my efforts weren’t up to their standards, they took it upon themselves to plan the lunch parties instead, without telling me or asking my help.  They essentially took things over as though they were in charge.

I could have let it bother me, but I didn’t. After all, I wasn’t that great at party planning. I didn’t even know enough at that stage of my life to ask for help. All I really had going for me in the first place was my enthusiasm. But I could see pretty clearly the difference between a church calling, which would be sustained by church members, and a worldly role that others might take over if they decided they could do it better.

The principle of common consent and receiving by faith is a great protection. Knowing who has what leadership calling protects us from being imposed upon by imposters.  Also, stewardship boundaries are pretty well defined.  

Common consent also is a means of growth. I’ve noticed that respecting and supporting other people in their callings helps me grow in charity and long-suffering.  I’ve also noticed that when other people support me in my callings, it gives me room in my inexperience to grow into my duties and see the hand of the Lord help me. 

Ultimately, common consent gives us a chance to help build Zion in people—in ourselves and others.

A meditation on the atonement of Christ

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Our Sunday school class last week spent some time thinking and talking about these verses:

11 And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.

12 And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities. (Alma 7:11-12)

Over and over, my fellow Saints observed in different ways that it is neat to know that Christ can help us, not just with removing our sins, but also with our pains, afflictions, temptations, sicknesses, and infirmities.

The question is, how? How will Christ help us?  Well, we don’t exactly know how.  We know the mechanism is Christ’s grace and mercy, but we don’t know how and what Christ will do in any particular situation that we bring to Him.  We have to find out.   We have to trust that He has experienced it, and then call upon God and ask for help, then continue to cope in as best we can, while looking for His grace. 

At the risk of sharing too much, I’m going to give a recent example from my life.  About a week ago I had very bad cramps and bloating associated with my menstrual cycle.  It woke me up in the very early morning.  For the next hour I coped with the pain, trying to deal with it in different ways (including pain relievers and such).   My sincere question at that time was, “How can the atonement of Christ help me with this?” and I prayed for mercy and to be helped through it.

In some miraculous way I was helped through it.   At the time I couldn’t tell I was being helped, and afterward at first all I knew was that somehow I had been helped.  I had to think about it to be able to understand.  So here’s how I think I was helped. 1) I got ideas of how to move around such that a new position would bring about the next bit of progression through it.  2) Praying my way through it and pondering how the atonement might help me kept my mind off the pain and kept me from getting frustrated. 3) Even though the whole process lasted an hour, it didn’t feel so long because I was concentrated on praying and pondering. 4) My husband woke up near the end and gave me a blessing, so I had some company. 5) I was able to go back to sleep afterwards for three hours.

This was how the atonement helped me with this experience. If my circumstances were different, the divine help might have come in a slightly different way. 

Still, it taught me that using the atonement in our lives often requires experimenting and asking for help in a situation where we may wonder if the atonement can be used.  (Oh look! Experimenting is an opportunity for exploration and adventure of a spiritual nature!)  

We may wonder, how is the atonement of Christ going to help me with this?  But I learned that if we pray for mercy and strength, then re-engage in the problem, pondering and looking for the hand of the Lord, we will receive help.  And when we have been helped, we need to record what happened so that we can remember for later. These experiences tend to fade too quickly.  But if we can remember, they encourage us to keep experimenting with new ways to use the atonement.

Painting and life lessons

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Recently I got an idea to use a paint program called Procreate on my ipad to try to duplicate what Bob Ross painted on some of his videos, which are posted to Youtube. I thought if I could watch his videos and pause them from time to time I might have a chance of copying his technique.  

Truthfully, I went into it with pretty low expectations. I'd played with the program before, but I didn't know enough to do anything good.

Imagine my utter astonishment when I end up with something like this..

Or this...

Or this..

There are some neat things about painting on this ipad program that remind me of life lessons and the gospel.

First of all, I love that there is an Undo button.  Being able to undo mistakes on a painting means that I can learn and do a little experimenting when I’m not sure what will work best.  It reminds me how wonderful repentance is.  Just think what a mess our lives would be without repentance!

Second, it is so much easier to learn to paint when watching an example and trying to duplicate what the expert does. (Likely some particularly skilled painters will argue with my labeling Bob Ross and expert, but to my ignorance, he is.)  I feel like I picked up a whole bunch of skills that I never would have learned if I hadn’t been able to see them used and hear them explained.  The power of his example reinforces to me how neat it is that we have Christ’s example in the scriptures and the example of so many prophets explaining principles for us to live our lives better. 

When I’m watching an instructional video for a painting, I like to stop the video every few minutes to give me time to try to duplicate what was done in the example.  This reminds me a lot of that principle of line-upon-line, precept-upon-precept.  If I was trying to do it all perfectly, all at once, I would get overwhelmed. 

Paintings start out so rough and plain, but they gradually get more and more detailed.  They start with large sweeping strokes, and get smaller and gentler as time goes on.  That teaches me about gradual refinement. 

Another thing I’ve noticed is that when I have done an awesome job on a mountain in the background, frequently the next stage of the project requires me to be brave and paint something over part of what I’ve just worked so hard to do.  This has taught me something about sacrifice.  There are points in life when we have to sacrifice something we’ve worked hard on in order to progress. Sometimes it seems like the thing we’re sacrificing for is not going to be that great.  (The beginnings of my trees that I paint over my backgrounds don’t look nice to begin with.) But total commitment will eventually make something beautiful and wonderful of our lives.

I’ve done a few paintings that started with nearly black backgrounds and then had colors put on them.  The light colors show up so well, and the whites really zing.  This reminds me of how brightly good people can stand out in a dark world. 

Well, that’s enough for now. I imagine I’ll probably think of more points of similarity as I get better. 

How to add to your patriarchal blessing

If you’re like me, you have had your patriarchal blessing for a long time and have phrases of it that come to your mind at various times that give you important perspective as you think about your challenges and opportunities. 

Or sometimes you may realize that the phrase you thought meant one thing turns out to mean something even more.   This has been my experience.  I got my patriarchal blessing around age 14 and there was a good portion of my blessing that I didn’t understand until more than 15 years later.  I thought particular phrases meant one thing and then later a different meaning was revealed by life circumstances and challenges.  Often the meaning of blessings promised is so much more expansive than I previously imagined.  Other times, the warnings turn out to be incredibly targeted.

If you are like me, you may have some short, pithy phrases of instruction in your patriarchal blessing.  You may become extra-sensitized to mentions of those phrases in talks or conference.  I have noticed occasionally conference talks use phrases from my blessing. When that happens, I immediately sit up and take notice because it is as if the Lord is speaking directly to me, giving me additional instruction pertaining to my patriarchal blessing.  It is almost as if the Lord is explaining my blessing to me or even promising me additional blessings for following the instructions in my blessing.

This happened recently at a regional conference and I was so excited I wrote as much as I could about what I’d heard so I could save it.   Then I hit upon the idea to study other phrases from my blessing using the scriptures or LDS.org to see what I could find that would expand my understanding of the instructions or the blessings.   So far I’ve been searching one particular phrase and I’m learning a lot, so I wanted to challenge you to try the same thing. 

Our patriarchal blessings are scripture personal to us as individuals, and they deserve study just like the standard works and conference.  And it stands to reason that scripture and conference talks will give us more perspective on our blessings, since they came from the same source—Heavenly Father.

This isn’t a short-term project, so it is going to take a while.  There are all kinds of different ways we can approach it, but I think the best way to start is always to focus on parts that are most interesting to us right now.

Possible Approaches

·      Add footnotes.

·      Write a sentence-by-sentence commentary in your own words.  Include dictionary definitions of major words, even words you think you know.

·      Compile a personal commentary using applicable scriptures.

·      Compile a personal commentary using only conference talks.

·      Create an exhaustive commentary on your blessing with all the resources you have gathered so far.

 If you have tried this kind of thing before, will you share how that experience helped you?