Living in Gratitude

Those who know me know that Thanksgiving is one of my least favorite holidays. It is a holiday that is celebrated here in the United States each November in remembrance and celebration for the friendship the early American pioneers made with the Native Americans. It is a time for people to remember what the Lord has blessed them with and to show appreciation for those things, just as one of my favorite Mormon messages shows. It is a time when many families come together and have a big meal and just enjoy being together.

Now don't get me wrong, I love this aspect! I love having another excuse for my huge family to get together and enjoy each other! I love having a huge meal with many great foods that I usually don't eat during the rest of the year. That part of the holiday is wonderful! One family tradition is going around and everyone sharing things that they are grateful for which usually turns into people sharing some of the miracles that occurred in their lives during the past year. I love that too!

But what I don't like about this season is the fact that many people take it for granted. Most people simply accept it as part of tradition; as the way things are; and use it as an excuse to be thankful only one day in the year. It is great to have a day of concentrated thankfulness, but it is a terrible idea to be thankful on one day out of the year which, as it seems to me, is what the holiday has turned into.

Joe's Baptism: A True Family Man

A few weeks ago,  my teaching companion and I were answering the chats that come in on Mormon.org and helping the people learn more about our beliefs. As we were taking chats, we talked with a guy named Joe. Joe came on and we briefly talked with him about some of the beliefs of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and he said that he agreed with everything that we said! From the very beginning it was apparent to me how much family means to Joe!

So we had a brief conversation with him, asked him to begin reading the Book of Mormon and also read something that our prophets came out with a few years ago called The Family: A Proclamation to the World and we set up a time to talk with him a few days later.

The time came for us to talk with him again and we went into the lesson thinking it would be the same as most other lessons that we teach. But when we started the lesson Joe told us about an amazing experience that he had. As he shared it with us we could tell the strong faith in God that Joe had and his desire to find the truth. Because of that, he was able to have a very powerful experience and quickly came to know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God!

Joe's story is one of many the shows that the promise Moroni gives at the end of the Book of Mormon really is true. Through experience, Joe came to experience for himself the invitation and promise that "when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost."

That is what Joe did and that is what we can all do to find out that the Book of Mormon is true! Here is his  own story:

My conversion story starts several weeks ago. I was perusing on online news aggregation website called reddit.com. Someone had posted a link to a YouTube video about Mitt Romney. The video was very disparaging of both the LDS Church and the presidential candidate. However, from personal experience, I knew that the accusations the video was making were very wrong.

The reason why I did not believe the video was due to spending a year on assignment for work in Pocatello Idaho in 1999 and early 2000. Most of the people in that small town were Mormons. As a group, they were the nicest, most moral, hard working, and ethical people that I ever did meet. This phenomenon wasn’t just for the majority, or a significant fraction. It was to a man, and woman. Additionally, many of my co-workers were Mormons. Often, they would invite met to ice cream socials and they seemed to eat lots of green Jell-O.

After I finished watching the YouTube video, I watched another and another. I continued watching videos about the Church and Mormons throughout the evening. Some were pro-Mormon. Some were anti-Mormon. Some were indifferent. However, I was fascinated.

The next day at work, I found that I could not stop thinking about the night before. All during the day, whenever I had a free moment, I would read, watch videos, or look up various topics. Additionally, I spent the entire evening watching videos online and reading as much as I could about the LDS faith.

This continued for a couple of weeks. I was obsessed with learning all that I could. Much of the material online was positive. However, a significant amount of it was negative. Upon further inspection, most the negative material was an exaggeration, a fabrication, a misrepresentation, or just plain incorrect.

One Wednesday, late in the evening, I was looking up topics, watching videos, and cross checking what I was finding. I must have had several browser windows open with a hundred tabs open. I closed everything and clear my desktop until it was completely empty. Then I opened a single browser window and navigated to YouTube. My search term was “are Mormons Christian?” One of the results at the top of the list was a segment of a talk given by Jeffrey R. Holland.

Elder Holland’s talk focused on this very topic. I felt that this was a message meant just for me. He mentioned that while there may be a great deal of debate, there was one thing, of which there should be no doubt. That was we (Mormons) believe in Jesus Christ. Just as importantly, he then spent several minutes describing exactly what that meant. At the end of the video, I exclaimed, “Yes!”

The next day was a Thursday. During lunch, while at work, I visited Mormon.org. Right on the front page was a link to “chat with us”. I clicked the link and a new window popped open. In came Elder Ryan and Elder Jacob into the chat room. We talked for about 45 minutes. At the end I asked if there were any books I should buy on Amazon. They said, “No.” Instead, they gave me a link to Family: A Proclamation. Additionally, they asked me to read the Book of Mormon.

When we were done chatting, I read Family: A Proclamation. I remember think that I agreed with all of it. I also wondered why more people don’t say this sort of thing. It seems to be especially needed in these times.

That evening, I found the Book of Mormon online. It became quickly apparent that finishing it in a day and a half was going to be impossible. This was Thursday evening and my next meeting with the online missionaries was going to be Saturday morning. Fortunately, I realized that there was a chapter summary at the beginning of each chapter. I read all of the chapter summaries that night. Additionally, anytime I came across anything really interesting, I would scroll to the text of the scripture and read.

I remember reading that a person was supposed to pray for an answer to the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon after reading it. That night I earnestly prayed. I distinctly remember not being very good at it. Afterwards, I went to bed.

During the weeks prior to that Thursday night, I had been having trouble sleeping. This was because my investigations had caused me to ask many difficult questions about myself. That night, after reading the Book of Mormon and praying earnestly for an answer, I had a wonderful night’s sleep.

When I awoke on Friday, I felt an amazing peace and joy in my heart. Additionally, in my mind’s eye I saw the words “The Word of God is the Word of God”. This was a message that was meant just for me. Experiences like this had never occurred before and I know that it is something I should pay attention to. At that very moment, I had a testimony that the Book of Mormon was true. Since the Book of Mormon was true, then Joseph Smith had to be a prophet and the Church really was restored to the earth. Like dominoes falling, I immediately received a testimony for many of the things I read about.

The only thing I felt a little shaky on was if President Monson was really a prophet that spoke for God. However, during General Conference I received a testimony that he is indeed a prophet. This occurred when I listened to him speak and after praying about it.

I write all of this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Answers To Prayers Of Answers To Prayers.

"Sometimes we can be the answer to the prayers of someone who is the answer to ours."

Every week at the ward we attend, I am spiritually uplifted and fed. The talks are always so humble and filled with the Spirit that it is almost impossible to not walk away feeling better than when the meeting started. And yet in my year of attending this ward, nothing that has been said has hit my nearly as hard as this quote, said as almost a passing comment. I still don't quite fully understand why this hit me so hard but there is so much power behind that simple thought.

The story that preceded this short statement was one of the most powerful I have ever heard. The speaker talked about how the prayers of a wandering woman were answered as she helped answer the prayers of a girl who had slept in.

My Soul Did Long To Be There

Elder Neal A. Maxwell, one of the past leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, once said, "Repentance is a rescuing, not a dour doctrine. It is available to the gross sinner as well as to the already good individual striving for incremental improvement. Repentance requires both turning away from evil and turning to God."

I think repentance is one of the most misunderstood aspects of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I will be the first to tell you that for much of my life I didn't understand this principle very well at all! I always saw repentance as a painful, scary thing not as the liberating process that it really is! I still don't really understand why I always saw it that way but I still held that view going into my freshman year of college. At the beginning of the first semester something happened that helped begin the shift in my view point towards understanding what Elder Maxwell way saying. Then, during my second semester at college, I took a class to help me prepare for my time as a full-time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

My Kindness Shall Not Depart From Thee

As a person is preparing to leave for their mission, there are a number of things that they have to do and take care of before they leave and as they prepare for the next two years. Buying clothes and supplies, packing, making sure you have everything that you need, etc. One thing that happens for most missionaries is what is called a farewell talk. Usually the Sunday before they leave, they give a talk in sacrament meeting, the first meeting in our church services.

When I gave my talk before I left, I spent a lot of time talking about God's love for us. I shared some experiences I have had in my life that have helped me know for myself that God really does love me. I also talked about how there are times in our lives when it seems like God has abandoned us and that He doesn't love us, but in the end, He is always there for us and always loves us! If there is one thing I know in my life and can testify of, it is this fact; that God loves each of us individually and uniquely. That is what I have experienced and come to know throughout my life. So when I gave that talk, I decided to speak on that subject that I knew best.

Of Rivers and Waves!

I can't believe that it has already been a year since my first blog post! It has been fun to go back and read some of my earlier blog posts and see how much I have changed, not only with my writing but also my personality and character!

A few weeks ago I decided that I wanted to make a post exactly a year after my first blog post, but I wasn't sure what to write about. I wanted it to be something epic and awesome but I just wasn't having any ideas of the sort come to me! I was pretty bummed about that because I thought that would be a fun way to celebrate the one year mark for my blog!

Then one day I was reading in my scriptures and I read a verse that I read at the beginning of my mission that  I have thought a lot about over the past year or so and which has had a pretty big influence on me! I didn't quite understand at the time that I initially read it so I wrote home and asked my family if they had any advice for me. A few family members responded with some good insight, but it was my aunt and uncle who said something that really got me thinking.

As Many As Should Look...Should Live!

"And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died...And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived." (Numbers 21:6,8-9)

In the Bible we find one of the greatest stories of travel ever. As commanded by the Lord, Moses leads the children of Israel out from their bondage to the Egyptians to a land of promised freedom. At one point in their journey, the people began to whine to Moses asking him why God had lead them out of Egypt and why they had to do such a hard task. In response, the Lord sent "fiery, flying serpents" to them. Many of the people were bitten and suffered greatly because of this added trial. But He didn't leave them helpless. He commanded the prophet Moses to make a symbol--a brass serpent--that they could look to and receive the promised blessing of a being healed.