Prayer

So Tuesday night I was just really stressed out about school and basketball and everything else in my life. I litterally had a mental break down at 11:15 and just cried for 20 minutes. I remembered that in Young Womens we recieved a poem called "The Race" and I got that out and read it and its about a boy running a race and falling and and each time he heard "get up and win the race" from his father. Finally after falling 3 times and coming in about last he recieved the greatest applause from the crowd due to the fact that he didn't give up and kept going. This made me feel a little bit better but I decided what I really needed to do was pray. So I prayed to Heavenly Father asking him for comfort, the ability to find peace, and most of all to stay awake in seminary because I was extremely exhausted. After I finished praying I was calmed down enough to go to bed. Wednesday morning during seminary we were discussing Mosiah 26 I believe it was and how God answers prays when you need them most and I felt that was directed straight at me. It was exactly what I needed to hear after my late night. So don't be afraid to ask Heavenly Father for things because he is always there and ready to bless you with what you need to get up and "win the race."

Service to Others

Scripture Mastery
Mosiah 2:17
"And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow being ye are only in the service of your God."

Application to My Life:
When I help others I am helping God. Heavenly Father want me to serve others whenever possible not only to be for my benefit but for the benefit of those that I help.

Kingdom of God Before Riches

Scripture Mastery
Jacob 2:18-19
"But before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God. And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do good--to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted."

Application to My Life:
There are things far more important in life than seeking for riches. I need to draw close to my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ first. Then if i wish to seek riches I can as long as I intend to help others with it.

Pray Always

Scripture Mastery
2 Nephi 32:8-9
"And now, my beloved brethren, I perceive that ye ponder still in your hearts; and it grieveth me that I must speak concerning this thing. For if ye would hearken unto the Spirit which teacheth a man to pray ye would know that ye must pray; for the evil spirit teacheth not a man to pray, but teacheth him that he must not pray. But behold, I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint; unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance may be for the welfare of they soul."

Application to My Life:
The Spirit never leads me astray it will always point me in the right direction. Also, I always need to remember to pray to my Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus Christ. I shouldn't just pray when I need something but all the time to thank him for the blessings in my life.

Feasting Upon the Words of Christ

Scripture Mastery
2 Nephi 32:3
"Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do."

Application to my Life:
If I am ever in need of advice, I can always turn to the scriptures because they are the words of Christ. The scriptures can help guide me through my life if I study them diligently.

Views of the World

Scripture Mastery
2 Nephi 28:7-8
"Yea, and there shall be many which shall say: Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die; and it shall be well with us. And there shall also be many which shall say:Eat, drink and be merry; nevertheles, fear God--he will justify in committing a little sin; yea, lie a little, take advantage of one because of his words, dig a pit for thy neighbor; there is no harm in this; and do all these things, for tomorrow we die; and if it so be that we are guilty, God will beat us with a few stripes, and at last we shall be saved in the kingdom of God."

Application to My Life:
The world has different standards than I do for myself. I need to keep my standards high and not fall to the lower standards of the world.

Knowledge?

Scripture Mastery
2 Nephi 9:28-29
"O that cunning plan of the evil one! O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. Andy they shall perish. But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God."

Application to My Life:
Although I may have a lot of knowledge, it is nothing compared to the knowledge that our Heavenly Father has. Therefore, I can not turn my back on Him and think I can make it through my life on my own because the truth is that I can't.

Agency

Scripture Mastery:
2 Nephi 2:27
"Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man, And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, throught he great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself."

Application to my Life:
I make the choices in my life and nobody else can force me to make my choices. Therefore, I must make the right choices that will lead me to live with my Heavenly Father in the Celestial Kingdom.

The Joy of Temple Work

So the other week I was talking with a friend from school about baptisms for the dead and of course he thought it was weird like ever other nonmember. But something in the conversation just struck me he said that he believed that once a person has died there is nothing you can do for them. And just this idea made me reflect and made me kinda sad. There is always going to be people in our lives that go astray and when you die you want them to be there with you. The blessings of temple work is so great. It allows us to help ancestors that may not have been members achieve exaltation. I just enjoy the comfort of knowing that if somebody in my own family goes astray and does not get the required temple ordinances I can help them by doing their work for them. I just find great joy in the ability to do temple work.

Enduring Till the End

So on Thanksgiving I ran a 5k. It was nice 45 degrees which my mom declared perfect running weather. Me on the other hand thought it was a little to cold to be running. However I started the race and I was fine for about the first 2 miles then my legs started cramping up due to the coldness. I wanted to give up right then and there. I started walking only to find out that made cramping in my leg muscles worse so I started jogging again. Finally, I made it to the end and I felt great. I was rather proud of myself for pushing through till the end. Later that day I got to thinking about how this is much like our life here on Earth. We have trials and struggles and also good times. However when we make it to the end of our lives without giving up and make it to the celestial kingdom, the trials and tribulations will seem like nothing. You will have gained the greatest thing which there is to gain which is living in the presence of your Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ with our families forever.

Here is some pictures from the Turkey Dash.

Me running.

Excited that I finished.

My sister, my mom, and I after finishing.

Thanksgiving

Well as everybody knows today is Thanksgiving. It's not just a day filled with food, football, and family (some of my favorite things) but it's a day to give thanks to Heavenly Father for everything we have been blessed with. I just wanted to take up a blog post about the things that I am most thankful for in my life.

1. The Gospel. It directs me in the right path whenever I have hard decisions to make. The standards of the church are a true blessing in my life.
2. My family. I love them so much! I have been so blessed to come to this earth to a truly loving and supportive family. I can always count on them for anything.
3. My friends. They are the best and I love them to death. They are always there for me and know when i need a boost.
4. My learning ability. With this I am able to teach others and help others in academic settings. This not only blesses them but blesses me through my service to others.
5. My athletic abilities. I have no idea where I would be without them. It is one of the things that draws my family so closely together.

This is just a few but I am thankful for everything in my life that I have been blessed with. :)

Turning Around

There is a sign in my physics class that says something along the lines of "No matter how far down the wrong road you are, you can always turn back." I saw it at the beginning of school and was like she just wants us to keep doing our homework and get good grades and if we get some bad grades we can always bring up our averages. Well it just hit me last week that this is how life is with repentance. No matter how far we go off the path, we can return through the Atonement of Christ. Heavenly Fathers arms are always open and wating for us to return.

Many Missionary Moments

I had two great missionary moments over the past week. The first was on Halloween while i was hanging out with two friends. I was informed that it kinda sounds like a joke when you have a Mormon, a Baptist, and a Catholic discussing religion in a hot tub. Yes this really did happen I'm not messing with you I promise. haha. well I'm not sure how the topic of religion came up but it was over an hour long conversation. I shared with my friends how we got the Book of Mormon, the Plan of Salvation, Temple Marriages, Baptisms for the dead, and a few other gospel topics. They were rather open to it even though I wasn't trying to convert them. It was interesting to see how similar some of our beliefs were and then how different they were. And then my next experience was with two different friends one who happened to be baptist and the other who happened to be catholic. We were suppose to be working on our physics cannon but I just let it go as I figured a religious conversation was a good way to procrastinate. This one started off with questions on why I didn't drink alcohol, tea, or coffee. I began with the explanation of the Word of Wisdom and how it was given by revelation and how since then we've found out that tobacco, alcohol, ect was bad for the body. I then asked them if they believed that in the Old Testament God talked to people and they said yes and so of course they agreed in the New Testament too. Then I was like why would Heavenly Father stop talking to people now a days when the world is worse off. They agreed that you can receive personal revelation but weren't to sure about one person aka The Prophet could receive revelation for a whole group of people. They didn't shoot the idea down though. We continued and got on the different subjects that you get on when having religious conversation. It was a rather good conversation.
I then found it kinda funny that today's topic in church was on missionary work. If made me feel great that I was trying to expand peoples knowledge of the gospel. It always strengthens my testimony of the fullness and the truthfulness of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints when I share my testimony with others. Its a great feeling and I encourage every member to do so as well.

Blessings Gained By Keeping the Commandments

So this past Wednesday basketball practice started after school. Wow I did not have any idea about how intense and tiring practice would be. After one day of practice I was so exhausted. It was basically two and a half hours of sprinting none stop. I thought of how I was ever going to make it through that till February when I remembered one of the promises for keeping the Word of Wisdom. "And shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint" (D&C 89:20). That night I prayed for that blessing to give me strength to get through practice. The next day I found it easier to complete all the running that we had to do and i was not as tired as I was the day before. When you keep the commandments you can really gain blessings and call upon them when you need them most.

Didn't See That Coming

So this past Thursday night I was in helping decorate the varsity football locker room like I do every week and I was talking to the mom in charge about Matt (my brother). We were talking about him coming home and I said he wasn't coming home till Christmas and then after May he would be gone for two years. The mom was like "Wait, why?" I simply responded well we are Mormon and he is going to serve a mission. And she asked where he would be going and I said we don't know until he puts in his mission papers closer to his 19th birthday. She then proceeded to tell me how her brother-in-law's kids are Mormon and how his son went on a mission to Finland and got married in the Houston Temple. Then she said how her brother-in-law was upset that he couldn't go to the wedding and she just simply said that she told him that he just has to respect it. I just thought it was neat how she respected our beliefs that you can't go into the temple with out being a member and she didn't judge. So it's always interesting to see how random conversations about religion can come up anywhere even when you least expect them.

How did I get through that??

So Saturday night was homecoming and we stayed out till 3 Sunday morning. Church was so hard to get up for with only 4 1/2 hours of sleep. Somehow I got motivated enough to go to church and made it there 30 min before like every Sunday because my mom has to get her seat. So I thought it was going to be the hardest thing to stay awake during church but somehow I managed and stayed awake for almost all of it except the couple times i dozed off for a couple minutes. After church I was even awake enough to get all the things I needed to get done like homework, gathering information for the YAC (Youth Activities Committee) meeting, going to the YAC meeting and being productive, and then making it home to finish more homework. Honestly I think if I would have skipped church I would not have been able to accomplish all of those things. It truly was a blessing that day to get through everything that needed to be done. Heavenly Father really does help us out when we are having a hard time doing something when we choose the right things first! :)

Sailing Trip :)

So on Friday a couple of us went sailing with Bro Janis. It was so much! We got to help set up the sail and then put them down at the end. This made me think about something. It takes work to get a sail boat's sails up to get you going in the right direction just like in the gospel. You just can't expect to get to the Celestial Kingdom without trying. You have to have to work to get there by keeping the commandments, reading your scriptures, praying, ect.

Well here are some pictures from our sailing trip :)

Sarah, Me, and Julia

Working to get the sail up

Me, Julia, and Sarah on the back of the boat

Alrighty that's all the pictures going up because this up loader and moving them around is making me frustrated. haha

My Adventure On The Way To Seminary

Well this past week I had an adventure on the way to seminary. So basically I turned a corner to sharply and end ended up running over a median and knocking my hub cap off my car (which is still off if you were wondering). I went to pick up Gavin like I do every morning and I got out of my car to check to see if anything happened. At this point I didn't know my hub cap was gone. To my horror my front left hub cap was gone. I literally started freaking out and Gavin can testify to that. So we went back to the spot of my "accident". Luckily my hub cap was still all in one piece. Now it was decision time...Should I call my father and tell him what happened right then or wait till later that night and tell him when he got home from work. I chose to call then and to my surprise he wasn't upset with me. I was totally shocked! Who would have thought?!? Later that night he even told me he was glad that I called right away and didn't wait because chances are I would have gotten in a lot more trouble if I would have waited.
Now how does this apply to the gospel? Let me make a parallel for you. Many people when they commit a sin become frightened of the consequences and sometimes feel unworthy to pray to their Heavenly Father. However, no matter how big the sin is, Heavenly Father will always be there to listen to you and through Christ, his son, you can repent. Heavenly Father will be glad to hear from you and know that you realize what you did is wrong and want to repent of it. He will welcome you back with open arms like my earthly father did when I told him what I did.

Chick-fil-a

Yesterday as I was walking to my room upstairs I saw my dad had the new on. This particular segment made me stop and watch some of it. It was talking about Chick-fil-a and how it is not open on Sundays. They were interviewing a manager or owner, I'm not sure which, of one in the Houston area. He was saying how it was because of God that they weren't open and how if you acknowledge him, he shall direct thy paths (Proverbs 3:6). I've heard friends and the comedian we were watching in seminary on Friday say how its sad that Chick-fil-a is closed on Sundays because that's when they are always in the mood for it, but I'm glad that this store stands so firm in this belief when the world is changing and telling it other wise. "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy" (Exodus 20:8).

Have Joy

The third scripture mastery is 2 Nephi 2:25. "Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy."

Application to my life: Because Adam fell, we were all able to come to earth and experience trials and sadness but also blessings and joy. With out knowing difficulties in life and sadness, we never would experience the blessings we get from overcoming those trials and joy of succeeding. If life was always perfect, how would there be joy? You would be the same everyday and not experiencing anything different. I am thankful for the hard times I've been through and been able to grow and experience the joy of overcoming those difficult times.

Carried Upon Thy Shoulders

Do you remember when you were a little child and if you were in a swimming pool and your dad or mom would hold you above the water or put you on their shoulders? In 1 Nephi 21:22 it says, "set my standard to the people; and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon thy shoulders." This painted a picture in my head and it really shows that Heavenly Father is trying to bring us back to him by giving us standards that will keep us from falling away, kinda like our earthly parents keep us from drowning in the pool.

Profit and Learning

1 Nephi 19:23 is the second scripture mastery. It reads "And I did read many things unto them which were written in the books of Moses; but that I might more fully persuade them to believe in the Lord their Redeemer I did read unto them that which was written by the prophet Isaiah; for I did liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning."

Application to my life: The reason we have the scriptures now days is also for our profit and learning. Sometimes I think, "Hmm now how is this event that happened a long long long time ago have anything to do with my life today?" The truth is there is so many ways that the scriptures help me in my life. I may not have to part the sea or go back and get plates but I still have to have faith in all the standards I am asked to keep. Seminary is such a great experience because it really does teach me to apply the scriptures to my life and be for my profit and learning.

Get Your Own

In life, you can't rely on somebody else's testimony to get you to the Celestrial Kingdom or to have a firm knowledge of the gospel. You have to work to know of the things for yourself and have faith. Nephi was desirous that he "might see, and hear, and know of these things, by the power of the Holy Ghost" (1 Nephi 10:17). We all need to be like Nephi. He just didn't take all the words of his father and believe in them but he had a desire to know of them and to gain his own understanding. When we go to Lord with a true desire, He will help us gain the testimony of all the things which we desire to know.

I Will Go and Do

1 Nephi 3:7 was the first scripture mastery I past off this year. "And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them."

Application to my Life: The Lord reveals standards and commandments now days to the prophet and I have to have the same positive attitude that Nephi had to keep those commandments. In the long run keeping the commandments will keep me safe and provide me with a path to follow. This path will lead me to eternal blessings that I can probably not imagin at this moment. Therefore, I want to keep the commandments and return to my Father in Heaven. :)

Ability to Accomplish

1 Nephi 4:12
"Slay him, for the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands;"

The Lord isn't going to give us a task of slaying somebody now a days. We have different trial and different things we need to complete those. Heavenly Father will always provide a way for us to accomplish those things. Also since He gives us ways to accomplish these things we need to keep our standards and stand our ground. We should not be movable. We should be firmly planted in our believes that when we are asked to do something that we can carry out and accomplish those things. Remember "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me" (Philippians 4:12).

Why I Started Blogging

Well basically for seminary this year Bro. Janis asked us to start a blog to share our beliefs and what we learn in class to better remember it in the future. I figure my family will be glad that I am now a blogger lol. Well for our first entry we have to share what we believe so here it goes...

I believe that I am a daughter of God, that my Heavenly Father loves me and that He wants me to return home to him. Through the Plan of Salvation this can happen. I know that Jesus Christ was crucified so that I can repent of my sins. I believe in the restoration of the true gospel by Joseph Smith. Through him we have "The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ," which I know to be a true book. I know that we have a true prophet on the earth today to reveal things unto us. I know that the standards and commandments we follow help us in the long run and keep us safe.

So these are my beliefs. :)