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.