Tag Archives: Heavenly Father

I Love General Conference

I haven’t been reading many books or posting on my blog much this week. I’ve been distracted.

It began Sunday morning at 4:30 a.m.

As all of you were sitting down for 10 a.m. General Conference Saturday morning, I was asleep. It was 2 a.m. Sunday morning. My son awoke at 4:30 a.m., and after attending to his needs and putting him back in bed, I decided I couldn’t wait until next Saturday: I wanted to know who the newest Apostle was. I went online and found out.

D. Todd Christopherson, I read. How exciting! I thought.

I decided I wanted to hear how it was announced. Then I remembered that it was not even 5 a.m. I had to leave for church at 7:45 a.m., and I needed to stay awake during Sacrament meeting. So I went back to bed.

We went to church and came home. When we got home, I started to watch the first session. I am so grateful for the Internet! I could watch the solemn assembly Sunday afternoon in my living room. It was so special. I loved watching it, but I didn’t watch the whole session: there were other things to do.

Monday afternoon, what should appear in my feed reader but all of the mp3 files for the audio of four sessions of General Conference. I subscribed to the feed in December and promptly forgot about it, since, of course, it is only updated twice a year.

I couldn’t wait until Saturday. I listened to President Monson’s talks, then President Eyring’s and President Uchdorf’s talks. They were so excellent, and I was so inspired, so I listened to the rest of it, reverse alphabetically as it appeared in my feed reader. (I listened in reverse because President Thomas S. Monson was the last alphabetically and I wanted to start with him.) I did a lot as I listened’care for my son, work on photographs, etc. So I wasn’t just sitting around.

It has been great. I feel so uplifted and ready to be better. But I guess that’s the key: listening isn’t making me any better. I need to do what I’m learning! Listening doesn’t do any good for the world.

My favorites the first time around:

President Uchdorf’s talk (the faith of our Father, our Heavenly Father)
Elder Child’s talk on tithing
Elder Ballard’s talk to the young mothers
Elder Bednar’s talk on prayer
Elder Oaks’s talk on testimony
Elder Zwick’s talk on fortifying yourself

Which were your favorites?

I get to listen and watch all of them again Saturday and Sunday. (We need to be there this weekend.) What do I do for eight hours Saturday and Sunday as I watch them? I’m going to be sitting on an uncomfortable bench in the chapel.

Ah well; I’ll be inspired all over again. I love general conference!

Winds-day and Lesson 11: Faith in Jesus Christ

2 Replies

Yesterday, I watched a wind storm.

Paul was napping. I sat at my desk, at my computer.

When I heard a strong wind whip through the trees, I looked out. Our house is on a hill so I see trees for miles.

The sky was cloudy and gray. And there was quite a wind. Autumn leaves fell out of the sky–yellow and orange–but so did bunches of green leaves. A branch whipped across the roof. The neighbors’ garbage cans across the highway toppled over, the “for sale” sign was uprooted, and trees seemed to bend. Our lights flickered. One tree bent close to our home, and I heard something banging against our roof.

I worried: I rushed to Paul’s room.

Paul slept soundly. His eyes remained closed, and he sighed in his sleep. He brought his hand nearer his mouth and bumped his pacifier, which rested on the mattress now. He sighed again and turned his head to look at the wall. I heard the wind, but it was distant. All was calm.

I watched him sleep for a few minutes. Then I left his room, closed the door, and sat at my desk again. I don’t know why I panicked and raced to him during the wind. We were safe inside our home. The wind wasn’t going to knock down our walls: they are strong. We were safe.

But as I watched him sleep, I felt this sudden out-of-control feeling: He’s going to grow up. He’s going to go outside, into the world, away from me. Will he be strong enough against the winds, or will they topple him?

And now, my [son], remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

— Helaman 5:12

After a little while, the winds calmed, with only an occasional burst. The clouds didn’t retreat, but the sky lightened a bit.

And then there was a burst of wind, and a full-grown tree toppled over, right through our neighbor’s yard and our neighbor’s fence and our fence and into our backyard.

As I’ve thought about the tree (and watch it sitting rudely on our lawn), I realized it was only after the worst of the storm was over that the tree succumbed. It had been weakened. In a very real way, the tree it wasn’t strong enough against the winds.

I had thought that the lesson for Sunday school this week was about faith; most of the manual discusses what faith is and examples of faith from the scriptures. But then I looked at the title: Faith in Jesus Christ. It’s not just faith; the first principle of the gospel is “faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Believing, a general faith, is not enough to sustain us through the “mighty winds” that the adversary will send our way.

We can have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow; we can have faith that a seed will grow. But we must have faith that Jesus Christ truly did atone for our sins. That is how we return to our Heavenly Father. It is only in and through Christ that we can return to Him.

Joseph Smith called faith “a moving cause of action” and “a principle of power.” It is not a passive concept. The power of faith is incredible: the walls of Jericho came down, Enoch moved mountains, Jared beheld the finger of the Lord. I think of what those people had to do to exercise such faith. Then I think of the power I can receive by exercising faith in Jesus Christ: the ability to return to my Heavenly Father, despite my shortcomings. Wow! That’s more than moving a mountain in my mind.

I must actively build my foundation in Christ, and I must teach my son to build such a foundation. I can only do that if I rely on my own foundation: I am imperfect, but through Christ, I can be perfect.

I must teach my son that he belongs to God, for he is a child of God first. God has entrusted his spirit to me. What a responsibility!

I suspect I’ll always want to check on him when the winds come, even when the day comes that I must let him go outside, into the world. How will his foundation fare against the “mighty winds?”

Lesson 11 of 45

Lesson 7: What Happens after Death?

Leave a reply

It takes a nonmember 12-year-old to put a lesson about life after death in perspective for a teacher: by having a nonmember in my class, I learned how to be a better teacher.

I’ve been concerned about keeping the attention of my easily distracted class, as I mentioned last week. This week, I followed some suggestions from my mother, who happens to be a teacher, as I taught my lesson — word strips for each scripture, scripture summaries for each student, and so forth. In some respects, none of those teaching methods made any difference. What made the difference was my attention to the subject matter and trying to bear testimony to each class member.

When I walked in to class on Sunday, there was a visitor.

For our lesson, I was going to show them the analogy of the glove: after we die, our bodies go in the earth but our spirits live.

Because there was a nonmember in the room, I went back to the beginning with the analogy. Before we were born, we were only spirits (ungloved hand). Then we were born and received a body (glove goes on the hand). When we die, the body goes into the earth (glove on floor) and our spirits return to God (ungloved hand). Then we are resurrected, and our spirits and body are reunited (glove goes back on the hand). As I asked the class to demonstrate with the glove, we had a great review of the basics of these concepts. It helped me realize how important it is to understand and review the previous lessons before going on to the next lesson.

Then we read scriptures to learn about the Spirit world (our bodies are in the earth; our spirit lives with God). Each person in the class had a summary for a scripture, and after reading each scripture, I’d ask them who had that particular summary. (I think I need to give everyone all four summaries, though, because after their summary had been discovered, they’d not pay attention as we read.) I realized that all of these summaries were fairly new concepts to the nonmember. I ended up talking about a lot of background with the class.

The spirits of dead go to God. (Alma 40:11)

We talked about how everyone goes back to God. It’s not just the “good” people.

After death, the righteous are happy and the wicked are unhappy. (Alma 40:12-13)

We discussed how we are going to feel — what will our personalities be like after death? Here is where it makes a difference if we’ve been wicked. We’ll still be wicked, plus we’ll feel horrible about it!

Christ preached to the spirits in the spirit world. (1 Peter 3:18-20)

We talked about Noah, who is mentioned in verse 20, and what happened to those who died in the flood that didn’t have an understanding of the gospel. This was a good example of why there is a place to learn the gospel after this life. The nonmember in the class seemed to like the concept that there is a chance for those who have died without the gospel to learn the gospel.

Missionaries on earth also are missionaries after they die. (Doctrine and Covenants 138:57)

We discussed that our work, as believers and members of the gospel, continues after our time on earth. We’ll always bear our testimony to friends, just as one person in our class did by inviting her friend.

Because baptism is so essential to our progression, we must do baptisms by proxy for those who have died. The discussion seemed to follow naturally, and I felt the spirit as I bore my testimony to the class and to the nonmember.

Then we talked about how we will all be resurrected, judged, and assigned a kingdom of glory (body and spirit are reunited). We read 1 Corinthians 15:40-42, the JST version. (We talked about what the JST is by playing telephone and talking about why modern revelation is important). After reading those verses, I showed pictures of the sun, moon, and stars, and I bore testimony that Heavenly Father has glory for each of us. He wants us to return to Him, and He will help us. We didn’t have time to talk about the Celestial Kingdom of glory, why it is so important, and how to get there. That will be the subject for next week — and the rest of the year!

Even though the class was still chatting with each other and there was still a lot of distraction in the room, I was paying attention to the spirit I was feeling. I was trying to make sure that the nonmember understood what we were talking about. He was nodding through the lesson. The others in the class were getting it to, distracted as they were. And I realized that that is what matters. It’s not about getting through everything I want to talk about (we didn’t).

I realize that my class needs review and testimony throughout the class more. I need to worry less about keeping their every attention and more about each particular member of the class. For instance, did ____ feel the spirit today? That will be my goal as we begin the next lessons.

Lesson 7 and part of lesson 8 out of 45 (I’m still three lessons behind.)

Home Again

Lesson 1: A Loving Father, An Eternal Plan

2 Replies

The Plan of Salvation is summarized in a chart in my Sunday school lesson manual:

But in reviewing the Plan of Salvation chart and the scriptures on it, I began wondering “What is a basic definition of the plan of salvation? Does it really consist of circles and lines? That can’t be it. Is it really defined by Moses 1:39?”

I felt foolish asking that. I’ve been a member of this church my entire life. I’ve read the Book of Mormon a dozen times in my life. How can I not know what the plan of salvation is? Why can’t I simply state what it is?

My first thought was to consult the Gospel Principles manual. To my surprise, it had no chapter dedicated to the subject. Isn’t that something that is taught to new members? My next idea was to consult LDS.org in a basic search. “Plan of Salvation” led to more than 1,500 hits, and I hadn’t even included “plan of happiness” or any of the other names for it. Where do I begin?

I found that LDS.org has a gospel topic library that provided the best explanation for me:

The plan of salvation is the fulness of the gospel.

Well, that encompasses everything! That would explain why there isn’t a chapter dedicated to it in the Gospel Principles manual: the entire manual is the plan of salvation. That’s the whole point of the gospel and of course new members need to learn it. But it isn’t a one-week lesson.

My next question was this: Why does the manual focus on the chart in the first place, then?

The explanation continues:

As we come to understand the plan, we find answers to questions asked by so many: Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where do we go after this life?

I see now that the chart is simply a device to illustrate it. I understand now why this is only the first lesson of an entire year of Sunday school lessons. We get to discuss the answers to those three questions over the course of the year. We get to discuss our purpose over the course of the entire year.

Moses 1:39 is the focusing scripture in this lesson. I decided to put it in context. As I read the rest of Moses 1, I see other things that hint of the miraculous plan of our Father in Heaven.

From the beginning of the chapter, we learn that God has a body. Moses speaks to Him “face to face” (v2). We learn that Moses is the son of God (v4) and that God has a special plan for Moses (v6). I believe we can extend that to all of us — we all are children of God and God has a plan for each of us. I know that is true. God does have a plan for us, as we’ll see in verse 39.

Moses learns that “man is nothing” compared to the glory of God (v10). Because he has had this incredible vision of God’s power, when the adversary comes to tempt him, he recognizes the difference between the adversary and God. He notices that the adversary does not have the same glory that God had had: “Where is thy glory?” (v14). True, Moses is very scared during his encounter with the devil (v20), but ultimately, he knows to call upon God, and he receives strength to command the adversary to depart (v20-21).

Because he has demonstrated his faith in God during such a tremendously difficult encounter, he is filled with the Holy Ghost and again beholds the glory of God (v24-25). It is in this subsequent vision, again when he is “face to face,” that he learns so much more about the plan of salvation. It is in this context that God provides an explanation of his purpose:

For behold, this I my work and my glory: to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.

Immortality, of course, is the ability to live forever, to be resurrected. Everyone will enjoy that blessing. Eternal life is living with Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father again. Achieving eternal life is up to us. Our decisions in this life determine whether or not we will live with God again. It is through the atonement of Christ that we are able to be clean in order to return to God again. This is why an understanding of the plan is so important. If we know what we have to do to gain eternal life, it will be easier to do it.

Moses was the chosen one to write of the plan of the Father at that time. I believe that would be the biblical record we have. But the Father promises that when the “children of men shall esteem my words as naught” and take the truths out of Moses writings, then He would send another. That promise was fulfilled in our dispensation with the Book of Mormon and with modern prophets. In the Book of Mormon, then, we can find the fullness of the plan of salvation, the plan of happiness. We can find answers to the burning questions we have in our life: Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going?

I think that knowledge of the plan does make the difference. Just as recognizing the difference between the power of God and the non-power of adversary made a difference for Moses when he was confronted, knowing the purpose of God in our lives can help us when we are confronted by the adversary.

This is lesson 1 of 45 in how we can prepare for exaltation. I have a feeling that even after 45 lessons there will be so much more to learn!

A Child of God

Church History Tour

1 Reply

To celebrate our anniversary, we went on a road trip to church history sites.

We started in Winter Quarters in Florence, Nebraska (outside of Omaha). I have never been there before. Because it was the first stop and we hadn’t yet talked to dozens of missionaries, I enjoyed it the most, I think. I was very impressed with the sacrifices the early Saints made AFTER all the struggle in Missouri and then leaving Nauvoo. They were driven out of their homes time and again. Now they were so grateful to have a roof over their heads. 10-15 people spent a year in a tiny cabin smaller than my storage unit. They had gone through so much. And then they would have the ordeal of crossing the plains. So many people died, and yet they were grateful to the Lord for the gospel in their lives.

And should we die before our journey’s through,
Happy day! All is well!
We then are free from toil and sorrow, too;
With the just we shall dwell!
But if our lives are spared again
To see the Saints their rest obtain,
Oh, how we’ll make this chorus swell–
All is well! All is well!

My husband and I attended a session in the Winter Quarters temple. It was a special experience. I felt close to the early pioneers who gave so much. I wondered what Heavenly Father will ask me to sacrifice. Has he already asked me? Have I willingly given of my time and talents? Will I be ready and willing to do what is asked of me in the future? I don’t yet know what “plains” I’ll have to cross.

We then drove to Missouri. We visited the Independence Vistors Center, Liberty Jail, Adam-ondi-Ahman, Far West, and a few other locations where various sections of the Doctrine and Covenants were received.
Then we headed to Nauvoo. We’ve both been there a number of times. By this time, we’d be driving a lot over the past few days. So we were pretty tired. We went on a tour of the Joseph Smith Mansion House and Red Brick Store, and we enjoyed walking the streets of old Nauvoo. Tuesday morning we enjoyed the sunrise over the Mississippi River (though we were a little too late for good pictures) and we went to a session in the Nauvoo temple. Another good experience.

After a stop for Nauvoo fudge, we headed on home.

When (if) we have time again, we’ll have to go to Kirtland and Palmyra. For now, I sincerely hope our next trip will be to Australia!

Rebecca's Webpage

Thoughts on womanhood and motherhood