This video shares with us, regular folks that seeked Christ for help.
Readers, I apologize for the slowing down in posts! A whole week and only one post, what is going on? Well no excuses, but it was Pioneer Day this last weekend in the grand state of Utah. Fireworks, parades and all! I also was guest posting on some friends' blogs, and each request was very unique, and it was very fun to do. I chose this Mormon Messages video, because many times, even those of us who follow Christ, seem to forget Him. There are those that struggle to follow Him. Those who haven't lived the best lives. But there is always hope.Those who seek Him, will find Him. I know it.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
The Trial of Adversity
The video is about a paralyzed young woman, who is able to look past her disability and have several abilities!
How often do we feel as if we had the short end of the stick. Do we complain when we don't get the things we wanted. Do we whine when our needs are not being satisfied? Do we bring anger and frustration into the picture? What gets accomplished when these things happen?
I remember reading from President Hinckley's book, "Stand for Something" and he mentions, how often we go to the refrigerator and open it and stand there and say, "there is nothing to eat!" when the fridge is full of food. Or when we open a closet full of clothes and say "I have nothing to wear!" We all have done this before. And we feel as if we are ripped off.
How about the times where we feel picked on, or taken advantage of because of our shortcomings? Those times are not fun, and we tend to complain even more and ask why this is happening to us. It is at these times where we must change our attitudes and look to the Lord, and ask what I am learn from this?
How often do we feel as if we had the short end of the stick. Do we complain when we don't get the things we wanted. Do we whine when our needs are not being satisfied? Do we bring anger and frustration into the picture? What gets accomplished when these things happen?
I remember reading from President Hinckley's book, "Stand for Something" and he mentions, how often we go to the refrigerator and open it and stand there and say, "there is nothing to eat!" when the fridge is full of food. Or when we open a closet full of clothes and say "I have nothing to wear!" We all have done this before. And we feel as if we are ripped off.
How about the times where we feel picked on, or taken advantage of because of our shortcomings? Those times are not fun, and we tend to complain even more and ask why this is happening to us. It is at these times where we must change our attitudes and look to the Lord, and ask what I am learn from this?
Saturday, July 16, 2011
The Willingness to Learn from Pain
All of us have experienced pain in one way or another. That can be physical, emotional, spiritual, psychological, and the list goes on and on. We forget that pain cannot be experienced without joy and the same can be said about joy, that it cannot be experienced without pain. These go hand in hand. Sometimes we ourselves feel the pain others are going through, sometimes we try to understand. The pain I want to discuss today is for young single adults who seem to struggle with a certain emotional pain of being lonely. I am no stranger to this pain. I have dated several girls, have had my hopes risen, and lowered, been hurt, and rejected. One close friend of mine gave me a quote that has seriously helped me through all of this.
"Another kind of emotional pain to which we all seem subject arises from the risks we take in allowing ourselves to love others. There is no suffering quite like that which comes when love is shattered. After years of patient waiting for what seems like the right time, one may open up his or her heart to another, only to find that tender heart bruised or broken when the love is not returned. We therefore bear a grave responsibility for the purity of our motives when some trusting heart has offered us entrance. Anyone who stands on that threshold stands on holy ground, which must not be exploited or defiled. But should a relationship so develop that, even in spite of honesty, caution, and goodness of motive, a parting of the ways still must come, we must not let the pain of that moment make us so resentful or bitter that we become unwilling to risk opening our hearts again. That kind of risk is necessary, because loving simply has its risks. In a sense, there is no love without certain kinds of fear." Bruce C. Hafen, “A Willingness to Learn from Pain,” Ensign, Oct 1983, 63
I love this quote so much. So much truth is in it. I know that I cannot love with out taking risks, that fear only holds us back and hurts us.
"Another kind of emotional pain to which we all seem subject arises from the risks we take in allowing ourselves to love others. There is no suffering quite like that which comes when love is shattered. After years of patient waiting for what seems like the right time, one may open up his or her heart to another, only to find that tender heart bruised or broken when the love is not returned. We therefore bear a grave responsibility for the purity of our motives when some trusting heart has offered us entrance. Anyone who stands on that threshold stands on holy ground, which must not be exploited or defiled. But should a relationship so develop that, even in spite of honesty, caution, and goodness of motive, a parting of the ways still must come, we must not let the pain of that moment make us so resentful or bitter that we become unwilling to risk opening our hearts again. That kind of risk is necessary, because loving simply has its risks. In a sense, there is no love without certain kinds of fear." Bruce C. Hafen, “A Willingness to Learn from Pain,” Ensign, Oct 1983, 63
I love this quote so much. So much truth is in it. I know that I cannot love with out taking risks, that fear only holds us back and hurts us.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
The Importance of Remembering
Most of my thoughts on this blog have come from mormon messages on youtube, as well my missionary quote book. About 14 months into my mission I was in a town called Negombo located on the western coast of Sri Lanka. These people had never seen an oriental person in real life before, just on tv or in movies. So my nickname was Jackie Chan Vagay. Meaning like a Jackie Chan. The elderly women would come up and touch my hair and go on about how beautiful, straight and black it was versus their frizzled, lightened brown hair, but I loved these people so much. I went home one night and before I went to bed, I decided to write what I felt at tat very moment into my quote book. The title of it was "Why am I on a mission?" dated 26 August 2004
" The scriptures say that charity is the pure love of Christ, it is possible for us to have that much love? I don't know, but I am willing to try. My decision to serve did not come just in one time, but over periods of growth in the gospel in my life. Primary, Aaronic Prisethood, seminary, institute, Melchizedek Priesthood. Overall I believe the main factor besides growing up in a family with the gospel, is knowing for myself that the gospel is true, but I did not want to rely on others telling me, but wanted to do what was necessary to find out for myself. A primary song I always sang, finally woke me up one day in seminary, the year I was studying the Book of Mormon. I finally said to myself, "now is the time to 'search, ponder, and pray...'" I put myself to learning, studying, praying, it felt good. Then the invitation at the end of the Book of Mormon, Moroni chapter 10 verses 3 through 5. That "feeling" everyone talks about was somewhat familiar to me growing up, but this time, it was real to me, what I was taught, what I had learned, all those talks, scriptures, lessons, were confirmed to me that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true., and I could not deny it. Now that I know this, it also dawned on me what true happiness was really all about; bringing souls unto Christ. Why should I hold back? The next step you would think is mission, but it was preparing for the higher priesthood and the temple. You hear about the temple, but you cannot really say anything until you experience it. Now the mission call to Singapore. the hardest time is the time between your call and leaving for the MTC, then for the field, then leaving for home. In all my life I have never felt more joy, peace, sadness, I love these people whom I serve so much that I desire to stay with them all of my days if possible. I love this work, it is true."
Nearly 8 years have passed since I wrote this passage. Looking back on how much I have grown since then give me a great perspective of how much my mission has shaped and changed my life and continues to do so all the time. I encourage those of you readers who are return missionaries to "go back" not meaning physically, or just by remembering stories, but read your mission journals and letters to remember. I know we all move on, but it's great to remember good times as well.
" The scriptures say that charity is the pure love of Christ, it is possible for us to have that much love? I don't know, but I am willing to try. My decision to serve did not come just in one time, but over periods of growth in the gospel in my life. Primary, Aaronic Prisethood, seminary, institute, Melchizedek Priesthood. Overall I believe the main factor besides growing up in a family with the gospel, is knowing for myself that the gospel is true, but I did not want to rely on others telling me, but wanted to do what was necessary to find out for myself. A primary song I always sang, finally woke me up one day in seminary, the year I was studying the Book of Mormon. I finally said to myself, "now is the time to 'search, ponder, and pray...'" I put myself to learning, studying, praying, it felt good. Then the invitation at the end of the Book of Mormon, Moroni chapter 10 verses 3 through 5. That "feeling" everyone talks about was somewhat familiar to me growing up, but this time, it was real to me, what I was taught, what I had learned, all those talks, scriptures, lessons, were confirmed to me that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true., and I could not deny it. Now that I know this, it also dawned on me what true happiness was really all about; bringing souls unto Christ. Why should I hold back? The next step you would think is mission, but it was preparing for the higher priesthood and the temple. You hear about the temple, but you cannot really say anything until you experience it. Now the mission call to Singapore. the hardest time is the time between your call and leaving for the MTC, then for the field, then leaving for home. In all my life I have never felt more joy, peace, sadness, I love these people whom I serve so much that I desire to stay with them all of my days if possible. I love this work, it is true."
Nearly 8 years have passed since I wrote this passage. Looking back on how much I have grown since then give me a great perspective of how much my mission has shaped and changed my life and continues to do so all the time. I encourage those of you readers who are return missionaries to "go back" not meaning physically, or just by remembering stories, but read your mission journals and letters to remember. I know we all move on, but it's great to remember good times as well.
Monday, July 11, 2011
The Power of Forgiveness
A few weeks ago I wrote a post about the power in the words, I'm sorry and I forgive you. This past weekend I was just going through my favorites list on youtube, and this video just screamed watch me. This is one of the most moving, and inspirational stories I have ever heard, read, and seen about.President Faust's talk about this is here http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?locale=0&nav=0&sourceId=d229414ef1032110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=f318118dd536c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD Please watch.
Here is a man that has every right to be angry and bitter towards God, towards man, towards everything. His attitude, was one of love. When Christ was on the cross, he said "forgive them, for they know not what they do." This was purely out of love as well. There are things in this life that will take time to heal, time to forgive, it is not an easy thing. I believe we can agree that this man, Chris Williams, had a modern day Job experience, that if we were to experience the same thing, we would be filled with anguish and sorrow. We would seek justice to be done, we would be filled with anger, well I know I would be.The key thing was that Chris directed his loneliness towards the Savior, not the young man. This takes a lot of strength. Chris says near the the end of the video a powerful message to everyone. " I am grateful that God allows tragedies and trials to occur in our lives, not because they are easy or because they are desired, but because they help us love..."
Here is a man that has every right to be angry and bitter towards God, towards man, towards everything. His attitude, was one of love. When Christ was on the cross, he said "forgive them, for they know not what they do." This was purely out of love as well. There are things in this life that will take time to heal, time to forgive, it is not an easy thing. I believe we can agree that this man, Chris Williams, had a modern day Job experience, that if we were to experience the same thing, we would be filled with anguish and sorrow. We would seek justice to be done, we would be filled with anger, well I know I would be.The key thing was that Chris directed his loneliness towards the Savior, not the young man. This takes a lot of strength. Chris says near the the end of the video a powerful message to everyone. " I am grateful that God allows tragedies and trials to occur in our lives, not because they are easy or because they are desired, but because they help us love..."
Saturday, July 9, 2011
The Importance Of Having Patience
This video is from President Uchtdorf's April 2010 Conference talk entitled Continue in Patience
One of my biggest pet peeves are bad drivers. If you live in Salt Lake, and you drive, and a day goes by where you do not see any construction, the millennium is probably happening. Being from Utah, I am not exempt from being a bad driver myself. So this leads to a lot of road rage. The other day I was behind a guy and he decided to take a left in a no left turn lane, so he holds up traffic, as I pass him I see his window is down, and I yell, "you can't turn here, you moron!" And maybe gave him a hand gesture or two. Out of all the things that "drive" me crazy, it is traffic. Once someone riding with me asked, "what would Jesus do?" And my reply was, "ummm He wouldn't drive." When I know that He would be patient, and be that person that we all love that let's everyone cut in.
I learned that the average human being tries to get things done faster and squeeze more time into their day. For example when we wait for an elevator and we try to "speed it up" we push the button faster. The same thing for crossing side walks, we push the button faster. My favorite impatient thing that I learned we do are the handles to cars, we have all done it at least once, try to open the car door at the same time the person pushes the unlock button, or get up to the car and test the handle hoping the car was already unlocked. Obviously there are some things we can't control. for the things we can control, we seem to want to will it do get done faster, when we should be taking a step back, analyzing the problem, and solve it with time. What causes us to be so impatient? I believe it is largely in part to our need to find time to sit and relax, or "make" time to have more entertainment in our lives. Why is it that when we are doing something fun and entertaining that time "flies" by? Why is church, work, and school so long? It is at these times where we learn patience the most.
We need to separate our wants and desires to have fun, from the things that are more importantly needed, or we can align them to be both beneficial and what the Lord wants and desires for us. In writing this, do I think I will have more patience when I drive? I know that my temper and attitude is entirely up to me, but that bad drivers myself included, are going to happen. Then I begin to realize how patient the Lord has been with me, and that allows me to stop and ponder, and try to be patient with others. When we are patient, we begin to see a bigger and brighter picture, we appreciate things more, we value our time better.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
The key to finding happiness
This last weekend I celebrated Independence Day with some of my best friends. I would have spent it with some other friends if they weren't in Disneyland, but oh well ;) Freedom to enjoy a day off to celebrate America's freedom was just what I needed this last weekend. I had the awesome opportunity to witness and film my best friend's proposal to an amazing girl. The link to watch it is right here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYqOeQfy2Dc Congrats to Spencer and Jenn! Love you both! So it was a nice, happy weekend.
Often times we seek for happiness in the wrong places, only giving us temporary joy, and making us feel bad about it later. The key to finding happiness is in the serving of others. Heavenly Father's intent is for us to be happy and successful. Even when the whole world is coming down on us. I believe that we dictate our happiness, we can choose to be happy. Not that it is wrong to be sad, angry and frustrated sometimes. But these can be overcome with the right attitude to change and be happy. I know it is much easier said than done. That is why we have help. Our Savior has experienced every pain and suffering that we have and will have. His Atonement allows us to be happy, even when we are feeling alone, beaten, and discouraged. His Atonement allows us to be healed, and to have our burdens lightened and even removed. He asks us to have faith in Him, to follow Him, and trust in Him, and in doing so we will truly be happy.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
The importance of having a humor
We have all met that person that we think doesn't have a single funny bone in their body. As if they don't know how to laugh, or have any humor at all. Then there are those that we meet that we don't believe have ever seen a bad day in their life. Then there are those that just make our lives not as happy. The most important thing I have learned in all of my 27 years of life, is that happiness is essential to living. That joy comes from experiencing pain, but that we can choose to be happy more oft times than not. Smiling makes a difference not just in our lives, but definitely in others. There are also other forces, and experiences that happen that allow us not to be so happy. Some may find happiness at the expense of others, and joke, and be crude. So where do we find a proper balance of being happy and serious? President Gordon B. Hinckley I believe answered this question best, he said, "we need to have a little humor in our lives.We better take seriously that which should be taken seriously, but at the same time we can bring in a touch of humor now again. If the time ever comes when we can't smile at ourselves, it will be a sad time."
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