This weekend I celebrated my birthday with my family, and since tomorrow is Memorial Day, I will be going up to Logan and Hyrum, UT to be with my extended family, so I spent Sunday at my parents' ward.
My little brother got to give his first talk in Sacrament meeting, and he asked me to help him write it. His topic was on Temple Worship. It was a wonderful experience to write a talk without the stress of having to give it. :) I don't hate giving talks, but it's not my favorite. I really like preparing them though. For his talk we answered the four main questions, what is temple worship, how do we do it, when do we worship, and why do we worship in the temple?
I don't have my notes from the meeting with me right now, but it was a great meeting. However, I'd forgotten how noisy family wards were compared to my silent student ward. The Spirit was still there though, and that was all that was needed.
There are two main lessons I learned today: 1. Hope--don't give it up, and let it help you love others 2. Pride--I need to remember to be humble, and not be too proud to listen, even if it isn't new doctrine or creative presentation. The most important thing is to remember. It was then that I could actually learn from the Spirit.
I need to keep hope in my heart, here is an excerpt from something I wrote to myself the other day, when I was feeling firm in the faith--See, I've noticed I tend to go in cycles of faith and fear/doubt/despair so I write down how I feel with the Spirit so in the down times, I can remember. It was inspired and I am glad I listened:
If God is who I know Him to be, even if what I feel is prompting, actually is not, I would not feel confusion or doubt, I would still feel strength as I move forward, but the message of peace and strength would be different....The messages reinforce the voices of the two messengers, Satan and the Spirit. One is dark, the other is clear, light, full of truth. I am struggling to explain how I feel it. But, I know that I would feel differently, if the message was different, I would know.
See, for quite awhile, I have felt I have received a very special, specific, and is a sacred promise from God. Naturally, Satan has not allowed this to go unchallenged and it has been incredibly hard to know if this promise that I hope for with all my heart, is actually from God or if I created it myself. However, I feel that I can more easily identify the messengers and I can know of His truth.
The second point I wanted to remember today is to remember to be humble. I've been blessed in a ward of thinkers, we dive into concepts and the discussion is always just what I need to hear. In this family ward, it was still there, but not in the way I expected, and I was almost too proud to catch it. Thankfully, Heavenly Father has not left me alone, but has helped remind me to stay humble, to remember Him, and that it is more important that we remember, than that we are constantly learning new things each week. Alma taught the people to teach nothing but faith, repentance, and baptism. They had already done all those things, yet that is all they were taught, so I have to imagine there is always more to learn, but more importantly, we always need help remembering.
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