I have been working on blog that I was going to post; then I realized that I would only have a little time before Christmas would be here and gone! Before this season is over I wanted to share this touching video that I found, it is very simple but it brings a very good Christmas spirit. Here it is!!
Alma1:30 And thus, in their prosperous circumstances, they did not send away any who were naked, or that were hungry, or that were athirst, or that were sick, or that had not been nourished; and they did not set their hearts upon riches; therefore they were liberal to all, both old and young, both bond and free, both male and female, whether out of the church or in the church, having no respect to persons as to those who stood in need.
Just a quick reminder from Elder Hokanson, remember not to get your hearts set upon riches, or presents, or anything like unto to that! Just remember to be Christ-like during this Christmas season. Look for those in need and don’t be afraid to help them.
The other day I got a letter from my brother; it was nice. I love getting letters from my family! In the letter there was a poem that he had written for the youth in my branch, and I just loved it so much I thought I should post it on my blog. I never knew that my brother was a poet! Here it is:
The power of today in becoming one
When the morning light shines so bright and true we must
Get up and decide what to do.
As the sky turns blue what happens to day is up to you.
Never before have you had such power because just
Yesterday you used each hour to accomplish the things
That means most to you.
Yesterday is now gone and you have only today to make
Your life great, do not delay.
Get down on your knees and start to pray and thank god
For today.
Now is the time to get up and work, take time to relax but
Don’t ever shirk the things you must do to discover the
Power you have today, to change you world in a very
Special way.
Never forget the power of one, one hour, one day, one year,
But most important one person.
It is never too late to strive to be great.
God loves you now as much as ever, and yet he wants to
Be with you forever.
So don’t you quit, but do today that what must And you will soon discover that you have become
One with the father and the son.
Is that great, or what? It makes me want to become a better person! In the last little part it talks about the importance of one person. there is so much importance in just one person -- you! Me! All of us have a part in God's plan.
This reminds me of a verse in D&C 18:10: "Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God!"
If you have worth in the sight of God then you surely have oodles of worth. Never get down; always remember that God knows how much you are worth, and remember that He wants you to become something more than you ever thought you could or would become!
When we feel all alone, like there is no one out there for us, always remember our savior is there to love and comfort us at all times, in all things, in all places. I love knowing this because it helps me remember that I am never by myself. I can always turn to my savior in prayer and he will be there to carry me through the hard times!
One Night a man had a dream. He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the Lord. Across the sky flashed scenes from his life. For each scene, he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand; one belonged to him and the other to the Lord.
When the last scene of his life flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed that many times along the path of his life there was only one set of footprints. He also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times in his life.
This really bothered him and he questioned the Lord about it. "Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you you'd walk with me all the way, but I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life, there is only one set of footprints. I don't understand why when I needed you most you would leave me." The Lord replied, "My precious, precious child, I love you and would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you."
Is that wonderful, or what? We know that Christ is there for us at all times, in all things, and in all places. He is willing to take our burdens if we just let him. One of my favorite scriptures is Luke 1:37. "For with God nothing shall be impossible." How true is that! Our lord will lift us through our trials if we just let him. Nothing will be impossible if we just remember to put our trust in God.
Ok, lots of people think that home schooled kids are very strange. Well we are just a little bit weird, but not really that much different than any other person out there. We do school work just like everyone else: Biology, Chemistry, Drama, English, Geography, Health, Keyboarding, Math, Music, Science, and all that other good stuff.
A lot of people think, "Oh well, those home schooled kids, they just get to sit at home all day and do nothing! They are so lucky doing nothing all day long!"
Well, let me tell you a little about home schooling. It is no joke; we could choose to do nothing all day but then we are choosing to get bad grades, just like anyone else who chooses to get bad grades, and, who wants to get bad grades? Just the people that don’t really have any goal for their lives, that don’t end up amounting to much. We have that choice just like anyone else in this world: to make bad or good decisions! I personally wanted to make something of myself. I did not want to waste my life away doing nothing.
The advantage of being home schooled is that we don’t have someone shoving things down our throats, things that we don’t want to learn. We can go in any direction that we want; for instance, I wanted to study the scriptures for an hour a day so that I could become closer to Christ, so guess what I did? I studied my scriptures for an hour a day! How cool is that!
We can also go at the pace that we want or need to. We don’t need to worry about getting left behind when we don’t understand something, we just work on it until we do understand the concept, then we can move on. That aspect of home schooling I love so much!
Don’t get me wrong, there are some down falls of home schooling, just as there are in being publicly educated. I did not have the chance to play all the sports that I wanted to, and I love sports. I wanted to play football so bad in high school but I could not because the schools said that you had to be enrolled in school to do that.
Also, when you obtain a level of knowledge that exceeds your teacher, you can't get much help because she only has so much knowledge in different subjects. As a result you have to find different sources of knowledge somewhere other than your teacher, which can be very hard sometimes.
Just as in home schooling, Mormons are thought to be a little bit weird. Guess what? We really are just normal people! We believe in Jesus Christ and His sacrifice for all mankind so that we might be saved and, in doing good to all men. We believe that God is all powerful, we believe that baptism is an important ordinance and essential to be saved in the kingdom of God. We believe that we need to have the pure love of Christ.
Christ gave us a commandment that "we need to love the lord thy God with all thy heart"...and he told us "to love thy neighbor as thyself"... (Matt.22:37-40). All of these things we have in common with other Christians. So really, we are not that weird after all.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Ok, so this blog is going to be a little about my past. I have been thinking about what I am going to say in this post for a long time now, and I just decided to share one of the most touching and testimony building experiences of my life!
About 3 years ago I had the chance to go to a youth conference for my church in Wyoming; this youth conference was rather special for all of us kids that had the chance to go because we would be doing a pioneer trek through Martin's Cove, a place where many LDS pioneers died because they started their journey late in the year and suffered innumerable mishaps along the way. The handcart companies were caught in early snows. It was one of the greatest tragedies in pioneer history. Hundreds died of exposure and starvation.
Knowing that many had lost their lives for their belief in our Savior, Jesus Christ, meant so much to me, and so, in some way, I wanted to show respect to these great people; then, it came to me how I could do that! I decided that I would go those 25 miles with out shoes and while I was there, at Martin's Cove, I would not put on any shoes. At first there were many that thought I was crazy, and some of the adults were not very happy that I had chosen this path. However, I knew that in my heart this would change the whole way I looked upon the pioneers that went to Utah, and boy was I right!
After the first mile there were kids joining me in my barefoot trek. They wanted the same experience that I wanted. Before the end of the trek we had about 10 people that were bare foot. Each of us had sore feet at the end, but we knew that no one would ever do that in the winter unless they knew that there was a prophet again on the earth, and that they needed to do what the lord wanted them to do. My testimony grew every time i stepped on a sharp rock or got a little sliver in my foot. They knew that the gospel had once again been restored on the earth, and I now knew it too.
Each one of us kids came out of that youth conference with a stronger testimony and a stronger relationship with one another. One of the other kids that walked barefoot even became my brother-in-law. The others have become my best friends for life because, together, we discovered something amazing that week, something we will never forget.
I have the chance to go out and spread the gospel every day for the next 2 years, what a wondrous job that I have to go and share the gospel with people. Some may ask why is it wondrous? Well let me tell you, it is wondrous because it is the good news. Good news is that Jesus is our Savior and, redeemer, that he died to make men free, so that we can have eternal bodies and so that we can live with him again some day. How wonderful is it to know that we can have bodies that are perfect, that we will have no pain and, will be able to run for hours I just cant wait till' that time. To think that I will be able to be with some one that loves me more then I have ever been loved before that is just amazing, just think of the person that you love the most then increase that by a gazillion thats how much our Heavenly Father loves us. Man that just gives me the chills to imagine some one loving me that much. Wouldn't you say that is pretty good news? I think it is, I think it is such good news that I am going to put my normal life away for 2 years and, I am going to go where ever the Lord wants me to go so that I can spread the good news. It is crazy there are 54,000 other normal boys my age who want people to know this good news. They put their lives on hold so they can share this brilliant message with all they come in contact with through out the entire world. I dont know about you but I think that is pretty darn cool.
I think of this quote a lot because in life there are some times that we just don’t want to give things up. I mean just think about it, there are so many hard things to give up! I know for me, I have a really hard time giving up my sleep time, whole milk, sugar, my lazy time, soda pop, chocolate, having seconds at the dinner table, and many many other things. As hard as it might be to give up a little bit of sleep so I can get up and go running to have a good start of the day for me, it is so hard to get started.. After I get going I have so much fun and my day just goes by so much smoother and I feell healthy. I always ask myself, " why it was so hard to get up when I know that it is going to make me feel better?" or "why don’t I give up those fattening foods so that I can have those amazing six-pack abs?"
There are so many things in life that give us temporary happiness that if we would just learn to give them up then we could have more lasting and satisfying happiness. I guess that we just need to ask ourselves, “to be or not to be?” Do I want to be something? Am I willing to give up some little things so that I can become something a lot better?" My companion always tells me that, “you can’t do the same thing and expect different results.” That is so true! I am never going to achieve the things in my life that I want to if I don’t put more effort into it, and if I don’t give some of those things up that really don’t mean that much to me.
Well the best thing that I can come up with is to set goals! An apostle of the lord once said this,
“I am so thoroughly convinced that if we don’t set goals in our life and learn how to master the techniques of living to reach our goals, we can reach a ripe old age and look back on our life only to see that we reached but a small part of our full potential. When one learns to master the principles of setting a goal, he will then be able to make a great difference in the results he attains in this life.”
– ELDER M. RUSSELL BALLARD
I know that this is something that I can work on and if yall feell like maybe you should give something up for something better, go for it! Set some goals and let's all go out there and be something and not just talk about being. I know we can all do it if we just put our trust in God! The apostle Luke said, "For with God nothing shall be impossible." Now let us all go out and be!!
