Strengthening A Testimony

I haven't written anything on here for so long. I read my last post and realized how horribly written it was so I changed it a little. It is at the end of another Sunday. I wish I could say that Sundays were my favorite day of the week but I can't. In fact they are probably the hardest days to get through. Maybe it's because I never go to bed early on Saturday nights and I wake up tired and have to rush to get to church. Maybe it's because I have to wrestle with 3 children during Sacrament meeting and I never get a thing out of any of the talks.  I do have to say that Sunday evening walks are my favorite. It is the best time of the day when the sun is going down and the weather is cooling. I hate being inside during that time, unless the weather is horrible. We talk about anything and I always end up holding flowers that all kids have picked for me. The kids get the last of their energy out and then it's bed time! It is amazing how children can be so incredibly

I thought I'd write down some of my thoughts from last night. I was really lucky to go and see Elder Bednar speak. He didn't prepare a talk, he just opened it up for questions. One of the questions was something like, "How can we apply the atonement more fully in our lives?" I was excited to hear his response when he mentioned my favorite scripture, Mosiah 3:19. He said that the natural man is selfish and wants whatever he desires right then and no later. It is hard to overcome the natural man. In fact we cannot do it on our own. We need the Saviors help to "become a saint" by applying the atonement to our lives. The atonement doesn't only deal with forgiveness for our sins. It gives strengthening power. Elder Bednar also went to Mosiah 24: 13-15. In verse 13 it mentions the covenants we make and the covenants that the Lord makes. The promises Heavenly Father has made to us when we do our part are so wonderful. I'm sure if I could remember those pr

I have been looking at war in a different way lately. This quote from Spencer W. Kimball struck me when I heard it today and I wanted to share it here ( June 1976 First Presidency Message ): "In spite of our delight in defining ourselves as modern, and our tendency to think we possess a sophistication that no people in the past ever had—in spite of these things, we are, on the whole, an idolatrous people—a condition most repugnant to the Lord. "We are a warlike people, easily distracted from our assignment of preparing for the coming of the Lord. When enemies rise up, we commit vast resources to the fabrication of gods of stone and steel—ships, planes, missiles, fortifications—and depend on them for protection and deliverance. When threatened, we become antienemy instead of pro-kingdom of God; we train a man in the art of war and call him a patriot, thus, in the manner of Satan’s counterfeit of true patriotism, perverting the Savior’s teaching: "'Lov

"I am a child of God with a spirit lineage to heavenly parents. That parentage defines our eternal potential" (Elder Dallin H. Oaks). It is our faith that as sons and daughters of God, we have the potential to become like him. Satan likes it when we doubt this. He doesn't want us to believe we have potential to become better than we are. He wants us to fall. My question is whether it is my own mind that makes me doubt or if it is Satan. Maybe it's both. I do have the tendency to doubt that I could have so much potential.  I am always getting those voices in my head that give me doubt. I get an idea to do something and if I don't hurry and do it, I doubt myself, then I talk myself out of it. Why is it so easy to put ourselves down? Is that Satan or is it ourselves? I have so many ideas of things that I want to accomplish but I don't get them done because I can't keep that motivation. It's frustrating. I build my motivation again and then I lose it. It

That question came up a couple weeks ago in Sunday school and so I started thinking about it. Why is it so important? The creation of the Earth was not the beginning. We were Spirits living with Heavenly Father before the Earth was created. The creation of the Earth was the beginning of how Heavenly Father's plan started. He gave us a beautiful world so we could come and gain bodies and live a life. It is very important for us to know where we came from and how we got here. Everyone questions that sometime in his or her life. So Heavenly Father has given us the knowledge of where we came from and how we got here and it all started with Adam and Eve.