you're invited...

to learn more about my mission! haha :) 

like any good first-grade journalist... i've decided to write out the "5 W's + H" of my mission {please tell me i'm not the only one who learned those in elementary school haha}

WHO 

Jesus :)

missionary me :)

Here's the thing... it's really not about me. It's mostly about Jesus, and it's mostly about other people. :)

WHAT

A mission is a voluntary act of service to God & humankind. We serve with the sole hope of making life better for other people. :)  My purpose will be to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. I'll be waking up early, studying my scriptures, meeting new people, sharing my testimony of Jesus Christ, teaching the gospel, and inviting people to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior and follow His example :)
I'm dedicating this part of my life to Him as completely as possible, so I'll be very selective about the music I listen to, I won't be on facebook or twitter or anything, I won't be using my phone, and I'll just be emailing my family once a week. Every one can please write me letters though! :) :)

WHEN & WHERE

I report to the Missionary Training Center on November 14th. I'll be there for a couple weeks, and then I'm headed to the Wisconsin Milwaukee mission for 18 months! :) 

HOW

I'd like to quote a Book of Mormon prophet here:

"Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in His strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever." Alma 26:12

He is how. :) 

WHY

I first considered serving a full-time mission when I was like... seven. But mostly just because my aunt was the age to go and she was thinking about it. She didn't end up serving, but the idea stuck and it felt good :) So I've sort of always planned on it, and experiences during high school and college have only strengthened that desire. 

Then, while I was working at efy, it became less an option and more a necessity haha. I felt and still feel very strongly that a mission is where I need to be as soon as possible. The gospel of Jesus Christ is something I love more than anything, and I can't think of anything more important that I could be talking about or more beautiful that I could be doing.
 I know that God lives, and I know that He loves & is aware of us. Some people don't know that. How can I not at least try to share my happiness with them? Jesus Christ atoned for the sins of the world. Because of Him, we all can have hope. How can I not share this hope with people? God has a plan for our happiness. We can be with our families forever. There is life after death. There is a purpose to our life here on earth. Somethings are too important to keep to myself.

While I was at efy, my angel Amanda shared with a group of us a verse that hit me as very few verses have before or since. I knew I wanted to serve a mission, and my application was already in the works, but I was struggling with how much I'm going to miss the things I love... my friends, my home, my family... even stupid stuff like my music and my clothes haha. The Savior's question to Peter - Lovest thou me more than these? - hit me SO HARD, and I knew my answer. I knew that this is why I'm leaving everything else I love behind. I love home. I love my friends. I love my family. But I love Jesus more. And He has asked me to feed His lambs. So I'm going.

"Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of Him to declare His word among his people, that they might have everlasting life." 3 Ne. 5:13

From my call letter:

"The Lord will reward you for the goodness of your life. Greater blessings and more happiness than you have yet experienced await you as you humbly and prayerfully serve the Lord in this labor of love among His children. We place our confidence in you and pray that the Lord will help you become an effective missionary."

aaaaaaaamen! WISCONSIN HERE I COME. :) :)

mission decision

Tomorrow, I'll turn twenty-one. 

For me this age has always meant -- not drinking -- but serving a full-time mission for the church of Jesus Christ.

And as of two days ago, the age requirement for young women wishing to serve a mission has been lowered to 19.

& I'm so grateful.

I'm grateful to be here, now, preparing to serve a mission, and not earlier. When I look back at my 19- and 20-year old self (okay, I'm still technically twenty), I see a lot of naivete... which isn't to say that I'm completely grown up now, but the past two years have been years of immeasurable growth for me, and for that I'm so grateful.

I'm grateful to be going now and not then.

I'm grateful for the lessons I've learned about living on my own

& feeling alone

& finding joy

& coming closer to God

& forgiveness

& loving others

& I know that I still have many more lessons to learn, and that my mission will be a time of incredible growth for me. 

But I'm just so grateful for the time that God has given me to grow up unto Him

I'm grateful that I got to attend BYU for two years - what a growing experience that was! 

I'm grateful for the opportunities I've already had to share the gospel with people I love, & for the opportunity I had to work at efy

And I'm so eternally grateful for the people He has put in my life, who have taught me to love & trust & forgive & be happy.

I feel very confident that this is the time for me to be serving. not earlier, and not any later. 

That being said, I'm absolutely ecstatic for all of the 19- and 20- year-old girls who will now have the opportunity to serve that much sooner, who might not otherwise have had the chance to serve at all. God works through our weakness, and he'll work with these teenage boys & girls just as He will work with me. God is a God of miracles :) 

As a woman, I have never felt less than absolutely loved & respected in my church & in my faith. Full-time missionary service is a priesthood responsibility, and something that I've always felt passionate about and known I wanted to do. I'm glad I get to serve now, and I'm excited for the teenagers & young adults I will be privileged to work with in bringing about God's purposes :) 

I believe that God still speaks through prophets & apostles today.

I believe that this decision was reached by men who speak with God.

& I'm so excited to watch His purposes unfold :)

--

~ from the press conference {which i highly recommend watching if you're interested} ~

"God is hastening his work, and he needs more and more willing and worthy missionaries to spread the light, and the truth, and the hope, and the salvation of the gospel of Jesus Christ to an often dark and fearful world... This announcement... is not about you [young people]. It's about the sweet & pure message you are being asked to bear and the ever greater numbers God needs to bear it. ” –Jeffrey R. Holland

:)

10/13/12 EDIT: my friend Joyce Tran wrote this post about the same thing and it describes me perfectly so go read it, amen. :)

motivation

First of all, a story. 

There was once a man who had a dream. And in that dream, he "beheld a tree, whose fruit was desirable to make one happy." He also "beheld a rod of iron, and it led to the tree by which I stood." He observes two different groups of people moving forward along that rod of iron, towards that tree and its fruit. The first is described thus:

"I beheld others pressing forward, and they came forth and caught hold of the end of the rod of iron; and they did press forward through the mist of darkness, clinging to the rod of iron, even until they did come forth and partake of the fruit of the tree. And after they had partaken of the fruit of the tree they did cast their eyes about as if they were ashamed. And after they had tasted of the fruit they were ashamed, because of those that were scoffing at them; and they fell away into forbidden paths and were lost."

He then saw a second group, described as, "other multitudes pressing forward; and they came and caught hold of the end of the rod of iron; and they did press their way forward, continually holding fast to the rod of iron, until they came forth and fell down and partook of the fruit of the tree."

What makes the difference between the first group, who were afterwards ashamed, and the second who were not? The answer, I think, is found in the difference between "clinging" and "continually holding fast." Clearly in this context the word clinging has a negative meaning. The word "cling" can denote fear, and I think in this case it certainly does. By contrast, "continually holding fast" denotes the same amount of dedication to this rod of iron, but with a significantly different motivation.

Interestingly, the first group - the clingers - mentions a "mist of darkness," (certainly frightening) while those who continually hold fast do not. Did they just grab onto the rod of iron to help them escape the darkness, and not necessarily to get to the fruit?

So let's break the metaphor apart. Let's say that the tree is Jesus Christ, and the fruit is His love. Let's also say that the rod of iron is Christ, because He can do that - be both the Way, the Reason, and the Result. :)

What we have are two reasons for following Christ ~ fear, and the opposite of fear - love. Our first group, motivated by fear, eventually becomes ashamed and falls away from the Savior. The second group, motivated by love, does not.

I think this has an important message for us about why we should do the things we do and how we should motivate others. Do we follow Christ because we're afraid that if we don't we'll be somehow unbearably punished? Because we're afraid of what others might think of us? If so, that will eventually fall away, and we'll be left with nothing to stand on - no reason to stay.
Fear is infinitely weaker than love.

By great contrast, Dieter F. Uchtdorf taught that,
"His pure love directs and encourages us to become more pure and holy. It inspires us to walk in righteousness—not out of fear or obligation but out of an earnest desire to become even more like Him because we love Him.
 Divine love is the factor that transforms reluctant compliance with God’s commandments into blessed dedication and consecration. Love is the guiding light that illuminates the disciple’s path and fills our daily walk with life, meaning, and wonder. Love is the measure of our faith, the inspiration for our obedience, and the true altitude of our discipleship. Love is the way of the disciple." {emphasis added}


As a second witness of this truth, Henry B. Eyring testifies that,

"Love is the motivating principle by which the Lord leads us along the way towards becoming like Him, our perfect example. Our way of life, hour by hour, must be filled with the love of God and love for others... It is love of God that will lead us to keep His commandments. And love of others is at the heart of our capacity to obey Him."

May we be ever more motivated by love for our Savior, and not keep His commandments motivated by fear or obligation. As we come to know Him more and feel more strongly of His infinite and abiding love for us, we will be inspired by this love and be able to continually hold fast to Him and eventually taste of His Love and never be ashamed :)  

Julie B. Beck

Sister Julie B. Beck, General Relief Society President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, came and spoke to just our stake relief society today... it was awesome. She took questions and didn't answer them directly per se, just opened the scriptures and spoke by the spirit and covered everything that way. It was so good. It was just awesome to have someone speak who was so in tune with the Spirit and so knowledgeable.

Here are some of my notes:

decide what to be, and go be it.

I've had the most beautiful sunday.

Last night as I went to bed I was thinking of one of my favourite songs, and I decided my life motto for right now is
"decide what to be, and go be it."

The full line is, "If you're loved by Someone, you're never rejected; decide what to be, and go be it." I like to captalize Someone and make it about God, because His love is eternal and never ending and infinite and passionate and pursuing and everything great, and I'm never rejected; therefore, I decide what to be, and go be it. :)

Then, as if God was reconfirming that this is what He wants for me right now, my whole church experience went right in line with that. During testimony meeting I had my testimony of the power of the Book of Mormon to change lives and of the changing, enabling power of the Atonement reaffirmed. I know that the Book of Mormon testifies of Christ, and that "there is a power in the book which will begin to flow into your lives the moment you begin a serious study of the book." (ezra taft benson) And I know that the miracle of the Atonement is not just that we can be cleansed and consoled but that we can be transformed. Brad Wilcox taught that,

“Latter-day Saints know not only what Jesus has saved us from but also what He has saved us for... As my friend Omar Canals puts it, “While many Christians view Christ’s suffering as only a huge favor He did for us, Latter-day Saints also recognize it as a huge investment He made in us... When we understand grace, we understand that God is long-suffering, that change is a process, and that repentance is a pattern in our lives. When we understand grace, we understand that the blessings of Christ’s Atonement are continuous and His strength is perfect in our weakness. When we understand grace, we can... continue in patience until we are perfected... Grace is not a booster engine that kicks in once our fuel supply is exhausted. Rather, it is our constant energy source.” (emphasis added)

C.S. Lewis also has some awesome words about becoming perfected that I love, including:

You must realise from the outset that the goal towards which He is beginning to guide you is absolute perfection; and no power in the whole universe, except you yourself, can prevent Him from taking you to that goal.

My friend John also bore an awesome testimony about how God can find you anywhere, which was inspiring.

Then, in Sunday School, the lesson was on agency and God taught me about my power to choose.

I found 2 Nephi 2:27 to be an interesting verse... it's organized with some neat parallels and I like what it doesn't say as much as what it does. If I break it down graphically, it goes like this:

It goes choice/consequence, whose power it's by, and what they want it for us. I like how it's inferred that Jesus seeks that all men might be filled with joy, even as He is. :) Way to go, Book of Mormon!

So I learned from Sunday School that I have been given the power to choose how I want my life to go. Added to what I learned in testimony meeting, God is telling me to use the agency He has given make the right choice, and He will help me carry it out.

And then, because God loves to teach me line upon line, our Relief Society lesson was on dilligence and God taught me that it's the daily "small things" that count and that I shouldn't give up just because I'm not seeing immediate results. Specifically we talked about prayer and scripture study, and prayer especially is something that I've struggled with... feeling like they're effective, like I'm really talking to God and not just thinking thoughts in my head and kinda "aiming them towards heaven." I was taught that I need to be dilligent, and persistent, and that I shouldn't give up. I thought about how I treat phone calls with my Mom and how much I love and treasure and delight in those and how they're my connection to home, and then I thought if I treated prayer like that, like a connection to my real Home and if I could delight in and treasure prayer in the same way... how much more effective and rewarding and delicious prayer would become to me.
And we talked about how it's about developing a relationship and I thought about how I wouldn't just give up on a relationship after one conversation. Relationships take dedication and determination and dilligence, and that's what I'm going to give my relationship with God. And it reminded me of this blog post I read this morning about how real love comes from doing the smallest of things:

"The times where we have the best excuses not to do something, and we do it anyways, are the times that real devotion comes through. I could say 'goodness Heavenly Father, its so late and I have to get up early tomorrow, you'll understand if I don't read my scriptures tonight right?'... but where does that get me? It gets me 15 more minutes of sleep and 15 less minutes of teachability." 

And when the teacher asked us to look up "diligence" in the topical guide it lead me to Moroni 8:26, which taught me that "perfect love... endureth by diligence unto prayer."
It all just reaffirmed my resolution to become a better person through those "small things" like daily scripture study and prayer and temple attendance. God wants me to be passionate for Him, and that's what I've resolved to be.

So today God taught me that if I'm unsatisfied with who I am and where I'm going, like I have been lately, I can change. He will help me change. That's what the Atonement is for. To that end, I have made a plan for scripture study that I'm really excited about, and I have firmly resolved to say my morning and evening prayers daily, without fail. I'm relying wholly upon the merits of Him who is mighty to save, and I'm trusting in the power of His Atonement. I believe Christ when He says that He will make me perfect, and I'm excited to use my agency and faith and determination to make it happen and to become a new creature through Christ :) Yay, Jesus!

President Monson's message last month was really inspired and I'm so blessed to have been able to study it; it teaches me to have a positive attitude, belief in my ability to change and in Christ's desire and ability to change me, and the courage to try again each day :) yay, prophets! 

and now I'm sitting on the couch with a mug of apple cinnamon oatmeal, just really happy and loving this sunday :)

also I love this song :)

the end.

living the abundant life

Last Sunday I had the opportunity to speak in church on President Monson's First Presidency message this month - Living the Abundant Life. I normally don't write out my talks word-for-word, but for some reason I did this time and so I've copied it here if anyone is interested (probably just my mom and dad...) :) Enjoy!

Hello friends,

For those of you who don’t know me, my friends call me Cece and my favourite holiday is Christmas, followed by Easter, Thanksgiving, and my birthday (in that order.) New Years Day I’d rank somewhere between Valentine’s and St. Patrick’s Day, and New Years Eve falls somewhere around like... Labor Day. I’ve just never been a fan, and after the spiritual high and focus on family and our Saviour at Christmas, it just seems sort of lame to have a holiday about Martinelli’s and weight loss. Plus being constantly challenged to make New Years resolutions is overwhelming for me. But that’s just me.
That being said, I’d like to share one of my favourite Christmas scriptures - John 10:10. The Saviour is teaching us about His mission, why He came to earth, and what He says is, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” I love that - not only did He come to give us life (how awesome!) but life more abundantly.
The First Presidency message this month is a challenge from President Monson to “undertake a personal, diligent, significant quest for... the abundant life—a life filled with an abundance of success, goodness, and blessings.” This is a New Years resolution that I can get behind - a challenge from a prophet of God, given to us for this exact time, helping us to take advantage of the Saviour’s awesome gift for us. My hope is that as I share some thoughts from this message, the Spirit will teach each of us what we can do to more fully partake in this abundant life the Saviour came to bring us.

Christian History & the Restored Gospel

So first of all, it's a new semester. And I am so excited about my Christian History and the Restored Gospel class. I've only been three times and it's been the awesomest thing ever. The professor is Alonzo Gaskill and he is the coolest. He talks at like the speed of light and he has a Bachelors degree in Philosophy, a Masters in Theology from Notre Dame, and a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies. Which is awesome. And he's one of those religion professors who isn't afraid of the truth, like the fact that LDS Church History isn't perfect and that Joseph Smith borrowed some things from the Methodists and that other religions have got some things right and do some things better than we do. Too often I feel like Latter-day Saints are afraid to admit any fault or imperfection, so I really appreciate it when a professor is able to admit it and even show how that makes the gospel more true. It's very testimony-strengthening. Anyways, I really like the professor and I feel like I'm going to learn a lot from him this semester.

For example:

You Matter to Him

So I feel as though I may just give it up and turn this into my New Testament blog.......... because every class is seriously SO great. :)

Today we talked about a few stories from Luke. One, found in Luke 19, is the story of Zacchæus, who was chief among the publicans, rich, and "little of stature." When Jesus comes, Zacchæus tries to see him but can't because he is too short. So he runs ahead a bit and climbs a tree. When Jesus passes under, He looks up, sees Zacchæus, and says that He will dine in Zacchæus' house. Zacchæus recieves him joyously, and promises to give half of all he has to the poor and to restore anything he has wrongly taken away {in his job as a publican this happened a lot} fourfold. Though the other people call him a sinner, Jesus says that this day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham. "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."

One of the lessons I learned from this story is that we all have weaknesses, but I don't need to let these keep me from seeing the Saviour. I may be a little short in some areas, but that shouldn't stop me. I can show a little gumption and determination and "climb a tree" if necessary to get to my Saviour. I would imagine that Zacchæus lost a bit of his dignity as a grown man climbing a sycomore tree, but getting close to Jesus was more important to him. Is it most important to me? How desperate am I to get to Christ?

Another thing I learn is that we are never lost to the Saviour. How often is a person walking along when they just randomly look up to see if a person is in the tree above them? Jesus knew exactly where Zacchæus was at all times. We are never lost to him. We are never insignificant to him. We matter to him. "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."

forgiveness.... again :)

I hope with all these posts about forgiveness I'm not making it seem like I have a lot to forgive someone for, cause that's not the case. It's just been on my mind lately :)

Today in New Testament (I know, I know....) Brother Smith pointed out the difference between Matthew 7:3 and Luke 6:41. One reads:

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

and the other:

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Then we talked about the difference, and which is scarier. To me, I'm much more concerned that I have faults that everyone else can see clearly that I'm just not perceiving. I know I do, because sometimes they are made quickly and painfully apparent to me.

I've never thought about these verses in this way before... I'd always thought it was just to remind us that we have our own big sins to worry about, so don't judge your brother. Now it's a reminder to me that I have huge faults that I'm not even aware of that people are forgiving me for every day.  If I can't perceive a beam, how can I blame them for not perceiving a mote?

If I remember have my own beams that I need to just work on perceiving and removing, forgiving my brother for his little motes becomes a lot easier.  They might not be aware, or they might be. Mostly, I need to work on relying on the Spirit, fixing myself, and remembering that I am so, so, so far from perfect.

Thanks, God, for this amazing lesson today :) Perfect!

#LDSconf

Today I decided to try joining the #TwitterStake and tweeting my conference notes. I kinda liked it. It probably looked like I was texting during conference, but really, I was taking notes and posting them online in a more permanent {for me} space than a notebook. I always lose my notebooks haha. Plus it was fun to see what other people were getting out of conference. & so here, is a picture of my twitter profile today. for your viewing enjoyment. :)

Can you read that? I hope it's not too small.... anyways, happy conference weekend! tomorrow I get to go and watch it in the Conference Center - yay! the tickets finally came! :) #sohappy

:)

forgiving

This I know: God is all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful.

Because He is all-loving, He wants us to be happy.

Because He is all-knowing, He knows what will make us happy.

Because He is all-powerful, He can make us happy if we only use our will to choose His will.

One of of His commandments designed to bring us ultimate happiness is forgiveness:

"I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.. Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Matt 5:44-45, 48

Of course, this all sounds like a great idea until you're faced with actually having to forgive someone who doesn't deserve it, or love someone who persecutes you. C.S. Lewis wrote,

"I admit that this means loving people who have nothing loveable about them. But then, has oneself anything loveable about it? You love it simply because it is yourself... We have then to go on and apply the rule to all the other selves. Perhaps it makes it easier if we remember that that is how He loves us. Not for any nice, attractive qualities we think we have, but just because we are the things called selves." 

Dieter F. Uchtdorf teaches us more about how God loves us:

forget me not

1) I love general conference. 

2) Tonight was the Relief Society General Broadcast, and it was SO GOOD. Just exactly what I needed right now. :)) 

3) My favourite talk (though I really did love them all,) was by President Uchtdorf, about forget-me-nots.   It was just.... so, so amazing. :) He gave 5 things for us to "forget not," which I loved, but my favourite was the ending paragraphs. I hope they make a Mormon Message about it!! 

I have to wait four days for the full text to come out..... so sad..... but I did get a few lovely quotes from this LDS Church News article... and then I went back and watched it again at home :) And I wrote down the 5 things to forget not:

• forget not to be patient with yourself
• forget not that difference between good sacrifice and foolish sacrifice
• forget not to be happy now
• forget not the why of the gospel
• forget not that the lord loves you

Inspired!

I love my New Testament class. It's seriously like efy every Monday and Wednesday! :) And I love my professor, Brother Smith. :)

Today we talked about the temptations of Christ and how they break down into 3 main categories:
1. Stones into bread {flesh vs. spirit}
2. Jump off the temple so that God will catch you {vanity vs. humility}, and
3. Worship me [Satan] and I'll give you the kingdoms of the world. {aspiration vs consecration}

Anyways, the part of the lesson that really inspired me was when we talked about how a lot of us want to consecrate our lives to God but are finding it really difficult... because we haven't mastered the earlier temptations like flesh vs spirit {um hello, I love sleep and my snooze button.}

How can we give God something that isn't ours? 

"The first and best victory is to conquer self." ~Plato.

So I'm going to work on self-control. Choosing spirit over flesh, and humility over vanity. & then when I've learned to be in control of myself, I can give myself to God. :)

Goal! :)

Temple Archetypes

I always come away from my Old Testament class being like "Woah I never knew that that's so cool my spiritual mind is blown!" :) It's awesome. Today we talked about temple archetypes and the Garden of Eden as a temple. I found it to be super interesting and profound. :)

Here are the 10 characteristics that all temples share; or, what makes a temple a temple.

The Garden of Eden meets each one. Ready? :)

1. Area made sacred by the presence of God
2. Represented the primordial hillock
3. Architectural embodiment of the cosmic mountain
4. Associated with the waters of life
5. Contains a Tree of Life
6. Sacred marriage
7. In it worshippers are clothed
8. Place of sacrifice
9. Destruction or loss is calamitous & fatal to community
10. God's word is revealed inside

:) It makes me super want to go to the temple. We're going this friday yay! :)

Clarification of a few points: 

Easter

Easter is coming up. 8 more days! I'm so thankful for holidays like Christmas and Easter to remind me of what is most important, what I should be thinking about. My Savior, His Atonement, His Resurrection, and His unimaginable love for me... this is what I get to think about for the next few days :)
{I don't need an excuse to think about it, but sometimes I need a good reminder. So I'm thankful.}
Happy Easter Season. What a beautiful time of year :) :)

... coinciding with beautiful weather and a beautiful spring smell in the air today, and my best friend's baptism. God just loves us so very much. :)

tyler & nathan :)

God is {not was}, and He speaks {not spake}

In 1838, Ralph Waldo Emerson pled with the students of Harvard Divinity School to teach "that God is, not was; that He speaketh, not spake." Weekend before last my testimony of this truth was re-emphasized as I had the opportunity to listen for myself to modern-day prophets and apostles share some of God's words for us during the annual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which happens to be the church I belong to :) Going into the conference, I had prepared ahead for an excellent weekend of inspiration and learning from God. I was excited to hear God's word for today, and since I have a friend preparing to join the church, I was primed to look for messages that would be helpful to him and his situation.

Jeffrey R. Holland was the last second-to-last speaker during the two-day conference held in Salt Lake City, Utah. He entitled his remarks "An Ensign to the Nations," and was a very effective concluding* speaker for several reasons. First, before he even said anything, I was psyched to hear from him. I will even admit that when he got up to speak I made the "rock on" sign with my hands  (\m/ >.< \m/), much to my father's dismay. Elder Holland always gives really exceptional talks, so I was excited to hear what this one would be. He also has a great deal of credibility as an Apostle of the Church, serving in that capacity for nearly seventeen years. I'm nineteen years old so for as long as I can remember Elder Holland has been in a position to inspire and uplift me by teaching me the words of God, and I've had a long time to learn for myself that his calling as a special witness of Christ is indeed authentic. His remarks also came at the end of a fabulous conference, and the Spirit was already strongly testifying to me that what I had previously heard was true and of God.

of Jyana, understanding, and becoming One.

In Hindu belief, one of the ways to escape the eternal wheel of reincarnation is Salvation through the Way of Knowledge, or Jyana. This belief holds that an understanding of the reality that all things are One is the way to salvation.


In order to leave this wheel of perpetual reincarnation, one must understand that Brahman (the One Reality, the Universal Life, the World Soul) and Atman (the Individual Life, the Human Personality) are one and the same. Their scripture records an effort to describe what this means:


A father asks his son Shvetaketu to break open a fig, and then to break open one of the seeds inside. "What do you see there?" he asks. "Nothing at all, sir," his son replies. Then the father says to his son:

"Verily, my dear, that subtle essence which you do not perceive - from that very essence, indeed, my dear, does this great fig tree thus arise. Believe me, my dear, that which is the subtle essence - this whole world has that essence for its Self; that is the Real...; that is the Self; that (subtle essence) art thou, Shvetaketu." Chandogya Upanishad 6:12-14 

Kind of confusing. But I like it for that reason. It makes me think.

Poetry and the Mind of God

 Reading for class late one night. Stumbled upon this little gem:

"Scholars are undecided as to whether his [Isaiah's] book is a collection of carefully prepared compositions by the prophet himself, or whether his inspiration was simply so intense that his poetry is an expression of the mind of God." Victor L. Ludlow

Holy cannoli.

That is really, really cool.

stand up.

I recently watched this video {youtube splits it into two} and it really impacted me. It's about 16 minutes long, but for me it was well worth watching.





These are some of my favorite quotes I've gleaned from her speech: 

what do an atheist, an agnostic, a jew, and a mormon all have in common?

"Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of religious knowledge, outperforming [others] on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions... On questions about Christianity – including a battery of questions about the Bible – Mormons (7.9 out of 12 right on average) and white evangelical Protestants (7.3 correct on average) show the highest levels of knowledge."

http://pewforum.org/other-beliefs-and-practices/u-s-religious-knowledge-survey.aspx

This is not meant as an insult to other religions. Of course this doesn't mean that all Atheists know more about religion than any given Catholic or Protestant, or anything like that. I just found it interesting :) Personally I think it's very important to be well-educated about not only one's own religion, but others' as well.

You can take a short quiz here to see about how much you know :)

{my personal score was 15/15... I like religion :)}