From Beliefs to Faith

      Have you ever seen the Christmas move "Polar Express"? Every ticket is marked with a word by the very end of the movie. It is one word that each child needs. The main child needs the word "believe". He did not believe that Santa was real and because he did not believe, he could not hear the bells ring. He just stood there confused why every single person could hear the bells but him. Do you ever sit there and wonder why everyone else believes something that you don't? This could be  that they believe one political leader is the best person for the job, or that country music is better than pop music. You don't have to necessarily agree, but you have no idea why they believe the way they do. Today I just want to take a minute to explain briefly what the difference between our beliefs and faith are.
      You can believe in and have faith in some of the same things. A lot of times these words are used interchangeably, but there actually is a difference in these words.

Faith = belief + action

      If I have learned anything this year, it is that belief alone is not going to get you where you want to be.
      See, I have been struggling for most of this year. Honestly, there has been little reason for my struggles. The first part of my struggle was understandable. I was taking 20 credits in one semester, but I actually quite enjoyed that semester. Emotionally and spiritually, I was a hot mess.
      I believe that with God all things are possible, but I also believe that you need to put in some work. God is not going to do everything for us. Certainly He will help us. He will guide us and lift us up. He will strengthen us, so that we can accomplish what we need if we cannot do it on our own. God is not going to sit there and do things for us as if He were our very own butler or chauffeur. God is not there as our personal assistant. If anything, we are His personal assistants. Sometimes we are called upon to help in the cause of one of His children's lives.
      I believe that reading my scriptures is good. I believe that praying is good. What good are any of these things if there is never any action. Let me tell you from experience, nothing good is going to come from your lack of action.
      Do you see that little equation up there? No? Look again. Just believing is going to make us objects to those actors. Do you want to be an object who only gets moved when someone acts upon it or do you want to be the one moving all the other objects? We were made to live life to its fullest, but we can't do that sitting on the sidelines.
      Everyone is busy making New Year's Resolutions, but over here I am not making specific goals ,or resolutions, to get thin, get great grades or to finally let go things that I need to forgive people of. I simply want to act on my beliefs. I want to be intentional. Our actions should be intentional. When we are taking intentional actions, I believe that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. If you believe that you can lose weight, then take the intentional actions to help yourself lose weight. God is not going to make those extra pounds fall right off of you. He is going to wait for you to put in the work. If you want to get good grades, then you have to stop binge watching Netflix (or whatever it is that you are watching or doing). You have to put in the hours studying and working on homework.
      Your goals do not just magically become completed my friend. Let's make 2019 the year that we get off our butts and take leaps of faith. Let's starting putting our beliefs into action and turn them into faith

The Downfall of Men (and Women)

In my Book of Mormon class this week we are studying warnings. The warnings are pretty similar and follow similar patterns throughout both the Book of Mormon and the Bible, however because this is a Book of Mormon class we do not focus on the teachings in the Bible, however use them as references for questions we have on the subject.

President Ezra Taft Benson summed up the major warning in the Book of Mormon basically as "Beware of Pride!"

Recognizing my own pride is not one of my strong suits, nor is it most people's either. This year I read a book called "Captain of Her heart" by Anita Stansfield in which I realized this as one of my largest shortcomings. In this book, the two main characters largest downfall is due to pride. Pride is what stands between them in their relationship only it is not as easy to get rid of as it is to possess it. Many of the mistakes that the couple made I could see myself making and I realized just how awful pride really is. Pride can strain relationships. It makes someone resist help they desperately need. It destroys the relationship between God and man.

The Book of Mormon was given to us to warn us of pride and to help us be aware of the signs of pride. By being wary of what pride can cause and the signs of pride, we can prepare ourselves avoid pride where we can and become more christlike.

Grey's Anatomy and Marriage (They Don't Go Together!!)

It might seem weird, but I am going to talk a little bit about Grey's Anatomy and marriage. I recently started watching this show because my roommate absolutely loves it. However, there is something that has really bothered me about this show:

People are completely unfaithful to their significant other (SO).

Maybe I am just really sensitive on this topic because my parents got divorced for this reason (that is not the entire reason, however it is a large part of it), but this really bothers me. In the LDS faith, many members get married in temples for time and all eternity. How does two people go from completely in love and committed forever to cheating and divorce?

Obviously this transition is not a jump, it is a gradual shift. What can we do to prepare ourselves to be with the same person forever?

Gordon B. Hinckley once said, "True love is not so much a matter of romance as it is a matter of anxious concern for the well being of one's companion."

Now on Grey's Anatomy when people get married they love them so much, however as circumstances change or they start spending more time with another coworker their concern for their SO changes from anxious to not caring whatsoever about them. How can we keep this anxious concern for SO's?

I would like to mention that I am not married, nor do I have a SO. However, this is something that causes me a lot of anxiety for my future. Many of family members are divorced. Only two of the couples on either side of my family have been sealed in the temple and I hope to add to that number one day, but when I get married I want my marriage to actually last forever.

Having no experience I cannot actually give my advice or an educated opinion on this, however through the examples I have seen I have picked up on a few things that are key to making a marriage last.

1. Communicate
        I know. This seems like common sense. In my family we are mostly terrible communicators. We bottle things up, we write letters instead of confronting someone and we hardly ever actually say what we so badly want to say.
        Just communicate with your SO. Make sure you are on the same page. I cannot stress the importance of this. Just as communication is key, you have to make sure that it is positive communication. Do not single your partner out. This will make them less likely to work on the issue if they feel attacked. use statements like "I feel like we have been struggling in (fill in the blank) area and have been thinking about how we could improve together on this." or "I know this is something that we have been struggling with. How do you think we could improve?"
        By working together you get more accomplished, than if you were working against each other.

2. Finances
        Get them under control! This should be made a priority. Financial problems are part of the causes of most divorces. Sit down once a week (or once every two weeks) to go over this area. In my family each couple goes through Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University to help prepare them to work on finances together.

3. Go on Dates!!
        Keep the romance alive. Gordon B. Hinkley  said that the romance is not the important part. The important part is being anxiously concerned for your SO, however I firmly believe that keeping the romance in the marriage and the fun in the marriage is key. If everything is always serious and in solitude, then how will you succeed?

Obviously I haven't experienced what it is like to have a SO, but I truly believe that there is something to be learned by watching those around us. Learn from others, so that you don't make the same mistakes they did. Put in your best efforts to make your marriage last forever.

Tender Mercies

            In Sunday School, my teacher has impressed upon my class the importance of tender merices. She even gave a journal to write down tender mercies that we recognize, but I haven't been good at writing them down or really recognizing them. In my young women's group, we are participating in a summer Book of Mormon reading challenge.
           As we have begun reading,I found a verse in the first chapter of 1st Nephi that stuck out to because it mentions tender mercies. In 1st Nephi 1:20 it states, "the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance."
            Reading this helped me realize that something I had experienced recently was a tender mercy. Though my mom had prayed for safety on the roads for our family and our cars, I didn't know that at the time. I was backing out of my parking space at Walmart slowly because a ginormous truck was obstructing my view when all of a sudden there was another gigantic truck zipping down the lane I was in. That truck should have hit my tiny car. There wasn't room for the truck to swerve because it should have hit the other cars, but somehow the truck managed to swerve without hitting anything. I should have been in an accident, but I wasn't. I wasn't harmed whatsoever. Both my car and the truck left without touching each other. Miracles happen everyday. This one for me was huge and a tender mercy because I have not been driving for very long and I am terrified that I'll get in an accident.

            Just another thought, tender mercies are not just from the individual to learn from. By sharing them with others and writing them down for future generations, others can see the good in a situation and learn to recognize the Lord's hand in their own personal lives.

Lose Yourself in Service

            This post, I am going to write a little differently. I am writing as if I were to a young woman in my ward. Please bear with me because I promise it does hold true to doctrine about service.

Dear Emma,

            Thank you for sticking around me for the last three years. I know this last couple of months have been hard on you and will be for a couple more as me and Aleah are going away to college, but I want to let you know what YOU did for me.
             When you were an incoming beehive, I decided to get to know you. Not just because you had no friends in young women's yet or looked lonely. I decided to become your friend for selfish reasons. I think we had been talking about service. We talked about how a person could find themselves through serving others. True joy can be found when man loses himself in service for the Lord rather than for man.
            I was lonely and had been feeling lonely myself. I was struggling with what to say to my friends. I didn't feel like I was really, truly their friend anymore and at the time I didn't have a lot of friends to begin with, so when I looked around the room and found that you were all by yourself, it was really a blessing for me. Because even though I asked you the most random and sometimes nosy questions and would follow you around till I got a satisfactory answer, you always answered. I don't know if it was because you were quiet and liked having another person to talk to or that you really did like having me around, but I'm glad you didn't get mad at me for sticking to you.
            What I learned from being friends with you, was that what we learn about service is true. I found myself because I served you by becoming your friend. I learned that if someone was willing to dedicate their life to just being someone's friend, they can find happiness.
              I am truly going to miss you. You brighten my life up a little more every time I see you. You have been a bright light to me when I have felt my light dim. I love you. I love being your friend and I can't wait to see the adventures you'll have along the way. Please don't forget that I will always be just a phone call away because you have become one of my best friends. You are one of the best friends anyone could wish to have. You are kind, compassionate and loving. You are always looking out for others.
            Keep being awesome. "You are you and that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you." and don't forget it.

Love,
Emily

Lessons from Young Women's

                         Sitting in my final Young Women's in Excellence, and I can say that I love the young women in my group. Leaders change, but our girls don't leave unless they are graduating out of it and I have grown to love each and everyone of them. I've learned a lot from them and from the leaders.
                         At our Young Women's in Excellence, three of our girls were awarded a medallion for completing their personal progress. For those of you who don't know what personal progress is, it is a little book filled with eight values that we are supposed to complete during our time in young women's. Each value contains six experiences and one project to complete in it. It takes a lot of time and effort to complete it, but it is designed to help each girl grow personally, spiritually and in some ways, physically as well.
As these girls were awarded their medallions, I was thinking about when I got mine. On my mind lately have been the things that I have learned during my time in young women's. Here are a few of the lessons that I have learned over the years:

•  Sometimes you just have to do things a little different.

                          During my time in young women's I have gone in multiple directions in my life. I was in public school, then I did online school for the first two years of my high school experience, but then I came back. But when I came back I decided to graduate a year early and am going to
BYU-I in the fall.
                           It's not necessarily the being different part that I learned. What I truly learned is that sometimes the Lord will tell you that in His plan for you, he wants you to do something a little differently than most. DO IT. Follow the promptings you receive. Prophet Thomas S. Monson tells us that we should never postpone a prompting and Joseph Smith once said that if you follow the feeling or prompting you have, 9 times out of 10, you will be right. It was the spirit.
                           Follow the Lord's plan for you. Even if it is different from those around you, He only wants the best for you, so follow Him.

• Patience is a virtue.

                           This one is obvious, but that doesn't mean it is easy. My patience has gradually increased throughout my time in young women's.
                           There is a girl in my ward who has Tourette's Syndrome. If you don't know what it is, TS is something that causes her to not have a filter and she speaks her mind as it comes to her. She has some nervous tics as well. When she turned 12 and entered young women's, she annoyed me. I knew she had something, but I didn't know what it was. Because I have known her, I have been able to be more patient.

• Open your heart to the spirit.

                            In the Book of Mormon, Lamen and Lemuel had hard hearts. That's why every time something miraculous happened to them, they would forget and it would not increase their faith. I personally have struggled with this. Growing up, I had a mean and hard heart. I am not even joking. I was a brat. Anyhow, eventually I realized how crappy my attitude and I was as a person, so I was able to open my heart. However, I could not have done this on my own. I didn't know how to soften my own heart, so I prayed intensely for a softening of my heart. Eventually, my Heavenly Father allowed my heart to be softened. With a softened heart, I was able to grow in my knowledge and testimony. (A testimony being your belief or faith in something. It is something to share with others. Don't keep quiet about what you believe.)

• Who you are friends with matters.

                             Again, this should be obvious,  but it was something that was hard for me to learn. I had some friends in 8th grade who would talk really negative and introduced me to things that opened up my mind to be extremely curious. Though I didn't do anything necessarily wrong and didn't find the things to satisfy my curiosity, I knew they weren't good things. I think my Heavenly Father pushed me to do online school because He knew I couldn't stop being friends with these girls if I still went to school with them. I would have continued seeing them for a long time and it would have hardened my heart as well as broken my spirit.

                            Heavenly Father cares who I am friends with. He is looking out for me.

• Service is key.
• Be friends with everyone.
• Be kind.
• Spread the love.
• Get to know the quiet ones.

                            These five really go together. I learned them all at once. 

                            I was feeling really down about myself and I didn't really feel like I could talk to any of my friends about it. I just didn't know what to do. But I remember something reminding me of someone who once told me that when they were feeling down they decided to serve someone. Serving someone made them feel better.

                             So I looked around the room, this was during a young women's activity, and my eyes feel upon a new beehive (beehives are girls ages 12 and 13). She had just turned 12 and none of her friends were in young women's yet, so I decided that I would be her friend. She was really quiet and kind of hesitant to talk to me for a while, but eventually we became really good friends. 

                              It didn't matter that I was older than her and in a different age group. What mattered was the fact that we became friends and she wasn't alone anymore. I didn't feel so alone afterwards either. 

                              These five go together because serving others helped me to feel the pure love of Christ which helped me to spread the love and when I was  serving others with kindness and striving to be friends with everyone, I got to know even the quiet girl in the corner who didn't have any friends yet. Through these five things, I could feel Heavenly Father's love for me and for the people that I was surrounded by. 

                                If you'd like to learn more about personal progress, or being something that will help you grow spiritually and teach you things about yourself, I'd encourage you to click on these next words: "Personal Progress". This will take you to a website on LDS.org that will give you more information about it. 

                               I love Personal Progress and am working on it for a second time because there will always be more to learn about the gospel of Jesus Christ and about myself. Though I know myself pretty well, my Heavenly Father knows me better and personal progress has helped me stay with close to the Holy Ghost and close to my Heavenly Father.

The Atonement Even for the Small Things

About a month ago, I went to a state meet for BPA (Business Professionals of America) where I competed in Fundamental Accounting. I had been working for hours so that I could make it to nationals.

I opened my test packet and all of the breath was knocked out of me. I didn't know more than half of the concepts tested. Had I really been practicing all along just not to understand anything on that test?

During the awards ceremony, I was bouncing with anticipation for my event. I didn't actually think that I would get called up, but I had been praying really hard that I would make it to nationals because I know I wasn't the only one who didn't know what they were doing. In fact, when everyone had opened their test, you could literally feel all of the hope go out of the room.

Anyhow, going back to the awards ceremony, I kept waiting and eventually they began to announce my event and I am silent. Which is rare for me, but it was the moment I had been waiting for.My name had been called. But they call 8 people up there and only 5 qualify for nationals.

Once on stage, I could barely hear what the announcers were saying. When they called my name, I didn't realize they had called it till they were already moving on to the next name. I had placed sixth. That was amazing, but not what I wanted. I remembering feeling comforted before that I would make ti to nationals, but here is my shot and I've blown it.

Initially I was extremely sad.

HERE is where the atonement kicks in.

The atonement is what Christ did in the garden of Gethsemane. He suffered for our sins, afflictions and anything that ails us. Because Christ suffered, my burdened became light.

In that moment, just seconds of sadness, I prayed that I would be happy for the people who placed higher than me. That I would finally be able to be happy for people even if it didn't go my way. As soon as I finished that prayer, happiness filled my heart. Positive thoughts flooded into my mind about how hard everyone worked to make it this far in the competition and it wasn't fair for me to be so disappointed when we all deserved to win because we all did the work to get there.

Even though it seems like something so small and maybe even kind of stupid, it was important for me to actually see the atonement at work. I now know that the atonement is real. I knew it was real before, but I had never recognized the works of it. The atonement can be applied in any situation. Nothing bad has to happen, it doesn't have to be about a sin, it could be because of the actions of others. Heavenly Father will answer your prayer to feel the atonement work in your life. Big or small, your burden may be lightened. Your heart can be brought peace, love or happiness. Whatever you need, Heavenly Father can help you get what you need.

Just like it says in James 1:5-6, if you ask of God in FAITH, you will get an answer.

I challenge you to ask a question, or even just to talk to God today. He's waiting to hear from you. Though He already knows our hearts, it's best said when He actually hears how you feel and about your day from YOU.