I Need Christ in My Life

I was reading Mosiah 17:10 this morning. This is Abinadi's last testimony before he is martyred. He has been bold in his testimony throughout the entire time, proactively calling these wicked men to repent. He says "I will not recall my words." This led me to a train of thought about my own testimony. How can I strengthen it so that I can be as bold as Abinadi, as Paul, as so many of the prophets in the scriptures? I want to work on my testimony of the Savior, and I have been re-realizing that spiritual growth (or any type of growth) normally doesn't come by default. It takes conscious, proactive effort to grow good things. For me, I think it also takes a clear vision of what the end result should look like, to motivate me and help me know when I've succeeded. Some of the specific things I'm going to do to strengthen my testimony are to write down the ways Christ has saved my life, read "The Infinite Atonement" by Tad R. Callister, pray for a stronger testimony of it, share it (on here and in person), ask others for their testimonies, and keep a record of the scriptures that testify of it! So this will be my record.

• One of the most practical and meaningful ways that I know that I need Christ in my life is that He has taken away panic attacks from my life. I know that there are a lot of people who have to deal with panic attacks, so I am always excited to share that He helped me through them, and can help them too! I will need to expound on this story later, especially if anyone is interested in knowing more.
• "Wherefore, all mankind were in a lost and in a fallen state, and ever would be save they should rely on this Redeemer." (1 Nephi 1016--Lehi prophesies of Christ)
• "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23)
• "Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?" (Proverbs 20:9--We cannot cleanse ourselves from sin without Christ. We also cannot change our hearts or desires without Him.)
• "Surely He has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed." (Mosiah 14:4-5/Isaiah 53:4-5)
• "Surely the most sublime, the lengthiest and most lyrical declaration of the life, death, and atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ is that found in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, quoted in its entirety in the Book of Mormon by Abinadi as he stood in chains before King Noah" (Elder Holland, Christ and the New Covenant, 89; Book of Mormon Institute Manual, 152)
• "What peace, what comfort this great gift is which comes through the loving grace of Jesus Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of all mankind. . . Even though His life was pure and free of sin, He paid the ultimate penalty for sin—yours, mine, and everyone’s who has ever lived. His mental, emotional, and spiritual anguish were so great they caused Him to bleed from every pore (see Luke 22:44; D&C 19:18). And yet Jesus suffered willingly so we might all have the opportunity to be washed clean—through having faith in Him. . . .Without the Atonement of the Lord, none of these blessings would be available to us, and we could not become worthy and prepared to return to dwell in the presence of God” (Elder Ballard, in Conference Report, Apr. 2004, 86–87; or Ensign, May 2004, 84–85; Book of Mormon Institute Manual, 152-153)

Day 4

Goal of the day: memorize more scriptures! This goes along with the Ponderize talk that was so famous this Conference. I read 2 Nephi 4:15--"my soul delighteth in the scriptures, and my heart pondereth them, and writeth them for the learning and the profit of my children." So then I thought, I can't teach my children the gospel in a powerful way if I don't know and love the scriptures. I thought about what I could do to love the scriptures more and decided to memorize more of them. I already use Quizlet for my classes, so I figured that I would use it to help me keep track of and memorize more scriptures. Here's the link if anyone wants to join in!

Okay folks, I'm doing a 30-day challenge (AKA until November 21th). I want to have a daily goal from scripture study for a month. This is my third day. My first day was to listen to less Pandora and more Mormon Channel Radio (which has been SO UPLIFTING!). My second day it was to set up some dating rules (which I am still working on, but fully intend to follow through with). Today it's to try to have more dignified speech, in word and thought! Not that it's terrible now, but I want to see what happens if I replace the "dang its" and "shoots" with "oh nos!" and "bothers!" (I'm still trying to find good replacement words...) Also, it just so happens that I have a rubber band bracelet on my wrist...I'm going to use it whenever I catch myself saying those words. I actually did something similar in the MTC--we were supposed to say "elders and sisters" instead of "you guys" (because of the importance of our callings) and it was so hard! But every time I accidentally said it, I would take my shoes off and put them back on. I know, I'm weird. But it worked, I think! So, stay tuned for tomorrow's challenge!

(Also, I have already said "darn it" before I could even post this! And then I said "darn it" because my rubber band bracelet wasn't snapping right! haha. This might be hard...)

How to Improve Your Prayers

The Spirit whispered something important to me about prayer. I realized that I had thought of it as a means to maintain my spiritual status. What Nephi used it for was to help him progress (to have his heart softened, to learn how to build a boat, etc.). Prayer will become more meaningful to me as I use it as a means to ask Heavenly Father what I need to do next to achieve my goals. This is the whole message behind my favorite talk from this Conference! It is "What Lack I Yet?" from Elder Larry R. Lawrence. SO GOOD. Ten minutes well spent. Every step we take towards righteousness will make us happier and happier. I think this was important for me to realize, because often I don't envision myself being happier as I keep more commandments! I normally just envision myself trying to dutifully do it even if I don't want to. But I really am happier whenever I keep another commandment. And that is the way that will encourage us to WANT to keep the commandments. Happiness is a huge incentive--really, it's the reason we do everything we do. Enos hungered AFTER "the joy of the saints...sunk deep into [his] heart." (Enos 1:3)

More insight on how/why to keep the Sabbath day holy!

Wow! Bloggy! You still exist! Things are great here. :) I found a really good article today about keeping the Sabbath day holy. It is a really big focus in the Church. The article highlighted that it's important to see the Sabbath as a day to express your love for Heavenly Father through your actions. So, everyone can show that sign in their own individual way--the article mentioned that some people could do that through joining the ward choir or being early for church. I thought about what I can do to show Heavenly Father my love more fully, and I think it's going to be staying in my church clothes all day, and trying to find a certain amount of names in family history every week. I will start with those things! I'm excited! These are really good breakthroughs. :)

This week has had a lot of other powerful insights, and while I don't want to get too absorbed in writing this (because I need to get started on family history), I do want to write them down so that I don't forget them. One of them was just the underscoring of how important it is to be sincere in prayer. Honestly, lately, I have felt spiritually weak, especially in my prayers.

I went to a devotional on Friday, and the speaker talked about the nature of Heavenly Father.  First of all, it was a huge tender mercy, because I have been praying for SUCH a long time to understand His true character. Without understanding His character, it can be very difficult to want to follow Him or trust Him. The speaker said a simple quote, but it had a huge impact on me: "He's loving, He's kind, He's gentle, He's happy." I wrote that down and put it by my bed, and my understanding of Him is growing and it is so incredible. Finally, I understand what it means to act out of a sense of love. It has been one of the biggest tender mercies in my life! I also learned from the speaker about how to pray more sincerely, as he shared a story about how he prayed. I started to change my prayers so that they were more of a conversation, and super sincere at that. That is the only way prayers can be powerful. I strongly believe that a sincere prayer of "Heavenly Father, I don't want to do what's right right now. Please help me to change that." is more powerful than an insincere, nice-sounding prayer. Sincerity is how we come to truly connect with the Lord, and He wants to hear our honest opinion about every aspect of our lives!

Another prayer that was answered this week was another one that I have been praying for help with for quite a long time, and the inspiration came! I have tried for SO LONG to go to bed on time and always failed. This week, I realized the root problem--I sometimes get to the end of the day and haven't read my scriptures. So, I end up staying up for a long time trying to get a solid scripture study in. The answer turns out to be breaking my scripture study down into five-minute increments, if that's all that I have at the time. Then cumulatively, by the end of the day, I will have read the scriptures! It has totally answered the problem, and for the past few days, I've gone to bed at 10! Also, it helped to learn that we get second wind at 10:30, which is why I always feel awake so late!

My tender mercy today was being able to volunteer at an event today--it was really fun to be that busy and helpful! All the people there were so laid back and nice. That was basically my whole day! Plus I got to see some of my mission friends, so that was fun. I didn't think I'd be able to!