Focus On Today And Let Tomorrow Come

Do not spoil what you have today by focusing on what you do not posses; For the things that you posses today was once among the things you only hoped for. Hopes dreams are fulfilled one day at a time through careful planning. Remember, " An unwritten goal is only a Dream. However Dreams are what leads to goals and new goals soon become a reality if you are flexible during your journey to your final destination
by D.Newburn

A Frog Is Cooked Slow

Let us Remember, It is against the will of God for anyone to be in bondage, in any way. Liberty and Freedom is not a Self Preserving Gift. It has to be earned. And like anything thing of Value it must be protected. Liberty and Freedom must be contin...ually guarded as something more priceless than life its self. Freedom is not lost suddenly it is Lost in degrees, The frog is cooked slowly or he would jump out.

Self Reliance Is The Key

Mass Welfare is not the answer for Perils of today. YOU CAN SINK AN UNSINKABLE SHIP; Just ask the passengers of the Titanic. Man is commanded by God to live by the sweat of his brow, Not someone else's. Bible ref:Genesis 3:19 Money can not come ...from an empty purse,nor food from empty shelves,Understanding can not come from the emotionally starved,neither does teaching come from the unlearned. Self Reliance is the Key

By D. Newburn

Cycle Of Man

If we look at the scriptures we will see throughout time man has followed a particular pattern.
This is an Email that was sent out by our Stake President Harlan Spencer in the Mobile Alabama Stake.

From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From great courage to Liberty;
From Liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
This seems to be the cycle of man. It would appear that currently we are most in bondage. Keep the commandments of God and follow the words of the Prophets. Let us all have the spiritual faith to help our families through this rough time in our lives. Forgive all who have offended you and humble yourself before God. He is our protection from the world. Go to the Temple often.

The scriptures teach us that the stake is there for our protection. Please know that your ward and stake leaders will keep you informed and we will do all to help you and your family, through all who would hurt or make afraid. Please let us know what is going on in your communities and how we can help. We need to know if you are struggling. We want to help but feel restrained without knowing what you need help with. To, you who are struggling; please show your faith in Jesus Christ by humbling yourself and pleading for him to assist you. He will hear your prayers. We do not have to be without sin to pray as Satan would teach; we just need to have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Please look into the eyes of those close to you and share your testimony with them.

Love and kindness,

President Harlan Spencer

No Other Success

No Other Success Can Compensate For Failure In The Home. There is nothing that can take the place of a Mother and Father in the home. With open Eyes, Mind, Ears, and Heart. We will only be effective with our children as our lives reflect what we wish to teach. No parent is too Important, too Rich or too Poor to play with their children. Bible ref: Luke 18:16 & Matthew 19:14 "come follow me"
by D. Newburn

Know The Direction You Are Heading

Life is a competition, not with others but with ourselves. Seek each day to live stronger and love deeper. Be the friend you have always wanted to meet. Small corrections toward a definite course over a life time are far better than sudden jerks in the wheel. Reset your compass often, The important thing in life is to know the direction you are heading not where you have been
By D Newburn

The Old Tree That Stood Alone

A boy visited his lumberjack uncle on the job. He was immediately impressed by a huge tree standing alone on a hill. The boy in awe exclaimed lets cut that huge tree, we will get allot of good wood from that one. The uncle replied, no son good lumber ...comes from trees in groves. Standing alone a tree has many limbs leaving many knots. We are the same we grow better together than we do alone. Strength grows in numbers

One Advantage to Living Many Years

One advantage of living many years is you can remember the good times when the bad ones are weighing down. Adversity with the right attitude forges self-confidence, self respect, and builds character.Adversity can help us purge and purify our lives of things that really don't matter. Prioritize your life in this order and you will win the battle. 1 God, 2 Family, 3 Church, 4 Worldly obligations
By D Newburn

No Greater Weapon

In our world today more than ever before, Satan is launching his most vicious attacks on our freedom both body and spirit. We have no greater weapon against his deeds than pure unselfishness and Christ like love for our fellow man. It is easy to serve our ...family, but the real test is to give of your substance, time, or talents to a stranger in need. Set a goal (BE PRAYERFUL" in this you are safe") Share, Volunteer Today.
by D. Newburn

Progression Takes Daily Effort

Progressing through life is like running a marathon. It requires a good strong start and consistent effort all the way to the finish. In life there are no Instant Christians. There are only Constant Christians. The work of a Christian is not merely completed and concluded with accepting Christ. It is a daily effort remember the words of the Master. "Come Follow Me" As Mom Would Say, "Actions Speak Louder Than Words."
By D. Newburn

To Lift Another You Must Stand On Higher Ground

In life you cannot hope to lift another person until you are standing on higher ground. You cannot light a fire in another soul unless you have a flame burning in yours. So if you want to soar with the Eagles make sure you are not scratching with the chickens. Striving can be more important than Arriving. Emulate the person you want to be. Before you know it you will be there. A wise man once said Come Follow Me.
By D.Newburn

Divine Problem Solving

Steps to Divine Problem Solving. When you have a problem 1.work it out in your mind. 2. Ponder Analyze and Meditate on it. 3. Let your scriptures fall open & start reading 4. Measure it against what you know is right or wrong then make an educated decision. 5. Ask God If the decision you made is right. 6. Be willing to accept your answer. Good decisions fit like a puzzle You can not force success it never works out.
By D. Newburn

Happiness Is Not Announced With A Marching Band

A happy life does not come with a marching band to announce it's arrival. It grows within us year by year little by little until we recognize it. This is only accomplished when we stop aiming to get ahead of others in the race of life. To win you must look within & focus on surpassing yourself. Doing so,you will discover your better self and happiness. Geniuses are heroic but Ordinary is extraordinary in the 2nd mile
By D.Newburn

2nd MILE

I feel if you help a friend, You are Serving God & he will bless you. I have come to realize often times the blessing only comes after 2nd mile. (bible ref.), (matt 5:41) he wants to bless us, But he puts the blessing in the 2nd mile. "The refiners fire" only purfies with sacrifce.
When I say the refiners fire only purifies with sacrifice: I mean when you purify a metal you have to give up something in order to purify it. In our lifes if we are to become pure we have to give up something. We have to give up our impurities or "our favorite sins". I have learned when a master jewler is refining silver he has to do it in a very specific manner.
If the metal is not heated enough all of the impurities will not be removed.
If the metal is over heated it can loose its temper and become brittle.
In our life as we go through the refiners fire it is important that we do not become too hot and loose our temper during our trials.
During this refining process, from what I understand, The seasoned Jewler knows for a brief second when he has purified the silver, because he can see his reflection in the metal.
When we are enduring the trials of our refiners fire, The Lord knows when we are pure when he can see his reflection in US.
May we live our life in a manner that we can become b"E"tter instead of b"I"tter when lifes trials are upon us.
When we become better we look for the best in "E"veryone but when we become bitter it comes from selfishness because we can only look within our selves and look others falts of others which leads us to become b"I"tter.
The only way to sweeten a Lemon is to add sugar.
Be the sugar in someones life who has lemons. If you have lemons look for someone to serve and you will find sugar.
When we serve others we seem to sweeten our life and theirs and it makes us happy.
Often times our service comes out of a need that we recognize.
Once again when we are in the service of our fellow man we are only serving the master. When we sweeten someone elses life with kindness and service we cant help but sweeten our own life in return.
So go and be the sweetner in the lives of those you meet, who seem to have drawn a pail of lemons. If you do this I promise you will be blessed in the second mile.
by D. Newburn

"Liberty Jail" This is the best talk I've heard in a while

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

CES Fireside for Young Adults • September 7, 2008 • Brigham Young University

My beloved young friends, it is a thrill for Sister Holland and for me to be with you tonight for this worldwide satellite broadcast. It’s always a thrill to be in the Marriott Center. I wish it were possible for us to be in each of your individual locations, seeing you personally and being able to shake your hands. We haven’t figured out a way to do that yet, but we send our love and greeting to all of you wherever you are in the world. In spite of the vastness of our global audience, we hope all of you are individually able to feel the love we have for you tonight and that each of you can gain something from our message that is applicable in your personal lives.

The Prophet in Liberty Jail

One of the great blessings of our assignments as General Authorities is the chance to visit members of the Church in various locations around the world and to glean from the history that our members have experienced across the globe. In that spirit I wish to share with you tonight some feelings that came to me during a Church assignment I had last spring when I was assigned to visit the Platte City stake in western Missouri, here in the United States.

The Platte City Missouri Stake lies adjacent to the Liberty Missouri Stake, now a very famous location in Church history encompassing several important Church history sites, including the ironically named Liberty Jail. From your study of Church history, you will all know something of the experience the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brethren had while imprisoned in that facility during the winter of 1838–39. This was a terribly difficult time in our history for the Church generally and certainly for the Prophet Joseph himself, who bore the brunt of the persecution in that period. Indeed, I daresay that until his martyrdom five and a half years later, there was no more burdensome time in Joseph’s life than this cruel, illegal, and unjustified incarceration in Liberty Jail.

Time does not permit a detailed discussion of the experiences that led up to this moment in Church history, but suffice it to say that problems of various kinds had been building ever since the Prophet Joseph had received a revelation in July of 1831 designating Missouri as the place “consecrated for the gathering of the saints” and the building up of “the city of Zion” (D&C 57:1, 2). By October of 1838, all-out war seemed inevitable between Mormon and non-Mormon forces confronting each other over these issues. After being driven from several of the counties in the western part of that state and under the presumption they had been invited to discuss ways of defusing the volatile situation that had developed, five leaders of the Church, including the Prophet Joseph, marching under a flag of truce, approached the camp of the Missouri militia near the small settlement of Far West, located in Caldwell County.

As it turned out, the flag of truce was meaningless, and the Church leaders were immediately put in chains and placed under heavy guard. The morning after this arrest, two more Latter-day Saint leaders, including the Prophet’s brother Hyrum, were taken prisoner, making a total of seven in captivity.

Injustice swiftly moved forward toward potential tragedy when a military “court” convened by officers of that militia ordered that Joseph Smith and the six other prisoners all be taken to the public square at Far West and summarily shot. To his eternal credit, Brigadier General Alexander Doniphan, an officer in the Missouri forces, boldly and courageously refused to carry out the inhumane, unjustifiable order. In a daring stand that could have brought him his own court-martial, he cried out against the commanding officer: “It is cold-blooded murder. I will not obey your order. . . . And if you execute these men, I will hold you responsible before an earthly tribunal, so help me God.”¹

In showing such courage and integrity, Doniphan not only saved the lives of these seven men but endeared himself forever to Latter-day Saints in every generation.

Their execution averted, these seven Church leaders were marched on foot from Far West to Independence, then from Independence to Richmond. Parley P. Pratt was remanded to nearby Daviess County for trial there, and the other six prisoners, including Joseph and Hyrum, were sent to Liberty, the county seat of neighboring Clay County, to await trial there the next spring. They arrived in Liberty on December 1, 1838, just as winter was coming on.

The jail, one of the few and certainly one of the more forbidding of such structures in that region, was considered escape proof, and it probably was. It had two stories. The top or main floor was accessible to the outside world only by a single small, heavy door. In the middle of that floor was a trapdoor through which prisoners were then lowered into the lower floor or dungeon. The outside walls of the prison were of rough-hewn limestone two feet thick, with inside walls of 12-inch oak logs. These two walls were separated by a 12-inch space filled with loose rock. Combined, these walls made a formidable, virtually impenetrable barrier four feet thick.

In the dungeon the floor-to-ceiling height was barely six feet, and inasmuch as some of the men, including the Prophet Joseph, were over six feet tall, this meant that when standing they were constantly in a stooped position, and when lying it was mostly upon the rough, bare stones of the prison floor covered here and there by a bit of loose, dirty straw or an occasional dirty straw mat.

The food given to the prisoners was coarse and sometimes contaminated, so filthy that one of them said they “could not eat it until [they] were driven to it by hunger.”² On as many as four occasions they had poison administered to them in their food, making them so violently ill that for days they alternated between vomiting and a kind of delirium, not really caring whether they lived or died. In the Prophet Joseph’s letters, he spoke of the jail being a “hell, surrounded with demons . . . where we are compelled to hear nothing but blasphemous oaths, and witness a scene of blasphemy, and drunkenness and hypocrisy, and debaucheries of every description.”³ “We have . . . not blankets sufficient to keep us warm,” he said, “and when we have a fire, we are obliged to have almost a constant smoke.”⁴ “Our souls have been bowed down”⁵ and “my nerve trembles from long confinement.”⁶ “Pen, or tongue, or angels,” Joseph wrote, could not adequately describe “the malice of hell” that he suffered there.⁷ And all of this occurred during what, by some accounts, was considered then the coldest winter on record in the state of Missouri.

It is not my purpose to make this a speech about the sorrow and difficulty these men confronted in Liberty Jail, so let me put a few photos on the screen and conclude this little introductory portion of my message. I promise I have something else in mind to say.

Here is a photo of the jail pretty much as it stood at the time Joseph and his brethren were incarcerated there.

Here is a photo taken some years later when officers and historians from the Church visited the location. I’m not sure if that fellow on top is trying to get out or get in.

Here is a cross section of the Church’s reconstruction of the prison, which can now be seen at our visitors’ center there. Note the two-story arrangement with a rope and bucket, the only link between the dungeon and the upper floor.

Here is a painting by Liz Lemon Swindle showing Joseph in prayer. Note the forlorn, longing look on Joseph’s face.

And here’s a portrayal by Greg Olsen showing how Joseph may have written some of the revelations that came during this imprisonment.

And this is my final photo, which leads me to the real message I have come to give tonight.

A Prison-Temple Experience

Most of us, most of the time, speak of the facility at Liberty as a “jail” or a “prison”—and certainly it was that. But Elder Brigham H. Roberts, in recording the history of the Church, spoke of the facility as a temple, or, more accurately, a “prison-temple.”⁸ Elder Neal A. Maxwell used the same phrasing in some of his writings.⁹ Certainly it lacked the purity, the beauty, the comfort, and the cleanliness of our true temples, our dedicated temples. The speech and behavior of the guards and criminals who came there was anything but templelike. In fact, the restricting brutality and injustice of this experience at Liberty would make it seem the very antithesis of the liberating, merciful spirit of our temples and the ordinances that are performed in them. So in what sense could Liberty Jail be called a “temple”—or at least a kind of temple—in the development of Joseph Smith personally and in his role as a prophet? And what does such a title tell us about God’s love and teachings, including where and when that love and those teachings are made manifest?

As we think on these things, does it strike us that spiritual experience, revelatory experience, sacred experience can come to every one of us in all the many and varied stages and circumstances of our lives if we want it, if we hold on and pray on, and if we keep our faith strong through our difficulties? We love and cherish our dedicated temples and the essential, exalting ordinances that are performed there. We thank heaven and the presiding Brethren that more and more of them are being built, giving more and more of us greater access to them. They are truly the holiest, most sacred structures in the kingdom of God, to which we all ought to go as worthily and as often as possible.

But tonight’s message is that when you have to, you can have sacred, revelatory, profoundly instructive experience with the Lord in any situation you are in. Indeed, let me say that even a little stronger: You can have sacred, revelatory, profoundly instructive experience with the Lord in the most miserable experiences of your life—in the worst settings, while enduring the most painful injustices, when facing the most insurmountable odds and opposition you have ever faced.

Now let’s talk about those propositions for a moment. Every one of us, in one way or another, great or small, dramatic or incidental, is going to spend a little time in Liberty Jail—spiritually speaking. We will face things we do not want to face for reasons that may not have been our fault. Indeed, we may face difficult circumstances for reasons that were absolutely right and proper, reasons that came because we were trying to keep the commandments of the Lord. We may face persecution; we may endure heartache and separation from loved ones; we may be hungry and cold and forlorn. Yes, before our lives are over we may all be given a little taste of what the prophets faced often in their lives. But the lessons of the winter of 1838–39 teach us that every experience can become a redemptive experience if we remain bonded to our Father in Heaven through that difficulty. These difficult lessons teach us that man’s extremity is God’s opportunity, and if we will be humble and faithful, if we will be believing and not curse God for our problems, He can turn the unfair and inhumane and debilitating prisons of our lives into temples—or at least into a circumstance that can bring comfort and revelation, divine companionship and peace.

Let me push this just a little further. I’ve just said that hard times can happen to us. President Joseph Fielding Smith, grandnephew of the Prophet Joseph and grandson of the incarcerated Hyrum, said something even stronger than that when he dedicated the Liberty Jail Visitors’ Center in 1963. Alluding to the kind of history we’ve reviewed tonight and looking on the scene where his grandfather and granduncle were so unjustly held, he said perhaps such things have to happen—not only can they happen, perhaps they have to. Said he: “As I have read the history of those days, the days that went before and days that came after, I have reached the conclusion that the hardships, the persecution, the almost universal opposition [toward the Church at that time] were necessary. At any rate they became school teachers to our people. They helped to make [them] strong.”¹⁰

Lessons from Liberty Jail

Well, without trying to determine which of these kinds of experiences in our life are “mandatory” and which are “optional” but still good for us, may I suggest just a very few of the lessons learned at Liberty—those experiences that were “school teachers” to Joseph and can be to us, experiences that contribute so much to our education in mortality and our exaltation in eternity.

In selecting these lessons I note yet another kind of blessing that came out of this adversity. To make the points that I am now going to try to make in my message to you, I have drawn directly upon the revelatory words that came from the lips of Joseph Smith during this heartbreaking time, words that we now have canonized as sacred scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants. I guess we’re not supposed to have favorite scriptures, and I have enough of them that you won’t be able to pin me down to one or two, but certainly any list of my favorite scriptures would have to include those written from the darkness of Liberty Jail.

So what we instantly learn is that God was not only teaching Joseph Smith in that prison circumstance but He was teaching all of us, for generations yet to come. What a scriptural gift! And what a high price was paid for it! But how empty would our lives as Latter-day Saints be if we did not have sections 121, 122, and 123 of the Doctrine and Covenants. If you have not read them recently, I want you to read them tonight, or tomorrow at the latest—no later. That is your homework assignment, and I will be checking on you! They are contained in total on a mere six pages of text, but those six pages will touch your heart with their beauty and their power. And they will remind you that God often “moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.”¹¹ In any case, He certainly turned adversity into blessing in giving us those sacred writings and reflections, so pure, noble, and Christian in both tone and content, yet produced in such an impure, ignoble, and unchristian setting.

1. Everyone Faces Trying Times

Now then, three lessons from Liberty Jail: May I suggest that the first of these is inherent in what I’ve already said—that everyone, including (and perhaps especially) the righteous, will be called upon to face trying times. When that happens we can sometimes fear God has abandoned us, and we might be left, at least for a time, to wonder when our troubles will ever end. As individuals, as families, as communities, and as nations, probably everyone has had or will have an occasion to feel as Joseph Smith felt when he asked why such sorrow had to come and how long its darkness and damage would remain. We identify with him when he cries from the depth and discouragement of his confinement: “O God, where art thou? . . . How long shall thy hand be stayed . . . ? Yea, O Lord, how long shall [thy people] suffer . . . before . . . thy bowels be moved with compassion toward them?” (D&C 121:1–3).

That is a painful, personal cry—a cry from the heart, a spiritual loneliness we may all have occasion to feel at some time in our lives.

Perhaps you have had such moments already in your young lives. If so, I hope you have not had too many. But whenever these moments of our extremity come, we must not succumb to the fear that God has abandoned us or that He does not hear our prayers. He does hear us. He does see us. He does love us. When we are in dire circumstances and want to cry “Where art Thou?” it is imperative that we remember He is right there with us—where He has always been! We must continue to believe, continue to have faith, continue to pray and plead with heaven, even if we feel for a time our prayers are not heard and that God has somehow gone away. He is there. Our prayers are heard. And when we weep He and the angels of heaven weep with us.

When lonely, cold, hard times come, we have to endure, we have to continue, we have to persist. That was the Savior’s message in the parable of the importuning widow (see Luke 18:1–8; see also Luke 11:5–10). Keep knocking on that door. Keep pleading. In the meantime, know that God hears your cries and knows your distress. He is your Father, and you are His child.

When what has to be has been and when what lessons to be learned have been learned, it will be for us as it was for the Prophet Joseph. Just at the time he felt most alone and distant from heaven’s ear was the very time he received the wonderful ministration of the Spirit and wonderful, glorious answers that came from his Father in Heaven. Into this dismal dungeon and this depressing time, the voice of God came, saying:

“My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;

“And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes” (D&C 121:7–8).

Even though seemingly unjust circumstances may be heaped upon us and even though unkind and unmerited things may be done to us—perhaps by those we consider enemies but also, in some cases, by those whom we thought were friends—nevertheless, through it all, God is with us. That is why we had our marvelous choir sing tonight Sarah Adams’s traditional, old Christian hymn “Nearer, My God, to Thee” with that seldom-sung fourth verse, which they sang so beautifully:

Out of my stony griefs
Bethel I’ll raise;
So by my woes to be
Nearer, my God, to thee.¹²

We are not alone in our little prisons here. When suffering, we may in fact be nearer to God than we’ve ever been in our entire lives. That knowledge can turn every such situation into a would-be temple.

Regarding our earthly journey, the Lord has promised: “I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up” (D&C 84:88). That is an everlasting declaration of God’s love and care for us, including—and perhaps especially—in times of trouble.

2. Even the Worthy Will Suffer

Secondly, we need to realize that just because difficult things happen—sometimes unfair and seemingly unjustified things—it does not mean that we are unrighteous or that we are unworthy of blessings or that God is disappointed in us. Of course sinfulness does bring suffering, and the only answer to that behavior is repentance. But sometimes suffering comes to the righteous, too. You will recall that from the depths of Liberty Jail when Joseph was reminded that he had indeed been “cast . . . into trouble,” had passed through tribulation and been falsely accused, had been torn away from his family and cast into a pit, into the hands of murderers, nevertheless, he was to remember that the same thing had happened to the Savior of the world, and because He was triumphant, so shall we be (see D&C 122:4–7). In giving us this sober reminder of what the Savior went through, the revelation from Liberty Jail records: “The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?” (D&C 122:8).

No. Joseph was not greater than the Savior, and neither are we. And when we promise to follow the Savior, to walk in His footsteps and be His disciples, we are promising to go where that divine path leads us. And the path of salvation has always led one way or another through Gethsemane. So if the Savior faced such injustices and discouragements, such persecutions, unrighteousness, and suffering, we cannot expect that we are not going to face some of that if we still intend to call ourselves His true disciples and faithful followers. And it certainly underscores the fact that the righteous—in the Savior’s case, the personification of righteousness—can be totally worthy before God and still suffer.

In fact, it ought to be a matter of great doctrinal consolation to us that Jesus, in the course of the Atonement, experienced all of the heartache and sorrow, all of the disappointments and injustices that the entire family of man had experienced and would experience from Adam and Eve to the end of the world in order that we would not have to face them so severely or so deeply. However heavy our load might be, it would be a lot heavier if the Savior had not gone that way before us and carried that burden with us and for us.

Very early in the Prophet Joseph’s ministry, the Savior taught him this doctrine. After speaking of sufferings so exquisite to feel and so hard to bear, Jesus said, “I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they [and that means you and I and everyone] might not suffer if they would repent” (D&C 19:16). In our moments of pain and trial, I guess we would shudder to think it could be worse, but the answer to that is clearly that it could be worse and it would be worse. Only through our faith and repentance and obedience to the gospel that provided the sacred Atonement is it kept from being worse.

Furthermore, we note that not only has the Savior suffered, in His case entirely innocently, but so have most of the prophets and other great men and women recorded in the scriptures. Name an Old Testament or Book of Mormon prophet, name a New Testament Apostle, name virtually any of the leaders in any dispensation, including our own, and you name someone who has had trouble.

My point? If you are having a bad day, you’ve got a lot of company—very, very good company. The best company that has ever lived.

Now, don’t misunderstand. We don’t have to look for sorrow. We don’t have to seek to be martyrs. Trouble has a way of finding us even without our looking for it. But when it is obvious that a little time in Liberty Jail waits before you (spiritually speaking), remember these first two truths taught to Joseph in that prison-temple. First, God has not forgotten you, and second, the Savior has been where you have been, allowing Him to provide for your deliverance and your comfort.

As the prophet Isaiah wrote, the Lord has “graven thee upon the palms of [His] hands,” permanently written right there in scar tissue with Roman nails as the writing instrument. Having paid that price in the suffering that They have paid for you, the Father and the Son will never forget nor forsake you in your suffering. (See Isaiah 49:14–16; see also 1 Nephi 21:14–16.) They have planned, prepared, and guaranteed your victory if you desire it, so be believing and “endure it well” (D&C 121:8). In the end it “shall be for thy good” (D&C 122:7), and you will see “everlasting dominion” flow unto you forever and ever “without compulsory means” (D&C 121:46).

3. Remain Calm, Patient, Charitable, and Forgiving

Thirdly, and tonight lastly, may I remind us all that in the midst of these difficult feelings when one could justifiably be angry or reactionary or vengeful, wanting to return an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, the Lord reminds us from the Liberty Jail prison-temple that “the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only [or ‘except’] upon the principles of righteousness” (D&C 121:36). Therefore, even when we face such distressing circumstances in our life and there is something in us that wants to strike out at God or man or friend or foe, we must remember that “no power or influence can or ought to be maintained [except] by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; . . . without hypocrisy, and without guile” (D&C 121:41–42; italics added).

It has always been a wonderful testimony to me of the Prophet Joseph’s greatness and the greatness of all of our prophets, including and especially the Savior of the world in His magnificence, that in the midst of such distress and difficulty they could remain calm and patient, charitable and forgiving—that they could even talk that way, let alone live that way. But they could, and they did. They remembered their covenants, they disciplined themselves, and they knew that we must live the gospel at all times, not just when it is convenient and not just when things are going well. Indeed, they knew that the real test of our faith and our Christian discipleship is when things are not going smoothly. That is when we get to see what we’re made of and how strong our commitment to the gospel really is.

Surely the classic example of this is that in the most painful hours of the Crucifixion the Savior could say, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). That is a hard thing to ask when we’re hurting. That is a hard thing to do when we’ve been offended or are tired or stressed out or suffering innocently. But that is when Christian behavior may matter the most. Remember, “the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled [except] upon the principles of righteousness.” And do we need the powers of heaven with us at such times! As Joseph was taught in this prison-temple, even in distress and sorrow we must “let [our] bowels . . . be full of charity towards all men . . . ; then [and only then] shall [our] confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and . . . the Holy Ghost shall be [our] constant companion” (D&C 121:45–46).

Remaining true to our Christian principles is the only way divine influence can help us. The Spirit has a near-impossible task to get through to a heart that is filled with hate or anger or vengeance or self-pity. Those are all antithetical to the Spirit of the Lord. On the other hand, the Spirit finds instant access to a heart striving to be charitable and forgiving, long-suffering and kind—principles of true discipleship. What a testimony that gospel principles are to apply at all times and in all situations and that if we strive to remain faithful, the triumph of a Christian life can never be vanquished, no matter how grim the circumstance might be. How I love the majesty of these elegant, celestial teachings taught, ironically, in such a despicable setting and time.

Do All Things Cheerfully

As a valedictory to the lessons from Liberty Jail, I refer to the last verse of the last section of these three we have been referring to tonight. In this final canonized statement of the Liberty Jail experience, the Lord says to us through His prophet, Joseph Smith, “Therefore, dearly beloved brethren [and sisters, when we are in even the most troubling of times], let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed” (D&C 123:17; italics added).

What a tremendously optimistic and faithful concluding declaration to be issued from a prison-temple! When he wrote those lines, Joseph did not know when he would be released or if he would ever be released. There was every indication that his enemies were still planning to take his life. Furthermore, his wife and children were alone, frightened, often hungry, wondering how they would fend for themselves without their husband and father. The Saints, too, were without homes and without their prophet. They were leaving Missouri, heading for Illinois, but who knew what tragedies were awaiting them there? Surely, to say it again, it was the bleakest and darkest of times.

Yet in these cold, lonely hours, Joseph says let us do all we can and do it cheerfully. And then we can justifiably turn to the Lord, wait upon His mercy, and see His arm revealed in our behalf.

What a magnificent attitude to maintain in good times or bad, in sorrow or in joy!

Blessing and Testimony

My beloved young friends, as part of my concluding testimony to you tonight, I wish to give you a blessing. It seems to me that as our apostolic witnesses are taken into the world, we have two opportunities and, indeed, perhaps obligations. One is to testify and bear witness, as I have been trying to do and will conclude in doing. The other is to bless—as the ancient Apostles did when the Savior invited them to do as He had done, except that it would be in all the world.

So for every one of you in attendance tonight—here in this vast auditorium or in other locations around the world—I bless every one of you, each one of you in your individual circumstances, as if my hands were on your head. I offer that to you as honestly as I offer my testimony. I bless you in the name of the Lord that God does love you, does hear your prayers, is at your side, and will never leave you.

I bless the brethren that you—that we—will be worthy of the priesthood we bear, that we will live true to the discipleship to which we have been called, in that great order, the Holy Priesthood, after the Order of the Son of God. I bless you that we will really be like the Master—that we will think more like He thinks, that we will talk more like He talks, and that we will do more of what He did. I bless you brethren as you strive to be faithful that you will have all the blessings of the priesthood, many of which we have quoted tonight from these very sections from the Doctrine and Covenants.

I bless the sisters within this audience and within the sound of my voice. I would have you know how much we cherish you, how much God cherishes you, and how much the flag of faith has been flown by the sisters of this Church from the beginning. In every generation, it would seem, from the beginning of time down to the present hour and beyond, so often it has been the women in our lives—our grandmothers, our mothers, our wives, our daughters, our sisters, our granddaughters—who have taken that torch of faith and that banner of beautiful living and have carried gospel principles wherever it would take them, against whatever hardship, into their own little equivalent of Liberty Jails and difficult times. Sisters, we love you and honor you and bless you. We ask that every righteous desire of your heart, tonight and forever, be answered upon your head and that you will walk away from this devotional with the understanding and the knowledge firmly in your heart as to how much God and heaven and the presiding Brethren of this Church love you and honor you.

I salute you young adults of this Church in this great CES congregation and say that the future is in your hands. Those of us of my generation have to, in the very near future, pass the baton to you. God bless you to face those times with the valor, the honesty, and the integrity we have spoken of here tonight.

In closing, I testify that the Father and the Son do live. And I testify that They are close, perhaps even closest via the Holy Spirit, when we are experiencing difficult times. I testify (and as our closing musical number, “My Kindness Shall Not Depart from Thee,” will testify, quoting the prophet Isaiah) that heaven’s kindness will never depart from you, regardless of what happens (see Isaiah 54:7–10; see also 3 Nephi 22:7–10). I testify that bad days come to an end, that faith always triumphs, and that heavenly promises are always kept. I testify that God is our Father, that Jesus is the Christ, that this is the true and living gospel—found in this, the true and living Church. I testify that President Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God, our prophet for this hour and this day. I love him and sustain him as I know you do. In the words of the Liberty Jail prison-temple experience, my young friends, “Hold on thy way. . . . Fear not . . . , for God shall be with you forever and ever” (D&C 122:9). In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Focus On the Goal

Story by Bishop H. David Burton

Near the end of my mission, the World Cup Golf Tournament was held at the Royal Melbourne golf course in Melbourne, Australia, and amateur golfers were given an opportunity to play with a professional in the pretournament practice rounds. On the very last day of my mission, I was able to participate in this practice round, although I won’t bore you with the details of how that occurred. When it was my turn to draw from the hat the name of the professional I was to play with that day, I drew the name of Arnold Palmer. Talk about intimidation associated with speaking at general conference! That level of intimidation was only a very small part of the amount I felt the second I saw “Arnold Palmer” on my slip. I, of course, hadn’t had a golf club in my hands for over two years, and I was, to use the vernacular of today, totally stressed out!

I don’t remember much about the round of golf except that I played very poorly. On the 17th hole we hit our tee shots. We walked a few feet, and I hit my second shot, and shortly thereafter my third before we arrived at Mr. Palmer’s ball. The young Australian man caddying for Mr. Palmer was trying very, very hard to please him. I overheard the caddy tell Mr. Palmer that on the left the topography sloped, with a stream meandering down and hidden from view. He then said that on the right the grass had been allowed to grow very, very long and was really difficult to swing a club through.

Mr. Palmer very precisely placed his club back into the bag and quietly but firmly said to the young caddy, “Please don’t clutter my mind with what is out on the right, and I’m not terribly interested in what is on the left. The only piece of information that I require from you is the exact distance from this ball to the flag on the green.”

My, that was a powerful learning experience for me. I suddenly realized the criticality of focusing on what is important and not being distracted by what may be on the left or what might be on the right. Focus is so essential in achieving our goals. Too many of us are concerned about what’s on the right and what’s on the left, and we fail to adequately focus on the principal objective that is right down the middle. When we fail to focus on the right things, it is difficult to become the manner of men and women that we desperately want to be. In this endeavor, remember that the Lord has promised: “I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up” (D&C 84:88).

Chinese Proverb

Chinese proverb that says,
“The gem cannot be polished without friction,
nor man perfected without trials.”
Stated in the Lord’s terms,
“For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things” (2 Nephi 2:11).

Thomas S Monson Creed

The five most important words in the English language are
I am proud of you.
The four most important are
What is your opinion?
The three most important are
If you please.
The two most important are
Thank you.
The least important is
I.

I and the number 1 look very similar
and one is the loneliest number that there ever was.

Avoid The Pitfalls in the Track Of Life

Avoid the pitfalls in the track of life. Avoid the detours which will deprive you of your celestial reward. You can recognize them if you will. They may be labeled “Oh, just this once won’t matter” or “My parents are so old-fashioned.”
Bad habits also can be such pitfalls. At first we could break them if we would. Later, we would break them if we could. John Dryden, an influential English poet and playwright of the 17th century, wrote:

Ill habits gather by unseen degrees,
As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.⁷

Good habits, on the other hand, are the soul’s muscles. The more you use them, the stronger they grow.
Thomas S. Monson

Life is a Sea

Life is a sea upon which the proud are humbled, the shirker is exposed, and the leader is revealed. To sail it safely and reach your desired port, you need to keep your charts at hand and up-to-date. You need to learn by the experience of others, to stand firm for principles, to broaden your interests, to be understanding of the rights of others to sail the same sea, and to be reliable in the discharge of your duty.

Your efforts in school will have a notable effect on your opportunities after you leave school. As you struggle for that grade point average, don’t overlook the importance of really learning to think. Henry Ford, the great industrialist, said: “An educated man is not one whose memory is trained to carry a few dates in history—he is one who can accomplish things. A man who cannot think is not an educated man however many college degrees he may have acquired. Thinking is the hardest work any one can do—which is probably the reason why we have so few thinkers.”⁴

Help others in their race of life

Remember that when you help another up a mountain, you are a little nearer the top yourself. Try to look at your brother or your sister in the right perspective. One man said, “I looked at my brother through the microscope of criticism, and I said, ‘How coarse my brother is.’ I looked at my brother through the telescope of scorn, and I said, ‘How small my brother is.’ Then I looked into the mirror of truth, and I said, ‘How like me my brother is.’”

Stick to The Task

Stick to your task till it sticks to you;
Beginners are many, but enders are few.
Honor, power, place, and praise
Will come, in time, to the one who stays.

Stick to your task till it sticks to you;
Bend at it, sweat at it, smile at it too;
For out of the bend and the sweat and the smile
Will come life’s victories, after awhile.⁸

An Ounce of Prevention

This is a poem that I truly live my life by.
I believe you should attack a problem at the source
To treat the symptoms of a problem is a Nobel deed,
but to cure the problem is a Divine Gift.
But like the old words teach
An ounce of prevention is far better than 10 Pounds of Cure.
by D. Newburn


A Fence or an Ambulance

[A poetic case for the value of prevention]
'Twas a dangerous cliff, as they freely confessed,
Though to walk near its crest was so pleasant;
But over its terrible edge there had slipped
A duke and full many a peasant.
So the people said something would have to be done,
But their projects did not at all tally;
Some said, "Put a fence 'round the edge of the cliff,"
Some, "An ambulance down in the valley."
But the cry for the ambulance carried the day,
For it spread through the neighboring city;
A fence may be useful or not, it is true,
But each heart became full of pity
For those who slipped over the dangerous cliff;
And the dwellers in highway and alley
Gave pounds and gave pence, not to put up a fence,
But an ambulance down in the valley.
"For the cliff is all right, if you're careful," they said,
"And, if folks even slip and are dropping,
It isn't the slipping that hurts them so much
As the shock down below when they're stopping."
So day after day, as these mishaps occurred,
Quick forth would those rescuers sally
To pick up the victims who fell off the cliff,
With their ambulance down in the valley.
Then an old sage remarked: "It's a marvel to me
That people give far more attention
To repairing results than to stopping the cause,
When they'd much better aim at prevention.
Let us stop at its source all this mischief," cried he,
"Come, neighbors and friends, let us rally;
If the cliff we will fence, we might almost dispense
With the ambulance down in the valley."
"Oh he's a fanatic," the others rejoined,
"Dispense with the ambulance? Never!
He'd dispense with all charities, too, if he could;
No! No! We'll support them forever.
Aren't we picking up folks just as fast as they fall?
And shall this man dictate to us? Shall he?
Why should people of sense stop to put up a fence,
While the ambulance works in the valley?"
But the sensible few, who are practical too,
Will not bear with such nonsense much longer;
They believe that prevention is better than cure,
And their party will soon be the stronger.
Encourage them then, with your purse, voice, and pen,
And while other philanthropists dally,
They will scorn all pretense, and put up a stout fence
On the cliff that hangs over the valley.
Better guide well the young than reclaim them when old,
For the voice of true wisdom is calling.
"To rescue the fallen is good, but 'tis best
To prevent other people from falling."
Better close up the source of temptation and crime
Than deliver from dungeon or galley;
Better put a strong fence 'round the top of the cliff
Than an ambulance down in the valley.
-- Joseph Malins (1895)

Little Johnny

There was a little boy visiting his grandparents on their farm.
He was given a slingshot to play with out in the woods.

He practiced in the woods; but he could never hit the target.

Getting a little discouraged, he headed back for dinner.

As he was walking back he saw Grandma's pet duck.

Just out of impulse, he let the slingshot fly, hit the duck square in the head and killed it. He was shocked and grieved!

In a panic, he hid the dead duck in the wood pile; only to see his
Sister watching! Sally had seen it all, but she said nothing.

After lunch the next day Grandma said, 'Sally, let's wash the dishes'

But Sally said, 'Grandma, Johnny told me he wanted to help in the kitchen.'

Then she whispered to him, "Remember the duck?'

So Johnny did the dishes.

Later that day, Grandpa asked if the children wanted to go fishing and Grandma said, 'I'm sorry but I need Sally to help make supper.'

Sally just smiled and said, 'well that's all right because Johnny told me he wanted to help?

She whispered again, 'Remember the duck?' So Sally went fishing and Johnny stayed to help..

After several days of Johnny doing both his chores and Sally's; he
Finally couldn't stand it any longer..

He came to Grandma and confessed that he had killed the duck.

Grandma knelt down, gave him a hug and said, 'Sweetheart, I know. You see, I was standing at the window and I saw the whole thing, but because I love you, I forgave you... I was just wondering how long you would let Sally make a slave of you.'

Thought for the day and every day thereafter:
Whatever is in your past, whatever you have done...? And the devil keeps throwing it up in your face (lying, cheating, debt, fear, bad habits, hatred, anger, bitterness, etc.)...whatever it is...You need to know that:
God was standing at the window and He saw the whole thing.

He has seen your whole life... He wants you to know that He loves you and that you are forgiven. He's just wondering how long you will let the devil make a slave of you..

The great thing about God is that when you ask for forgiveness;

He not only forgives you, but He forgets.

God is at the window!
And His Son Has paid the debt
To enable you to repent and him to forget.
Now go and have a good day but don't forget to pray.

Formula for Choices

Formula to guide you in the choices of life:
Fill your minds with truth.
Fill your hearts with love.
Fill your lives with service.

Today and take inventory of your collection of worldly things
Cleanse anything out of your life spiritually and temporally that is not conducive to the spirit abiding with you.


The Lord does not care about our abilities
He only cares about our availability to be an Instrument in his hand.
All of the Abilities in the World are for naught if we are unwilling to humble ourselves and submit to the Master,
Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.


By doing so, may we one day hear the words from our Lord and Savior, “Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.”
By D. Newburn

True Selfless Service

Spencer W. Kimball
we never know the impact of our simple acts of service
President Spencer W. Kimball urged Latter-day Saints to engage in “simple acts of service” that would bless others’ lives as well as their own.1 He often found opportunities to offer such service himself, as the following account shows:
“A young mother on an overnight flight with a two-year-old daughter was stranded by bad weather in Chicago airport without food or clean clothing for the child and without money. She was … pregnant and threatened with miscarriage, so she was under doctor’s instructions not to carry the child unless it was essential. Hour after hour she stood in one line after another, trying to get a flight to Michigan.
The terminal was noisy, full of tired, frustrated, grumpy passengers, and
she heard critical references to her crying child and to her sliding her child along the floor with her foot as the line moved forward.
No one offered to help with the soaked, hungry, exhausted child.
“Then, the woman later reported,
‘someone came towards us and with a kindly smile said, “Is there something I could do to help you?” With a grateful sigh I accepted his offer. He lifted my sobbing little daughter from the cold floor and lovingly held her to him while he patted her gently on the back. He asked if she could chew a piece of gum. When she was settled down, he carried her with him and said something kindly to the others in the line ahead of me, about how I needed their help. They seemed to agree and then he went up to the ticket counter [at the front of the line] and made arrangements with the clerk for me to be put on a flight leaving shortly. He walked with us to a bench, where we chatted a moment, until he was assured that I would be fine. He went on his way. About a week later I saw a picture of Apostle Spencer W. Kimball and recognized him as the stranger in the airport.’ ”2
Several years later,
President Kimball received a letter that read, in part:
“Dear President Kimball:
“I am a student at Brigham Young University. I have just returned from my mission in Munich, West Germany. I had a lovely mission and learned much. …


“I was sitting in priesthood meeting last week, when a story was told of a loving service which you performed some twenty-one years ago in the Chicago airport.
The story told of how you met a young pregnant mother with a … screaming child, in … distress, waiting in a long line for her tickets. She was threatening miscarriage and therefore couldn’t lift her child to comfort her.
She had experienced four previous miscarriages, which gave added reason for the doctor’s orders not to bend or lift.
“You comforted the crying child and explained the dilemma to the other passengers in line. This act of love took the strain and tension off my mother.
I was born a few months later in Flint, Michigan.
“I just want to thank you for your love. Thank you for your example!”

A Friend Around The Corner

Around the corner I have a friend,
In this great city that has no end;
Yet days go by, and weeks rush on,
And before I know it, a year is gone,
And I never see my old friend’s face,
For Life is a swift and terrible race.
He knows I like him just as well
As in the days when I rang his bell
And he rang mine.
We were younger then,
And now we are busy, tired men:
Tired with playing a foolish game,
Tired with trying to make a name.
“To-morrow,” I say, “I will call on Jim,
Just to show that I’m thinking of him.”
But to-morrow comes—and to-morrow goes,
And the distance between us grows and grows.
Around the corner!—yet miles away …
“Here’s a telegram, sir,”
“Jim died to-day.”And that’s what we get, and deserve in the end:
Around the corner, a vanished friend.

What Causes Me To Be An Unwise Servant

What causes us to become an unwise servant?

I believe being an unwise servant comes from man allowing the world to occupy our time talents and means with shallow pursuits.
If we are not wise with our time we will allow the world to give us hollow pursuits to chase. And in this we will only find disappointment and discouragement.
If we put our life on a graph to illustrate our emotions many times it would look like a wild ride. Especially when we are young trying to figure out just where we fit in the world.
When I was younger my graph was up and down now that I am older it is mainly on the incline with few real deep dips.
I believe One of the biggest tools of the adversary is Discouragement.
I hope I can share with you some ways we can choose not be discouraged.
Do you ever have days where you feel like you can take on the whole world then the next day you may feel really discouraged. Have you been discouraged in the last month? How about last week? How about yesterday? How about this morning?
As you can see discouragement is a common ailment.I believe In life if we want to fix a problem we need to always find the root cause of that problem. If we look in the book of Mormon,in Moroni 10:22
22 And if ye have no hope ye must needs be in despair; and despair (or discouragement) cometh because of iniquity. I believe this is the root cause of despair or discouragement and it comes because of iniquity. Now you may say that’s a pretty strong statement. And some might say well I am not iniquitous, I keep all of the commandments, how come I am so discouraged? I think what the Lord is telling us is we have not gained total control over our Body or over our appetites or our passions or over our mind, or the way we think about things, and thus if we are not doing it in full faith in love of God in truth there is some iniquity in that. I would like to submit to you that there has never been a person come into a bishops office and said, I have been reading my scriptures Praying 10 times a day Paying my tithes and fast offerings Attending church and the temple Exercising my calling And my life is falling apart. Despair and discouragement comes from not following the principals we know are true and correct. If we have not perfected ourselves in controlling this tremendous mechanism our body and our mind our feelings or our passions and desires, discouragement will come. The root cause in truth comes back to us neglecting to do some things we should to help us to be in good control. I would like to share A pattern to help keep us from being discouraged. If we are to avoid discouragement.
First you must strive to Have the spirit of the lord with you.
If you can have the spirit of the Lord with you in abundance my dear friends.
If you can learn how to invite the spirit of God to be close to you and you be close to him, You will be able to chase the sprit of discouragement away. If we can strive to have the spirit of the lord with you, You will find yourself enjoying the fruits the Lord has promised.
So what are these fruits and how will they manifest in our life.
The fruits of the spirit are Love, Joy, Gentleness, Kindness, Meekness, Patience,Peace.
In Alma 5: 14-19 We learn of the end product of having the fruits of the spirit bestowed upon us.
14 And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?
15 Do ye exercise faith in the redemption of him who created you? Do you look forward with an eye of faith, and view this mortal body raised in immortality, and this corruption braised in in corruption, to stand before God to be judged according to the deeds which have been done in the mortal body?
16 I say unto you, can you imagine to yourselves that ye hear the voice of the Lord, saying unto you, in that day: Come unto me ye blessed, for behold, your works have been the works of righteousness upon the face of the earth?
17 Or do ye imagine to yourselves that ye can lie unto the Lord in that day, and say—Lord, our works have been righteous works upon the face of the earth—and that he will save you?
18 Or otherwise, can ye imagine yourselves brought before the tribunal of God with your souls filled with guilt and remorse, having a remembrance of all your guilt, yea, a perfect remembrance of all your wickedness, yea, a remembrance that ye have set at defiance the commandments of God?
19 I say unto you, can ye look up to God at that day with a pure heart and clean hands? I say unto you, can you look up, having the aimage of God engraven upon your countenances?
My dear brothers and sisters as we strive to have the spirit of the lord with us in abundance we will naturally have Gods image engraven upon our countenance.
The fruits of the spirit will manifest in the way we conduct our life.
As we get older we become more free We are Free to choose if we are going to follow all of our fathers commandments.We have the choice to ask our selves Do I go to church every Sunday Do I read my scriptures Do I skip over my prayers if I am too tired.
In these are found the seeds of great hope or discouragement.
If the audience reading this is a typical group of latter-day saints About half of you did not kneel beside your bed and pray this morning.
If you did not make your first good morning to the Lord I would hope you will make a commitment now to make that change in your life.
You should always make your first good morning be to the lord.
The scriptures are full of the admonition to pray.
In 3 Nephi ch 18 vs 15- 21 The lord says 6 times in a row you must pray or Satan will get you.
In what way can Satan get you.
One of the darts Satan uses is Discouragement
Things that cause you to not believe in yourself
Or things that cause us not to pray.
Thoughts like You were never very smart, Or you are not very pretty or handsome, You will never meet that goal, You will never get your whole class to come out to church, Or I don’t have time to have family home evening.
So How do we over come this??
We do it through prayer.
Prayer has great power if you do it humbly it will cause you to be repentant.
It will cause you to draw close to the lord.
Have your life centered on prayer.
There is great power in one who will humble himself before the lord and pray to God every day many times a day.
There has been many times in my life where the Lord has answered my prayers it would seem, almost instantly. One particular time comes to my mind when we were relocating to Idaho Falls Idaho.
We rented the largest Rhyder Truck we could and we pull a 16 Ft enclosed trailer.
We had a true road train.
When you have something that big it is not wise to let your tank get below half a tank.
This story is a prime example of that.
We had reached Louisiana and I had procrastinated putting fuel in the truck.
We were on a long stretch of highway and had not seen a gas station for miles.
We were really low on fuel and began to get worried.
Finally out in the middle of no where a small town was advertised on the interstate sign.
We pulled off on a blind off ramp.
At the end of the ramp I turned right when I should have went left to get to the gas station.
We realized very quickly we were heading in the wrong direction.
We were heading out of town into what seemed like the wilderness.
Immediately we started looking for a place to turn around.
I had forgot we had alot of rain that week when I chose to cut through a large field next to a church.
As I began to cross this field I could feel the truck was slipping so I dropped it into low gear and proceeded toward the parking lot through the field.
The truck stopped about 15 ft shy of the parking lot.
We had buried this truck up to the axles in Louisiana clay.
When I hoped out of the truck to get a shovel
Immediately I had about 10 pounds of clay stuck to my shoes.
My wife in horror said What are we going to do.
I looked at her and said
Get up in the truck and Pray that we can get out of this.
She climbed up into the truck and offered up a fervent prayer.
No sooner had she 0pened her eyes from her prayer
A young man pulled up in a brand new Dodge Diesel 4wd Dually with a chain.
The Lord had answered my wifes humble prayer.
There is great power in one who will humble themselves in humble prayer.
The Lord has promised he will bear our burdens and he kept his promise that day.

2nd thing to avoid discouragement is to read your scriptures.
You should read at least 5 or ten minutes a day alone one on one with you and the Lord.
If you will do this the spirit will be with you in abundance.
Commit to read every day.
If you will take a few minutes to be alone prayerfully reading the passages. The lord will begin to speak to you through those passages and greatly bless you for having still given him some time.
There is great strength that will come to you if you do that.
You will find that as you come upon trials in your life the words of the lord will come to your mind.
In that moment when you do that you will chase away any other spirit and you will find peace.
Another way to obtain the spirit of the lord is by attending church We should always come armed with our scripture and a Pen and paper.
When you feel the spirit of the lord witness the truthfulness of something in a meeting write it down.
We are taught this principal in D&C Section 76
If Joseph smith did not do this All of the things he received would have been lost.
( Throughout my life I have written down whole talks as I have been inspired )
If you will take those things you wrote while in the spirit and Memorize it you will be able to take the things that move you inside and use them when you are feeling discouraged to chase that spirit away.
When you start to feel discouraged say it out loud if possible.
This will chase away discouragement.
3rd thing Use good music and Good magazines, Books ect. The Lords music is the hymns of the church.
There Are good romantic songs but there is also Music of the devil himself.
Do not misunderstand that Or try to discount it or call it something else.
There is music of the Devil himself.
In the 1980s Elder Gene R. Cook spent 21/2 hours on a plane McJaggar When He sat down beside him he did not recognize him right off, he introduced him self as an elder in The Church and Mc Jaggier introduced himself And Elder Cook said I am glad to meet you Mic.
Mc Jagger a little annoyed that he did not know who he was pointed to a big rolling stone magazine that he was reading. The page had wild eyed women in scantly clad dress. McJagger tapped on the magazine and said "that's me"
They began talking Elder Cook said I have a question for you.
Mcjagger said well what is it.
Elder Cook said I spend a lot of time talking with youth all around the world some of the young people say that music does not have any impact on them for good or evil But others say it really has an impact on them.
You have been in this for over 20 years I would like to know what is your opinion? Mcjagger replied and This is an exact quote.
McJagger said "Our music is calculated to drive the kids to sex".
He could see Elder Cook was taken back so he rebounded with the statement,
"But it is up to them what they do"
"It is not my fault."
"I am just earning a lot of money"
He seemed to be delighted in the fact in his mind that he was destroying the family all over the world.
Elder Cook said that he had 8 children Mc Jagger said that he had a few too but no wife. He said that he had 3 women pregnant in various parts of the world.
He said that he had been given some of the missionary discussions in England
Elder Cook did not believe him at first until he questioned him further.
After a few drinks Mcjaggar sat up and said loudly in the cabin.
Any one who believes that the book of Mormon is the word of God is a liar.
Elder cook sat there stunned and offered a silent prayer to know what to do.
Elder Cook responded you are mighty fortunate today Mic.
Mic said what do you mean?????
You are sitting next to a servant of the lord who is going to correct what you just said.
Elder Cook said I have a book of Mormon in my brief case, He took it out and set it upon his lap And said I have read this book many times and I must have missed that chapter.
I have read this book many times And if there is a chapter like that I want to see it.
Would you show me one chapter that is not the word of God.
How about one page.
How about one line
How about one word
Mic I bear testimony that you are the liar.
The book of Mormon is the word of God.
Then Elder Cook bore testimony that he would be held accountable for what he was doing to the degree of his understanding if he did not turn his life around and change his ways.
Now it is evidence today that he did not listen.
But that does not change any thing.
Because on the plane that day he lied.
About this book the Book of Mormon.
If you have miss judged music and thought it is not that bad Believe the brethren.
I bear witness There is good music in the world
When You hear the tabernacle choir singing, How do you feel??
My dear friends that is the spirit of the lord.
Unlike many of the songs out today The hymns of the church carry the spirit of the lord.
Take an inventory of the use of your time where do you spend your time how much internetm how much tv, how much time reading other books.
Soon after I was married my wife and I decided to go through our music and earthly possessions And remove anything that we thought would drive away the spirit of the Lord.
I am glad that we have made that commitment to ourselves.
The other night I had a Dream of a song I don’t even like, I have only heard the beginning of it and always change the channel.
That gave me further evidence that good and bad music becomes ingrained in our subconscious.
When we expose ourselves to Music, Pornography or any other worldly thing it becomes part of us forever it is ingrained in your subconscious to be used for good or evil by which ever spirit you choose to listen to.
Some of the songs from primary come to my mind when I am being tempted.
When I get discouraged I sing I am a child of God.
As I do this without fail I have been able to chase away the evil one and avoided discouragement each time.
4 th
Serve other people
Forget self go out and try to help someone else
Discouragement will flee you
Christ did this
This is all he seemed to want to do
I would submit to you this, You will not ever give anything to the Lord that he will not multiply a hundred fold and more back to you.
Go out and love the people
If you see someone discouraged go and put your arm around them
a friendly Smile in hallway brightens everyone's day when they see you.
If you are feeling down
Do not be hesitant to go to a worthy priesthood holder and Seek a priesthood blessing
If you do this the spirit of the lord will abide with you and discouragement will flee.
Where did Jesus seem to like to spend his time???
Poor needy down cast down trodden even with an adulteress whom he sent on her way full of hope.
When did he do it????
About all the time.
The Greatest things happened while he was on the way to a miracle.
In your life you have to respond on the way.
What did the Savior give????
He gave of himself.
Loose yourself in my service and you will find yourself
The lord wants us to gain control over our body and our minds
I pray that you will be turned more unto God.
If you want to do that go out and serve others.

The Good Samaritan
Jesus gives the parable of the smaritan to a lawyer.
A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
“And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
“And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.
“But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,
“And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
“And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.

“Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves?

SATAN'S MEETING:

SATAN'S MEETING:


Satan called a worldwide convention of his servants.

In his opening address he said,

We have lost the battle but we can win the war.

"We can't keep Christians from going to church."

"We can't keep them from reading their Bibles and knowing the truth."

"We can't even keep them from forming an intimate relationship with their savior."

"Once they gain that connection with Jesus, our power over them is broken."


"So let them go to their churches; let them have their covered dish
dinners, BUT steal their time, so they don't have time to develop a relationship with Jesus Christ.."

"This is what I want you to do," said the devil:

"Distract them from gaining hold of their Savior and maintaining that vital connection throughout their day!"

"Keep them busy in the non-essentials of life and invent innumerable
schemes to occupy their minds,".

"Tempt them to spend, spend, spend, and borrow, borrow, borrow."

"Persuade the wives to go to work for long hours and the husbands to work 6-7 days each week, 10-12 hours a day, so they can afford their empty lifestyles."

"Keep them from spending time with their children."

"As their families fragment, soon, their homes will offer no escape from the pressures of work!"

"Over-stimulate their minds so that they cannot hear that still, small voice."

"Entice them with the radio Tv’s I pods and mp3s.
Fill their drive, meals stores and homes with non biblical noise.

"This will jam their minds and break that union with Christ."

"Fill the coffee tables with magazines and newspapers."

"Pound their minds with the news 24 hours a day."

"Invade their drive with enticing billboards."

"Flood their mailboxes with junk mail, offering free products, services and false hopes.."


"Keep skinny, photo shopped models on the magazines and TV so young women and young men and fathers alike will believe that outward beauty is what's important.

Keep the mothers too tired from all of the demands of life.

If she is discouraged we have killed the heart of the home

"This will fragment the family quickly!"

Commercialize Christmas and Easter to distract them from teaching their children their real meaning

"Keep them busy, busy, busy!"

And we will win this fight.

The Young Zode

The Zode in the Road
Did I ever tell you about the young Zode,
Who came to two signs at the fork in the road?
One said to Place One, and the other, Place Two.
So the Zode had to make up his mind what to do.
Well…the Zode scratched his head, and his chin and his pants.
And he said to himself, “I’ll be taking a chance
If I go to Place One. Now, that place may be hot!
And so, how do I know if I’ll like it or not?
On the other hand though, I’ll be sort of a fool
If I go to Place Two and find it too cool.
In that case I may catch a chill and turn blue!
So, maybe Place One is the best, not Place Two,
But then again, what if Place One is too high?
I may catch a terrible earache and die!
So Place Two may be best! On the other hand though…
What might happen to me if Place Two is too low?
I might get some very strange pain in my toe!
So Place One may be best,” and he started to go.
Then he stopped, and he said, “On the other hand though….
On the other hand…other hand…other hand though…”
And for 36 hours and a half that poor Zode
Made starts and made stops at the fork in the road.
Saying, “Don’t take a chance. No! You may not be
right.”
Then he got an idea that was wonderfully bright!
“Play safe!” cried the Zode. “I’ll play safe. I’m no dunce!
I’ll simply start out for both places at once!”
And that’s how the Zode who would not take a chance
Got no place at all with a split in his pants

This story reminded me of a couple of scriptures.
No matter how hard you try to not make a choice eventually you will decide which master you will serve through your actions.
If we are not careful we can become like the Young Zode we will stand before the Lord and have nothing spiritually to show the Lord to account for our time here on Earth.

In Joshua 24:15
15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Doctrine & Covenants SECTION 58
26 For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant; wherefore he receiveth no reward.
27 Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness;
28 For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward.

Being A Mother

BEING A MOTHER
This is one mans story that teaches a great principle.

After 21 years of marriage, my wife wanted me
to take another woman out to dinner and a movie.

She said, 'I love you, but I know this other woman loves you and would Love to spend some time with you.'

The other woman that my wife wanted me to visit was my Mother, who has been a widow for 19 years, but the demands of my work and my three children had made it possible to visit her only occasionally.

That night I called to invite her to go out for dinner and a movie. 'What's wrong, are you well,' she asked?

My mother is the type of woman who suspects that a late night call or a surprise invitation is a sign of bad news.

'I thought that it would be pleasant to spend some time with you,' I responded 'just the two of us.' She thought about it for a moment, and then said,’ I would like that very much.'

That Friday after work, as I drove over to pick her up I
was a bit nervous. When I arrived at her house, I noticed that she, too, seemed to be nervous about our date. She waited in the door with her coat on.

She had curled her hair and was wearing the dress that she had worn to celebrate her last wedding anniversary. She smiled from a face that was as radiant as an angel's.

'I told my friends that I was going to go out with my son, and they were impressed,' she said, as she got into the car. 'They can't wait to hear about our meeting.'

We went to a restaurant that, although not elegant, was very nice and cozy. My mother took my arm as if she were the First Lady.

After we sat down, I had to read the menu.

Her eyes could only read large print. Half-way through the entrees, I lifted my eyes and saw Mother sitting there staring at me.
A nostalgic smile was on her lips.

'It was I who used to have to read the menu when you were small,' she said. 'Then it's time that you relax and let me return the favor,' I responded. During the dinner , we had an agreeable conversation nothing extraordinary but catching up on recent events of each other's life. We talked so much that we missed the movie. As we arrived at her house later, she said, 'I'll go out with you again, but only if you let me invite you.' I agreed.

'How was your dinner date?' asked my wife when I got home. 'Very nice, much more so than I could have imagined,' I answered.

A few days later, my mother died of a massive heart attack.

It happened so suddenly that I didn't have a chance to do anything for her. Sometime later, I received an envelope with a copy of a restaurant receipt from the same place Mother and I had dined.

An attached note said: 'I paid this bill in advance. I wasn't sure that I could be there; but, nevertheless, I paid for two plates - one for you and the other for your wife. You will never know what that night meant for me.

'I love you, son'

At that moment, I understood the importance of saying in time: 'I love YOU' and to give our loved ones the time that they deserve.

Nothing in life is more important than your family. Give them the time they deserve, because these things cannot be put off till some 'other'
time.

Somebody said it takes about six weeks to get back to normal after you've had a baby... somebody doesn't know that once you're a mother, 'normal' is history.

Somebody said you can't love the second child as much as you love the first... somebody doesn't have two or more children.

Somebody said the hardest part of being a mother is labor and delivery....somebody never watched her 'baby' get on the bus for the first day of kindergarten... or on a plane headed for military 'boot camp.'

Somebody said a Mother can stop worrying after her child gets married... somebody doesn't know that marriage adds a new son or daughter-in-law to a mother's heartstrings.

Somebody said a mother's job is done when her last
child leaves home... somebody never had grandchildren.

Somebody said your mother knows you love her, so you don't need to tell her... somebody isn't a mother.
Pass this along to all the GREAT 'mothers' in your life and to everyone who ever had a mother.

This isn't just about being a mother; it's about appreciating the people in your lives while you have them.... no matter who that person is!

Watch your thoughts, they become words..
Watch your words, they become actions.
Watch your actions, they become habits.
Watch your habits, they become character.
Watch your character, for it
becomes...your destiny.
Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

Talk about "Food Storage"

Talk given by Marti G. Jan 20, 2008
Some think preparedness as either overwhelming or boring but it is neither. I am here to tell you that I have never had as many spiritual experiences as I have had over the last year and it all has to do with preparedness. I KNOW I was led by the hand of God and what I have learned has changed my life.

About 4 months ago I was called to be in preparedness at the ward level . but before I was actually sustained I went again to the Lord and asked Him how I could motivate my ward members. He very softly but strongly said testify. I thought - they are not going to want to hear why I'm into preparedness, and I heard - no testify of the Christ. And I thought - I can do that so I started reciting the different titles of Christ - Jehovah, the Savior, The Good Shepherd, the Redeemer, the Lawgiver, the Word, The Great I Am, and by the time I got to the Messiah, the Anointed One, tears were streaming down my cheeks and then I had what I call a remembrance. It wasn't a vision, but more like remembering when we were in the Great Council and witnessed our Father in Heaven place his hands on the head of Christ, anointing him to be the Savior of all mankind . and then I knew exactly what I was to testify of. Bros. And Sisters, the church is preparing to receive our King for His Millenial Reign. The earth is preparing to receive her creator. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is coming . that before he comes the world will experience more trials and tribulations than ever before - it is prophesied, it is in the scriptures and the Brethren have been warning us very strongly lately. In order for Our King, Our Master to come there will be many calamaties that we need to go through in order to refine us and to make us a Zion people. We are not a Zion people . he will refine us and test us. He wants each of us there to greet Him but if we aren't obedient we may not survive the coming events. We cannot rely upon the Church or our neighbors to save us. Christ will save us through our obedience and part of that obedience is having our food storage.

Paraphrasing Vaughn J. Featherstone Prophecy About Temples - Temple Statement for Utah South April 1987 Vaughn J. Featherstone (given in Solemn Assembly in Manti Temple 7:00 am Sunday)
Before the Savior comes the world will darken. Then will come a period of time where even the elect will lose hope if they do not come to the temples. .

Our garments worn as instructed will clothe us in a manner as protective as temple walls. The covenants and ordinances will fill us with faith as a living fire. In a day of desolating sickness, scorched earth, barren wastes, sickening plagues, disease, destruction, and death, we as a people will rest in the shade of trees, we will drink from the cooling fountains. We will abide in places of refuge from the storm.

They will bathe His feet with tears and He will weep and bless them for having suffered through the greatest trials ever known to man. His bowels will be filled with compassion and His heart will swell wide as eternity and He will love them. He will bring peace that will last a thousand years and they will receive their reward with Him.
I pose this question, are you prepared to take care of yourself and your family? Is it a priority for you to be obedient to the commandment to have food storage? Pres. Kimball made it very clear that food storage is a commandment.

He was very aware of the fact that we have been told since the restoration to store food for preparation of the Second Coming and we sometimes get impatient. In his book, The Miracle of Forgiveness he stated:
"Do we lose faith, do we lose patience, do we lose hope, do we get weary in waiting, because the day is long and the event delayed? It is difficult to be prepared for an event so long delayed. Many have found it too difficult and then slumber without due preparation. Hundreds of thousands of us today are in this position. Confidence has been dulled and patience worn thin. It is so hard to wait and be prepared always.
BUT WE CANNOT ALLOW OURSELVES TO SLUMBER.

Pres Kimball continues . "I believe that the Ten Virgins represent the people of the Church of Jesus Christ and not the rank and file of the world. All of the virgins, wise and foolish, had accepted the invitation to the wedding supper; they had knowledge of the program and had been warned of the important day to come. They were not the gentiles or the heathens or the pagans, nor were they necessarily corrupt and reprobate, but they were knowing people who were foolishly unprepared for the vital happenings that were to affect their eternal lives. They had the saving, exalting gospel, but it had not been made the center of their lives. They knew the way but gave only a small measure of loyalty and devotion. I ask you: What value is a car without an engine, a cup without water, a table without food, a lamp without oil? The foolish asked the others to share their oil, but spiritual and temporal preparedness cannot be shared in an instant. The wise had to go, else the bridegroom wou ld have gone unwelcomed. They needed all their oil for themselves; they could not save the foolish. The responsibility was each for himself. THIS WAS NOT SELFISHNESS OR UNKINDNESS. The kind of oil that is needed to illuminate the way and light up the darkness is not shareable. Each must obtain that kind of oil for himself..

The foolish virgins were not averse to buying oil. They knew they should have oil. They merely procrastinated, not knowing when the bridegroom would come. The day of the marriage feast approaches. The coming of the Lord is nigh. And there are many among us who are not ready for the great and glorious event." (Pres. Kimball - Miracle of Forgiveness).

Many in the church believe that those who have stored a year supply will share with those who have not. Though that is a nice thought, this is what Pres. Packer has said to dispel that notion: "When people are able but unwilling to take care of themselves we are responsible to employ the dictum of the Lord that the idler shall not eat the bread of the laborer". In other words, do not expect your neighbor to feed you. For if he has obeyed the counsel to store up for his family, and you have had the resources to but instead procrastinated, which one of his children should he let starve in order to feed you? If it is not a priority for you to save yourself and your family, why should another family have to take on that responsibility? The Law of Mercy and Justice also apply to food storage ... Some confuse the commandments of sharing and taking care of the poor and needy with sharing their food with the rebellious. There is a huge difference in sharing with the poor and needy and sharing with the rebellious - those who could afford to get their food storage, but don't because other things, buying big screens, vacations, the latest fashions, take precedence over obeying the commandment to store food.

If you are spiritually prepared you will be temporally prepared. You cannot obtain a testimony of tithing unless you pay tithing, you cannot obtain a testimony of prayer unless you pray. It's the doing that brings forth the blessings of heaven and the testimony.

Now let's look at what our current prophet, Pres. Hinckley has said recently.
Oct. 1998-7 years of Plenty begin
"I wish to speak to you about temporal matters. As a backdrop for what I wish to say, I read to you a few verses from the 41st chapter of Genesis. Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt, dreamed dreams which greatly troubled him. . . . 'And I saw in my dream . . . seven ears came up in one stalk, full and good: And, behold, seven ears, withered, thin, and blasted with the east wind, sprung up after them: . . . (Joseph's interpretation) Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine. . . And god will shortly bring it to pass.' (Gen. 41:20, 26, 30, 32) .. I am suggesting that the time has come to get our houses in order. . . . There is a portent of stormy weather ahead to which we had better give heed.That's all I have to say about it, but I wish to say it with all the emphasis of which I am capable" (President Hinckley, Conference 1998, Priesthood Session.) What does portent mean - it means something momentous or calamitous is about to occur - an evil omen, prophetic or threatening significance. And then 9/11 happened.

It is noteworthy that in General Conference following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack Pres. Hinckley quoted this scripture from the D&C:

Behold, vegenance cometh speedily upon the inhabitants of the earth, a day of wrath, a day of burning, a day of desolation, of weeping, of mourning, and of lamentation and as a whirlwind it shall come upon all the face of the earth saith the Lord. And upon my house shall it begin and from my house shall it go forth, saith the Lord. First among those among you, saith the Lord, who have professed to know my name and have not known me, and have blasphemed against me in the midst of my house, saith the Lord.

And then he said this:
Occasions such 9/11 pull us up sharply to a realization that
"Life is fragile, peace is fragile, civilization itself is fragile. The economy is particularly vulnerable. We have been counseled again and again concerning self-reliance. We cannot provide against every contingency. But we can provide against many contingencies. Let the present situation remind us that this we should do."

EXACTLY 7 YEARS FROM THE DATE THAT PRES. HINCKLEY GAVE HIS 7 YEARS OF PLENTY TALK HE AGAIN MENTIONS THE DREAM OF PHAROH in Oct. 2005-7 years of Lean

"Let us never lose sight of the dream of Pharaoh concerning the fat cattle and the lean, the full ears of corn and the blasted ears, the meaning of which was interpreted by Joseph to indicate years of plenty and years of scarcity." (President Hinckley, October Conference, 2005.)
I do not think there is any coincidence to his giving the talk of famine 7 years apart from each other . I testify that it was a warning to us .

In April 2004 General Conference Elder Dallin H. Oaks said: "We are living in the prophesied time when peace shall be taken from the earth (D&C 1:35), when all things shall be in commotion and men's hearts shall fail them (D&C 88:91). These signs of the Second Coming are all around us and seem to be increasing in frequency and intensity...the accelerating pattern of natural disasters in the last few decades is ominous. While we are powerless to alter the fact of the Second Coming and unable to know its exact time, we can accelerate our own preparation and try to influence the preparation of those around us.. Are we preparing?...We need to make both TEMPORAL and spiritual preparation for the events prophesied at the time of the Second Coming."

Elder Eyring in 2005 said: "The giant earthquake, and the tsunamis it sent crashing into the coasts around the Indian Ocean, is just the beginning and a part of what is to come, terrible as it was. You remember the words from the Doctrine and Covenants which now seems so accurate: (Doctrine and Covenants 88: 88-91) As the challenges around us increase, we must commit to do more to qualify for the companionship of the Holy Ghost.
Casual prayer won't be enough. Reading a few verses of the scripture won't be enough. Doing the minimum of what the Lord asks of us won't be enough. Hoping that we will have the Atonement work in our lives and that we will perhaps sometimes feel the influence of the Holy Ghost won't be enough. And one great burst of effort won't be enough."

Now I want to turn to the story of Noah. Remember Noah preached repentance for hundreds of years while he was building the ark. It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark. The world was beautiful, the sun was shining, life seemed "normal". It is important to note that the people who didn't get on the ark suffered and died by the very calamity that for 300 years had been prophesied would come. Noah pleaded with the people to repent of their disobedience so that Mercy would claim them instead of Justice. All they had to do was repent and begin being obedient. This is a story for our time . The ramnifications of disobedience may be the same as in Noah's time. It's our human nature that we think terrible things will not happen to us, but if you believe in the scriptures and our prophet it is undeniable that calamaties are here and they are beginning to touch our lives and they will increase.
Pres. Benson said: The revelation to produce and store food may be as essential to our temporal welfare today as boarding the ark was to the people in the days of Noah.

(Marion G. Romney (Quoting Brigham Young) - April Conference, 1976)
"...If we are to be saved in an ark, as Noah and his family were, it will be because we build it. My faith does not lead me to think the Lord will provide us with roast pigs, bread already buttered, etc., He will give us the ability to raise the grain, to obtain the fruits of the earth, to make habitations, to procure a few boards to make a box, and when harvest comes, giving us the grain, it is for us to preserve it--to save the wheat until we have one, two, five or seven years' provisions on hand, until there is enough of the staff of life saved by the people to bread themselves and those who will come here seeking for safety."

Can you imagine how hard it must have been for Noah, his wife and sons and their wives to listen to the wailing and pounding on the ark as the rains fell. I'm sure when the rains began falling the people began repenting, but it was too late at that point. They had been warned and forewarned to repent of their disobedience so that mercy could claim them but now justice had to be employed. Noah had daughters that married wicked men and I cannot imagine how his heart must have ached when the doors were shut, the rains came and the wailings began. How hard it must have been for Noah, not to extend mercy to his daughters. But he could not, the Lord would not allow him to because even the Lord is governed by the Law of Mercy and the Law of Justice. Did the Lord put Noah and his sons' families at risk by opening the ark for the disobedient who were suddenly repenting? No. If a terrible disaster happens and we do not have services for weeks, would the disobedient be putting the obedient at risk of starving. Obedience brothers and sisters is so very important. Those who are disobedient to the law receive the consequences of their disobedience or rebellious actions. I for one do not want to listen to the cries of my children because I had been disobedient and did not have food for them to eat .

Every prophet over the last 60 years has talked about having the Church members get a bare minimum of at least one year's supply of basic food items, and now has suggested 3 months. Does that mean they have rescinded the one year food storage? NO.

On Sept. 1, 2006, Presiding Bishop David H. Burton - South Jordan Leadership Meeting said:

"Keep your eye on the Prophet. Being self-reliant has always been part of the church. Statistics show that no matter what the Church does, no higher than 15% have storage. We are not going to say any more, but our people are going to need to be prepared. For example, what if somebody released a virus? What if it caused a pandemic? What if that led to a quarantine? What if the quarantine was enforced? (emphasis added) The office of the presiding bishopric has tried to come up with a plan, but we don't know what we could do. The responsibility lies with the head of each family."

It's hard to understand why or how so many good and wonderful people can discount what the prophets have said again and again and again concerning what will suddenly happen to the world in the near future. Are we listening to their voices of warning, to their plea for our repentance?

Brothers and sisters, I promise you, as I have been told I could, that if you begin making preparations and begin your food storage, that the Lord will draw close to you because you are demonstrating that you are drawing close to Him. You will not only be secure in knowing that you are able to feed your family, but you will have spiritual experiences, and you will have a deeper love for Him and for your family.

Preparedness is like a treasure hunt, a beautiful and wonderful path of seeking and receiving further light and knowledge. We as a Stake want you to be prepared, but you must first take the step of asking God to give you a witness as to the importance of being obedient to the command of having food storage and then ask Him to help you in this endeavor. When you receive that witness then you are not left alone.

Let me quote once again Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone. They will bathe His feet with tears and He will weep and bless them for having suffered through the greatest trials ever known to man. His bowels will be filled with compassion and His heart will swell wide as eternity and He will love them. He will bring peace that will last a thousand years and they will receive their reward with Him. I bear my humble witness to you that the great God of heaven will open doors and means in a way we never would have supposed, to help all those who truly want a years supply. All we have to do is to decide, commit to it, and then keep the commitment. Miracles will take place."
I leave you with my witness that I know Jesus is the Christ. I know that he is the Redeemer of all mankind, that our King and Master will reign supreme. I hope that I am worthy to be here when he comes, so that I can be among those who fulfill the prophesy that "every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that He is the Christ". May we all have that witness. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen