Sunday, June 24, 2007

Sunday June 24, 2007

Sacrament Meeting
Freedom
Freedom to choose does not always equate to freedom. We can choose much that will bind us.

One of the speakers gave some historical things about the United States. He also talked about Joseph Smith prophesying in 1832 about the coming of the civil war (D&C 87).


The speaker was from Tennessee. He said that has seen evidence while living there that progress had been stunted by the role of Tennessee in the Civil War or more specifically the trading of human life. He said that seems to be true in much of the South. I don't know much about the South, but this was an observation he made.

Sunday School
The teacher had one of the men in the ward sing Love One Another to give us the impact of the scripture.

Christ instituted the sacrament since he knew that he was going to be leaving his apostles soon. He did this right before he had done the things that are the things the symbols represent.

Those who serve are the greatest and all should be serving and all should be great. When Christ served he always gave the glory to the Father.

Christ also taught the apostles to receive service and to receive it with humility.

Priesthood
We covered the ward goal again of praying twice a day. We talked about praying and also working toward those things we pray for.



What happened with you this week at church?

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Sunday June 17, 2007

Sacrament Meeting
Fathers' Day
Many of society's problems are because of Father's not taking on their responsibilities.

Primary sang a song to fathers and one to grandfathers.

Sunday School
Our teacher was back and we went over the parable of the ten virgins again and also the parable of the talents.

The teacher shared that when she joined the church if someone told her that she would teach Sunday school one day she may not have stayed with the church or at least told them that she would never do that. It reminded me a bit of my own parents refusing to speak in church or teach Sunday school lesson when we first joined the Church. They eventually grew into that. I'm sure like me it still scares them to death, but they sometimes do it.

Our talents are not necessarily to profit others, but being faithful in using them may teach us about ourselves and help us to grow in confidence and spiritualality.

Priesthood
Integrity-The willingness and ability to live by our beliefs and commitments.We talked about returning things that we borrow and repairing or replacing them if we break them.
We talked about keeping our covenants. Marriage coventants(to honor our wives), baptisimal covenants(to obey God), and so forth.

We talked about losing our integrity by not acting when could, but aren't necessarily compeled to by commitment. Avoiding sins of ommission.

The last ten minutes of class they had pie for the men for Father's day.

Sunday June 10, 2007

Ward Conference
Sacrament Meeting
Our bishop is a truck driver. He related a story of prayer while he was driving. It was interesting and humerous listening to his use of truck driving terminology in his story.

President Cowley of the stake presidency
Prayers are answered in three ways.
1. A warm feeling or in a way that communicates to us, perhaps in our "love language." - A positive answer.
2. A Stupor of thought - a negative answer.
3. Nothing - Some action is required by us.

The ward choir sang Jesus Name of Wondrous Love.

President Sinclair - President of the Indiana Indianapolis North Stake
The time has past when praying when praying once a day was sufficient to protect our families.

Sunday School
The Stake Sunday School President gave the lesson today.
Matthew 25 - Parable of the ten virgins
Oil - Testimony, preparedness
Virgins - Church Memebers
Groom - Jesus
Wedding - Jesus' Second Coming

Priesthood
Provident Living - self reliance and preparedness.
Our high councilman gave the lesson.
Financial Self Reliance
1. Pay tithing
2. Get out of debt and where possible don't get into debt.
3. Get an education.
4. Save.

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Sunday June 3, 2007

Sacrament Meeting
Testimony Meeting
My 11 year old daughter got up and bore her testimony today.

Sunday School
Hypocrite - One who is something different than what he believes.

Jesus' entry into Jerusalem

The people were not only in the city when Jesus rode in for the passover, but also to see him since they had heard about Lazarus being raised from the dead.


Focus on what matters. People get caught up in extraneous doctrines. What matters is how we are living our lives and raising our families. The intricacies of how God does what he does and the details of everything before and after our lives don't matter to our salvation. They need to be in place, but we have no control over that, so giving our focus to those things wastes our time and distracts us from more important things that we do have control of.

Priesthood
The war in Heaven (Rev 12) continues today just on a different battle field. The war is over the souls of men. Satan presented enticing ideas there and he continues to present enticing ideas here.

One thought I had during the lesson today was, "Do our temptations witness to us that the gospel is true?" I was thinking of God telling us that if we do certain things then it has certain effects on us. Do we see those effects? Also, if we pay attention do we see Satan inches us to bigger things?


What happened with you This Week at Church?

Saturday June 2, 2007 - Baptism

Today my son was baptized. There were two talks given on two topics as usually.

Baptism
She had a bowl of soapy water, a bowl of mud, and a small white thermos. She talked about how kids play outside and get dirty on the outside and she put mud on it. She also talked about making bad choices gets mud on the inside. She then washed the outside and showed that the side was still dirty. She then talked about repentance and baptism.

Holy Ghost

She gave my son a gold gift box with a drawing of someone having hands placed on their head.