Sunday June 25, 2006

Sacrament Meeting
Jesus' ministry started and ended with an ordinance. It started with baptism and ended with the sacrament.

Something else one of the speakers either said or maybe made me think about was that the sacrament is an offering. I haven't entirely put my mind around what all that means, but I guess it makes sense, since the sacrifice offerings of the Old Testament were a symbol of Christ. Now we offer a broken heart and a contrite spirit. I guess I thought about that being done in our nightly prayers and our daily lives, which it is, but it is also an ordinance.

Sunday School
The lesson today was primarily on David's fall. One question I have had is can David repent? Has his committed the unpardonable sin by committing murder? The Sunday school teach said that he may never attain anything above the Telestial. If he had not received any level of forgiveness he would have received no glory and yet to have fallen so far to not be able to reach beyond the Telestial. Also the statements in 2 Sam 11-12 about his wives being given to another. Is that in this life or in the resurrection? Does anyone know the history of David at all? Did he lose his wives in this life? The scriptures reference that the Lord would do this thing before the sun. That kind of spoke of Celestial things to me, but I have nothing authoritative yet.

This discussion also brought us to our own weaknesses and how to avoid them. Couple of interesting analogies were made.
1. Temptation is like a thread wrapped around your wrists. When you are first tempted it like on strand. You can easily break it if you choose to. If you continue to entertain the temptation then the thread is wrapped more times around you. If entertain it long enough you can't just easily break it, but might need to get scissors to cut it off of you.
2. Someone related hearing something by a preacher on the radio about each of us having two dogs fighting within us. One is good and one is bad. The one that we feed more wins more.

Priesthood
Again the topic of praying even for the little things was taught. It started with praying for things that you have lost and moved into praying for removal of your anger and to soften your heart. Many times we think about asking God to soften others, but most times the situation could be helped by softening us. It may not entirely resolve the situation, but many times it can be substantially made better by just changing our own heart.

Sunday June 18, 2006

Father's Day
Sacrament Meeting
One speaker shared a poem or something that talked about God knowing about cars and being an accomplished musician and a master physician.

One sister talked about her father, the father of her children, and Heavenly Father.

Sunday School
Saul's jealousy was destructive. He was a man of strong character, but lost that by allowing his jealousy to consume him.

We compared Saul, David, and Jonathan.

We also talked about David respecting Saul's office, even though he was trying to kill him. It talks about that he behaved himself wisely. How do we behave ourselves wisely as we deal with those we work with in life?

Priesthood
We had pie and ice cream that was brought in by one of the sisters for Father's Day. And after that my daughter gave scripture in Primary, so I went and watched that. Thus, I missed most of the lesson in priesthood.

Sunday June 11, 2006

Sacrament Meeting
Repentance
What does it take for us to change our ways. Will we wait until something terrible happens? Until what we are doing kills us? Until our children have problems after our bad habits.

I myself put together ideas at one time for a talk that talked of something similar to this. My grandmother smoked for years. I would hide her cigarrettes, but she would not stop. Finally she was diagnosed with cancer. She then quit. It was too late.

Prayer
Before you pray, pray for what you should pray for. Many times it is hard to pray because it feels like we are saying the same thing each time.

Sunday School
We discussed Saul's good characterists and how he lost them. When he first was king he would not allow those that opposed him to be put to death.

As his time went on Saul became prideful and relied on his own authority. An example of this is when he offered the offering to the Lord when Samuel was late.

When Saul offered the sacrafice of the animals of the people that they were to completely destroy it was not a sacrafice, because it was not their animals.

Priesthood
Make our wants known and leave it in his hands.

We should take all things to the Lord. This would include solving a problem you are working on at work, even though the work you are doing is temporal.

Sometime perhaps just thank and don't ask.

We should also make sure we pay attention to others' needs and pray for them.

Sunday June 4, 2006

Sacrament Meeting (Testimony Meeting)
One person expressed that blessings are contingent upon work. Are there random blessings that he knows that we need? Perhaps. Are some of the blessings we receive trials or having things withheld from us. Many times, yes.

I think the statement that blessings are contingent upon work may be a little too specific, but I do think that work does bring us blessings and in many cases our blessings are contingent upon us doing something. I believe that sometimes when our prayers seem to not being answered that maybe we haven't sought out everything that is our responsibility in the matter or that until we reach out past ourselves we can't get the answer or the blessing.

Testimony: A testimony is not what we say, but what we express through our spirit. This is why it should be brief and to the point.

Sunday School
Thinking of ourselves causes our spirituality to decline. How many times do we not want to take the time or effort for Family Home Evening, Family Prayer, Family Scripture study, or even to fast?

We started the book of 1 Samuel today. We talked of Israel wanting a king because all the other nations had kings.

Priesthood
The lesson was taken from the First Presidency message from the June Ensign.

What types of voice are we hearing today? Political, profane, warring... Do we hear the voices of the spirit (love, peace...) much at work or on TV? Where will we or our kids hear them? Our kids will hear them from us or at church or in places where that is the primary concern. Our homes need to be places where that is the primary concern. We can here them at church, from our home teachers, at the temple, and so forth.

A couple of side points that were brought out in the lesson by class members:

• Do we disrespect the gift of life by doing death defying things to get a rush or a high?
• People act like a stampede at times. They get something in their heads and don't hear influences that would help them to be safe.
• You can tell who you are by what you think when you don't have to think. (I think this one was from President Faust's talk.