Church Services This Week at Sullivan Hollow Second Ward Weber Heights Stake Ogden Utah 30 June 2013

Joint Melchizedek/Aaronic Priesthood Meeting

The world is increasingly getting further from God.  We are also getting increasingly closer to the Lord's return.

The lesson was based on Elder Robert D Hales talk, Stand Strong in Holy Places, from General Conference April 2013.

"...we have the responsibility to stand strong with a shield of faith against the fiery darts of the adversary. We are role models to the world, protecting God-given, inalienable rights and freedoms. We stand in defense of our homes and our families."

Detail what you think the Lord was trying to describe by each piece of armor and when it was placed on the body.

What do you do when your alone or away from church?

To avoid temptation you have to be proactive.  Putting on armor is done before anyone engages you in battle.

When we come home from work and we focus on how we can serve our wives, children, or neighbors we will be stronger.

Where we fail is in our commitment.  We only fall to temptation when our commitment to our standards fail.

Church handbook 2 section 1.4.1 - Strengthening the Home

"Wherever Church members live, they should establish a home where the Spirit is present. All members of the Church can make efforts to ensure that their place of residence provides a place of sanctuary from the world."

Helaman 5:12

12 And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

We must build our foundation on revelation from our redeemer.

Sunday School

lesson 24 - Doctrine and Covenants 50

"If you listen for the voice of the Father, He will lead you on a course that will allow you to experience the pure love of Christ.

As we draw near to Heavenly Father, we become more holy. And as we become more holy, we will overcome disbelief and our souls will be filled with His blessed light. As we align our lives with this supernal light, it leads us out of darkness and toward greater light. This greater light leads to the unspeakable ministerings of the Holy Spirit, and the veil between heaven and earth can become thin." (President Dieter F Uchtdorf, The Love of God, October 2009 General Conference)

If there are false spirits then that assumes there are true spirits.

If one has been deceived the Lord still wants to reclaim them.

The hypocrites, those who know the truth and teach otherwise, will be cut off.

Patterns are good because you know what comes next.  If we know the pattern of the Gospel then we know what to expect.

What does it mean to be edified?  To instruct or improve (someone) morally or intellectually.

Sacrament Service

An elderly missionary couple that returned from a mission to Cape Verde spoke to us.

Church Services This Week at Sullivan Hollow Second Ward Weber Heights Stake Ogden Utah 23 June 2013

Elders Quorum

I gave the lesson today.  It was based on Elder Quentin L Cook’s April 2013 General Conference talk, Personal Peace: The Reward of Righteousness

"I met with thousands of faithful members of the Church in the Ivory Coast city of Abidjan. This French-speaking, West-African country has endured economic hardship, a military coup, and two recent civil wars concluding in 2011. Yet I felt a special peace in their presence."

“There never can come to the world that spirit of peace and love … until mankind will receive God’s truth and God’s message … , and acknowledge his power and authority which is divine.” (President Joseph F Smith, Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph F. Smith (1998), 400)

Speaking of the events of September 11, 2001:

“Confused about what they had witnessed and concerned about  further attacks, they made their way to a safer area and then to the Manhattan stake Church building at Lincoln Center. When they arrived, they found that dozens of other members in lower Manhattan had made the same decision to gather at the stake center.”

Doctrine and Covenants 118:6

6 And that the gathering together upon the land of Zion, and upon her stakes, may be for a defense, and for a refuge from the storm, and from wrath when it shall be poured out without mixture upon the whole earth.

“In contemplating these events, I have been impressed with the doctrinal difference between universal or world peace and personal peace.”

My Thoughts

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We can have peace even if those around us exercise their agency poorly and remove peace from around us.

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"Agency is essential to the plan of happiness. It allows for the love, sacrifice, personal growth, and experience necessary for our eternal progression. This agency also allows for all the pain and suffering we experience in mortality, even when caused by things we do not understand and the devastating evil choices of others"

“Remember, ‘God is not the author of confusion, but [the author] of peace.’20 For those who reject God, there is no peace.. “

“The Church is a refuge where followers of Christ attain peace. Some young people in the world say they are spiritual but not religious. Feeling spiritual is a good first step. However, it is in the Church that we are fellowshipped, taught, and nourished by the good word of God. More importantly, it is priesthood authority in the Church that provides for sacred ordinances and covenants that bind families together and qualify each of us to return to God the Father and Jesus Christ in the celestial kingdom. These ordinances bring peace because they are covenants with the Lord.”

There have been many talks recently about obedience and receiving revelation because of it.  It would appear that obedience, the spirit, and revelation appear to be tied to inner peace and security.

Why do we not do the things that can bring peace revelation or why do we do things that prevent peace and revelation from being more fully in our lives?

Why are our own agendas more important to us than what we know to be true?

Why do we justify what we allow in our homes and wonder why we don’t receive stronger revelation?

Sunday School

Lesson 23 - Doctrine and Covenants 88, 93

Doctrine and Covenants 93:36-40

36 The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth.

37 Light and truth forsake that evil one.

38 Every spirit of man was innocent in the beginning; and God having redeemed man from the fall, men became again, in their infant state, innocent before God.

39 And that wicked one cometh and taketh away light and truth, through disobedience, from the children of men, and because of the tradition of their fathers.

40 But I have commanded you to bring up your children in light and truth.

Doctrine and Covenants 88:118

 118 And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith.

The school of the prophets might today in the church be things like the temple, seminary, institute, etc

Doctrine and Covenants 88:121

121 Therefore, cease from all your light speeches, from all laughter, from all your lustful desires, from all your pride and light-mindedness, and from all your wicked doings.

Doctrine and Covenants 88:122 - Everybody gets a turn

122 Appoint among yourselves a teacher, and let not all be spokesmen at once; but let one speak at a time and let all listen unto his sayings, that when all have spoken that all may be edified of all, and that every man may have an equal privilege.

Doctrine and Covenants 130:18-19

 18 Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection.

 19 And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come.

Sacrament Service

A couple of young women and a leader spoke about the trek they went on, hiking 21 miles over three days.

The pioneers did about 21 miles every day.

Church Services This Week at Sullivan Hollow Second Ward Weber Heights Stake Ogden Utah 16 June 2013

Sunday School

If we are trying to find loopholes in the word of wisdom or other parts of the gospel, then we should reevaluate our motives.

Sacrament Service

Priesthood responsibilities performed in the home are by choice, not by assignment.

“It is our attention to our daily duties that makes us men.” (Brigham Young, Quoted by Dean Jessee, Letters of Brigham Young to his Sons, pp. 305–6.)

Don’t burden our families with the stress of work.

“As soon as we learn the true relationship in which we stand toward God (namely, God is our Father, and we are his children), then at once prayer becomes natural and instinctive on our part” (Bible Dictionary, “Prayer,” 752)

Mosiah 2:41

 41 And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it.

Sometimes blessings for obedience are not tangible.  Sometimes it is simple being happy.

Mosiah 2:17

 17 And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.

Church Services This Week at Sullivan Hollow Second Ward Weber Heights Stake Ogden Utah 9 June 2013

Stake Priesthood Meeting

A Savior would be provided to overcome physical death whether we accepted him or not.  This is an unconditional covenant.

Many of the Old Testament covenants made thousands of years ago are still being fulfilled today.

Abraham went a long time before having a child or much land, he was promised lands and great posterity.  Today his posterity is spread across many lands.

Hair is neither good nor evil.  It is what it represents in the context of the times in which a people live.

We often think of taking the name of the Lord in vain as profanity.  It is more accurately the breaking of a covenant or the falsely making of a covenant.  This is probably why profanity is often called swearing.  Some might have used a phrase like “I swear to God this is true.”  The problem with this is that the person likely has no authority to enter such a covenant and is using God to seal something they cannot seal.

Vain could also mean for vanity.  To use the Lord’s name as showing off or to raise one’s self up.  The irony is that many that do this make themselves look crude and ignorant, not superior.

Doctrine and Covenants 20:77

77  O God, the Eternal Father, we ask thee in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this bread to the souls of all those who partake of it, that they may eat in remembrance of the body of thy Son, and witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son, and always remember him and keep his commandments which he has given them; that they may always have his Spirit to be with them. Amen.

The sacrament prayer talks of always remembering Him.  The speaker suggested that always does not refer to time, means all the way.  He said that “always” is a contraction of “all the way”.  We shouldn’t just remember Jesus at all times, but all the way.

Aaronic Priesthood Parents Training Meeting

"Brethren, may we learn what we should learn, do what we should do, and be what we should be. By so doing, the blessings of heaven will attend. We will know that we are not alone. He who notes the sparrow’s fall will, in His own way, acknowledge us." (President Thomas S Monson, To Learn, to Do, to Be, General Conference October 2008)

Authority is the ability to do something.  Power is acting.   

Sunday School

Doctrine and Covenants 29,43,45,143

The Second Coming

Life is going to get hard, but it will be less hard on the righteous because they have followed the instructions of the Lord and are prepared.

Sacrament Service

The Lord is in the details of our lives.  No concern is too small.  If he is concerned about the little things in our lives, how much more would he help with big things.

Our prayers become more powerful when we pray for others as well as for our own concerns.

Spiritual promptings go to those who have prepared to listen.

The number of prayers we answer will have more impact on our lives than the number we say, even though saying them are necessary.

Don't waste your kisses on someone who is not special.

The speaker referenced Elder Robert D Hales talk from April 2013 General Conference, Stand Strong in Holy Places

Church Services This Week at Sullivan Hollow Second Ward Weber Heights Stake Ogden Utah 2 June 2013

Ward Council

“At best, missionary work necessitates drastic adjustment to one’s pattern of living. It requires long hours and great devotion, selfless sacrifice and fervent prayer. As a result, dedicated missionary service returns a dividend of eternal joy which extends throughout mortality and into eternity.

“The challenge is to be more profitable servants in the Lord’s vineyard. This applies to all of us, whatever our age, and not alone to those who are preparing to serve as full-time missionaries, for to each of us comes the mandate to share the gospel of Christ.” (President Thomas S Monson, Come, All Ye Sons of God, General Conference April 2013)

As he said, missionary work requires an adjustment to one’s pattern of living and this is as true from the general membership as it is full time missionaries.  If the general Church population is to be better missionaries it will take a drastic adjustment in how me live in many cases.

“When you save a girl, you save generations.” (President Gordon B Hinckley, “Standing Strong and Immovable,” Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting, Jan. 10, 2004, 20; see also Gordon B. Hinckley, “Our Responsibility to Our Young Women,” Ensign, Sept. 1988, 10)

Elders Quorum

The Lord's Way - April 2013 conference

It doesn't matter that we are tired or that we are busy.  There is stuff that needs doing no matter what.  We need to square our shoulders and get it done.

The scriptures talk about that elders need to direct as guided by the spirit.  That can be meetings, including family meetings.  What else will the spirit tell us to direct?  When our children come to talk to us while we are busy, do we stop what we are doing to direct them?  What is most important, the child or our home improvement project, our tv show, and our sporting event?

Sunday School

Lesson 20

Doctrine and Covenants 76, 137

John 5:29

29 And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.

The prerequisite to revelation is meditation.

What is the Holy Spirit of promise?  A promise is much like a covenant.  Perhaps it could be termed the Holy Spirit of covenant.  The holy spirit seals that covenant, testifies of that's covenant, and makes us capable of abiding that covenant.

A testimony either gets weaker or stronger.  It never stays in the same place.