Sacrament Service
One of the youth shared a list of ways to enhance your scripture study. I was too slow to capture her suggestions in my notes.
A missionary that recently returned from the Anaheim California Mission spoke to us.
1 Nephi 6:4-6
4 For the fulness of mine intent is that I may persuade men to come unto the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and be saved.
5 Wherefore, the things which are pleasing unto the world I do not write, but the things which are pleasing unto God and unto those who are not of the world.
6 Wherefore, I shall give commandment unto my seed, that they shall not occupy these plates with things which are not of worth unto the children of men.
2 Nephi 32:3-5
3 Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do.
4 Wherefore, now after I have spoken these words, if ye cannot understand them it will be because ye ask not, neither do ye knock; wherefore, ye are not brought into the light, but must perish in the dark.
5 For behold, again I say unto you that if ye will enter in by the way, and receive the Holy Ghost, it will show unto you all things what ye should do.
Sunday School
My lesson on Why is it important to learn about my family history?
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What did we talk about last week in class? Or even something that stood out from some of the other lessons that you found useful.
Do you have any questions from your personal study or anything you would like to share?
Why is it important to learn about your family history?
Family History is so important that the Church puts a lot of time and money into family history research. It also puts a lot of focus on us doing our family history work.
For example:
There is a world wide indexing event going on right now that started Friday and goes all this week.
The Church would like to break the record for the number of indexers indexing in a week. The previous record was 91,721. They would like to get 100,000 volunteers this week. It's not about doing a ton of names or batches. This is about the number of people doing anything on indexing.
How many of you are doing indexing?
Another push the church is doing is Elder Anderson's temple challenge. Do you remember what he challenged the youth to do?
The challenge is to prepare as many names for the temple as baptisms you perform in the temple, and help someone else to do the same.
Accomplish the Challenge
FIND: Find a Name to Take to the Temple
TAKE: Complete Temple Ordinances for Your Ancestor
Share the Challenge
TEACH: Share your experience with friends and family.
So why is it so important to learn about your family history, your ancestors?
John 3:5
5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
If there was not a way prepared, then those that died without baptism would not be able to enter the kingdom of God.
1 Peter. 3:18-20
18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;
20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
Those that don't have the gospel and have not been baptized by someone authorized by God are stuck and can't progress when they die, like being in prison. When Christ died he went and preached to those spirits that were stuck like that. We have the opportunity to be baptized for those spirits, so they can choose if they want to accept baptism and be prepared for the resurrection.
1 Peter 4:6
6 For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.
Everyone must be given the chance to choose to accept what Jesus has given them.
We've talked about before that everyone has certain apostles they really like to listen to. I like to listen to Elder Oaks because he is forceful and direct. Some like Elder Holland and president Uchtdorf for similar reasons and because he is funny.
Elder Scott is the exact opposite for me. It is really hard for me to listen to him speak. What I have found though is that he usually has very powerful and useful things to say. So don't give up on speakers that are hard for you to listen to. Maybe they don't say it the way you like. Maybe their voice bugs you. Maybe they put you to sleep. Just know there are those whose style don't work for us, who have great things in their talks if we hang in there with them.
Elder Scott in October 2012 general conference said, "This glorious doctrine [of baptism for the dead] is another witness of the all-encompassing nature of the Atonement of Jesus Christ."
It is amazing to me as I study how much was done through the atonement. On the surface I think the atonement is he allowed for us to be resurrected and to repent, which is huge by itself. Then I remember that part of the atonement is opening spirit prison to allow for preaching the gospel to the dead. Additionally the atonement allows temple work to be done for those who accept the gospel there. The more you peel the layers of the atonement, there is so much more to it at every turn.
Elder Bednar said this "Many of you may think family history work is to be performed primarily by older people. But I know of no age limit described in the scriptures or guidelines announced by Church leaders restricting this important service to mature adults. You are sons and daughters of God, children of the covenant, and builders of the kingdom. You need not wait until you reach an arbitrary age to fulfill your responsibility to assist in the work of salvation for the human family."
We watched a couple of videos from the lesson.
When I was a youth they talked to us about us being a chosen generation and like the army of Helaman. Now today the Lord says the same to you as well, except that he is mobilizing your army in greater strength and with more powerful tools to fight adversary.
He had raised the bar on what is expected of young people. He has lowered the missionary age. He has brought forth amazing technologies in our homes and in our pockets. This truly is your day to do a marvelous work.
As Elder Bednar said that it use to be older people being experts on Genealogy. Today the tools are so advanced that many older people don't know how to do genealogy as well. You are the ones that know how to collaborate on social media and to use search engines like Google to find information about your and others ancestors. You know how to use computers to pull information out of documents and enter them to be searchable to the world through indexing.
Help the kids make pedigree charts.
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Elders Quorum
Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Ezra Taft Benson chapter 15
Go on daddy daughter dates. They will see how a man should treat a woman and what they should expect from the guys they date.
Many women have bad male role models and so they expect bad things from men. We need them to expect good things and when they see bad things in the guys they date they know they need leave that relationship before it becomes a marriage.
