Church Services This Week at Ridge Crest Ward Northridge Stake Layton Utah 25 January 2015

Sacrament Service

Doing Your Duty

One of the speakers talked about his grandfather's and home teachers' example after his parents divorced.

"Priesthood is the means whereby the Lord acts through men to save souls." - The Powers of Heaven,  David A. Bednar, April 2012 General Conference

The speaker talked of a story where racing greyhounds were trained so much to chase a mechanical rabbit so much that when a real rabbit came onto the track they ignored it.

How trained do we get on chasing things that when real, important things cross our path that we don't attend to them.

“We chase mechanical rabbits, too.

“We chase paychecks, and don’t give a second look to the glint of the rising sun on a snow-topped peak.

“We chase our way through the appointments of a crowded desk calendar, and fail to take time to chat with the next-door neighbor or to drop in on a sick friend.

“We chase social pleasures on a glittering noisy treadmill—and ignore the privilege of a quiet hour telling bedtime stories to an innocent-eyed child.

“We chase prestige and wealth, and don’t recognize the real opportunities for joy that cross our paths. …”

…

“The world is full of foolish schemes. They contravene and hinder the purposes of the Lord. Some seek to change the God-given roles of the sexes. Some invite mothers to leave the home to work. Others entice fathers to find recreation away from their families. These questionable practices weaken the home!

“Some fathers provide a good house, clothing, cars, and food, and forget what real fatherhood is. Fatherhood is a relationship of love and understanding. It is strength and manliness and honor. It is power and action. It is counsel and instruction. Fatherhood is to be one with your own. It is authority and example.” (A Theodore Tuttle, The Things That Matter Most, Ensign December 1971)

“The father is the protector of the home. He guards it against the intrusion of evil from without. Formerly he protected his home with weapons and shuttered windows. Today the task is more complex. Barred doors and windows protect only against the intrusion of a corporeal creature. It is not an easy thing to protect one’s family against intrusions of evil into the minds and spirits of family members. These influences can and do flow freely into the home. Satan can subtly beguile the children of men in ways we have already mentioned in this conference. He need not break down the door.

“Fathers, you will have to live close to the Lord. Develop a sensitivity to the impressions of the Spirit.

“There is yet another intrusion into the home that needs to be mentioned. It is an unwise father who carries to his family his daily business cares. They disturb the peace existing there. He should leave his worries at the office and enter his home with the spirit of peace in his heart and with the love of God burning within him. If there is friction, his presence should soothe it. If there is turmoil, he should resolve it.” (A Theodore Tuttle, The Role of Fathers, October 1973 General Conference)

“By the way you love her mother, you will teach your daughter about tenderness, loyalty, respect, compassion, and devotion. She will learn from your example what to expect from young men and what qualities to seek in a future spouse. You can show your daughter by the way you love and honor your wife that she should never settle for less. Your example will teach your daughter to value womanhood. You are showing her that she is a daughter of our Heavenly Father, who loves her.” (Elaine S. Dalton, Love Her Mother, October 2011 General Conference)

Even when we can't bring a lot of religion into our professional environment we can be an example of righteousness.

Alma 38:12

12 Use boldness, but not overbearance; and also see that ye bridle all your passions, that ye may be filled with love; see that ye refrain from idleness.

Duty is what others expect of you, but more importantly it is what you expect of yourself.

"Only if a citizen is allowed to make decisions of conscience and lifestyle free from state control or coercion can he be held totally accountable for his actions."

"If men and women of character fail to participate in the political decisions that shape their lives, others with more selfish motives will inevitably rush in to fill the void."

Sunday School

John the Baptist was to prepare the way for the Savior and then testify of the Savior.

The Jews perhaps needed to be eased into the idea of the Christ. They had different ideas of what the Messiah was going to be.

For a time John and Jesus both had their own sets of followers. Perhaps John had more of a new investigator class or a gospel principles class. Perhaps he was finding people to teach, teaching them very basic doctrines, and baptizing them.

After John was killed was there a missionary program that still taught people and prepared them for the deeper doctrines of Christ?   It is likely not possible that Christ, in his human form, could find all the people that were to be taught and teach them all of the basics while still setting up his church and teaching all of the advanced doctrines he had for the people.

John was in the wilderness to protect him from Herod's decree to kill all children under 2.  His parents had taken him to the wilderness to hide him and that is where he was raised.

John preached repentance because he was baptizing and you had to repent first.

Also,  to prepare the way of the Lord people's hearts need to be softened through repentance to accept Him.

Priesthood leaders are necessary to focus on what the people don't understand. Often we do not know that we are off track and it is throwing the rest of our lives off track.   Some of what John was telling the people were things they didn't understand was wrong and they needed to raise their life to a higher level in preparation for the higher law the Savior was bringing.

In order to truly repent we must have a mighty change of heart and not just not doing the sin.

"Learning, pondering, searching, and memorizing scriptures is like filling a filing cabinet with friends, values, and truths that can be called upon anytime, anywhere in the world." ()

Proverbs 3:5

5 ¶Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

Elders Quorum

Agency -  Teachings of Presidents of the Church:  Ezra Taft Benson Chapter 3, Freedom of Choice, an Eternal Principle

"[Ezra] saw that when he made the choice to work hard, local farmers hired him to thin their beets and pitch their hay."

Galatians 6:7 - “applies to spiritual pursuits as well as physical labor.”

7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

“[President Benson] spoke of agency as the ability to ‘make important decisions that will have bearing on our salvation’ and that will ‘affect our happiness in eternity.’”

“The premortal Jesus Christ followed Heavenly Father’s plan of salvation, which preserved our freedom of choice.”

“Lucifer is the enemy of all righteousness and seeks the misery of all mankind.”

“The central issue in that premortal council was: Shall the children of God have untrammeled agency to choose the course they should follow, whether good or evil, or shall they be coerced and forced to be obedient? Christ and all who followed Him stood for the former proposition—freedom of choice; Satan stood for the latter—coercion and force.”

Revelation 12:7-9

7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,

8 And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.

9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

“The war that began in heaven over this issue is not yet over. The conflict continues on the battlefield of mortality.”

Sunday March 30, 2008 - Services South Ogden Sixth Ward

Joint Relief Society/Priesthood Meeting
The pews in this chapel were huge. Even the pews on the sides were full sized pews. Every ward I have been in that I can recall had little pews on the side that would barely hold a small family. Generally smaller families would sit in them or single people.

1st Speaker
To help us be one Christ organized His Church.

To help us be one Christ set up authority. Matt. 16: 19 - And I will ^agive unto thee the ^bkeys of the ^ckingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt ^dbind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

The people went to Peter to get a "ruling" on circumcision.

The apostles died and the rulers of Rome took over the Church. Through the reformation people tried to bring back the

D&C 132: 8 - Behold, mine house is a house of ^aorder, saith the Lord God, and not a house of confusion.

2nd Speaker
-Heber J. Grant set up the Church's welfare plan.

The speaker talked a bit of prayer and cited some scriptures.

Matt. 6: 6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy ^acloset, and when thou hast ^bshut thy door, ^cpray to thy Father which is in ^dsecret; and thy Father which ^eseeth in secret shall ^freward thee openly.

D&C 109: 8, 16

8 Organize yourselves; ^aprepare every needful thing, and establish a house, even a ^bhouse of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of ^corder, a ^dhouse of God;

• • •

16 And that this house may be a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of glory and of God, even thy house;

He also quoted some from Mark Twain's Huck Finn, "It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray and see if I couldn’t try to quit being the kind of boy I was and be better. So I kneeled down. But the words wouldn’t come. Why wouldn’t they? It weren’t no use to try and hide it from Him … I knowed very well why they wouldn’t come. It was because my heart warn’t right; it was because I weren’t square: it was because I was playing double. I was letting on to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth say I would do the right thing and the clean thing. But deep down in me, I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. YOU CAN’T PRAY A LIE … I found that out."

The bishop was the last speaker.
He talked about the challenges we have in our homes. One he mentioned was self control. He stated that as we keep our covenants we will find peace and joy.

"The opposite of fear is faith."

Sunday School
As we looked for the Gospel Doctrine class we were told they had two of them since the class was so big. That was something I had never seen in a ward. One was in the Relief Society room and one was in one of the seminary class rooms. Both of these were interesting to me.

Let's start with the seminary class rooms. Where I am from seminary is held early in the morning before school. I knew they has seminary as a part of school generally in Utah, but I hadn't expected that there was enough students in one building that they would need two class rooms. Ours are also either held in the teachers home or in a small classroom in the church with folding tables that they take down at the end of class. These classrooms were large rooms and they had actual school desks that stayed set up all the time.

The Relief Society room was the size of a small cultural hall. It had three doors and a folding divider in the middle. My experience with Relief Society rooms are that they are generally a small corner of the building, just a little bit bigger than a large classroom. Our RS room is not big enough for our gospel doctrine class. Their classes combined appeared to be twice the size of ours.

All right enough tourist commentary. Let's get to the lesson notes.

Book of Mormon Lesson 12: “Seek Ye for the Kingdom of God” p51

D&C 107: 99 - Wherefore, now let every man learn his ^aduty, and to act in the office in which he is appointed, in all ^bdiligence.

D&C 58: 27 - Verily I say, men should be ^aanxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness;

Thoughts precede actions. One will more often give into temptations that they have been thinking about than temptations that we do impulsively. One's mind is a buffet and we are what we eat.

Thoughts that could affect us adversely could be negative self thoughts as well as temptations.

Sacrament Meeting
It was very loud in the meeting. It could've just been kids, but I'm not sure. Just seem a lot louder than my ward in Indiana.

The bishop announced a baptism that was coming up. It sounded like the missionaries would be bringing more than one person. It sounded like perhaps they would be bringing anyone who was ready by that date and it was not because there was one person that was ready for baptism. It kind of makes more sense about the way we were taught in the Missionary Training Center (MTC). The instructors always said, in giving us examples on how to invite someone to be baptized, "We are holding a baptism on ____..." Back home and even in my mission I only ever saw baptisms help for just one person or a family. Where their are more children being baptised you probably just schedule a baptism service for a certain day during the month and everyone just goes that day. Although when my oldest son was baptized there was talk that we might have to double up with another child's baptism if they were going to be baptized in the same month.

1st Speaker
She talked about preparing ourselves for conference and being ready to receive message for our lives and not just endure it. She said that when she was a kid they called it pajama church, since they got up, had breakfast, and turned on the TV and sat around and watched conference in their pajamas. Now more commentary on this from a "tourists" perspective. The day is usually well on its way by the time conference comes on in Indiana and when I was a kid you had to go to church to watch. Fortunately in the last few years the Church has had it on the internet. Generally all we have been able to get is audio, but the video stream gets more reliable each time.

She pointed out that God speaks to our leaders to teach them how to lead the entire church. We can listen to them to learn how to hear God to lead our own lives.

She said that we should not just say, "That was a great talk." We should apply each talk to our lives. Don't just turn on the TV and watch, but prepare in advance. Think during the week about your challenges and pray that you might be strengthened and inspired. Perhaps go to conference with a specific question you need answered. She talked about a couple that had ben raised differently. In the husband's home as a child the mother took care of the dishes. If the wife's home both had pitched in to get it done. They joked that they would take th question to conference. One of the speakers stated that men needed to help their wives around the house.

She quoted President Hinckley, "I will be a better man if I listen and apply these things to my life."

She recommended that we get to know our new prophet.

She noted that people, like her, that live in Utah should be grateful that they can turn ont heir TVs and watch conference. She said that not everyone in the world has that opportunity.

She said something about having gone to a marrieds ward. That was new to me. I have heard of singles wards and we have those in Indiana. I even saw as I was preparing to travel to Utah that there was a retireds ward. I guess I kind of understand the singles ward thing as it is important for singles to interact with other single people of their faith, but the retireds and marrieds wards concept is a little bit harder for me to get my head around why that would be important. Those groups do have unique needs and maybe it makes the congregation stronger having that commonality together.

After she spoke a lady played the chelo for us.

2nd Speaker
He said that he pondered what made up a good talk. He said that generally talks started either with a joke or a lie. He said, "I couldn't think of a joke, so I'm glad to speak to you today."

He talked about serving his mission in Norway. He said it is eight hours ahead of Salt Lake City, so the 12:00pm session of conference came at 8pm for him out there.

I was a little bit surprised at all the talk of how the rest of the world has things different than Utah. I guess some folks there notice the differences as they went other places as much as what I was noticing in coming to Utah.

He said that he likes snowmobiling and he just recovered from an accident where a guy in front of him had set off an avalanche and he got stuck in it. We have a lot of snowmobiling in Indiana, even though I have never done it, but one thing we never here about is an accident that was caused by someone setting off an avalanche.

The speaker noted that he wants to do better at forgiving.

Matt. 6: 14-15

14 For if ye ^aforgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:

15 But if ye ^aforgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Moroni 10:32-33

32 Yea, ^acome unto Christ, and be ^bperfected in him, and ^cdeny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and ^dlove God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be ^eperfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.

33 And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye ^asanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the ^bblood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your ^csins, that ye become ^dholy, without spot.

He said that he has a testimony of paying tithing. He said that money has been tigh now that he has a wife, but they have continued to pay their tithing. He said that he has been surprised at how money has come in from places he would've never thought of.