By Dad
So I went out for a bike ride yesterday and I learned a lesson about bonking. What is bonking you may ask? Well when you exert yourself in a sport for an extended amount of time, if you do not supply nutrients to your body you will run out of gas. Your body will tell you that you no longer be moving or doing this activity any further unless you give it fuel.
I usually go for bike rides with Mom so I can control how much exertion I use, however last night I was not riding with Mom so I was able to go as hard as I wanted to. I set out on what I thought was going to be a 45 mile bike ride. I drove my truck to where my starting point was supposed to be and I realized that I could not start there so I drove several miles further down the road to a different starting point. This changed how many miles that I was going to cover so it ended up being 32 miles. A lot of these miles would be up hill. I set out at 3:30, I had eaten a good lunch so I thought I had plenty of fuel in the tank. I hit it hard going up these hills, I was having fun and enjoying being out in the good weather. I faced some crazy hills that tested my spirit as well as my body. I ran into trouble about the 25 mile mark. My stomach was telling me to feed it. I was going downhill at this time but I found that I was traveling slower than when I was going uphill at the same spot. My body was shutting down, or in more slang words I was bonking! I was still six miles from the truck and my legs were spent. I was starting to think I was going to have to hitch hike back to the truck. I was able to pedal the bike and then coast for a while. I spent a lot of time stopped and trying to gain more strength. I was able to eventually make it back to the truck and make it back home.
Why do I tell you such a story? This is what I have learned. I have learned that we can all Bonk if we don’t pay attention to the things we are going through. We are all extending ourselves spiritually. We are all trying to live our lives to the most. We must learn though that even though you go to church once a week this is not enough. Just as I ate a big lunch was not enough I learned that I need to replenish these nutrients as they are being used. We need to on a daily basis replenish our spiritual tanks. How is this to be done? It is simple; it is the same answers you have been giving your entire lives in the church, through prayer, reading the scriptures, fulfilling your calling, fasting, and service. All of these items will keep the savior in your mind, in doing so will fulfill the sacrament promise you make of always remembering him, and in turn will give you all of the blessings of having the spirit to be with you always. I can testify to you that you can afford to Bonk physically but you cannot afford to bonk spiritually because this is when Satan will have the most affect on you. Stay strong! Don’t ignore the daily items that are most essential. I know this to be true, and I say that in the name of Jesus Christ Amen.
Sunday, March 8, 2015
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Come unto Christ
Talk given by Dad at church (2/22/15)
Come unto Christ
Several months ago I had a truck come into the dealership that was really broken. I work for a Chevrolet dealership so this kind of makes me an expert on this brand of cars. I also have an additional responsibility at this dealership that I have learned the diesel engine that is called the duramax. When a Duramax engine comes in I am usually the one who gets assigned to work on it. So when this truck came in it came from another repair shop that could not figure it out. This truck was very sick and it could barley run. I spent a lot of effort in diagnosing what was wrong with it. I had found that it needed a fuel pressure regulator. I sold this repair to the customer and then installed it. To my dismay it did not fix the truck. I had made a change as to how it was operating but it was still not completely fixed. I then rechecked the work that I had done and indeed it was operating in correctly. I went back to the drawing board again and spent some more time looking into what was wrong. After more time it was found that the engine was sabotaged by another person. I found that a rag was sucked into the vanes of the turbo and this was the other problem with the truck. I removed the rag and the engine then started and ran well. The only problem left was that it was billowing black smoke out the tail pipe. All of the raw fuel that was not properly atomized was stuck in the exhaust system and this was causing the black smoke. I then had to do a regeneration of the exhaust system, this entails that the truck run a test where the exhaust will heat up to 1200 degrees and burn out the impurities in the exhaust. This process had to be run when no one was in the shop because it would smoke out the entire shop. The next day I went into work really early and started this process. It was funny because halfway through the process the fire department arrived wondering what was on fire.
Exodus 8 versus 1-14 tells of Moses trying to get his people free from the wicked pharoa. This is interesting to me. Please read the first 10 versus.
1 And the Lord spake unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go, that they mayserve me.
2 And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs:
3 And the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thine ovens, and into thy kneadingtroughs:
4 And the frogs shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants.
5 ¶And the Lord spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch forth thine hand with thy rod over the streams, over the rivers, and over the ponds, and cause frogs to come up upon the land of Egypt.
6 And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt.
7 And the magicians did so with their enchantments, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt.
8 ¶Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, Entreat the Lord, that he may take away the frogs from me, and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may do sacrifice unto the Lord.
9 And Moses said unto Pharaoh,///// Glory over me///: when shall I entreat for thee, and for thy servants, and for thy people, to destroy the frogs from thee and thy houses, that they may remain in the river only?
10 And he said, To morrow. And he said, Be it according to thy word: that thou mayest know that there is none like unto the Lord our God.
So in this story wind find that Moses needed to convince the pharaoh to let his people go and in doing so caused a plague to come upon all of Egypt where the frogs came out of the rivers and water ways and they were living with all the people the frogs were in the housed and in the ovens and in their beds and everywhere they turned there was a frog. Moses told the pharaoh that to let him know God is in control that he would ask the lord to remove them from this plague of frogs whenever he felt that he wanted to see the frogs go away. The thing that I am finding interesting is that the pharaoh did not go to Moses immediately and “now, pray now that these frogs are gone.” Instead he waited to live with those creatures yet another day, yet another night. I am not sure how he could have gotten any sleep at all that night knowing that he could have said now. But yet he did not he waited until tomorrow to have the plague removed.
I find it interesting that we as humans do the same thing. I find that I may be out of shape but rather than doing anything about it I say “I will start my exercise program tomorrow” why not start it today. When people say that they are overweight they say tomorrow I am going to start eating better, yet today I am still going to eat all of those twinkies. Instead of giving up their sins today they keep living with frogs when they don’t have to. All that the people have to do is go unto the lord and start the repentence process now but some are not willing they have to wait; to hang on to the frog a little longer; to live in misery and little more. Are you in this situation? Are you living with a sin that the Lord is willing to take from you but you want to live in this bondage just a little longer.
Mathew 11:28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Our Heavenly Father wants to help us, he wants to help pull the load, he wants to give us peace and rest. When you are dealing with sin most of the time you can take care of that yourself through prayer and fasting. Sometimes you need to take your problems to a specialist. This specialist is your bishop. He knows how to get you through this time of trouble. He knows how to guide you through. However fixing the addiction that may bring you into bondage may indicate another problem deaper in your life; in fact I see it quite often as a bishop that a pornography problem is rooted much deeper in a problem that is not resolved from the past such as a loss of a parent, low self esteem, abuse from some one of trust. These problems can be resolved with the help of a trained bishop and with counseling from a trained professional.
The Atonement is real. The blessings of the sacrament is real. We can not afford to take the sacrament lightly. When that bread and water comes by you, REMEMBER WHAT THEY REPRESENT!!!!! We have a savior that came to the earth and atoned for us.
Even though things are repented of you may still have a time when things are a little cloudy, but eventually, with hard work living the teachings of the gospel, it will be all clear and you will know of the refining gift of the atonement. The same as the truck; even though it was repaired it had to undergo a refinement that allowed it to run clean. The atonement will allow you to go through this refinement and be clean.
We are children of God! He loves us and wants us to be whole. He wants to bless us with blessings but we have to be willing to be a disciple of his and call upon those blessings. We have to take ourselves to the specialists when needed and remove all of the frogs from our lives.
This is my testimony that God lives! He sent us a savior so that we can make it back to him. We have to live the teachings of the Gospel in order to fully understand the glory of having the spirit to be with us always.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Jacob 3-4
Post by Tessa
I was continuing my reading in Jacob and most of the reading had to do about repenting of sins. The nephites if they continue on their way of sinning will have darker skin than the lamanites at the day of judgement. But there was a verse that was cool to me
It mentions that "Abraham in the wilderness to be obedient unto the commands of God in offering up his son Isaac, which is a similitude of God and his Only Begotten Son" ... In all my years learning about Abraham and his sacrifice I have not really seen the similitude of him and Heavenly Father until it was pointed out to me in this verse. I don't know why I just noticed it tonight when we have read this verse in family scripture study before. But I think it is cool how Abraham is symbolizing God's sacrifice of his only son.
Oh and as a side note I thought you would like to know something cool. Jacob 4:13 says the word really 2 times and that is the only 2 really's written in the whole entire scriptures. Pretty cool huh?
I was continuing my reading in Jacob and most of the reading had to do about repenting of sins. The nephites if they continue on their way of sinning will have darker skin than the lamanites at the day of judgement. But there was a verse that was cool to me
It mentions that "Abraham in the wilderness to be obedient unto the commands of God in offering up his son Isaac, which is a similitude of God and his Only Begotten Son" ... In all my years learning about Abraham and his sacrifice I have not really seen the similitude of him and Heavenly Father until it was pointed out to me in this verse. I don't know why I just noticed it tonight when we have read this verse in family scripture study before. But I think it is cool how Abraham is symbolizing God's sacrifice of his only son.
Oh and as a side note I thought you would like to know something cool. Jacob 4:13 says the word really 2 times and that is the only 2 really's written in the whole entire scriptures. Pretty cool huh?
Sunday, January 25, 2015
It was a nice lesson in Sunday School today. The question was asked by Brother pat Harmon weather or not when God announced that Christ was his son weather or not it was just to him or was it to all around him. If you read the first verse you see that it is as if God was only speaking to Christ.
Luke 3:22 And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.
But later we went on to read in Matthew and we find evidence that it was to all who stood around him.
Matthew 3:17 And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
I am thankful of the knowledge that we have a knowledge of the God head and that they are three separate beings with the same purpose, that purpose being to bring about the eternal life and exaltation of all man kind.
Dad
Luke 3:22 And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.
But later we went on to read in Matthew and we find evidence that it was to all who stood around him.
Matthew 3:17 And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
I am thankful of the knowledge that we have a knowledge of the God head and that they are three separate beings with the same purpose, that purpose being to bring about the eternal life and exaltation of all man kind.
Dad
Jacob chapter 1-2
WOW!!! I have learned SO much today in just 2 short chapters. Bear with me as I go through and try to touch on all that I learned.
So in the first chapter it testifies a ton about missionary work and also magnifying our callings. Many times we hear the phrase "do missionary work. the missionaries need YOUR help" well I never really have jumped full heartedly into missionary work. I try to work on it but often times I just forget and don't do anything about it. But Jacob in this chapter takes it so so seriously. I put so in there twice because I am trying to show you how important he feels missionary work is.
He says "wherefore we labored DILLIGENTLY among our people that we might persuade them to come unto Christ..." I think we all need to step back and ask ourselves if we are DILLIGENTLY laboring in our missionary efforts. I could tell you right now that I have not done that. Shame on me. The dictionary's definition of diligent is "constant in effort to accomplish something; attentive and persistent in doing anything". What words stand out to you. CONSTANT, and PERSISTENT are the 2 most prominent words to me. We should go through every day with a constant desire to teach of the gospel and to be persistent in what we have to teach. Teach and teach and teach to people until we are blue in the face and show our commitment to Heavenly Father to share the gospel that he gave us as a gift to have on this earth. Who wouldn't want to share his gift.
Jacob wanted to teach his people so that "all men would believe in Christ, and view his death, and suffer his cross and bear the shame of the world." I love the phrase "suffer his cross" it just hit me hard reading the statement today. When we read, or watch reenactments of Christ's persecution don't we have a tendency to think "I wish that I could be there to help him carry his cross" I know I do all the time. Today it dawned on me that although I was not there to help him carry the cross, I can help him today. He died for us so that we can return to live with him again and he wants ALL of us to come unto him again right. He was willing to die so that this could happen. BUT not all of his children know about Christ and his sacrifice for us. All of his children do not know about this gospel and that is where we come in hand. We need to suffer his cross and help him carry it by teaching ALL of the people or as many as we can about Christ, this gospel, and that we can ALL return to live with him again.
Ok so onto the next topic... Magnifying our callings.
When we are called to do a calling, our name is not just thrown into a hat where the bishop pulls a name out and decides that whoevers name is drawn gets to be called to that calling. Dad I am sure can attest to that one. :) but instead inspiration comes from God as the Bishop prays about it. Jacob was commanded that he needed to go and teach the people because of their hardened hearts. he says "I Jacob, gave unto them these words as I taught them in the temple, HAVING FIRST OBTAINED MINE ERRAND FROM THE LORD" even Jacob was called by the lord to go and teach his people. The Lord has obtained him to this calling. He says that he and his brother were consecrated priests and teachers by the hand of Nephi. So here, it is saying that he was pretty much set apart as well as his brother by priesthood authority to do his calling just as we are today. We are set apart so that we can receive our own revelation on how we can magnify our callings and help us know what we need to do to fulfil our duties of the calling.
Jacob shows great faith in teaching the people. Even when what has been asked of him is a hard matter to talk about. he says "I have hitherto been diligent in the office of my calling: but I this day am weighed down with much more desire and anxiety for the welfare of your souls than I have hitherto been" "and also it grieveth me that I must use so much boldness of speech"This shows just how hard this task is for him to do. He was ordained to go and preach this hard thing to the people but he was Anxious. How would you be feeling if you had to go stand in front of hundreds of people and tell them, you are sinning! you have become too prideful, and you are indulging yourselves with wives and concubines. you need to stop now and repent. I would be feeling every bit as anxious as he is. I am anxious every single week just to get up and sing in front of all my primary kids and hope that I am teaching them enough about each song we sing and that is easy. I don't have people hating me for what I am teaching like Jacob did here.
Anyways the Lord asks us to serve in our callings. To bring the hearts of the children to him (or in other words the hearts of his children to him). we need to always be praying about our callings, Let Him help us and guide us in these callings. Give our all in laboring for him. For he gave us his son as a gift to come die for us. The least we can do is to give of ourselves to be spokesmen for him and deliver our best efforts to bring together his children in righteousness both in our callings and missionary work.
There is SOOOOO much more in this chapter I learned, like how Jacob is commanded to admonish his people and to "enlarge the wounds of those who are already wounded instead of consoling and healing their wounds" so that they can come to repentance. It was interesting to read all of those bold sentences about repentance through the rest of the chapter. I will be sure to always be repenting of my sins so that I am not called to repentance with such bold statements. I would probably never forgive myself for getting off the path that far to have to be told in such harshness to get my butt back in line. I am not going to go on with what I learned from the repentance part of these chapters but I do encourage you to go read these chapters and feel the inspiration Jacob shares with us if you are having a hard time magnifying your calling or preaching the gospel. I know that he has given me much more strength to go on and be the best Primary Chorister and Activity Day leader.
~Tessa~
So in the first chapter it testifies a ton about missionary work and also magnifying our callings. Many times we hear the phrase "do missionary work. the missionaries need YOUR help" well I never really have jumped full heartedly into missionary work. I try to work on it but often times I just forget and don't do anything about it. But Jacob in this chapter takes it so so seriously. I put so in there twice because I am trying to show you how important he feels missionary work is.
He says "wherefore we labored DILLIGENTLY among our people that we might persuade them to come unto Christ..." I think we all need to step back and ask ourselves if we are DILLIGENTLY laboring in our missionary efforts. I could tell you right now that I have not done that. Shame on me. The dictionary's definition of diligent is "constant in effort to accomplish something; attentive and persistent in doing anything". What words stand out to you. CONSTANT, and PERSISTENT are the 2 most prominent words to me. We should go through every day with a constant desire to teach of the gospel and to be persistent in what we have to teach. Teach and teach and teach to people until we are blue in the face and show our commitment to Heavenly Father to share the gospel that he gave us as a gift to have on this earth. Who wouldn't want to share his gift.
Jacob wanted to teach his people so that "all men would believe in Christ, and view his death, and suffer his cross and bear the shame of the world." I love the phrase "suffer his cross" it just hit me hard reading the statement today. When we read, or watch reenactments of Christ's persecution don't we have a tendency to think "I wish that I could be there to help him carry his cross" I know I do all the time. Today it dawned on me that although I was not there to help him carry the cross, I can help him today. He died for us so that we can return to live with him again and he wants ALL of us to come unto him again right. He was willing to die so that this could happen. BUT not all of his children know about Christ and his sacrifice for us. All of his children do not know about this gospel and that is where we come in hand. We need to suffer his cross and help him carry it by teaching ALL of the people or as many as we can about Christ, this gospel, and that we can ALL return to live with him again.
Ok so onto the next topic... Magnifying our callings.
When we are called to do a calling, our name is not just thrown into a hat where the bishop pulls a name out and decides that whoevers name is drawn gets to be called to that calling. Dad I am sure can attest to that one. :) but instead inspiration comes from God as the Bishop prays about it. Jacob was commanded that he needed to go and teach the people because of their hardened hearts. he says "I Jacob, gave unto them these words as I taught them in the temple, HAVING FIRST OBTAINED MINE ERRAND FROM THE LORD" even Jacob was called by the lord to go and teach his people. The Lord has obtained him to this calling. He says that he and his brother were consecrated priests and teachers by the hand of Nephi. So here, it is saying that he was pretty much set apart as well as his brother by priesthood authority to do his calling just as we are today. We are set apart so that we can receive our own revelation on how we can magnify our callings and help us know what we need to do to fulfil our duties of the calling.
Jacob shows great faith in teaching the people. Even when what has been asked of him is a hard matter to talk about. he says "I have hitherto been diligent in the office of my calling: but I this day am weighed down with much more desire and anxiety for the welfare of your souls than I have hitherto been" "and also it grieveth me that I must use so much boldness of speech"This shows just how hard this task is for him to do. He was ordained to go and preach this hard thing to the people but he was Anxious. How would you be feeling if you had to go stand in front of hundreds of people and tell them, you are sinning! you have become too prideful, and you are indulging yourselves with wives and concubines. you need to stop now and repent. I would be feeling every bit as anxious as he is. I am anxious every single week just to get up and sing in front of all my primary kids and hope that I am teaching them enough about each song we sing and that is easy. I don't have people hating me for what I am teaching like Jacob did here.
Anyways the Lord asks us to serve in our callings. To bring the hearts of the children to him (or in other words the hearts of his children to him). we need to always be praying about our callings, Let Him help us and guide us in these callings. Give our all in laboring for him. For he gave us his son as a gift to come die for us. The least we can do is to give of ourselves to be spokesmen for him and deliver our best efforts to bring together his children in righteousness both in our callings and missionary work.
There is SOOOOO much more in this chapter I learned, like how Jacob is commanded to admonish his people and to "enlarge the wounds of those who are already wounded instead of consoling and healing their wounds" so that they can come to repentance. It was interesting to read all of those bold sentences about repentance through the rest of the chapter. I will be sure to always be repenting of my sins so that I am not called to repentance with such bold statements. I would probably never forgive myself for getting off the path that far to have to be told in such harshness to get my butt back in line. I am not going to go on with what I learned from the repentance part of these chapters but I do encourage you to go read these chapters and feel the inspiration Jacob shares with us if you are having a hard time magnifying your calling or preaching the gospel. I know that he has given me much more strength to go on and be the best Primary Chorister and Activity Day leader.
~Tessa~
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