You Don't Have the Priesthood

A middle-aged man dragged his wife to one of the leaders of the church at the church office building. He demanded that the elder there tell his wife that she has to what he says because he holds the priesthood. The general authority told him, "You don't have the priesthood,"
The man was shocked. "What do you mean I don't have the priesthood! I was ordained by my bishop on 20 years ago!  It's on my ordinance record."
The general authority responded, "Doesn't matter, you don't have the priesthood" and he showed the belligerent man this verse from the doctrine and covenants:

That they may be conferred upon us, it is true; but when we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man. (D&C 121: 37)

He then explained to that husband, that since he wanted to use the priesthood to have unrighteous dominion over his wife, that he didn't have the power of the priesthood anymore. "AMEN to the priesthood or the authority of that man!" as it says.
To the now white husband, the leader also showed him this verse:

No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned. (D&C 121: 41)

The leader explained that if he wanted to have any influence and real power with the priesthood, he need to exercise the Christ-like attributes in this verse.
Any man that would act degradingly to his wife or any woman, does not have these virtues, or any priesthood authority.

Another Brainwashed Mormon

This video reminded me of so many things my parents and the Church has taught me that I had to share it.

"How can i get a closer relationship with God?"

God is our Father heaven and he is more than willing to come closer to us, when we reach out to him.

As we often hear quoted "use it or lose it." Increasing our faith has also been described this way: "Faith is like the muscle of your arm. If you exercise it, it grows strong. If you put it in a sling and leave it there, it becomes weak." -True to the Faith

It doesn't take much faith to get more faith. The Book of Mormon teaches that if you will exercise even a particle of faith it will grow in you to become massive within you [Alma 32]. Concerning the Book of Mormon, the prophet Joseph Smith said, "a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book." The Book of Mormon teaches that the commandments Christ gave in his ministry give us an avenue for building that trust. When we keep the commandments that Christ gave we will receive the blessings in our lives he promised in return.

"But if ye keep the commandments of God, ...God is powerful to the fulfilling of all his words. For he will fulfill all his promises which he shall make unto you, for he has fulfilled his promises which he has made unto our fathers." (Alma 37:16)

As time passes, we can see that if he can keep those promises, that he can keep his other promises. That promise is that his grace is sufficient to erase our shortcomings in the eyes of our Eternal Father and allow us to return to live with him.

Some of the first things we can do to exercise our faith are to start praying and opening communication between us and our Father in heaven. As in any relationship, our trust increases when we have to rely on him.

Mighty Prayer

There are 8 occurrences of "mighty prayer" in the Text of the Scriptures.
The powerful phrase only occurs in modernly revealed sources of God's word.

Our Example Jesus Christ

"Do what I say, not what I do." 

We can all be guilty of this sort of hypocrisy at times when we expect more from others than from ourselves.   Instead we should be an example in all that we do.

Our Savior Jesus Christ was an amazing example to us.

Dirty Laundry

"I live every day like it's my last.  That's why I don't have any clean socks. 'Cause c'mon, who really wants to do laundry on the last day of their life?"

Like Dynamite!

President Boyd K Packer reiterated our some of our beliefs regarding the blessings that come from traditional marriage, and the need to resist and influence that would draw us away from those blessings at the October 2010 LDS General Conference almost two weeks ago.  His talk received a lot of attention, and many took his words to be something every different than he really said.  I'd encourage anyone who wants to understand our view, and not just take for granted what the media says about it, to watch his sermon personally.

My dad taught me that that sexual relations are like dynamite just as his father taught him.  Dynamite, like the activities my dad compared it to, has great power to chance lives.   Both are a very useful tool for accomplishing great things.
You can do incredibly constructive things with dynamite.  With dynamite, easy paths of travel between the eastern and western United States was possible.  Dynamite can also maim and destroy lives.  It can impact many more than just those who are trusted with using it.

Spider-man's uncle taught him a similar principle with the credo "With great power comes great responsibility."  We should recognize that our actions have a greater impact than we could ever see.

Vital Steps,

Elder Meza, who I serve alongside a missionary, and I were explaining repentance to someone we met earlier last week.  She had recognized some changes she needed to make in her life, to reflect the faith she now had in Jesus Christ and his example.  We taught her about repentance, and then wanted something for her to watch later to review what we shared.  I couldn't find anything engaging that listed the basic steps of repentance.  (If you find something, I'd still love to put it on my blog.)  So that we have something to share now, I made a Prezi all about repentance.

Repentance on Prezi

All of us find ourselves in that situation, when we start having more faith in Christ and grow to love him.  In that situation, we find we need to cast off the natural man, or change the part of us that would make us feel uncomfortable in God's presence.  When we talk about repentance, we mean that process by which we change ourselves to become the kind of people who have nothing to worry about in God's presence, who know they've done the best we can.
Elder Meza, who has been to far too many doctors for a 20 year-old, talked about just how vital repentance is on his blog. Let's chat: Too many doctors!!!  He talked about how we all need to repent just as much as some on sick needs a doctor.   Jesus Christ is our physician, and if we will accept his help through the steps he's given us, we can be healed.

Our Canoe

http://www.mormon.org/videos/
I watched this video this morning and thought of my family's canoe.  When I was little, my mom surprised my dad with a new canoe that was big enough to hold the six of our family.  We stored it in the top of our barn.  Getting it down from up high in the rafters was a project that took most of my family, and was still a tough job that fell heavily on my dad.  Every time we would go camping, we would bring our canoe on top of our minivan.  As little kids, we did our best to help with carrying the paddles, picnic baskets, life vests, and other things we need to help our parents.  We had some awesome times in the canoe together.

Missionary Media.

Gideon Burton, an English professor at BYU, who has been acting as a mentor to missionaries who work online, inspired me to create a new blog for posting media created by full-time missionaries and member missionaries working to share the message.  

On Tuesday, August 10, 2010 Brother Burton posted O, That I Were an Angel!: Publishing Media as a Missionary.  He challenged missionaries to use and create personal media for their teaching. Since then missionaries serving online has responded by creating a variety of videos and presentations for explaining our beliefs in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Missionary Media is now a great place to find homemade and official media about the Church and a starting place for sharing it with friends.

Keeping a Friend

Many people who don’t understand our beliefs, feel that our emphasis on doing all we can to keep the commandments, means we believe we are saved by our works.  Elder Bednar corrected this by stating one of the real reasons for keeping commandments.  We keep the commandments to invite the Holy Ghost into our lives.  All of the outward ordinances and other efforts to follow the commandments invite the spirit if we do it for the right reasons.  “Thus everything the Savior’s gospel teaches us to do and become is intended to bless us with the companionship of the Holy Ghost”.  

Really a Plan of Happiness

Last November while I was serving as a missionary Slovenia, my mission president called me to let me know that my grandmother had died the night before.

"If the bible is the word of god, why wasnt it given to man the minute he was created, if god knew all things?" (sic)

Because since the beginning, God has revealed things little by little as the world at large is willing to listen to more of what he has to say. It is known historically, that the Bible was not given to us by God in one lump sum. Instead, starting with Adam, each prophet wrote things down, and they were compiled together by prophets and leaders that came later.

All About Mormons

This is an awesome series for getting the basics down or some review about what we believe.  I just put it together as a playlist on youtube, so it's easier to watch straight through.  My thanks for AllAboutMormons.com for making these.

Why do we die?

My dad explained it something like this once. God has an absolutely flawless immortal, and powerful body. As our Father in heaven he wants us to have one like that too someday. Let's say his body is like a sports car. Like a good Father, God isn't going to give his children the responsibility that goes with driving a sports car, until they've had some practice driving a "beater wagon" (much less valuable car that breaks down a lot). A good example of a beater wagon is in the photo to the right.  The body we have now is that beater wagon. God's given it to us to practice with it during for a short period of time and when that time is over we have to die. That's the only way that we can get out from behind the wheel of the beater wagon and be ready to step into a sports car.

My Mom's Profile