Faith to serve (or beat the aliens)

Today I had the opportunity to share some of my thoughts on faith and experiences from my mission in sacrament meeting at church. I shared a similar talk three times before in congregations near my home. Maybe next time I get asked to talk I should write a new talk instead of recycling an old one. However, I like sharing this.

Returned home from unique mission

• Served 8 months in Slovenia/Croatia
• 14 months in Referral Center Mission

As the first principle of the Gospel. Faith is a principle of power. It gives power to enable all the other principles. How powerful is faith?

• Apostle Paul gives us example“Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.” Hebrews 11:33-34
  
• With faith the Lord can help us beat the oncoming alien onslaught (pause for laughter)

Become independent...

• If we can take care of ourselves, we leave ourselves more open to receive revelation
• Have independent personal testimony
• Know the scriptures and read the Book of Mormon

D&C 84:85- "Neither take ye thought beforehand what ye shall say; but treasure up in your minds continually the words of life, and it shall be given you in the very hour that portion that shall be meted unto every man."

• Eggs served at MTC are the same as at Scout Camp- If you can survive scout camp, you can survive a mission.

To gain faith in the Lord we need to serve him:

For how knoweth a man the master whom he has not served, and who is a stranger unto him, and is far from the thoughts and intents of his heart? Mosiah 5:13

I gained experience with this on a mission. When walking through a thick, depressing fog with a
Zone Leader, I was asked, "how do you stay so optimistic when the weather and our lack of success are so depressing." I quoted Buckaroo Bonzai, rocket-scientist, brain surgeon, rock-star comic book hero from the cheesy 80s movie my dad would make me wath, the Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai across the eighth dimension, "No matter where you go, there you are [in the lord's service]."

I broke my foot in slovenia, walking 15-25 miles daily, and how Elder Nelson, a podiatrists son saved my foot from further injury. I shared how I was going to be sent home, and the reassurance that I received after reading D&C 50: 40-42]

40 Behold, ye are little children and ye cannot bear all things now; ye must grow in grace and in the knowledge of the truth.41 Fear not, little children, for you are mine, and I have overcome the world, and you are of them that my Father hath given me;42 And none of them that my Father hath given me shall be lost.

Trust in Lord provided means to finish my mission.

I was transferred to the Referral Center where I could continue serving online. I had to accept the assignment on blind faith, not knowing what to expect until I arrived there.

Missionary work is being performed through Mormon.org chat, Facebook, Skype, Instant Messenger. Most lessons were typed rather than spoken.

[Joke about asking to have a projector set up and type out my talk rather than delivering it verbally.]

Can you feel the spirit over chat?

Can you feel the Spirit when you read scriptures, Ensigns, conference talks and other inspired printed communications?

The Referral Center Mission has the highest number of baptisms per missionary bringing gospel to all the world. This is fulfillment of the command to “Go ye unto all the world and preach the gospel unto every creature.” Mark 16:15

All who seek full happiness can find it in the gospel of Jesus Christ, taught in His Church. Through Christ’s doctrine, we are taught that we can be part of the great plan of happiness that He has prepared for all of us, His sons and daughters. As we keep His commandments, we are blessed and come to know true happiness. We learn that happiness lies in doing small things that build up, that increase our faith and testimony. - Elder Claudio Costa

Jaz vem da Jezus Kristus je naš Odrešenik in da On

Testify of Christ: Second Session

As shared in my last post, the primary purpose of modern prophets and apostles is to testify of Christ and stand as witnesses of him and his resurrection.  This morning I studied my notes from the April 2011 LDS General Conference and gathered up what was shared about Christ as these prophets and apostles filled this role.

Testify of Christ

Over the last weekend was the 181st annual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  As is typical for any General Conference, the messages focused on our Savior Jesus Christ.  Every speaker related his or her topic to Christ and finished with a testimony of him, his divinity, his resurrection from the dead, or his sacrifice for us.  This fulfilled their special calling from God to act as a special witness of Jesus Christ, "...for the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy." [Revelation 19:10]

I'm spending this morning reviewing my notes from the first session of conference shown above.  The first thing I'd like to do before I can read the transcript is search through my notes for some of the things that were taught about Jesus Christ, especially things that were new to me.

Great Blog Badges

This morning after studying in Ezra which was a great example of how important temples should be to us.  The Book of Ezra in the Old Testament accounts how the Jews returned to their homeland to rebuild the temple to the Lord that had previously been destroyed.

And the children of Israel, the priests, and the Levites, and the rest of the children of the captivity, kept the dedication of this house of God with joy, [Ezra 6:16]

In response, I felt like displaying how important the temple is to me and my family in some way on my blog to celebrate a bit.  I admit, going there myself and walking the grounds or serving inside is a better way to show my gratitude for the temple, but I won't be able to go to see the temple at least until Sunday afternoon.  I looked online for a picture of one of my favorite temples and found a great blog with a ton of temple blog badges ready made to put on a blog.  I know it's called "One Cute Blog Blinkies" and that a lot of the badges are just too cutesy for me, but I still found some that were sufficiently manly.  :D
The Washington DC temple has always stood out to me as one of the most beautiful.  I chose it to show on my blog today, and also found a great badge with a quote by President Gordon B Hinckley about books.  See if there's a badge you'd like, especially about the temple.