My Testimony at Home

Since I'm no longer serving over the internet as a missionary full-time, it's been some time since I've been prompted to share my testimony online. When one of the new members of the church I helped sent me a request on Facebook to use the LDS App, I leaped on the reminder it was to share my testimony.

While I was a full-time missionary in the Referral Center, I calculated one afternoon that I shared testimony online over the internet or phone an average of every three minutes during the day. Fast Sunday is a perfect day to share my testimony, which is as follows:

I know that Jesus Christ is our Lord, Savior, Redeemer, and

perfect Example. Only through following him can we become like him and return to live with our Father in heaven. Jesus Christ overcame death and sin through his birth into mortality, his perfect life, suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the

I know that he has blessed us with this life as an opportunity to build our abilities to become like Him and have true joy. He's given us our families as a great tool to help us do this. Family relationships provide the best environment to practice following Jesus Christ's example. It is my family who taught me to consider "what would Jesus do?"

I know that the Book of Mormon contains Christ's ancient directions for us, as does the Holy Bible.

I know that he has again chosen prophets and apostles, like he did in the Bible, to direct us towards him. Those prophets and apostles give inspired direction and modern scripture in our times, such as is in the Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, and Official Declarations. God's words never cease.

I know this because I have done my best to serve Christ, and hope through his enabling grace to be able to do better each day. I'm glad for the help and invitation of those around me to follow Christ and hope to offer my help to them.

I offer this testimony in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Miracles, How Do They Work?

Magic show I put on

"A miracle is not something that violates the laws of nature, but rather its the excercise of higher laws which we don't understand to achieve a desired aim."

 -James E Talmage

Somehow, many make the assumption that believing in miracles excludes belief in the value of science and objective study.  If anything, my belief in miracles through God's power drives me to take science more seriously.

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.

So much to do, so few missionaries to do it.

What examples can you share of where a small group accomplished a great deal with the Lord's help?

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.