Saturday, January 18, 2014

A few days ago, I read this quote from President Harold B. Lee, who was the prophet of the church from 1972 to 1973:

Testimony isn’t something that you have today and you keep always. Testimony is either going to grow and grow to the brightness of certainty, or it is going to diminish to nothingness, depending upon what we do about it. I say, the testimony that we recapture day by day is the thing that saves us from the pitfalls of the adversary. (From Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Harold B. Lee, chapter 5 “Walking in the Light of Testimony,” part of the last paragraph under subheading “What can we do to strengthen our testimonies?”)

I have found this to be true in my life. If I’m not doing things every day to help my testimony grow, it doesn’t take long before it feels like it’s getting smaller and less bright. That’s why I asked the kids to speak about some of the most basic parts of the gospel that help us build our testimony – baptism, the Holy Ghost, praying, and reading the scriptures. Another basic part of the gospel that helps our testimonies to grow is keeping the Sabbath day holy and that’s what I’d like to talk about.

In Exodus we find the commandment:

  • Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
  • Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
  • But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
  • For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Today it seems like a lot of the world has forgotten the Sabbath day. But this commandment remains in force.

President James E. Faust, who was one of the Twelve Apostles, in a general conference talk in 1991, gave three reasons that God has asked us to honor the Sabbath. First, as our creator, He knows that we need physical rest and renewal. Second, God knows that we need spiritual renewal and strengthening and that “left completely to our own devices without regular reminders of our spiritual needs, many would degenerate into the preoccupation of satisfying earthly desires and appetites.” (General Conference, October 1991, “The Lord’s Day” by James E. Faust). Third, keeping the Sabbath day holy is a way to show our love for God by obeying one of his commandments. I’d like to focus on the second reason.

The May 1998 issue of the Liahona has a very good article called “Remembering the Sabbath Day” by D. Kelly Ogden. In it, he writes:

“Most of us need daily reminders, such as prayer and scripture study, to keep the Lord and his work in our hearts, but we also need one whole day out of seven to focus our attention and our hearts on him completely—to rest from worldly things that may too easily work their way to the top of our priority lists....

Anciently, Israel was known as a people who set apart one day in seven for rest and worship. The Lord said that Sabbath observance was “a perpetual covenant … a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever” (Ex. 31:16–17). The penalty for disobeying this law of the Sabbath was death (see Ex. 31:14–15; Ex. 35:2; Num. 15:32–36). Today, physical death is no longer the penalty for desecrating the Sabbath. Yet just as the ancient Israelites who broke the law were cut off from the camp of Israel, modern children of God who willfully disobey the commandment cut themselves off from the Spirit and bring a type of spiritual death upon themselves.”

One of the most important things we can do to honor the Sabbath is to attend our church meetings. Our weekly sacrament meetings, Sunday School, Relief Society and Priesthood are where we meet and worship with our brothers and sisters. Here we receive and give strength and fellowship. It’s important for us to be here. Even though I understand very little of what I hear in the Plovdiv branch, I am blessed by being among you. I see you as brave pioneers of our church in Bulgaria and I’m thankful for your examples.

Sometimes we might feel like we’re not getting much good from going to church. I remember going to church when I had three little boys all under 2 1/2 years old. It seemed like I spent most of my time walking the halls of the church, certainly not hearing talks or lessons or feeling the spirit. I wondered why I should keep coming. But I knew that I wanted to keep up the habit of going to church and that I wanted to teach my children the habit of going to church, and eventually, the kids grew up and I could enjoy church again like a regular person.

If going to and participating in our Sunday meetings is already a well-ingrained habit, there is plenty we can do to improve our observance of the Sabbath day. President Spencer W. Kimball, who was the prophet from 1973 to 1985, famously said:

“The Sabbath is a holy day in which to do worthy and holy things. Abstinence from work and recreation is important but insufficient. The Sabbath calls for constructive thoughts and acts, and if one merely lounges about doing nothing on the Sabbath, he is breaking it. To observe it, one will be on his knees in prayer, preparing lessons, studying the gospel, meditating, visiting the ill and distressed, sleeping, reading wholesome material, and attending all the meetings of that day to which he is expected. To fail to do these proper things is a transgression on the omission side.” (The Miracle of Forgiveness, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1969, pp. 96–97; quoted in President Faust’s talk referenced above.)

Everyone is happy that President Kimball includes sleeping on this list of good Sabbath activities. Other good activities could be family history, writing in our journals or writing a personal history, listening to or singing inspiring music, missionary work, writing letters or email to family and friends and missionaries, and spending time with our families.

I’m grateful for the commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy. After preparing for this talk, I want to do better at allowing the Sabbath to renew my spirit and build my testimony.

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Czech quotes

(1)

Bůh má připravena zvláštní požehnání pro každého způsobilého jedince, který je pokřtěn, přijme Ducha Svatého a pravidelně přijímá svátost. Chrám přináší další světlo a moc spolu s příslibem věčného života.4

Všechny obřady nás vybízejí k tomu, abychom prohloubili víru v Ježíše Krista a uzavřeli a dodržovali smlouvy s Bohem. Když tyto posvátné smlouvy dodržujeme, získáváme kněžskou moc a požehnání.

Nepociťujeme snad ve svém životě moc kněžství a nevídáme ji mezi členy Církve, kteří dodržují smlouvy? Vídáme ji u nově obrácených, když vycházejí z vod křtu a pociťují, že jim bylo odpuštěno a že jsou čistí. Vidíme, že naše děti a mládež jsou citlivější vůči nabádáním a vedení Ducha Svatého. Vidíme, že obřady chrámu se stávají majákem síly a světla pro spravedlivé muže a ženy na celém světě.

(2)

My, kteří jsme členy Boží Církve v dnešní době, jsme uzavřeli smlouvu, že budeme následovat Ježíše Krista a budeme poslušni Božích přikázání.

Každý týden máme příležitost navštívit shromáždění svátosti, kde můžeme obnovit tyto smlouvy tím, že přijmeme chléb a vodu při obřadu svátosti. Díky tomuto prostému skutku se můžeme znovu zavázat, že budeme následovat Ježíše Krista a činit pokání, kdykoli uděláme nějakou chybu. Bůh nám na oplátku slibuje svého Ducha jako průvodce a ochránce.

(3)

Z příručky Kažte evangelium mé naši misionáři učí, že zjevení a svědectví přicházejí tehdy, když se účastníme nedělních církevních shromáždění: „Tím, že se účastníme církevních bohoslužeb a společně uctíváme, se navzájem posilujeme. Obnovujeme své síly ve společnosti přátel a rodiny. Když studujeme písma a učíme se více o znovuzřízeném evangeliu, posiluje to naši víru.“8

(4)

V každém z těchto jedinečných, ale propojených shromáždění se učíme nauce, pociťujeme Ducha a navzájem si sloužíme.

27 October 2013

Dobrý den, Bratry a Sestry. Chtěla bych mluvit česky, ale čeština je těžká a nemůžu mluvit česky pro dvanáct minut.

President Pilka asked me to talk about how our family maintains the Spirit. My first, short answer is that sometimes we don’t. But we try, and we keep trying, and that’s what I’ll talk about today.

First, the typical answers come to mind: family prayer and family scripture study and family home evening. We try to do all of these things, with varying levels of success. We’re good at family prayer and family home evening and have successfully made them into habits. If we miss family prayer or Family Home Evening for some reason, everyone notices and misses it.

We are less successful with family scripture study. It’s hard, isn’t it? But we do keep trying. It took us several years to finish reading the Book of Mormon together, but we have done it. Once. It helps to have some kind of permanent bookmark so we know where we are – tablets and smart phones are good for this. We keep trying to get better at regular reading, but even when we only read occasionally, I think our family is blessed. We get better at reading and understanding and discussing scriptures together. And maybe by the time Mira moves out, we will finally have a good habit of family scripture study.

Each member of our family also helps to invite the Spirit by reading scriptures and saying prayers on their own. We ask for the Spirit to be with us, both in family prayer and our individual prayers.

I don’t think everything we do to maintain the Spirit is spiritual, though. Some things are practical. We spend time together. We keep TV, music, and video games off most of the time, so there can be quiet. Well, it’s not often actually quiet, but we try to allow space and time for interaction with each other. We try to keep the arguing and fighting to a minimum, and when that doesn’t work, we try to apologize and forgive.

In the past few weeks, as I’ve listened to talks from the most recent General Conference and thought about my talk, I’ve realized that maybe the most important way that we invite and keep the Spirit is by participating in the ordinances of the gospel. In the Sunday afternoon session, Elder Neil L. Anderson talked about how everyone can benefit from Priesthood power. He said:

(1)

There are special blessings from God for every worthy person who is baptized, receives the Holy Ghost, and regularly partakes of the sacrament. The temple brings added light and strength, along with the promise of eternal life.

All of the ordinances invite us to increase our faith in Jesus Christ and to make and keep covenants with God. As we keep these sacred covenants, we receive priesthood power and blessings.

Do we not feel this power of the priesthood in our own lives and see it among the covenant-keeping members of the Church? We see it in new converts as they step from the waters of baptism feeling forgiven and clean. We see our children and youth more sensitive to the promptings and guidance of the Holy Ghost. We see the ordinances of the temple becoming a beacon of strength and light for righteous men and women across the world.

One of those special blessings of the Priesthood that Elder Anderson is talking about is the companionship of the Holy Ghost. Our youngest daughter Mira was baptized and confirmed just a week ago, and I’m grateful for her decision to make that covenant with Heavenly Father. By making that covenant, Mira has helped to make our family worthy of the companionship of the Spirit.

Also in the Sunday afternoon session of General Conference, Elder Kevin S. Hamilton spoke about how baptism and the sacrament help us have the Spirit. He said:

(2)

"Those of us who are members of God’s Church today have made covenants to follow Jesus Christ and to obey God’s commandments.

Each week we have the opportunity to attend a sacrament meeting, where we can renew these covenants by partaking of the bread and water of the sacrament ordinance. This simple act allows us to once again pledge ourselves to follow Jesus Christ and to repent when we do fall short. God’s promise to us in return is His Spirit as a guide and protection.

Some of us made that covenant of baptism a long time ago, but every week we have the opportunity to renew our baptismal covenants when we take the sacrament. What a blessing Heavenly Father has given us in the ordinance of the sacrament. Every week we can repent of our sins and renew the covenant we made at baptism. Both of the sacrament prayers speak specifically of Heavenly Father’s part of that covenant – we can always have his Spirit to be with us.

Elder Hamilton also encouraged us to attend all three of our Sunday meetings. He said:

(3) From Preach My Gospel, our missionaries teach that revelation and testimony come when we attend our Sunday Church meetings: “As we attend Church services and worship together, we strengthen each other. We are renewed by our association with friends and family. Our faith is strengthened as we study the scriptures and learn more about the restored gospel.”8

He describes the purpose of each Sunday meeting and then says,

(4) In each of these unique but connected meetings, we learn the doctrine, feel the Spirit, and serve one another.

This is something our family does that invites the Spirit throughout the week. Three hours seems like a big chunk of time to give to worship every Sunday, but it’s an opportunity to gain strength from our fellow members and also to give strength. We not only benefit individually from our participation in church meetings, but also as a family.

I’m grateful for the covenants we’ve made that help our family to invite and keep the Spirit. There are times when I don’t feel very worthy of the Spirit, but Heavenly Father allows me to repent and to keep trying. I’m so grateful to have the Spirit to guide and comfort us.

Bratry a sestry, vím že Joseph Smith byl prorok. Vím že písma je pravdi. Jsem vděčná za mou rodinu a za evangelium. Jsem vděčná za Spasitele, Ježíše Krista. Ve jménu Ježíše Krista, amen.