Talk For Church

Good afternoon brothers and sisters,
In Las Vegas a few years ago there was a kid that was given little or no credit by his ward. He was always portrayed as, ‘that wild boy’ and no one quite knew what to think about him. He went to church, but never really spoke up during classes and always seemed to find something else to do. Outside of the chapel members always worried about him. He never went to mutual activities, rarely if ever was home for the all important family home evening, and always with his friends. His friends were not members, they did not share the same standards as he did, and everyone knew that things weren’t right. Two of his friends tried to commit suicide, one succeeded. Two others were arrested for breaking and entering, drug possession, and grand theft auto with only one day of work on their part, and he was still their friends, and members always questioned.
That boy stands in front of you today.
I do not share this story in attempts to get pity, instead I share this story to share just how much the church has changed my life and the power of what we have. I find it slightly humorous when members of this church say, “I don’t know where I would be without this church” because I do. I know. I know which prison I would be in. This church can change people’s lives.
Today I would like to simply focus on what you need to do to have this church change your life. It can change your life, I know it can because I’ve seen it not only in my life but also in two of my friends lives that converted. It takes work, but the blessings that we receive are worth it.
The first thing that I would suggest to make this church change your life is to simply have faith. It is good to question, it is what the prophet Joseph Smith did, but faith is a key aspect of this church. We have to start out with faith so that when we do run up against a question or something that we do not understand that we can rely on that faith to overcome that obstacle. One such situation is with callings or directions from our leaders. A few years ago President Hinckley challenged each one of us to read the Book of Mormon. He told us it would help us out, and that was it. We each had a decision to make, either to have faith and believe in a person that we sustained as our leader and do what he asked or to be unsure and make up reasons not to. The same goes for callings and suggestions in this ward. We have sustained certain people in this ward to be our leaders. Even if we do not agree with them, even if it seems to be the dumbest idea this side of crossing the planes with handcarts, we have to exercise our faith and follow. God will not always explain everything, and more often than not we’re not going to like the direction that we receive, however through faith we believe that those men and women are called of God and have the right to lead us. Every few months we raise our hands and sustain, which means support and ratify those people in leadership positions. Have the faith, and support them. If you have faith in not only local leaders but the prophet of this church, and you follow that faith, you have taken a step that many people refuse to take, and oddly enough that’s only step one.
The second thing that I would like to talk about is repentance. 2 Nephi 2:21. To make your life change, to really use this in your own life, you need to repent. Have the faith from the first step to believe and hope with all of your heart that what I’m about to tell you is true. God wants to forgive you. He wants you to become better. He wants you back home, and he’s willing to let his only son die to let that happen. Please, follow the steps of repentance and become better. We all know that no one is perfect, so stop worrying about not being perfect, and just make today better than yesterday. Talk with him, and you’ll quickly find out that He is willing to sacrifice everything He can to get you home. Repentance will change your life, and if you truly use it I personally believe that you’ll see a bigger change in your life than any other of these steps. If you truly repent and are willing to strive even more to get back home, you’ll see changes in your life that you thought were only meant for people in the scriptures. It is possible to have experiences like Alma, Paul, and others, but one of the key steps is through repentance and trying to become better. If you don’t try, nothing will happen, but if you try with everything that you’ve got, the sky’s the limit.
The third tip that I’d give is, remember your baptismal covenant. Every Sunday we take the sacrament. What does that mean? The generic answer is that it renews our baptismal covenant, but what does it mean for you? The prayer says that we’re doing this to take upon us the name of Christ. Do we act like that? Think about walking around with a name tag on written on it in big letters, “Hello, I’m the stand in for Christ. He wasn’t able to make it right now, how may I help you?” Would you act any different than what you do in your normal life? A certain part of the young women’s values comes to mind where it says, “in all things and in all places” men if you don’t know what I’m talking about find a girl and get her to recite it to you, it’s a good thing to hear a few times even for us guys. We need act the part, we need to have the faith that eating that little slice of bread and drinking that little table spoon of water makes us have the name of Christ on us. Respect and honor your baptismal covenants.
The final step I’m going to start with the quick reminder of who is in the God head. How that it is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. I’d also like to remind you that they are one in the same, same mind, same actions, same everything. As we learn from Christ, if you meet Christ it’s just as good as if you had met God Himself. The Holy Ghost is the same way. The final step that I would like to talk about today is the gift of the Holy Ghost. Having this gift is having a member of the God head, and we’ve already gone over the members of this exclusive club, with you all the time. If we live our lives worthy, we get that privilege of working in conjunction with a member of the God head. We get to work with the Holy Ghost who works with God and Christ ALL THE TIME. If we listen and follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost, nothing will ever go wrong in the eternal perspective. You might have a bad day, but in the long run, if you follow the Holy Ghost and always make sure that you are in line with the spirit, you have nothing to worry about. Isn’t that an amazing idea? That you’ll never have to worry? Especially now, when it is close to finals time, we know how nice it would be if we could simply walk into a test and have the teacher right next to us giving us hints and occasionally the answers to the quiz. We can have that. We can do that here in the ultimate quiz, called life. We can have a member of the God Head with us all the time, ready and willing to help us out, the only thing we have to do is the first three steps.
To review, to change your life you only need four things. If you are upset with any aspect of your life, there are four simple steps to fix it. If you want a happier better life, here are the four steps for you that will work no matter what happens in the world. If you follow these steps, in only a few years you won’t recognize your old self. Those steps are 1) have faith 2) repent 3) honor your baptismal covenants 4) listen and follow the Holy Ghost. Now I’m not the most eloquent of speakers I tend to put things quite plain and bluntly, so I’m going to quote Joseph Smith’s views on this, “We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.
This works. This works miracles. We hear it so often that we don’t understand just how powerful something right in front of our faces can be in our lives. You don’t need anything special, you don’t need to be a prophet or an apostle, you simply need to follow what you read in the scriptures. Have faith, repent, keep your baptismal promise, and listen to the Holy Ghost. Please brothers and sisters, I pray that we can all follow these simple steps so that we may all come closer to our Savior who lives and leads this church. And I do so, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

this should help you get through swedish

have fun at your concert!!! try not to laugh to much when it goes completly crazy :)

Jody's Reaction

On my trip to my frist class today I ran into Jody and decided to tell her about the whole Spencer, San-Fran deal.

Her response, "Well, if they want to consimate their love in San Fran, that's up to them" she then waited a few seconds and realized that she was surounded by people and then said, "I shouldn't have said that out loud"

homework+dungeon=lame-sauce

Since I know you are most likely in the dungeon and having oh so much fun writing all of your papers, I figured I would find something to take your mind off of the homework for just a minute. I found these, just get the guts one day to actually put these are one of your papers :)

skillz with a 'z'

I freaking love this website, and wow to your pictures. Just wow....

These are my top 3 of the day, enjoy

NP!

gotta love college

“The constant presence of male power and control in the life of every woman is what leads me to say that all women are, like me, hookers. A woman in a bank or a restaurant is working for an agreed upon payment. However the bank or restaurant is no different from the streets in male control of payment for work done. On the streets, pimps set the prices for all hookers for a particular service. Regardless of whether a hooker works for a pimp or not, she is in trouble if she overcharges or undercharges, relative to this fee schedule. Only men can be pimps. It is not possible for a woman to break through the “ceiling” that separates pimps from hookers. How is this situation different from that in a bank or restaurant?
I rented my body out for sexual services while other women rent out their talents for counting money or clearing tables. Or women may be wives at home or wives that go home after work in order to work again under male controlled situations. I did sex work, but then, so does a woman in an office that is required to look pleasing to men in appearance and is subject to sexual harassment. And so, I maintain, all women are hookers.”
(Terri-Lee d’Aaron, “I’m a Hooker: Every Woman’s Profession”, excerpted from Teays “Second Thoughts” 1st edition, p. 229, Mayfield Pub.)

People In Hollywood would have a hard time doing this-

*speaker cracks to life and starts to announce that it's time to leave the library*

Brandon- You know, I would really like to hear star wars. They never play it. How cool would that be if you just heard. . . *starts to sing the star wars song*

*speaker stops talking and then. . . *

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=399518662556032906&q=star+wars+site%3Avideo.google.com&total=4707&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=5

*all of us can't breath because we're laughing too hard*

Really, you can't write stuff like that.

The Phantom Phone Call

Me calling you= happened

You calling me= never happened

NOW YOU KNOW!!!

HAHA!!!

hope this makes your day happier and brighter!

wow, thats all i have to say

this sad face is for you and your morning

Things to Never Do

If you are ever in a situation where you are lying in your bed, there are certain things that you shuold NEVER do. One of them, is to lower your hand towards your groin and re-adjust yourself. . . for 2 minutes straight.

A quick readjust is not opposed, don't get me wrong. However readjusting for two minutes straight is sadly known as playing with yourself. Roert aparently does not realize this. It was quite possibly the most most uncomfortable thing I have ever had to deal with. I was trying to keep my attention no my computer, but I could not stop noticing out of the corner of my eye that someone had his hands down his pants. I finally had to turn around to 'grab something' out of my closset. As soon as I turned around his hand flew out of his shorts and he tried to look like he was simply studying.

Simply enough I thought it was sick.

Please, keep this in mind and don't make this mistake in your life.

Yesterday was your day...

Seeing as it was your day yesterday, you knew He would get you sooner or later.

and as i promised, this is the rice ideas :)

http://food.yahoo.com/blog/themagicalmeltingpot/1947/easy-ways-to-spice-up-your-rice

And just because......

Sunday Night 2:00-3:00 am

Why does He enjoy bugging me during this time? Really now, He must just plan to bug me when I need to go to sleep?

Also, today's color of the day is. . . GREEN hmmm.... interesting how I own nothing that is green. Oh well, we'll keep the normal rule of thumb of, if you pinch me, I punch you.

ANIMANIACS!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDtdQ8bTvRc

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2822935024078406727

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQvVVsq6vYY&feature=related

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000O179IQ/ref=pd_cp_d_1/102-6065973-7144153?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-41&pf_rd_r=13FC3WQ24D0Z4XMAXB8X&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=316286001&pf_rd_i=B000FA57H6

and fight!

In Honor of getting out of my math class early....

Sox and Sammi



and this one just beacause :)
http://s156.photobucket.com/albums/t12/eightieschick3/?action=view&current=funnycats-1.flv


ps. Bogstalious to brandon!!!

10 points to Brandon

Bogstalicious Brandon, you have 10 more points.

ok...

So I'm thinking when I got your message that maybe he found a funny youtube moment or even possibly a new stalker, what fun could he have found this Wednesday morning.... This is just mean. I can't even figure this completly out. I understand kind of but disscusion needs to happen...EXPECT a phone call later.
I'm just trying to understand exactly what view I think he was trying to take, so he basically was saying that everyone has the ability to be foreordained but that is through the priesthood, but priesthood is for everyone, not just a few special people. Anyone who gets baptized can hold the priesthood if they remain worthy. Maybe its like the levels of foreordination. Like priesthood is the starting level and we fall in the middle (except you, you know youre special, sorry) and then there is like crazy advanced versions. As for the whole you only have two choices thing, what does that mean for us? Ugh, we have got to talk.

Scary News From My Teacher

So, yet again, we were sitting in relgion class (second half of New Testiment) and the subject of foreordination/predestination came up. I asked the simple yet LOADED question of, “In our notes and our readings we can agree that it’s somewhat accepted that every single member of our church was foreordained to be a member. However, do we know if there are any other times where people are foreordained to do something more than just be a member of the church?” My teacher’s answer was that the only times that we hear anything about foreordination or anything along those lines deal with either 1) the entire family of Israel being a chosen people and are really loose or 2) only worry about leaders, prophets, or important people. He pretty much said that there isn’t any foreordination thrown onto normal people, how that only leaders and other people that are super important and have major rolls to play, have to worry about any sort of foreordination. Fun, right?

It only gets better, after class I go to the head of the class and say to him that lately I've been having discussions with others about this topic and how that we couldn't agree if foreordination was a common thing that everyone gets or that it was a small selected group of people.

This was his view of it.

We learn that everyone who has the priesthood is said to have been foreordained. However there's a problem with this. the problem is that that's saying that EVERYONE is foreordained because as soon as we start talking about work for the dead, we start including EVERYONE. This is a minor problem. He says that this is sort of what it means that many are called but few are chosen. Everyone is called and given the opportunity of given the priesthood, but only a few are chosen to be the foreordained. His views were that foreordination is only for a few. How that scriptually speaking there are only a few people that have the title of being foreordained, and that it is a rare case reserved for only a few select people. That He gave a few people have special things going for them.

The fun part comes when we include the all knowing God aspect. My teacher then went on to ask, what would happen had Abraham or Joseph Smith not done their job? They still had their free will, but did they? He pretty much said that people with foreordination have one of two options, either 1) son/daughter of predition 2)exaltation. There isn't any middle ground as he put it. You either make it, or you fail.

Hope that makes your day a little happier and a little brighter.

Back to the Basics

The first one is nice and clean, but the problem is that the second one I had to take while walking but it's still a good one.

Stupid Web Sites

"Unfortunately, the position you are attempting to access has either been modified or is no longer available via this link. Our organization's job information is updated frequently during the day, and your desired position may have been filled or modified. Please return to the previous window and click the "New Search" button to view other positions currently available at this organization. "

That's right, they put up a position and forgot to take it off of the web site. Annoying.

Now the true question is this.... man or woman?

Happy Wednesday!!!

Ok now its your turn to recieve the b-day pictures :)

You know you want to do this
:)

Happy day "we dont celebrate until months later when we have forgotten the true reason to celebrate thus forgetting all the years of pain, disapointment and torture our parents made us go through"

Hope it is great!

<3

2 people :)

hehe

Billy Collins

Flames
By Billy Collins

Smokey the Bear heads
into the autumn woods
with a red can of gasoline
and a box of wooden matches.

His ranger's hat is cocked
at a disturbing angle.

His brown fur gleams
under the high sun
as his paws, the size
of catcher's mitts,
crackle into the distance.

He is sick of dispensing
warnings to the careless,
the half-wit camper,
the dumbbell hiker.

He is going to show them
how a professional does it.