As part of my Duty To God study, I have been studying about gratitude. The Church has a nice site dedicated to the topic of gratitude (http://lds.org/topic/gratitude/) which provides some nice resources. I actually independently found all of the talks listed under the “Articles” section, and read those and based my notes off of those [...]
The Church put out an awesome new Duty to God program. I like it because it’s basically a scripture study program that helps the young men become spiritually strong and helps them become like Jesus Christ. What’s really great about the program, is that it entails the same steps that anybody (and everybody) needs to [...]
I taught the third hour combined Young Men/Young Women lesson yesterday. It went really well. I gave plenty of opportunities for the kids to make connections and observations between the clay and their lives. The Great Coming Battle – 5th Sunday lesson for combined Young Women and Young Men Preparation Read Elder Melvin J. Ballard, [...]
I’ve been struggling to find a topic or study practice to keep my studies coherent. I was prompted to start reading “Jesus the Christ” by James E. Talmage. I only have a copy in German, from my mission, so this will be interesting (unfortunately my German skills have deteriorated). Of course it is available in [...]
Yesterday in Priests Quorum, we were discussing some attributes found in the “For the Strength of Youth” pamphlet. Serving others came up as a way to show gratitude, one of the attributes we need to develop. It struck me then, as it has before, that serving others is the key to becoming like God. I [...]
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s. How much nicer our lives would be if we were just happy with what we have. Isn’t it ironic that we have [...]
This is a pretty easy one, to see how the world would be better without lying, cheating, slander, gossip, and all of those negative forms of communication. Just think of elementary school alone. How much better would everyone’s self esteem be, if there were no put downs, no name calling, no teasing. I can think [...]
This commandment is again about our relationship to others. This commandment shows importance of personal belongings, respecting others, acknowledging the existence and rights of others (sometimes over our own rights), and manners. From childhood we are taught the importance of not stealing. When a child takes a toy from another child, the parents instruct the [...]
The seventh commandment is another one dealing with the relationship between humans. A few weeks ago, my brother-in-law was married. The sealer who performed the marriage made a comment about this commandment. He said that if this one single commandment were kept, there would not be so much evil and wrong in the world. He [...]
Commandment number 6, “thou shalt not kill.” The footnote to the LDS version expounds “kill” to mean murder. This is one of the most heavy, or hard to forgive sins. Alma instructs his son Corianton that the three most grievous and hard to forgive sins are to deny the Holy Ghost, to shed innocent blood, [...]