Spoiler alert, you may get offended…you have been warned
This last weekend we had a regional stake conference for Utah county combining 150+ stakes. Sunday night we had the evening session which is always one of my favorites and which was themed I know that my Redeemer lives. It was wonderful and once again I came away soul nourished and goals for things to work on, mostly patience, which if you read my blog or facebook with any regularity you know I need patience and I ….suck at having patience. One of the speakers chose a section from Preach my Gospel on developing Christ like attributes, in this section it details Patience as the capacity to endure delay, trouble, opposition, or suffering without becoming angry frustrated, or anxious. Wow…now we know why it is a Christ like attribute and thus why I suck at having patience.
Along with gaining attributes we were challenged to share and bear our testimonies with others, find the sunshine in our souls, overcome trials, being careful about letting our decisions cloud our judgment, and learning that through our trials we need to be steadfast and immovable and allow the opportunity (aka trial) to increase our Faith in our Heavenly Father and His plan.
On Sunday we met in chapels nestled along the Wasatch front, ready to be fed by men and women called of God (remember this part as this does mean something…) Elder Steven E. Snow encouraged us to remember Him, that in all we do remember the Savior. And that we must remember to Renew our relationship with Him through journaling, going to the temple, partaking of the sacrament.
Elder Holland shared several pioneer based stories and asked if we were still seeing that Pioneer loyalty to the work, faith in God and Faith in the Savior, that times were hard then for the Pioneers and that they are much harder now. That we need to nourish ourselves physically and strengthen our personal faith, and that we need to shut out the noise and conform our will to the Saviors.
President Packer invoked a blessing upon us, telling us that the easy times are past but we are not left with out the strength and power of the Gospel. And that the adversary can only affect us if we allow him into our lives.
Sister Julie B Beck also spoke, now this was one of my favorite talks, she started out with love and conviction telling us “You’re doing better than you think you are”. Have I ever needed to hear these words more than now?? It took all I could do to now just sit there and cry like all the other 2 years olds in the building. I so needed to hear that. Then she said “We’re not doing as well as we could be”. Gulp. So you’re doing good but there is still work to be done….is how I took it.
She said that live is hard, but we were promised a hard life, we even fought the great fight up in Heaven for this experience. She said that the spirit is the key to knowing the mind and will of our Heavenly Father. That miracle will take place if we just exercise our Faith and that with that Faith you put your hand in His and move forward to your miracle. She also said we need to prioritize, pray always, read and study scriptures, and to no spend too much time on distractions. And that after all we can do, He will bless us. She warned us about spending too much time online and even commiserated that she has to found herself online and all the sudden realized that she has been on there for over 3 hours.
Now this is the interesting thing, this is where many individuals in the area in which I live became offended. One even shut down her Facebook account, in my OPINION, if you are offended or bothered by the online comment it is because you need to spend less time on Facebook/blogging/blog stalking/Facebook/my space….need I say more? Remembering that Sister Beck is one of our Heavnely Father's servents called of God to to help the sisters in the church, out of any leader we have she was called to help US.
Yes, the internet is a great resource and tool, in fact Sister Beck said much like your washer, or stove the internet is there to be used as a tool in caring for your home and children. For those of us that work everyday it is wonderful resource to be able to know if your next door neighbor had a baby/kicked the bucket/fell down the stairs. But if it keeps you from making dinner for your family, caring for your children, cleaning your house, doing your visiting teaching, doing your calling, caring for and loving on your husband, it is a distraction. Yeah I know, I don’t have kids I just “can’t” understand what is like. Really, I wasn't aware of that...
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