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--On Sunday evening, Nov 20th, we had a full-scale Thanksgiving dinner, with as much of Wendy’s family as could come. Michael and Hilary, Andrew and kids. At the last moment, Brian had to work, and John is in school in Colorado. Michael actually came down Saturday and stayed through Wednesday. We had a lot of food left. We couldn't stand the thought of having Thanksgiving left-overs for three days before the holiday, no less, so we took them to a home teaching family that doesn’t have so much.
--Thanksgiving Eve at Matthew-Kims: The Soderquists including Rachel and a roommate from BYU-I, , Andrew and Britain, Ryan, Nathan and Gloria, the Blakes, and Wendy and I. We sent out for pizza, played games and watched a movie. We got home just before midnight. The Soderquists and the Blake kids stayed overnight.
--Thanksgiving Day at Matthew-Kims: The above minus the Soderquist contingent. Eat, more games, then all went to see the current Muppet Movie (I wasn't very impressed).
--Day after Thanksgiving: we sure were tired and stayed in bed until after 10 am; then shopped the Dollar store for some gifts for the grandkids for Christmas Kick-off. Watched the Utes lay an egg in their football games with Colorado and BYU basketball team win in a tournament in Chicago. Thanks to Wendy for making a mincemeat pie which we were able to mostly bring home from the Thanksgiving dinner. For me it was the highlight of the meal and every meal since. I have been eating a piece for desert every meal since.
--Today we are working on decorating for Christmas.
Here is a definition of faith, based on my own observation and study and upon instructions given by Elder David A. Bednar ("Seek Learning by Faith," Ensign, Sep 2007, pp. 60-68 and a satellite broadcast address to Church Educational System educators given on February 3, 2006.):
"Faith is following a course of action that is prompted by a beginning assurance of what is right and true, and afterwards confirmed by the Spirit, resulting in an increased ability to exercise faith."
Or, following the time sequence of this process, FIRST–a person gains a beginning assurance (or a desire, or hope, or prompting) regarding the correctness of some principle or doctrine SECOND–the person acts upon this initial assurance THIRD–the Holy Spirit confirms the correctness of the action.
The Book of Mormon has much to say about faith. Let’s look at three major passages in the Book of Mormon that teach about faith, to see how the elements of the above definition are present.
Alma 32:27-43
1. GAIN A BEGINNING ASSURANCE: v.27 “Experiment upon my words... exercise a particle of faith... even if ye can no more than desire to believe.”
2. TAKE ACTION: v. 28 “give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart”; v.37 “nourish it with great care” v. 41 “nourish the tree...by your faith, with great diligence, and with patience”; v.42 “because of your diligence and your faith and your patience... in nourishing it.”
3. RECEIVE A CONFIRMATION: v.28 “if you do not cast it out by your unbelief; that you resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breast... it beginneth of enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding; yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me.” v. 35-36 “ ye also know that it hath sprouted up, that your understanding doth begin to be enlightened, and your mind doth begin to expand...O then, is this not real? I say unto you, Yea, because it is light, and whatsoever is light, is good, because it is discernable; therefore ye must know that it is good...”
Ether 12:3-31
1. GAIN A BEGINNING ASSURANCE: v. 3 “believe in God...”; v. 6 “faith is things which are hoped for and not seen...”
2. TAKE ACTION: v. 3 “believe in God UNTO REPENTENCE...[my caps]” v. 4 “sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works...” v. 31 “after they had faith and did speak in thy name...”
3. RECEIVE A CONFIRMATION: v. 4 “ might with surety hope for a better world v.6 ...ye receive no witness until after the trial of our faith.” v. 31 “after they had faith... thou didst show thyself unto them in great power.”
Moroni 7:
1. GAIN A BEGINNING ASSURANCE: v. 16 “Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil..” v. 25 “by the ministering of angels, and by every word which proceeded out of the mouth of God, men began to exercise faith in him...v. 26 ”Whatsoever thing ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is good, in faith believing that thou shall receive, behold, it shall be done unto you.”
2. TAKE ACTION: v. 28 “they who have faith in him, shall cleave unto every good thing...” v.33 “if ye have faith in me, ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient...” v.34 “Repent all ye ends of the earth...”
3. RECEIVE A CONFIRMATION: v.15-16 “ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God.”
Summarizing, the Book of Mormon doctrine of faith is not passive, or a mere intellectual assent or understanding. Faith is dynamic and involves choice and action. It also exist in interaction with the influence of the Holy Ghost, both in giving an initial desire or assurance that leads to action and in providing confirmation that the action was correct and the will of God.
[Picture: By faith "The Brother of Jared Sees the Finger of the Lord", by Friberg]
At about 11:30 this morning I got the last files successfully uploaded to Lulu.com for what has become a three-volume work on our Lewis ancestors going back to John Lewis and Elizabeth Sams and also including their descendants, and ordered a proof copy of each of these three books. I hope to see these books within a week or so to be able to check out whether I have put them together right. I reached a stopping point with the research about Labor Day, and since then have been working on the manuscripts. I think back in some amazement that there were so many issues to resolve--formats, organization, wording, editing of the text, compiling indexes, page numbering, etc., etc.. I had a lot of file troubles, which I think now had to do with trying to work with the text as a single manuscript of about 1600-1800 pages. WordPerfect just didn’t seem to function well with that big a document. Finally I determined a way to break the volumes up logically. I had problems in using Lulu also. I lost a week or so working with the Help-line for Ancestral Quest, WordPerfect, and Lulu.
Thinking back over the last few months, it was a time that required higher levels of faith and prayer–faith that this was a project that the Lord wanted me to finish and prayers asking for solutions to the specific problems of the day. Again, thinking retrospectively, there were an amazing number of instances where I felt some kind of spiritual insight or direction. Often this would happen in the night, and the next day I carry out the insight, and it would work, so that I could move to a new step. Also in these night-time sessions, wording of particular passages seemed to flow when I needed to write about such things as future research issues or book purposes or how to thank people as contributors. I feel a little like the Lamanites mentioned in 3 Nephi 9:20, who received of the Spirit, but at the time “knew it not.”
It is now comforting and gratitude-producing to have arrived at the sense that the Spirit had a lot to do with my finishing these volumes and perhaps that they have an importance beyond my understanding.
Wendy and I have begun our review and study of talks from the October Conference. We were prompted with the following insight based upon Barbara Thompson’s talk on “Personal Revelation and Testimony.” A basic teaching about a particular mission of the Holy Ghost in our lives brackets the entirety of message of the Book of Mormon. This is that the Holy Ghost will provide to each individual their own personal witness of God’s work and the actions that each should take in relation to this work.
This truth is taught early in the Book Mormon in a discussion between Nephi and his brothers and then repeated by Moroni in the closing chapter. Notice the close relationship between the ideas in these two verses:
I Nephi 15:11-----------------------------------------------Moroni 10:4
___________________________________________________________________________________________
not harden your hearts-----------------------------------ask with a sincere heart
ask me [the Lord]------------------------------------------ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ
in faith, believing that ye shall receive---------------having faith in Christ
with diligence in keeping my commandments----- with real intent [fully committed to obeying whatever direction is received]
Any other doctrines taught in the Book of Mormon would be ineffectual in a person’s life without a personal testimony derived by revelation from God.
For an in-depth treatment of how the Book of Mormon challenges existing understandings of revelation from God, see the discussion in chapter 8 of Terryl Givens, “By the Hand of Mormon,” regarding what he terms dialogic revelation–“revelation is a personalized, dialogic exchange [between an individual and deity]” (p. 217)
“[The Book of Mormon] hammers home the insistent message that revelation is the province of everyman. As a consequence, concepts like revelation, prayer, inspiration, mystery find powerful and substantive redefinition [as contrasted with ideas in conventional modern Christianity]. That may well be the Book of Mormon’s most significant and revolutionary...contribution to religious thinking. The particularity and specificity, the vividness, the concreteness, and the accessibility of revelatory experience–those realities both underlie and overshadow the narrated history and doctrine that constitute the record. The “knowability” of all truth, the openness of mystery, the reality of personal revelation find vivid illustration within the record and invite reenactment outside it.” (p. 221)
We were inspired and excited by the Payson Temple ground-breaking service on the morning of Saturday, October 8th. The personal references to family connections and the history of the Church in these south Utah county communities by Elder Oaks and other speakers were very interesting to us. I felt some of the same connection through the Evans, Averetts and others in our family who had lived here for many years. As requested, we attended at our Stakehouse, sent to us as a satellite broadcast. We were glad for Megan who represented the Laurels in her ward by ushering at the actual location, helping to dry the water off the chairs and seating people, but were glad for our nice dry, warm view of the proceedings.
We decided that we wanted more participation in this event, to give our excitement and commitment more expression. So, so early in the afternoon, we put a shovel in our car and headed for Payson. We were all alone at the temple site, except for a couple of workmen finishing the clean-up. We turned over a couple of shovel-fulls of dirt. Then carloads of families started to arrive, wit
h the same idea, to let their kids experience the ground-breaking for themselves. We had the only shovel, so stayed for a few minutes watching families take pictures of their kids turning over the dirt, using our shovel. Finally someone else arrived with the foresight to bring a shovel of their own, so we were able to leave.
We have been trying to come up with a name for the temple that will be constructed in the restored Provo Tabernacle–Tabernacle Temple, Provo Heritage Temple, MTC temple, Cougar Temple, Provo Peak Temple, Provo Temple South, Provo Temple #2, Rock Canyon Temple, Slate Canyon Temple, Squaw Peak Temple, Provo River Temple, Rise Up Temple, We’re Invested Temple. None of these br
ainstorms seems quite right. I guess we’ll keep working on it unitl we find a name that fits.
I hope and suspect that our excitement for these temple will equal that of the Kansas City Temple Chasers expressed through their blog. Have you seen this? Its at http://kcldstemple.blogspot.com. Latter-day saints sure love their temples, both existing and especially prospective ones. We keep waiting for the announcement of new Bentonville temple.
[Picture: Looking WNW across the temple site toward West Mt.]
Memo to: Staci, Trina, Heidi, Rachel, Camille, Alyssa, Megan, Amy, Krysta, Erin, Tricia, Lindsey, Brianna
Grandma Wendy and I are just finishing reading all of the conference talks in the May 2011 Ensign, and today we read Sister Elaine Dalton’s Young Womens conference talk “Guardians of Virtue.” This has got to be one of the classic conference talks of all time, and I endorse every word. She called for you young women to become the guardians of virtue, to protect, shield, and defend moral purity, both in your own life and in the lives of others.
She told of a ward young women’s group that did a walk the 22 miles from Draper to the Salt Lake Temple remembering John Rowe who made the same walk on a wooden leg he had carved himself, to work as a stone mason and who carved in temple granite the words, “Holiness to the Lord.” This story was a metaphor for you to live the gospel with faith and determination with the temple as the goal.
“Being a guardian of virtue means you will always be modest not only in your dress but also in your speech, your actions, and your use of social media. Being a guardian of virtue means you will never text words or images to young men that may cause them to lose the Spirit, lose their priesthood power, or lose their virtue. It means that you understand the importance of chastity because you also understand that your body is a temple and that the sacred powers of procreation are not to be tampered with before marriage. You understand that you possess a sacred power that involves the holy responsibility of bringing other spirits to earth to receive a body in which to house their eternal spirit. This power involves another sacred soul. You are a guardian of something “more precious than rubies. Be faithful. Be obedient. Prepare now so that you may qualify to receive all the blessings that await you in the Lord’s holy temples.”
I hope that you have a personal copy of this talk. It is one that should be read and re-read and quoted and, above all, internalized and implemented. I love you all, and hope for each one of you a happy life in the gospel as you become a “guardian of virtue.”
We are blessed as family to have all of our grandsons ages 8-18 in wards that take YM scouting seriously. At this moment, twelve of our grandsons are in scouting and are using these programs to develop and build themselves for their future destinies (besides having a lot of fun). Here are their reports as to their progress in scouting advancement:
RYAN (18) b. May 93
Current rank: Eagle
Need for next rank (Bronze Palm): Submit application
How many merit badges: 26, including 12 required
JARON (16) b. Feb 95
Current rank: Life
Need for next rank: (Eagle) Submit project report and Eagle application, Eagle board of Review
Working on now: Finish report on project to submit application for Eagle
How many merit badges: 36, including 12 required
Received Varsity letter
MCKAY (14) b. Apr 97
Current rank: Life
Need for next rank: (Eagle) Eagle Board of Review, scheduled for Oct 22
Working on now:
How many merit badges: 25, including 12 required.
Received Varsity letter
ERIC (14) b. Aug 97
Current rank: Life
Need for next rank: (Eagle) 5 required MBs, Project, 4 months time
Working on now: Communications, Family Life, and Personal Fitness MBs,
How many merit badges: 21, including 7 required
JEREMY (12) b. Dec 98
Current rank: Star
Need for next rank (Life): Pass off Family Life and Citizenship in the Community, 2 weeks time, and Board of Review
Working on now: More MBs
How many merit badges: 29, including 5 required
JUSTIN (12) b. Jan 99
Current rank: Star
Need for next rank: (Life) 3 months time
Working on now: Family Life MB, pow-wow is this week (2 more MBs)
How many merit badges: 20, including 6 required, plus Emergency Prep (passed off but not awarded)
JONATHAN (11) b. Jan 00
Current rank: Scout
Finished Webelos and Arrow of Light
Need for next rank: (Tenderfoot, Second Class, First Class) Board of Review
Working on: Personal Fitness and Gardening MBs
How many merit badges: 2
JAMISON (11) b. Mar 00
Current rank: Scout
Finished Webelos and Arrow of Light
Need for next rank: (Tenderfoot) Board of Review
Working on: Personal Fitness MB (finished 3 month exercise record)
How many merit badges: 0
ETHAN: (10) b. Jan 01
Current den: Webelos
Completed Bear with 7 arrow points
Webelos: pass off 4 items
Arrow of Light: needs 2 more activity pins, scout oath and law
JOSHUA (9) b. Jan 02
Current den: Bear
Completed Wolf with 4 arrow points
How many achievements have you finished for your Bear: 12 (Bear completed)
How many arrow points have you earned: 3
AARON (9) b. Jul 02
Current den: Bear
Completed Wolf with 2 arrow points
How many achievements have you finished for your Bear: 3
How many arrow points have you earned: Still working on Bear badge
TRENTON (8) b. Jun 03
Current den: Wolf
How many achievements have you finished for your Wolf: 5
How many arrow points have you earned: 2
Let's have a big round of applause (Cub style) for all of our young men and their scouting progress.
Rev. Jeffress [Regarding Mitt Romney’s candidacy for President]: “Mormonism is a cult, not Christianity. Every true born-again follower of Christ ought to embrace a Christian over a non-Christian.”
Reporter: “Rev. Jeffress, in the interest of full disclosure, would you make a statement about your personal investment in trying to marginalize Mr. Romney’s church?”
Rev.Jeffress: Yes. Thank you. I am a professional minister, under salary with the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. As such I may profit personally by casting a negative light on a competing religion, especially one that proselytes all persons and, worst of all, operates totally with an unpaid ministry.
Reporter: But Rev. Jeffress, surely you must be aware that Mr. Romney’s church professes a strong believe in Christ as their Savior and a commitment to follow him. In fact the official name of the church is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Why then do you call his church a cult and non-Christian?
Rev.Jeffress: This is only good business. We are competing for the hearts and souls of men. We know that we are using a non-standard definition of the word Christian, but most people are too lazy or dull to question what we are doing. Using these provocative words helps to keep people away from investigating and joining Mr. Romney’s church.
Reporter: “But why would Mr. Romney’s religion make him unfit for being President?”
Rev.Jeffress: I am sorry, but that is not the issue. We are concerned that if he were elected President, his religion would become more acceptable in the eyes of the majority of people and allow his church to grow and take away from our churches and livelihood.
Reporter: Thank you, Rev. Jeffress, for your candid responses.
How to raise children in the Gospel of Jesus Christ while living in a self-indulgent society that is obsessed and saturated with sex? This is a question of eternal importance. A generation or two ago, Latter-day Saint parents developed the skills to teach their children how to obey the Word of Wisdom and we are pretty proficient at this. Newer challenges faced by our children are infinitely more complex, subtle, and difficult to combat than were smoking and drinking.
This challenge strikes at the very heart of the Gospel plan. Demonstrating a willingness and ability to use the powers of procreation in rightful ways during mortality seems to be the very essence of qualifying for the godly powers of exaltation in the eternities. If we use appropriately and constructively the limited gift of creative powers we are given while on earth, we might be able to be trusted to use greater creative powers for the benefit of others in the hereafter. In an earlier blog we raised the question of how to help young men in our family to avoid one of the major pitfalls for their gender in our sexualized society, the dangers of pornography.
In males, pornography inflames and inflates desires and motivates inappropriate actions, mis-educates males in their expectations about women which causes much grief in relationships, and even establishes and reinforces unnatural and deviant desires and behaviors. We had some dialogue about how to deal with these dangers positively and preventably, in terms of helping young members of our family to learn to recognize and value the presence of the Spirit in our lives and to resist making any choices that would offend and drive the Spirit away.
Regarding challenges to the young women in our family, The Deseret News has recently published a series of articles on problems inherent with the sexualization of our young women, meaning teaching them to define their worth largely in terms of being sexual objects. There is a lot of evidence that media, entertainment, TV, music, movies, styles leaders, and especially companies marketing clothes and other objects to girls using images that negatively influence the perceptions and value standards of young women. As the DN editorial from September 19th states:
“The issue of teen and child sexualization by popular media and marketing is just such an issue. The images of girls — especially girls' bodies — that dominate billboards, newsstands, airwaves and even toy stores are, experts say, having a profound effect on young girls as they form their sense of self and discover relationships with the opposite sex. The message is that a woman's personal value is based on her physical appearance and sexuality, and that digitally altered images are somehow an attainable ideal. Study after study demonstrates that this objectification of women devalues intelligence, character and accomplishment and pushes girls toward depression, unhealthy relationships, eating disorders and plastic surgery...”
One of the most telling demonstration of this trend was shown in the accompanying illustration, which showed old and new versions of popular dolls or characters marketed to young girls. I suggest that you review these articles and then let’s have some dialogue.
______________________
“BYU study: Sexualized song lyrics increasing dramatically” Lois M. Collins, Deseret News, published Thursday, Sept. 8, 2011 (http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700177458/BYU-study-Sexualized-song-lyrics-increasing-dramatically.html)
“The end of innocence: The cost of sexualizing kids,” by Lois M. Collins and Sara Lenz, Deseret News, published Saturday, Sept. 18, 2011 (http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700180194/The-end-of-innocence-The-cost-of-sexualizing-kids.html)
“Sexualizing kids: No child left behind — and fighting back” By Lois M. Collins and Sara Lenz, published Sunday, Sept. 18, 2011 (http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700180370/Sexualizing-kids-No-child-left-behind-2-and-fighting-back.html)
“Fighting oversexualization” Deseret News editorial, published Monday, Sept. 19, 2011 (http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700180194/The-end-of-innocence-The-cost-of-sexualizing-kids.html)
Today we attended a graveside service at the Provo Cemetery for our first great-grandchild. I am saddened and express my deep condolences to Andrew and Britain on the loss of their baby son, Frederick Michael. While not compensating for the loss of this beautiful baby, we saw some bright spots:
1) We saw the tender mercies of God in allowing Frederick to be revived and to live for a full seven days. This gave Andrew and Britain and others the chance to serve him, to hold him, to sing to him, to experience responsiveness, and surely, to become acquainted with his spirit. There was also the time and opportunity to say “Good-byes,” or better, “Until tomorrow.”
2) We saw admirable qualities of resilience, faith, and strength on the part of Frederick’s young parents.
We might ask two questions, “Why did we lose Frederick so soon? And why did Andrew and Britain experience this loss at this point in their young lives?
Regarding the first question, the Spirit seems to suggest that Frederick was one of a group of the noble and great of Father’s spirit children who had no need for earthly testing. Obtaining his mortal body, prepared within the bonds of the new and everlasting covenant, was sufficient. Truly, as his place on our Lewis Family Sacred Events and Ordinances display avers, he has endured to the end and fulfilled the purposes of his second estate.
Regarding why Andrew and Britain should need to experience this loss at this point in their lives, the answer is we don’t know. Surely, if we or their good mothers or fathers had been in charge of their earthly experience, in our state of myopia, we undoubtedly would have not have had them endure this trial, especially at this time. But, as Elder Maxwell pointed out several years ago, the Lord has his own agenda and time-table for our earthly tutoring. They might ask: “What is the Lord trying to teach us?” We who love them might wonder “For what are they being prepared?”
--On Sunday evening, Nov 20th, we had a full-scale Thanksgiving dinner, with as much of Wendy’s family as could come. Michael and Hilary, Andrew and kids. At the last moment, Brian had to work, and John is in school in Colorado. Michael actually came down Saturday and stayed through Wednesday. We had a lot of food left. We couldn't stand the thought of having Thanksgiving left-overs for three days before the holiday, no less, so we took them to a home teaching family that doesn’t have so much.
