Connie

There is only one person you should think of pleasing and that is your Heavenly Father. Continue to keep the commandments. Wickedness is not happiness. It brings only misery. Resist it.

Reverence (SMH, duh!). My list of "things related to knowledge" keeps getting bigger. I love it. So glad i decided to study this topic. I'm needing all these reminders.
 
 
Love it. And that verse has some great ones in the footnotes, too. Like the example given later in 1 Nephi 17:3 or the famous one from Philippians about being able to do all things through Christ.

My verse from 1 Nephi. I will go and do the things that the Lord has commanded because I know that the Lord does not give commandments unto the children of men without preparing a way that they may fulfill the commandments.
Obeying the commandments often looks impossible. Thee reasons, Satan and obeying commandments without God's help sometimes IS Impossible. Also sometimes obeying commandments involves making choices, Eve and the apple, Nephi and killing Laban. You need the help of the Holy Ghost to help you make the right choice.

I love these verses. In part because this is a form of understanding that is hidden from the world. Why humility is good for you?Maybe this should be a separate thread? If you are not humble, you will not look for more answers. Reverence invites revealation. Humility causes you to earnestly turn to G-d.

Lots. And more and more the more i read it.

I spent the majority of my singlehood in a family ward. But I am also a female and was kind of waiting for a missionary at the time. The few times I did go, it was ultra boring. I found it was so much nicer to have people around who had some maturity and life experience beyond what I had. I’ve always loved the things I have learned from the more seasoned members of a congregation. (I married my missionary two months after he got home. Admit it, you were curious.)

JAG’s vaccination story put me in mind of one of ours. We were taking our two oldest to get vaccinated. The older one, like JAG’s, was not taking it well. “Weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth” is a very apt description. When little brother’s turn came up, hubby and I were talking to him trying to distract him away from the needle. When he felt the first one his response was, “Ow, hey!” And then he went right on talking to us. The second one was the same. “Ow, hey!” That was it. We thought it was pretty funny. Stoic little guy.
 
When our oldest was just a little thing, she loved popsicles. She would call them “spockitas.” We would try to teach her how to say it correctly, and this is how it would go for a long time.  Us: “Say ‘pop’.”  Little one: “Pop.”  Us: “Say ‘sicle’.”  Little one:  “Sicle.”  Us: “Now say ‘popsicle.’”  Little one:  “Spockita!” We still laugh about that one.

JAG’s vaccination story put me in mind of one of ours. We were taking our two oldest to get vaccinated. The older one, like JAG’s, was not taking it well. “Weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth” is a very apt description. When little brother’s turn came up, hubby and I were talking to him trying to distract him away from the needle. When he felt the first one his response was, “Ow, hey!” And then he went right on talking to us. The second one was the same. “Ow, hey!” That was it. We thought it was pretty funny. Stoic little guy.
 
When our oldest was just a little thing, she loved popsicles. She would call them “spockitas.” We would try to teach her how to say it correctly, and this is how it would go for a long time.  Us: “Say ‘pop’.”  Little one: “Pop.”  Us: “Say ‘sicle’.”  Little one:  “Sicle.”  Us: “Now say ‘popsicle.’”  Little one:  “Spockita!” We still laugh about that one.

JAG’s vaccination story put me in mind of one of ours. We were taking our two oldest to get vaccinated. The older one, like JAG’s, was not taking it well. “Weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth” is a very apt description. When little brother’s turn came up, hubby and I were talking to him trying to distract him away from the needle. When he felt the first one his response was, “Ow, hey!” And then he went right on talking to us. The second one was the same. “Ow, hey!” That was it. We thought it was pretty funny. Stoic little guy.
 
When our oldest was just a little thing, she loved popsicles. She would call them “spockitas.” We would try to teach her how to say it correctly, and this is how it would go for a long time.  Us: “Say ‘pop’.”  Little one: “Pop.”  Us: “Say ‘sicle’.”  Little one:  “Sicle.”  Us: “Now say ‘popsicle.’”  Little one:  “Spockita!” We still laugh about that one.

First time in a movie theater in over 5 years - I just saw Star Wars tonight with my daughter, AWESOME!  Need to go see it again.

Reminds me of Abraham 1:2. I think we, our Mormon culture, has made it out to be harder than it is -- myself included.

My verse this week was...
Alma 37:6
“…behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.”
 
This is a great chapter on many aspects of the topic “knowledge.” The verses immediately surrounding this verse, in particular, discuss the scriptures and the knowledge gained by them. I wanted to ponder this particular verse in the context of gaining spiritual knowledge.
 
First, I pondered on what Alma was talking about in this verse. He is recalling the preservation of the record through the generations, it being passed from person to person, thus ensuring this spiritual knowledge being had for the people’s benefit through the ages. This made me think of the people who preserved and kept the Bible records, who worked to translate them into other languages and the eventual printing of the Bible. Just these “small things” that one by one culminated in this great thing—the Bible being mass produced for the people. And in an LDS context, that “small thing” lead to other small things, such as the migration of people looking for religious freedom which lead to the establishment of a free country and also the questionings of a young boy which eventually lead to the restoration of the gospel of Christ.
 
In studying, I came across this wonderful little quote by Elder Richard G. Scott, “Precious truth comes a small piece at a time through faith, with great exertion, and at times wrenching struggles.” This reminded me of the line upon line principle. Knowledge is gained little by little. And all those small things we come to know add up into great knowledge.
 
I’ve been missing this connection with knowledge in this verse. It is so easy for me to forget that knowledge comes by doing (John 7:17). It’s easy for me to think that theory is greater than experimentation, but that is definitely not true when it comes to spiritual knowledge. We can’t just read the scriptures; we have to do the things they tell us to in order to gain the greater knowledge even if they seem like small and simple things. I love how Alma ends this chapter with his discussion on the Liahona and relating it to the word of Christ. He says, “it is as easy to give heed to the word of Christ, which will point to you a straight course to eternal bliss, as it was for our fathers to give heed to this compass…” and then ends by saying, “…let us not be slothful because of the easiness of the way…” Perhaps these “small things” aren’t really as small as we sometimes think they are when they lead to such great things.
 
Thoughts?

Good stuff. He reiterates a lot of the things from one of his Ensign articles from several years back. A great article on the gift of discernment. Here's a link for anyone interested: https://www.lds.org/ensign/2006/12/quick-to-observe?lang=eng

http://gatheringfamilies.com/2015/12/31/why-i-homeschool/
 
She echoes many of my own ideas and reasons for wanting to homeschool -- not all, but enough that I know she is a kindred spirit. Some things she did not mention are the idea of sending my young, impressionable children away from my and my wife's influence for eight hours a day, or of having your children learn cool, interesting, important, or just plain fun topics at the feet of a stranger instead of their parents. One part that spoke to me was her husband's review of a school project he had done and his anger at having wasted his time and effort doing such a useless, meaningless thing.
 
Interesting how much negative feedback she received from those around her. This seems to be an almost universal experience among first-generation homeschoolers: Everyone disapproves. If you homeschool, be ready to ignore criticism, and plan to spend at least five years explaining to people you care about why you aren't sending your children to public schools.
 
(And heaven help those whose homeschooled children don't excel in numerous areas. That's sure to be thrown in your face as some sort of proof that you're doing the wrong thing. Fortunately, this is the exception rather than the rule; public school so often acts as a brake to learning rather than an invitation, emphasizing busywork and conformity as it often does, that in many cases simply getting the children out of that environment and into one of curiosity and desire to learn is enough to give them wings.)

This was definately the year of the BEST. However it wasnt in the receiving but in the giving.
 
My wife saw a gift idea on pinterest and told me she wanted the same thing for her.
The husband put 12 envelopes in a box and wrapped it. In each envelope was a date night activity for each month.
 
When my wife opened her gift and saw the 12 envelopes she cried. It was emotional for me too thinking that I have been so busy last year with work that we barely even got any date nights done. Sad to think I had to gift wrap my time for her, but glad that its set in stone and planned out for 2016.

In a somewhat parallel vein, from Sister Eliza R. Snow:
 
Think not when you gather to Zion
Your troubles and trials are through,
That nothing but comfort and pleasure
Are waiting in Zion for you.
No, no, ’tis designed as a furnace,
All substance, all textures to try.
To burn with “wood, hay, and stubble,”
The gold from the dross purify.
 
Think not when you gather to Zion,
That all will be holy and pure;
That fraud and deception are banished,
And confidence wholly secure.
No, no, for the Lord our Redeemer
Has said that the tares with the wheat
Must grow ‘til the great day of burning
Shall render the harvest complete.
 
Think not when you gather to Zion
The Saints here have nothing to do
But look to your personal welfare,
And always be comforting you.
No; those who are faithful are doing
What they find to do with their might;
To gather the scattered of Israel
They labor by day and by night.
 
Think not when you gather to Zion,
The prize and the victory won.
Think not that the warfare is ended,
The work of salvation is done.
No, no; for the great prince of darkness
A tenfold exertion will make,
When he sees you go to the fountain,
Where freely the truth you may take.

In a faraway land lay a country in turmoil. Beset by troubles, famine, and internal strife, it seemed to many to be on a path to destruction, carrying with it its people. Fortunately, a vastly wealthy benefactor, not of that country, commissioned the good ship Zion as a refuge for those who sought escape from the turmoil, promising to bring its passengers to a far better land. Passage was free; the only price was a willingness to serve as the benefactor (and those he appointed to lead) requested. Among many, it was required that they agree to give all they had for the benefit of the ship, though few were actually required to hand their stuff over. In any case, it was understood that their reward in the new land would vastly exceed anything they offered.
 
Many gladly signed up. Who wouldn't? They were a merry bunch, and many were surprised and even delighted to learn that the ship's crew was staffed entirely by the passengers. This made for an interesting and sometimes uncomfortable dynamic, as the passengers themselves served the other passengers.
 
Yet some felt to criticize the appointed officers, even supposing that they themselves would be better suited for command. Even the captain himself was not spared such berating. And so the ship sailed on, but not has happy or as productive as it might have been. Some of the passengers took a very long time to figure out -- and some never did figure out -- that being an officer on board was utterly irrelevant. They were going to a new land, a promised land of plenty, where the strifes and turmoil of their home country didn't exist. Having been brought up in and infected by the evils of their home country, they foolishly thought that position among the crew or status as an officer was somehow meaningful in the long term.
 
But the humble, those that didn't worry about how they thought their neighbor might perceive them, kept in mind their goal and the reason for their journey. They kept quiet about the bilge water, the sometimes less-than-restaurant-quality mess, the inevitable slip-ups by the hands or deck officers, and even the occasional rat darting about. They kept their own berth shipshape and tried to do well at their duty onboard, whether it was manning the brow or cleaning the head. Because they remembered that, however fun or frustrating the voyage was, the destination was their goal, and that those who learned to live with joy aboard the good ship Zion would also know how to live with joy in the promised land.

I'm not sure if this will be helpful, but what keeps coming to my mind is the different ways of knowing something. Spiritual knowledge is different from scientific or logical knowledge. It relies much less on physical evidence and human reason and much more on how closely one is seeking the Spirit and revelation from God. Pres. Eyring talked about this in his last General Conference talk. I would recommend your son read and re-read that. Here's a link: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/10/the-holy-ghost-as-your-companion?lang=eng
 
Perhaps he could start a scriptural topic study on knowledge and see where that leads him. There are some deep connections between spiritual knowledge and other topics like faith, virtue, truth, testimony, etc. Here's what the bible dictionary says about knowledge: https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bd/knowledge?lang=eng&letter=k

Killing Patton.....Bill O'reilly. It was a gift and surprisingly good. 

I finished the The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
 
An Urban Fantasy set in late 19th century New York. I enjoyed it. 

I'm kind of in the same boat with Jesus Christ and the World of the New Testament by Holzapfel, et al.  Great info, but a slow read; and now that we're done with the New Testament in Gospel Doctrine class I may lay it aside for another four years.  I also bogged down in Volume 1 of Holzapfel and Wayment's Life and Teachings of Jesus Christ--it's a spectacularly thorough collection of essays, but unfortunately a number of those essays are repetitive and/or so opaquely written as to be nearly impenetrable if I'm reading immediately before bedtime (as I very often do).
 
I'm still working through The God who Weeps, which is another slow read because it's so gosh-darned thought-provoking.  I'm simultaneously reading Stephen Ambrose's Undaunted Courage about the Lewis and Clark expedition, which is going more quickly but in some senses depressing (pretty much every member of the party, except Lewis and Clark themselves, came down with one STD or another.  Apparently, several of the native tribes the party encountered practiced wife-swapping on a regular basis--it was considered "good medicine" to lend your wife out to a powerful or skilled man, because you would then absorb some of his power or skill.  Ugh).

I have finished reading Tom Logan, Sheriff of Nye County, killed in 1906.
For those of you from other planets, Nye County is one of the old mining and infamous counties in Nevada.
The proper title is "Logan:  The Honorable Life and Scandalous Death of a Western Lawman" by Jackie Boor.
2014 or 2015, I think.
It goes over some of the early history of Nevada, southern Nevada, the mining communities, many now ghost towns and written by a descendant of the sheriff's. 
Of course, part of that history involves more than one Mormon pioneer settler, but the author only skims or avoids any Mormon involvement.
I have yet to finish, and don't know if I will finish "How Wide the Divide".
dc
 
Prior to the Logan book, I think I had mentioned reading the large (750 page) Porter Rockwell book from 1986,

I watched Ant Man on the flight to Hyderabad. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Ceaselessly, mindlessly, mercilessly dumb. The dumbnitude just keeps coming, and doesn't stop until the film's merciful end -- which is itself dumb.
 
What a dumb film. I think my IQ dropped by 20 points while watching it.

Hiya. Welcome aboard.

One of the keys to understanding scripture is the footnotes.  I would never try to understand the Revelation of John without checking the footnotes (for the JST version specifically, and links which might aid in understanding).  I'm kinda surprised no one in your class spotted the JST footnote - looking is a habit with me.
 
I also frequently use the institute manuals (I love the Gospel Library, which lets me take these and more everywhere).  I'll now speculate and say that horns could be symbolic of a warning voice (horns sounded before / in battle way back in the day) or of power (animal horns for fighting / protection) and that eyes are both observation and light.
 
And, here's what the manual says:
John described the Lamb in his vision as having many horns and eyes. In the scriptures, horns are often a symbol of power (see 1 Samuel 2:10; Psalm 75:10). Eyes often symbolize light and knowledge (see D&C 77:4). The Joseph Smith Translation of Revelation 5:6 indicates that the Lamb had “twelve horns and twelve eyes, which are the twelve servants of God” (in Revelation 5:6, footnote b). Since the Lord’s people in ancient Israel were numbered as twelve tribes and the Lord organized His Church with Twelve Apostles, the number twelve can symbolize divine government and organization, or the priesthood. This verse may suggest that all priesthood power and knowledge is centered in the Lamb of God.
 
FWIW.