tubaloth

Scriptures: 1 Nephi 8 8-10 10 And it came to pass that I beheld a tree, whose fruit was desirable to make one happy. 2 Nephi 5:27 27 And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness. Mormon 9:27 14 And then cometh the judgment of the Holy One upon them; and then cometh the time that he that is filthy shall be filthy still; and he that is righteous shall be righteous still; he that is happy shall be happy still; and he that is unhappy shall be unhappy still. Quote by Joseph Smith Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God. [Teachings, 255–56] Talks Finding Joy in Life Quote: Sadness, disappointment, and severe challenge are events in life, not life itself. I do not minimize how hard some of these events are. They can extend over a long period of time, but they should not be allowed to become the confining center of everything you do. Our Search for Happiness Quote: The problem is that too many of us try to consume happiness rather than generate it. Your Happily Ever After I just found this, this morning. http://worldhappiness.report/ed/2018/ I haven't gotten into it yet. Passing it on.

I get the opportunity to teach/council an Elders Quorum in a mid singles ward (31-45) in Utah. We had noticed a couple of Elders are kind of negative. I caught hold of idea about the Plan of Happiness, and we should be happy. I will share some of the scriptures and talked in the next post. One idea that popped into my mind is that Happiness is a spiritual feeling. I might be the last person on earth that finally realized that. Before I felt like Happiness was more of a physical attitude/state of mind. I think it still is, but I now feel like a happy spirit can lead to a happy attitude.

I also am teaching this 4th Sunday topic. I'm in a mid singles ward, and we really haven't talked about it that much. I actually have tried to push the Elders Quorum Pres to do more. (We did not have any change in our quroum because we don't have a high priest group). In preparing for my lesson, I wanted to go back and figure out when Home Teaching started. It was announced in April 1963 conference. Elder Lee (at the time) was giving the assignment to present this new correlation program the church had been development. (This is also were the term ward council seems to have started). The idea at the time was to revamp the teaching in the church. New way of teaching the different age groups, a bigger emphases on teaching in the home, thus Home Teaching. We realize now we have more members outside the USA then it it. Yes Home teaching probably could still work fine in Utah and maybe even the USA. Outside it, things needed to evolve. In my singles ward we actually tried to adapt home teaching as Elder Holland brought up a year or two ago. The problem we actually ran into was the church's record still needed to know who you visited each month. Became kind of a hassle figuring out if we count that as a visit. Like others have said, I think for the last 55 years we just got complacent with how things were done. Back in April 1963, Pres David O. McKay wrote about Home Teaching in some new leadership manual that was coming out. The first part of it I think got lost over the years. I just changed the quote from Home Teaching to Ministering.

I would even suggest to go Mormon.org each day. 1. they have a short video for that days item. 2. They have other suggestions on what you can do. 3. they have a scripture about Christ doing that days item. That was the one thing I wish was on the Advent Calendar is scriptures to go with it. I get they didn't have the room. Nice to see they are on mormon.org.

The big thing I remember probably has blended together of some small experiences. I remember being on splits with some other companion. I remember us walking and talking about agency and how people have the power to choose. Blending in the knowledge of what I had gained of the plan of salvation, a light bulb went off in my head during this conversation. The plan of salvation is so perfectly constructed that it allows each person to grow or fall as much as they want to. The more a person follows the path, the closer they can get to God. The opposite is also true. Each person has the power themselves to grow at there own speed. The plan of salvation is really the perfect plan to allow people to use their agency.

So for those that have started doing the Teacher Council, how is it going? I do like the idea for the most part. I think having a monthly meeting to motivate and prepare teachers is great. We seem to be having some growing pains. We only have had one meeting. We choose to have the meeting on Fast Sunday, easy to remember, I guess the primary has some combined sharing time so this allows the teachers to be available during the Sunday School Hour. But we ended up having 35 teachers in the room, were as the one for Sunday School teachers only had 8. The video's I have seen so far of examples of this Teacher Council didn't show 35 people in the room. We would like to group the youth teachers together (YM and YW) and group the primary together, but we don't have enough class rooms big enough for that many people. The lessons are divided up into different sections. Each part I think has three topics. For some reason people were confused if we were picking a section, or the topics in the section. We also had confusion on how to lead the discussion to cover the areas they want (how to apply the principle to your classes, role play the topics). From what I can gather actually reading the first couple of lessons, you actually covert the lesson/discussion. Talk about how the Savior Taught. It isn't until the end, do we then try to apply the principle.

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/david-a-bednar_quick-observe/

With the new push for more spiritual sacrament meetings in our ward counsel it was brought up to maybe give members of our ward some talks about Sacrament and Sabbath day for use in some family home evenings. During part of the training for Sabbath day our Bishop shared some quotes from a Pres. Kimball article found in the Jan 1978 Ensign. This Ensign was decided to Sabbath day worship. I was seeing if there was any other articles that could be used for a family home evening. Nothing really new here, but just the way this guy says it, made it a good read. https://www.lds.org/ensign/1978/01/the-sacrament-and-covenant-making?lang=eng

I think the temple is a spiritual place. I think for some life changing movements we do need the extra spirit that is in the temple. But here is what is bothering me. Our Bishop wanted to call a new Ward Mission Leader. He felt like he needed to take the names to the temple. The Bishop also instructed our new YW president to go to the temple to figure out who to be her Secretary. I know when I was in a singles ward years ago, I was told to go to the temple to confirm counselors I was to pick for an Elders Quorum. Which I did more thinking that is what way we do things. So it seems as members we can get revelation, but we can't get enough of it with out the temple? I assume with the Bishop's calling he should be able to get revelation on callings in the ward. I also assume bishops in other parts of the world where a temple is farther away, that they don't run to the temple to confirm ever new calling. It seems like maybe we rely on the temple too much? I guess it could be that this how my bishop has learned to get revelation? So he does it that way. But I don't know if its needed?

We don't really know a lot of what happens in the next life. We know we will be judged of what we did here. I would have to think to some degree that would play a part in how our marriage went. But Heavenly Father knows all, and so he knows all sides to it. If it was out of our control then he would know that and judge us accordingly. The quote you give by Joseph Smith isn't really talking about divorce its talking about committing adultery which is a sin. We can repent of adultery. I that is different then divorce.

This was the instructions with "if allowed to do so" something like that. Our Stake just changed in June. It was different.

From the Letter Powerful! Got me thinking! Thank you

It was after his Crucifixion. About the only way he could have "traveled" that far. The exact time he came is not exactly known. I don't think that matters as much as He did come. Looks like the questions was ask on LDS.net years ago. http://lds.net/forums/topic/36069-when-did-jesus-visit-america/ Pretty typical that the same questions get asked again and again. http://rsc.byu.edu/archived/jerusalem-zarahemla-literary-and-historical-studies-book-mormon/when-did-jesus-visit

The JST has this a little different JST Heb. 11:1 … assurance of things hoped for …

Glad your lesson went well. For our opening exercises once our bishopric counselor wrote all the announcements on the board. He kind of goes over them, but you don't get all the back and forth questions. "What time does it start" "Where is that at" We went to our Elders Quorum and hardly anybody was there, and no teacher. We all discussed where everybody was at. Then I looked at my watch and realized we were 8 mins earlier. So now I push our counselor to write the announcements on the board each time. Now it doesn't really help that half the time the Elders Quorum Pres goes over the same thing again. Doh!