Women's Conference

Last night I went to a meeting held for all women 8 and up and it was an amazing broadcast. I'm going to briefly discuss a point that really stood out to me last night! The quote is from the Young Women's President who spoke, she said "you can't truly call yourself a Christian while constantly judging yourself and others around." This really stood out to me because I have been on all ends of that, me judging myself, judging others, and being judged. I feel very strongly about this subject because I know how it feels to frequently be misjudged by people and misjudge others and I know how much it hurts to hear what people say. Knowing some of the things people have prejudicely thought towards me has helped inspire me to not be prejudice towards others. I have a bad habit of seeing someone and assuming that they are a troubled person just because maybe they have a tattoo or are kind of loud and out spoken but I've been able to control those thoughts a lot more easily lately and I know that I couldn't have had the ability to control my thoughts with out the help of Jesus Christ. We need to learn to love others the way Jesus does. Jesus doesn't say "I love Chloe, but sometimes she's a brat.", Jesus says "Chloe can be a brat but I still love her despite her negative qualities and I look past them". If you struggle with being prejudice, just think to yourself "what if they thought that of me? How would that make me feel? Would they be wrong? Would they be right?" Thinking those things has helped me be less judgmental towards others. Another thing that has helped me be better with controlling my thoughts is knowing what people think of me and knowing that what they think is wrong, so if I think something negatively of someone then I am probably going to be wrong as well. You can't call yourself a Christian if you don't love others the way Jesus loves others.

Helaman 14

I'm so thankful that I have sister McGruder as my seminary teacher because she has taught me how to read the scriptures. I know how to generally read of course but being able to comprehend and understand the scriptures as you read them is a whole other ball game! And I am so glad I finally have a seminary teacher that has helped me develop that skill! We are finishing up Helaman this week and I love being able to understand the stories while we read. Yesterday we read Helaman 14 which is the story of Samuel prophesying Jesus Christ's coming to the earth. He prophesied that in five years The son of God will come to earth and listed all of the signs: The night before Jesus comes, there shall be light in heaven and no darkness for two days and a night and a new star shall be in the sky. Then later in the chapter Samuel prophesied that Jesus will have to die in order for the atonement to be in effect. The signs given for that are: no light for some time after Jesus dies, cities will be de, and graves shall be opened as well as other terrible things. The biggest emphasis in the scriptures was repentance and being prepared for Christ's coming which I believe still applies to us today. We don't know when Christ will come again but we always need to be prepared for the day that he does.

Quick thought

Usually I use my blog for seminary lessons but I really enjoyed my short lesson at church today so I thought what the hay, ill post about it! Today we learned the parable in Saint John about the vine and the branches and it explains that we as humans are the branches and Heavenly Father is our vine. When a branch falls off of the vine it can no longer grow or thrive but when a branch stays on the vine it is able to live and grow. We need to do all we can to stay on the vine or else we will wilt and shrivel until we completely fall off! If we do what we can to stay on the vine, Heavenly Father will give us the nourishment we need to keep growing. Always try to stay on the vine:)

Helamen 5

In class last week we had some homework that I ended up really enjoying! We had to to read a few verses of helamen 5 and we would either illustrate or describe what was going on in those verses. It makes the chapter a lot easier to understand and also more easy to relate to. The chapter explains the story of Nephi and Lehi getting captured by the Lamenites and being commanded by God to convert the Lamenites back to the ways of The Lord. The Lamenites are still skeptical even after seeing Nephi and Lehi be saved from burning fire, so The Lord sent a dark cloud over the Lamenites as well as Nephi and Lehi that was so dark that no one could see therefore no one could leave. A voice came out from the heavens telling the Lamenites to repent and then the Lamenites looked over to Nephi and Lehi to see that the dark cloud was not surrounding them and they were light where everything else was dark. And then in verse 42 it states: And it came to pass that they all did begin to cry unto the voice of him who had shaken the earth; yea, they did cry even until the cloud of darkness was dispersed. I found this to very inspiring and an amazing experience to read. To think that they all felt so compelled by the spirit to turn away from their sins and feel so humbled as to cry for forgiveness, it's a really special story. If these wicked people can be converted why can't the wicked people of our day? There are so many people ready to learn of the gospel, we need to all be missionaries in our everyday lives.