Happy Birthday Mom! Love how you decided to celebrate! Thanks :)
Ryan and I had the opportunity to speak at church today. If you're in the mood to read, here is some of what was said:
A little over seven years ago on a Thursday at 9:00 in the morning, there was a sealing room in the beautiful San Diego temple that was full of our closest friends and family that had come to share our special day with us. We were on a tight schedule. Ryan and I were going to school in Utah at the time and in the middle of a semester. Wednesday morning we attended our jobs, drove to San Diego that afternoon, I received my endowments that night and the next day we were to be married, have a reception on Friday night and then head straight back to Provo so we could be back to our jobs and school early on Monday morning. While our guests waited quietly in the sealing room for the ceremony to begin, I sat with my mother and grandmother in the waiting room of the temple waiting for Ryan and his parents to arrive. And then we waited some more and we waited some more and we even waited some more. A half hour passed, then forty minutes. An hour and twenty seven minutes… according to the watches of my brothers and dad who by now were pacing and plotting terrible revenge for my fiancé and maybe never to be husband while my mom and grandma sat on each side of me holding my hands squeezing them tighter and tighter as the minutes passed thinking of how they were going to console this bride to NOT BE that got stood up on her wedding day. They came up with every excuse for Ryan imaginable--from that he couldn’t find his temple recommend to that he had only packed his sneakers and was out with his mom shopping for dress shoes. Over an hour and a half had passed from our scheduled sealing time when we finally received a call from Ryan’s dad. He informed us that our car had been broken into the night before and everything had been stolen…from our car’s stereo to our leather jackets to temple clothes to my textbooks to all of our favorite cds…(the textbooks, I deserved to have those stolen for even thinking I was going to have time to study those that weekend!).
So, not exactly a girl’s idea of a fairytale wedding day. Obviously I went ahead and still married the guy after he FINALLY decided to show up!…lucky for HIM is what I thought at the time… I’d still like to know why that phone call took so long! However, I have since learned that my decision to marry Ryan was lucky for me. With seven years of marriage and a whole lot more fun up and down stories that just seem to come packaged with marriage and life, I have since learned a little more about what it means to “LEARN to love”
A focus that our bishopric wants us to have this month is from message of the Hymn, "Lord, I would follow thee."
As I have been preparing to speak to you, I didn’t make it past the first line of that hymn. “Savior…may I LEARN to love thee.” I would like to focus my thoughts today on how we can come to LEARN to love our Savior.
As I observe relationships around me that were created in the “world’s” way with the idea that we “magically fall in love” or that if only the other person was like “this, this and this" and not like this, this, and that and most definitely not late to their own wedding” then we’d love them… I have come to realize that adopting these philosophies can potentially rob us of one of the great purposes of our mortal experience… to learn!
Elder Marvin J. Ashton was a member of the twelve apostles at the time he said this in regard to love. He says, “True love is a process. True love requires personal action. Love must be continuing to be real. Love takes time.”
…quite the opposite approach to what Satan is trying to teach us about love. Of course Satan wants us to sign up for his accelerated course and counterfeit version…even in love… where we are deceived into thinking that simply because we feel we are deserving of love, loving another should also just happen with no effort or patience on our part…or that somehow simply declaring or announcing our love is a complete expression of it… How dangerous can this attitude be to not only our marriages and relationships with others… but most especially to our relationship with our Savior, who said himself, that to love God is the greatest of all the commandments .
What does it mean to love the Savior? He tells us. The resurrected Savior teaches Peter what it means to love Him.
John Chapter 21: 14-17.
This is now the third time that Jesus shewed himself to his disciples, after that he was risen from the dead.
When they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, yea Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.
He saith unto him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, yea Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep.
He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.”
God wants more than our declaration. He wants us to act…and just as He patiently taught Peter, He patiently teaches us the process of where to begin.
Our Savior patiently taught us today as we listened to the Sacrament prayers. Not only today, but 48 times a year we hear these same prayers over and over and over again. Can you believe the patience the Lord has with us as he is trying to teach us?...the same thing, 48 times a year. These prayers contain an incredible message of hope for us. I don’t believe the wording chosen in these sacred prayers is a coincidence. Think of the first prayer that we hear on the bread.
Read D&C 20:77…
O God, the Eternal Father, we ask thee in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this bread to the souls of all those who partake of it, that they may eat in remembrance of the body of thy Son, and witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they are WILLING…willing to take upon them the name of they Son, and always remember him and keep his commandments which he has given them.
Each week as I take the Sacrament I haven’t had the perfect week of always remembering Him or always keeping His commandments. The Lord is quite aware of that. But our demonstration of our love for the Savior first begins with a “willingness.” And I can say with confidence that I was willing to always remember Him and keep His commandments…not that I didn’t stumble sometimes, but I was willing. That is what He requires of us at first…. And then look how the words change as we read the second prayer.
Read D&C 20: 79…
O God, the Eternal father, we ask thee in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this wine to the souls of all those who drink of it, that they may do it in remembrance of the blood of they Son, which was shed for them; that they may WITNESS unto thee, O God, the eternal father, that they do always remember him.
We are expected to move from being a witness of willingness….to an actual witness…and as we turn our WILL over to the Lord, or are WILLING… that is when the power of His great atonement enables us to be more than we otherwise ever could be. That is when our lives become a reflection of His majesty and when we truly are able to become witnesses of Him. The picture that I haven’t been able to get out of my mind as I’ve studied this over and over again is the picture of a young woman and a young man at a sacred altar in the Holy House of the Lord met together to witness their willingness to love… with a whole lot of work ahead as they begin their journey of LEARNING to love… Or another picture that comes to mind is watching our children as they have grown…with their STRONG WILLS. They are willing to try something over and over again and fail again and fail again and then one day, they get it. And we clap and celebrate even though they sometimes fall because they’ve tried. Our Savior rejoices in the same way when He sees us trying…when we are willing to keep the commandments, willing to feed His sheep, willing to love our brothers and sisters as ourselves. When we are willing it puts us in a path where the Atonement can work on us, where the Lord can give us His hand and show us the way and give us His strength… Just as the Sacrament prayers reveal this process…the Lord can mold us with our willing hearts to becoming ABLE and capable servants of His who love Him, who keep His commandments, who always remember Him and are true witnesses of Him.
President Uchtdorf explains this learning process perfectly. “My dear brothers and sisters, don’t get discouraged if you stumble at times. Don’t feel downcast or despair if you don’t feel worthy to be a disciple of Christ at all times. The first step to walking in righteousness is simply to try. We must try to believe. Try to learn of God; read the scriptures; study the words of His latter-day prophets; choose to listen to the Father, and do the things He asks of us. Try and keep on trying until that which seems difficult becomes possible---and that which seems only possible becomes habit and a real part of you.”
President Uchtdorf speaks more about the commandment to Love God and what following that commandment does to US when he says this.
“God the Eternal Father did not give the first great commandment because He needs us to love Him. His power and glory are not diminished should we disregard, deny, or even defile His name. His influence and dominion extend through time and space independent of our acceptance, approval, or admiration.
No, God does not need us to love Him. But oh, how we need to love God! For what we love determines what we seek. What we seek determines what we think and do. What we think and do determines who we are—and who we will become.”
President Uchtdorf finishes there but I’m going to read that last part one more time and condense it a bit. “For what we love determines…who we will become.”
Is it any wonder, then, that Satan is working so hard at getting us to believe this illusion that love just happens to us and requires no effort or time or investment on our part. If we think we can skip the learning part, we won’t ever make it to the becoming part and that is when Satan wins. That is when we no longer progress.
I have an experience that happened on a day that I was not feeling so willing. Hopefully this helps to illustrate what can happen in our lives when we don’t feel like putting forth that extra effort that is required of us in order to progress.
Ryan and I were making our first move as a married couple. Is was the middle of the summer and we were moving from Utah to California…After packing our two cars with everything we owned (as you can imagine, they were completely stuffed.... Ironing boards and surfboards and bicycles were tied up all around them outside) It wasn’t pretty. We set out on the road like this and took the trip over a three day period, stopping off to spend time with family and friends along the way. Day one of the trip I had my windows up, my AC was on and my radio turned up as we cruised along. When I woke up on Day 2 and I got into my car, something smelled just awful. My suspicions were that some wet towels that we used to clean our apartment just before leaving were beginning to mildew and cause the odor. I could just ignore it, or so I thought. We headed back on the road. The smell seemed to be getting worse in the terrible heat of the afternoon…it got bad enough that at one gas station stop, Ryan insisted that we take apart everything packed in my car and trunk so we could just take out the towels and move on. I refused to let him. I was exhausted and impatient to get to our new house, and I wasn’t so sure if we started rummaging through everything that nothing would break or that we’d be able to fit it all back in again. I promised him I could just pretend the smell wasn’t there. By day three, there was no more pretending. Something was very wrong. We could smell our parked car from yards away. Ryan again insisted that we just pause, unload everything, find the problem, and load it all back up again. Again, I refused. After all, we were just a few hours away from our destination, I impatiently told him. I just wanted to get there and we could deal with it all then. We’d find the dirty towels soon enough. That last stretch of the trip was soooooo bad. I made sure to breathe only through my mouth, all windows of my car were down, and I still thought I wasn’t going to make it. But we did. And we even found the culprit of that awful stench.
Let me rewind a bit back to when we packed our cars in Provo. We had made friends with some of the neighborhood kids and so when it came time to move we enlisted them to help us pack our cars. It was great. We lived on the 3rd floor apartment so I’d give the go ahead to the kids about what was ready to go downstairs to Ryan who was packing the cars and we were able to avoid a whole lot of stair climbing. Well, I had cleaned out our freezer and had set aside a bag full of frozen chicken and fish that we were going to give to our neighbor’s below us… and that is where it went all wrong. Somehow that bag ended up in our car and that fish and chicken cooked for three hot summer days in the bottom of our trunk. And to think had I been willing to just let Ryan undo my car in the beginning, I could have avoided a year of carpet cleaning and Febreezing that only really ever masked the smell of fish that was left in my car. Had only I been willing to take some time, pull over, allow Ryan to help me rearrange some things, I could have avoided a whole lot of awfulness.
Our unwillingness to stop, to be patient, to rearrange our lives, often separates us from the Lord’s help--whether it be help with repenting and eliminating some stink, or help with forgiving, or extra strength in our trials or extra strength in our callings. Our unwillingness sometimes separates us from having the courage to open our mouths and share the gospel with a friend, or accept a calling or assignment. Our unwillingness separates us from ever being able to truly “learn to love the Lord” and see His hand in our lives, shaping us to be those witnesses of Him that we have covenanted to be.
My dad has a favorite saying. “It’s not enough to grow old in the gospel, we must grow UP in the gospel. We will grow up…we will “become holy without spot” as Moroni promises, “ as we “awake and arise from the dust” and are WILLING, we will learn to love our God with all our might mind and strength. Then is His grace sufficient for us, that by His grace we may be perfect in Christ. “ This is my testimony. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
A little over seven years ago on a Thursday at 9:00 in the morning, there was a sealing room in the beautiful San Diego temple that was full of our closest friends and family that had come to share our special day with us. We were on a tight schedule. Ryan and I were going to school in Utah at the time and in the middle of a semester. Wednesday morning we attended our jobs, drove to San Diego that afternoon, I received my endowments that night and the next day we were to be married, have a reception on Friday night and then head straight back to Provo so we could be back to our jobs and school early on Monday morning. While our guests waited quietly in the sealing room for the ceremony to begin, I sat with my mother and grandmother in the waiting room of the temple waiting for Ryan and his parents to arrive. And then we waited some more and we waited some more and we even waited some more. A half hour passed, then forty minutes. An hour and twenty seven minutes… according to the watches of my brothers and dad who by now were pacing and plotting terrible revenge for my fiancé and maybe never to be husband while my mom and grandma sat on each side of me holding my hands squeezing them tighter and tighter as the minutes passed thinking of how they were going to console this bride to NOT BE that got stood up on her wedding day. They came up with every excuse for Ryan imaginable--from that he couldn’t find his temple recommend to that he had only packed his sneakers and was out with his mom shopping for dress shoes. Over an hour and a half had passed from our scheduled sealing time when we finally received a call from Ryan’s dad. He informed us that our car had been broken into the night before and everything had been stolen…from our car’s stereo to our leather jackets to temple clothes to my textbooks to all of our favorite cds…(the textbooks, I deserved to have those stolen for even thinking I was going to have time to study those that weekend!).
So, not exactly a girl’s idea of a fairytale wedding day. Obviously I went ahead and still married the guy after he FINALLY decided to show up!…lucky for HIM is what I thought at the time… I’d still like to know why that phone call took so long! However, I have since learned that my decision to marry Ryan was lucky for me. With seven years of marriage and a whole lot more fun up and down stories that just seem to come packaged with marriage and life, I have since learned a little more about what it means to “LEARN to love”
A focus that our bishopric wants us to have this month is from message of the Hymn, "Lord, I would follow thee."
As I have been preparing to speak to you, I didn’t make it past the first line of that hymn. “Savior…may I LEARN to love thee.” I would like to focus my thoughts today on how we can come to LEARN to love our Savior.
As I observe relationships around me that were created in the “world’s” way with the idea that we “magically fall in love” or that if only the other person was like “this, this and this" and not like this, this, and that and most definitely not late to their own wedding” then we’d love them… I have come to realize that adopting these philosophies can potentially rob us of one of the great purposes of our mortal experience… to learn!
Elder Marvin J. Ashton was a member of the twelve apostles at the time he said this in regard to love. He says, “True love is a process. True love requires personal action. Love must be continuing to be real. Love takes time.”
…quite the opposite approach to what Satan is trying to teach us about love. Of course Satan wants us to sign up for his accelerated course and counterfeit version…even in love… where we are deceived into thinking that simply because we feel we are deserving of love, loving another should also just happen with no effort or patience on our part…or that somehow simply declaring or announcing our love is a complete expression of it… How dangerous can this attitude be to not only our marriages and relationships with others… but most especially to our relationship with our Savior, who said himself, that to love God is the greatest of all the commandments .
What does it mean to love the Savior? He tells us. The resurrected Savior teaches Peter what it means to love Him.
John Chapter 21: 14-17.
This is now the third time that Jesus shewed himself to his disciples, after that he was risen from the dead.
When they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, yea Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.
He saith unto him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, yea Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep.
He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.”
God wants more than our declaration. He wants us to act…and just as He patiently taught Peter, He patiently teaches us the process of where to begin.
Our Savior patiently taught us today as we listened to the Sacrament prayers. Not only today, but 48 times a year we hear these same prayers over and over and over again. Can you believe the patience the Lord has with us as he is trying to teach us?...the same thing, 48 times a year. These prayers contain an incredible message of hope for us. I don’t believe the wording chosen in these sacred prayers is a coincidence. Think of the first prayer that we hear on the bread.
Read D&C 20:77…
O God, the Eternal Father, we ask thee in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this bread to the souls of all those who partake of it, that they may eat in remembrance of the body of thy Son, and witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they are WILLING…willing to take upon them the name of they Son, and always remember him and keep his commandments which he has given them.
Each week as I take the Sacrament I haven’t had the perfect week of always remembering Him or always keeping His commandments. The Lord is quite aware of that. But our demonstration of our love for the Savior first begins with a “willingness.” And I can say with confidence that I was willing to always remember Him and keep His commandments…not that I didn’t stumble sometimes, but I was willing. That is what He requires of us at first…. And then look how the words change as we read the second prayer.
Read D&C 20: 79…
O God, the Eternal father, we ask thee in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this wine to the souls of all those who drink of it, that they may do it in remembrance of the blood of they Son, which was shed for them; that they may WITNESS unto thee, O God, the eternal father, that they do always remember him.
We are expected to move from being a witness of willingness….to an actual witness…and as we turn our WILL over to the Lord, or are WILLING… that is when the power of His great atonement enables us to be more than we otherwise ever could be. That is when our lives become a reflection of His majesty and when we truly are able to become witnesses of Him. The picture that I haven’t been able to get out of my mind as I’ve studied this over and over again is the picture of a young woman and a young man at a sacred altar in the Holy House of the Lord met together to witness their willingness to love… with a whole lot of work ahead as they begin their journey of LEARNING to love… Or another picture that comes to mind is watching our children as they have grown…with their STRONG WILLS. They are willing to try something over and over again and fail again and fail again and then one day, they get it. And we clap and celebrate even though they sometimes fall because they’ve tried. Our Savior rejoices in the same way when He sees us trying…when we are willing to keep the commandments, willing to feed His sheep, willing to love our brothers and sisters as ourselves. When we are willing it puts us in a path where the Atonement can work on us, where the Lord can give us His hand and show us the way and give us His strength… Just as the Sacrament prayers reveal this process…the Lord can mold us with our willing hearts to becoming ABLE and capable servants of His who love Him, who keep His commandments, who always remember Him and are true witnesses of Him.
President Uchtdorf explains this learning process perfectly. “My dear brothers and sisters, don’t get discouraged if you stumble at times. Don’t feel downcast or despair if you don’t feel worthy to be a disciple of Christ at all times. The first step to walking in righteousness is simply to try. We must try to believe. Try to learn of God; read the scriptures; study the words of His latter-day prophets; choose to listen to the Father, and do the things He asks of us. Try and keep on trying until that which seems difficult becomes possible---and that which seems only possible becomes habit and a real part of you.”
President Uchtdorf speaks more about the commandment to Love God and what following that commandment does to US when he says this.
“God the Eternal Father did not give the first great commandment because He needs us to love Him. His power and glory are not diminished should we disregard, deny, or even defile His name. His influence and dominion extend through time and space independent of our acceptance, approval, or admiration.
No, God does not need us to love Him. But oh, how we need to love God! For what we love determines what we seek. What we seek determines what we think and do. What we think and do determines who we are—and who we will become.”
President Uchtdorf finishes there but I’m going to read that last part one more time and condense it a bit. “For what we love determines…who we will become.”
Is it any wonder, then, that Satan is working so hard at getting us to believe this illusion that love just happens to us and requires no effort or time or investment on our part. If we think we can skip the learning part, we won’t ever make it to the becoming part and that is when Satan wins. That is when we no longer progress.
I have an experience that happened on a day that I was not feeling so willing. Hopefully this helps to illustrate what can happen in our lives when we don’t feel like putting forth that extra effort that is required of us in order to progress.
Ryan and I were making our first move as a married couple. Is was the middle of the summer and we were moving from Utah to California…After packing our two cars with everything we owned (as you can imagine, they were completely stuffed.... Ironing boards and surfboards and bicycles were tied up all around them outside) It wasn’t pretty. We set out on the road like this and took the trip over a three day period, stopping off to spend time with family and friends along the way. Day one of the trip I had my windows up, my AC was on and my radio turned up as we cruised along. When I woke up on Day 2 and I got into my car, something smelled just awful. My suspicions were that some wet towels that we used to clean our apartment just before leaving were beginning to mildew and cause the odor. I could just ignore it, or so I thought. We headed back on the road. The smell seemed to be getting worse in the terrible heat of the afternoon…it got bad enough that at one gas station stop, Ryan insisted that we take apart everything packed in my car and trunk so we could just take out the towels and move on. I refused to let him. I was exhausted and impatient to get to our new house, and I wasn’t so sure if we started rummaging through everything that nothing would break or that we’d be able to fit it all back in again. I promised him I could just pretend the smell wasn’t there. By day three, there was no more pretending. Something was very wrong. We could smell our parked car from yards away. Ryan again insisted that we just pause, unload everything, find the problem, and load it all back up again. Again, I refused. After all, we were just a few hours away from our destination, I impatiently told him. I just wanted to get there and we could deal with it all then. We’d find the dirty towels soon enough. That last stretch of the trip was soooooo bad. I made sure to breathe only through my mouth, all windows of my car were down, and I still thought I wasn’t going to make it. But we did. And we even found the culprit of that awful stench.
Let me rewind a bit back to when we packed our cars in Provo. We had made friends with some of the neighborhood kids and so when it came time to move we enlisted them to help us pack our cars. It was great. We lived on the 3rd floor apartment so I’d give the go ahead to the kids about what was ready to go downstairs to Ryan who was packing the cars and we were able to avoid a whole lot of stair climbing. Well, I had cleaned out our freezer and had set aside a bag full of frozen chicken and fish that we were going to give to our neighbor’s below us… and that is where it went all wrong. Somehow that bag ended up in our car and that fish and chicken cooked for three hot summer days in the bottom of our trunk. And to think had I been willing to just let Ryan undo my car in the beginning, I could have avoided a year of carpet cleaning and Febreezing that only really ever masked the smell of fish that was left in my car. Had only I been willing to take some time, pull over, allow Ryan to help me rearrange some things, I could have avoided a whole lot of awfulness.
Our unwillingness to stop, to be patient, to rearrange our lives, often separates us from the Lord’s help--whether it be help with repenting and eliminating some stink, or help with forgiving, or extra strength in our trials or extra strength in our callings. Our unwillingness sometimes separates us from having the courage to open our mouths and share the gospel with a friend, or accept a calling or assignment. Our unwillingness separates us from ever being able to truly “learn to love the Lord” and see His hand in our lives, shaping us to be those witnesses of Him that we have covenanted to be.
My dad has a favorite saying. “It’s not enough to grow old in the gospel, we must grow UP in the gospel. We will grow up…we will “become holy without spot” as Moroni promises, “ as we “awake and arise from the dust” and are WILLING, we will learn to love our God with all our might mind and strength. Then is His grace sufficient for us, that by His grace we may be perfect in Christ. “ This is my testimony. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Comments