Putting It All Together

I used to love getting gifts that you had to put together.  For the 30 minutes to an hour of putting things together I could barely contain my excitement. One thing I realized is that if you don't look at the instructions, that will last even longer! One time for my birthday, I got a model truck. I thought it would be fun to figure it all out for myself. As I would struggle to figure out where things are supposed to go, and how things are supposed to look, I would have to go back to the instructions. Sometimes I would just look at one or two instructions, and disregard the rest. I could get it mostly put together doing this, but down the road I would find out something didn't work how it should (like the door that should have opened wouldn't). The only way that I could get it put together in the right way and have everything work the way it should was to read ALL the instructions.

I see people all over who do this same thing! I think everyone has an aversion to instructions. They like to pick a couple things and build the rest how they think it should be. Often people will only look at a few verses of scripture in a chapter. When they disregard the next verses, they put things together wrong. A good instance of this is in John Chapter 3 starting in verse 16:

"16  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

This would seem to say that all you have to do is believe in Christ to be saved. If you read on however, it says:
"19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

 20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved."

We can see from this that those who "doeth evil" bring condemnation upon themselves. When we read the whole instructions we realized that we HAVE to believe in Jesus Christ, but we also HAVE to have good deeds or works. If we want to find the truth then we have to use all the instructions. I know that this is one reason we have a prophet here today. He has seen salvation put together before, because of this he can help us do what we read in the instructions.

All Christ Does For Us

I have always known that Christ suffered for our sins and died for us. The great struggle he went through is something that we all look to with a great deal of gratitude. Something that I seem to look past however, is that he is still doing so much for us!

In 2 Nephi 26: 24-25 it says, "He doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all men unto him. Wherefore, he commandeth none that they shall not partake of his salvation. Behold, doth he cry unto any, saying: Depart from me? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; but he saith: Come unto me all ye ends of the earth..."

Jesus Christ works every day to help each and every one of us. We are so lucky to have a brother who loves us so much. I know he lives!

Online Missionary Work

Why in the world are missionaries online? This question is one that is really similar to what I was thinking when we found out that we would be working on Facebook and trying to share the Gospel through the internet. Facebook is something that has always been forbidden to missionaries, along with almost every website. So you can imagine our suprise when they told us about this. I was actually so shocked that I thought maybe they were playing a prank on us or something!

After about a half hour it started to sink in, and I started to think about all the possibilities this could present. The internet might be the best tool we have right now to get information out to people. Why not use this as a way to help people understand the happiness we all recieve from the Gospel? This could be a great way to get the truth to everyone!

The internet is full of things that will dull our spiritual sensitivity. It had many things that will turn people away from the truth because they do not completely understand. Over the last six years there was a study that has shown that internet searches of the word "mormon" have gone from 80 percent negative, to being 80 percent positive in some countries. The reason for this is that positive information about the Church is being spread across the web.

This is another effort to show the good. There are so many great websites that the Church has out right now: mormon.org, lds.org, youtube.com/mormonmessages, ect... We as (full-time and member) missionaries have an obligation to the Lord to share these things with our friends. This is an easy way to "...invite others to come unto Christ..." You can read more about this at Church News .

We can all do our part and share this wonderful message. Let's get the Lord's invitation to come unto him to all the world through the internet!

The Restoration

I mentioned in my last post that the Lord promised us that even though there would be an apostasy, he promises a restoration in the "Dispensation of the Fullness of Times."(Ephesians 1:10) In the year 1820 this happened.

At the age of 14 a young boy named Joseph Smith lived at a time of "unusual excitement on the subject of religion" (Joseph Smith History). There were many faiths who contended with one another over converts. During this time of confusion, Joseph Smith wondered which of all the churches was right. He wondered which was the "one Lord, one faith, one baptism," that Paul talks about in Eph 4: 5.

Because of the difference in opinion, Joseph couldn't decide which church to join. He says, "the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (JSH). In his search for the truth he came across the scripture in James 1: 5 that says, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." This scripture "seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of [his] heart.[He] reflected on it again and again, knowing that if any person needed wisdom from God, [He] did; for how to act [He] did not know..."

Joseph determined that he must ask God which church is true. So one spring morning, he went to a grove of trees and knelt down and prayed. In an answer to his prayer he received a vision from God and Jesus Christ! He says, "I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me... When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!"

His prayer was answered an he was told that while each church had truth in them, none of them had the whole truth. After centuries of being lost, the Lord's gospel would once again be revealed to his children. He was also told how he would be the Lord's servant in this work, he had been called by God to be a prophet. He was given the authority to restore Christ's church to the earth today.

This event has a great importance for the world! Christ's church is back! We have a prophet on the earth speaking the Lord's will to us today! I know this is true and you can as well!