Food for thought..

The last two sundays have been filled with richness. Our Sacrament talks were very entertaining and lively, yet spiritual uplifting and constructive. Two Sundays ago was 4th Sunday, High Council speakers, now usually we all tend to say "its 4th Sunday..great..old men speakers.." (no disrespect intended of course) Well our 4th Sunday speakers were great. Few things that stood out to me was the story of a "Wendy"a BYU graduate and daughter of a mission president from Utah and very successful family.When she was 25 years old she approached her parents and told them that she had decided that she did not believe what she had been taught her whole life and she didnt know if Joseph Smith was a prophet and all the rest that was to be believed. She told her parents it was nothing that they had done wrong for they had given her every chance to know the gospel principles. What was taught about this experience of a family that had done everything right in raising up their child was that Wendy never worked to have the Spirit in her life. She had a good family that was faithful that invited the Spirit, she went to BYU, but she never knew what it was really like to feel the Spirit because it was too infrequent in her life. We were invited that if we dont feel the Spirit often enough in our lives that we need to work for it. The 4 steps we were given to avoid feeling a "Wendy": 1. read often especially the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon (the most correct book on earth..a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts..) 2. ponder what we read-dont rush through your feelings 3. after reading & pondering record your feelings 4. share your experiences so that we are reminded of our feelings and experiences. These four steps seem redundant, but do we do them?? Do we allow ourselves to feel the Spirit and do we recognize when we do?

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Yesterday in church, we had a great talk as well. The topic was "iF oNe CaN dO iT, aLl CaN dO iT". If you think about it, its kinda a false statement yet true. If one can make a million dollars, then all can make a million dollars (havent seen that..) If one can play a guitar, then all can play the guitar(so not true, still working on it). but the idea behind it is eventually there is a possibility that what one can do all can accomplish. This topic went in the direction of obedience. A joke about a special horse was told and it goes something like this.. There was a man and he was looking for a horse. he went horse shopping to find the perfect horse.Soon, he came to a farm. He asked the farmer if he had a special horse for sale. The farmer said yes, but warned: "Sir, this is no ordinary horse. You have to say "praise the Lord" to make it go, and "Amen" to make it stop". The man said "Oh, that's easy. So he jumped on the horse and said "Praise the Lord!" and the horse took off down the road. He then said "Amen" and the horse stopped. He wanted to see if he could make the horse go faster so he said " Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord" and the horse went faster and faster and took off straight for a cliff. As the horse approached the cliff the man forgot what to say to get the horse to stop so he said a prayer and at the end of the prayer, of course, he said "Amen". Screech!! The horse stopped right at the edge of the cliff! The man looked down and sees all of the thousands of feet down that he had almost fallen into... and to give thanks to God, he yelled out "Praise the Lord!!!

So the whole moral of this story to me is that there were only two things the man had to remember to control the horse, but he got so caught up in the events (life) and the fun of riding fast and that he forgot. Obedience is a simple commandment. We fail more often than we hope, but much like the man its easy to get back on track if we want. I think I would tweek the statement from the beginning a little bit and say what one can do, eventually all can do. In time we each learn lifes lessons and what one doesnt learn today, they hopefully will learn in a few days or a few months or a few years. Just some food for thought.