Freedom of Choice, an Eternal Principle

Last Sunday's Relief Society lesson was based on Chapter 3 from the Ezra Taft Benson manual. Alicia did a fantastic job teaching and there were a lot of really good comments.

Here are some quick points we covered:

1. A great use of our agency is choosing to keep the commandments. Plus we are better able to keep our agency that way because we do not get addicted to various sins and bound by consequences.
2. Steps of decision making:
1. Study it out
2. Pray about it
3. Actively wait for an answer (read the scriptures, listen to the prophet, think about it more)
4. Have patience while waiting for an answer
5. Have faith in the answer you receive
3. If we trust in the Lord and consult him when making decisions, we will always end up where we are supposed to be. He wants what is best for us and will not lead us astray and will not let us make a wrong choice without giving some warning.
4. Sometimes the Lord just lets us make our own decisions.

The part about decision making got me thinking about a decision my husband and I made recently. We were trying to decide where he should work after graduating. The choices were a small town in California, at a job with really awesome benefits, and the chance for my husband to help program jets and missiles (which was really exciting to him). Or to stay with the company he is currently working at, here in Utah. We didn't want to stay in Utah so we decided to go with the other one. 

However as he was filling out paperwork for the job in California, he felt restless about the decision. I was just excited to be moving out of Utah, but I did feel a tiny bit concerned about the town that we were going to live in, it seemed really run down and dusty.

We were sitting together one evening when my husband came across this video. We watched it and I was actually in tears by the end, we both felt through the spirit that our decision was wrong and that we should stay with the company my husband was currently working at.

Still though, we didn't want to stay in Utah, so we asked if we could move to the Washington location (I don't know why we didn't just do this before... I love the Northwest and it is much closer to our families). We were given special permission to move to Washington a few weeks later and we have never felt better about our decision. I am so grateful the Lord wants what is best for each of us, and helps guide our decisions with a loving hand and through the whispers of the Holy Ghost.

Here is the video again:

Love One Another As I Have Loved You

This week's lesson was taught by Kelsey and was based on the conference talk by Elder Oaks called "Loving Others and living with Differences".

We talked about how we should love others no matter how different they might be from us, and how we should refrain from making snap judgements about others. Sometimes it is easier to refrain from judging others who are different than us than it is to refrain from judging those who hold our same beliefs but who don't live their religion the same way we do. However we should remember to keep the commandment to love one another no matter what.

We should be in the world but not of the world. Meaning we should not limit our association to only those of our faith. We talked about how talking with members of other religions can help enrich our own spirituality. You can still have a nice conversation about faith with someone of a different religion, the key is to stay away from contention and remember to communicate with love.

Members of the Church can still live our beliefs without being contentious, and we can still stand up for our beliefs without offending others.

Increasing Your Light

This Sunday, our lesson was taught by our wonderful president Lauren. It was a beautiful lesson about increasing your light.

She opened with the question, "What do you think of?" These were some of the answers:
Sunshine               Inspiration          Christ
Knowledge          Clarity
Happiness            Hope
Peace                  The Temple

Lauren's lesson was filled with beautiful quotes from President Uchtdorf! Unfortunately, I can't write very fast, so I just gleaned the parts I liked the best haha. The first little sun drop I gleaned was this gem, "God promotes the hope of His light." What an amazing promise! He's not going to leave us in the dark.

We were then asked what decreases light:
Stress
Priorities out of order
Comparing ourselves to others
Shame
Anxiety
negativity about others or ourselves

We then talked about what brings light into our lives:
Charity for others
Faith in God (even when things get hard)
Clean house
Being around others
Finding hobbies
Reading old journals
Surrounding ourselves with good media

Lauren brought up a wonderful point that maybe His light isn't an on or off switch, but maybe it's more like a lighthouse. The closer we get to it, the brighter the light gets.

A big part of this lesson was the promise that as WE draw nearer to GOD, HE will draw nearer to US. I LOVE THAT! We need to learn to use the Atonement so that we can continually draw nearer to our Heavenly Father and our Savior.

I'm so grateful to be part of this Relief Society and know each of you ladies! Love y'all. Let's all try to increase our light this week!