Christlike Leadership

Michelle gave a great lesson today on chapter 19, "Leadership," in the Ezra Taft Benson manual.

The first question we discussed was, "How can we be leaders?" 

We talked about how we can magnify our callings, show initiative in our lives, and serve those around us. 

We then discussed how the Lord was a leader and how learning about Him can make us better leaders. 

The ideal attributes of a leader are Christ-like attributes: 

• Humility
• Spiritual Strength
• Knowledge
• Loyalty
• Love & expressions of confidence
• Unity

Why is each important to Christlike leadership?

Why do people respond well to such leadership?

How can we develop this characteristic?

Each group got one of the attributes and discussed the three questions. 

Let's strive to be good leaders in our lives!

Receiving Personal Revelation

Lindsey taught a great lesson today on Elder Scott's talk from the October 2009 General Conference.

During the lesson, we focused on three questions:

• What can you do to enhance your capacity to be led to correct decisions in your life?
• What are the principles upon which spiritual communication depends?
• What are the potential barriers to such communication that you need to avoid?

We talked about how our spiritual communication depends on how well we can listen to the Spirit, and how willing we are to obey the things the Spirit tells us.

As we listen to the Spirit and obey what we learn from the Spirit, we will be more in-tune with the Spirit. We will then receive more and more personal revelation.

Lots of sisters shared personal experiences about things they learned from the Spirit.

We read the following quote: 

President John Taylor wrote: “Joseph Smith, upwards of forty years ago, said to me: ‘Brother Taylor, you have received the Holy Ghost. Now follow the influence of that Spirit, and it will lead you into all truth, until by and by, it will become in you a principle of revelation.’ Then he told me never to arise in the morning without bowing before the Lord, and dedicating myself to him during that day.”

We brainstormed ideas of how to dedicate ourselves to the Lord so we can receive more revelation. Simple things like reading our scriptures, doing our visiting teaching, praying regularly, serving others, and listening to the Lord are what bring us closer to Him.

We decided that one of the best ways to receive more revelation is to write down what we do receive to ponder and pray about it after we receive the revelation.

If you would like to watch or read the talk, click here.  

We'll Ascend Together

This week's lesson focused on marriage and family, specifically as discussed in Linda K. Burton's talk from the April 2015 General Conference. The lesson started out with a few quotes from general authorities about their spouses:

President Boyd K. Packer about his wife, Donna: "Because of the office I hold, I have a solemn obligation to tell the truth: She's perfect."

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf about his wife, Harriet: "She is the sunshine of my life."

President Henry B. Eyring about his wife, Kathleen: "She is a person who has always made my want to be the very best that I can be."

President Monson about his wife, Frances: "She was the love of my life, my trusted confidant, and my closest friend. To say that I miss her does not begin to convey the depth of my feelings."

We discussed ways that husbands and wives can help support and lift each other. Wives can encourage their husbands to exercise the priesthood, to be a spiritual leader in the home, to do their home teaching, to fulfill their calling, to attend the temple, and to set and keep individual and family goals. Kim emphasized that wives and husbands have complementary roles, that they COMPLETE each other rather than COMPETE with each other. Together as a unit, we can accomplish far more than as separate individuals.

We wrote down the answers to these five questions:

1. When was the last time I sincerely praised my companions, either alone or in the presence of our children?

2. When was the last time I thanked, expressed love for, or earnestly pleaded in faith for him or her in prayer?

3. When was the last time I stopped myself from saying something I knew could be hurtful?

4. When was the last time I apologized and humbly asked for forgiveness--without adding the words "but if only you had" or "but if only you hadn't?"

5. When was the last time I chose to happy rather than demanding to be right?

After some reflection, Kim had us write down five things we love about our spouse. Then we went around the room and shared one thing. That was a really tender moment, to hear everyone express what they love about their husbands. I am grateful for this lesson and the reflection time we had. It helped me realize what I can do better to lift my husband and be more united with him. I highly recommend reading the original talk if you haven't; it has some great counsel about how husbands and wives can help each other become the people that the Lord wants us to become.

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The Power of the Word

This week's lesson was chapter 8 out of the Ezra Taft Benson manual, and Alison did a fantastic job teaching it. I loved all the "Once Upon a Time" and "The Hobbit" dragon references.

We started off by discussing some examples of challenging times in our own lives (school finals, work, self worth issues, loosing testimony, infertility, pornography, etc.) and talked about that scripture in Revelation 12 where Satan is described as a dragon and the Church is described as a woman. Dragons are powerful, but we can beat them.

The power of the word of God will help us beat Satan and the temptations he throws at us. For clarity, we talked about how the word of God could be scriptures, personal revelation, and the words of the prophets and apostles. The power of the word of God comes when we fortify ourselves with the word, arm ourselves with the spirit, and hold fast to the good.

Some blessings that come from listening to/reading the word of God:

1. Stronger relationships with family members who read with us
2. Solidify family roles (let husband lead family scripture study and prayer)
3. Internal happiness and peace
4. Change hearts and soften hearts
5. Communication improves when you share your ideas and thoughts about the scriptures
6. Progression

The word of God is a gift, and we should love and treasure the words. We will be happy if we let them govern our lives.

At the end of the lesson we all made goals relating to our own personal scripture study. Feel free to set your own goals if you weren't able to make it to the lesson today! I know I have so much I need to improve when it comes to my personal scripture study habits.

Living Joyfully in Troubled Times

I loved the Relief Society lesson this past Sunday, the spirit was so strong, plus Shelly did a great job teaching.  :)

We learned about lesson 4 from the manual, about how we can live joyfully in troubled times. We talked about how hope, optimism and peace work together to help us out during times of trouble. With all three, you don't necessarily know what is going to happen to you next, but you can hope that God is directing your life and will help lead you where you need to be. You can be optimistic that things in the future are going to be good. Then with those two things in place, you can feel peace that everything will be okay. Even if you are not happy in the moment, at least you can feel calming peace.



It makes me think of how Christ was there to help Peter when he saw the waves around him and started to doubt. He will always be there for us, and if it doesn't stretch out his hand to lift us up, it means he wants us to realize that we can do hard things all by ourselves - we can swim!

One of the last things that was mentioned was that when times get hard, we all need to stick to two things:

1. Our marriages
2. Our membership in the Church

Both of these things involve covenants we have made with God and with other people (our husbands), and if we hold on to both, can be a firm foundation that will keep us floating when the troublesome waves of life get too high and rough.

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.