Brian K. Taylor - Faith, Hope, Cherity

Brain Taylor's talk was truly inspired, he opened it with his testimony.
He told us that he felt impressed to change his talk to faith, hope, and Charity.

"You have a mission you have a purpose and a divine destiny in heavenly fathers plan. I know there are some of you thinking 'not me not right now, i don't even know what I'm going to do next" Faith hope Charity of Christ will lift you
He gave an analogy of balloons. He got 3 balloons, one out of the 3 have helium in it. Explaining that he hopes his stories will put helium in our balloon.

#1
"My wife and I were looking for a house, wanting to stay in bountiful. We looked for 2 years. One day i read a scripture that changed my thinking. What am i going to do next what am i supposed to do, where am i supposed to go, what am i supposed to be?
1 Nephi 17:13 we realized rather then drive around, we would be better at keeping Gods commandments. as you go into situations and you turn to the lord and make a commitment to obey the commandments just a little bit better each day, that he will be your light in the wilderness and you will arrive at you promise land."

#2
"When i was at BYU before one of our basketball games we meet with Ezra Taft Benson. he said 'your basketball team has the spirit, the spirit will be your greatest asset on the basketball court, it will do more for you then all your talents combined. what ever your righteous desires you goals,if you have the spirit you will be successful. IF you don't, you wont.'
As we obey the commandments this will allow the spirit to be in our lives. If you need repentance and to change, if you don't; don't kid yourselves, you will be like the 2 balloons sitting on the floor. We can not progress when there is something that stands in the way of the helium, or the holy ghost that is taking us where we are supposed to be. 2 Nephi 32:5 and Maroni 10 by the power of the holy ghost you will know all things what ye should do. This is the gift that will lift us to where we need to go, where ever we are right now. We need to do what ever is necessary for the companionship of the holy ghost"

#3
"When times are tough there are scriptures there. In Jacob we read, 'the word that healeth the wounded soul.' Alma 58 'there for we did pour out our souls in prayer to god, that he would strengthen us...and it came to pass that the lord our god did visit us with assurances that he would deliver us...'
The word protect is in the scriptures 33 times and the word Deliver is in the scriptures 939 times. The lord truly is our deliverer. The Lord promises that as we seek to obey the commandments and pour out our soul in prayer, that he will visit us with assurances and cause us to have great faith in him...
1 Nephi 24:15 if we hold fast and hearken to the word of god we will never perish. All the answers to the vexing problems and concerns of life will be answered with the living word of God, from the prophets, seers, and revelatory of our time."

He told us to go PRO. Pray.Read.Obay. everyday
"As we do these small simple and things the helium will come back into our balloon, the holy ghost will lift us and we will be lead along, ultimately getting to where our promise land is."

#4
"Where can i turn for peace. Trumen G. Manson was once driving to the temple with his stake president in a dark stormy night. The temple president said to him. "The temple is never more beautiful then during a storm"
"Know ye not that you are a temple of god and that the spirit of god dwelleth in you?"
He has great faith in you.
Let this be a motto you can take.

Make the word of God part of your life and you will be lifted up.
Do the things you need to do to put the helium into your balloon (have the holy ghost in you life)

Brent Cherrington-Follow Through

Devotional opened with a talk about judgments. John 8:7 if every one sins how can we judge, how can we exclude people from being in our social circles, how can we condemn anyone? with what judgement ye judge ye will be judge Matthew 7:2. We are expected to follow the spirits guidance in making good judgments. Only Jesus can judge us and others. We need to reach out to those who have fallen away, not judge them but help them come back to the gospel.

Brother Cherrington gave a remarkable talk. He was impressed to talk about the follow through to our decisions.

"Our goals are the same, but our paths are different... through the atonement we can be sanctified from sin."

He referenced 1 Nephi 8:20-25 talking about Lehi's vision of the tree of life. He explaining that there were 2 groups in the story, the first group wanted to go to the tree but got lost on their way to the tree of life. The second group found the path and partook of the fruit, but then were ashamed. "They lacked follow through" he said.

Following through is important in all aspects of life, if we didn't have to follow through life would be very different, things could be ignored, but the consequences would eventually mount up. "We need to follow through on our decisions."

He gave us 4 simple principles that we can do to improve our follow through to our decisions.

1. Gain Control of our time. "we need to control it, not it control us."


2. Control our thoughts "When the lord repeats himself, its because it is important."


3. Respond to impressions "The more often a person feels without acting, the less he will be ever able to act, and in the long run the less he will be ever able to feel."


4. Become what we want to be "Consistently be what we want to become each day"

Gain control of your time. We don't know how much time we have and that is why we must guard the time that we do have, he said not to mistake what he was saying as not to have fun in our lives he just wants us to control our time and not have it control us.
"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy; all play and no work makes Jack a mere toy"- Irish proverb Brother Cherrington said we shouldn't do things to just pass the time. Remember your goals and work to reach them.

Gain control of your thoughts. Pondering can help us with our follow through. The results of pondering forms the basis opinions and later actions.

Do we make time for thoughts or are they just a result of our thinking? There can be others sources for our thoughts, negative thoughts come from a source of the advisory, and positive thoughts could be from the source of heaven.

D&C 42:61 "Revaluation upon Revaluation, Knowledge upon Knowledge"

Boyd k Packer "The world grows increasingly noise, clothing and grooming and conduct are looser and sloppier. Irreverence suits the purposes of the advisory, by obstructing the delicate channels of revelation in both mind and in spirit"

If we minimize the noise, improving our dress, and conduct, we will be able to do a better job of following through with our commitments and know gods will for us. We need to take time to interact with each other. We can learn so much from each other. We should take the time to recreate with your peers.

Listen to your feelings. "Active habits are strengthened by repetition but passive ones are weakened" The more often a person feels without acting, the less he will be ever able to act, and in th long run the less he will be ever able to feel.

if we respond to the impressions of the spirit the lord will trust us with more impressions. The lord will be as involved in our lives as let him be. We are the lords hands and often the answer to other peoples prayers.

Our feelings are given us to excite to action, and when they end in themselves they are cherished to no good purpose.

Become what we want to be. "Be what the lord wants us to be." We each have a vision of ourselves that is our ideal selves, it is the "natural man" that gets in the way of that vision. It is easy to procrastinate what we want to become. Set goals both long and short term.

"The road to our ideal self is not a short trip, Its a life long journey."

We must learn to overcome the natural man. Decide who you want to be, and then sail off in that direction, taking the time to make mid course corrections if necessary.

Mosiah 3:19

Elder Gunnerson - Don't lose Focus

Elder Gunnerson had an amazing talk, you really missed out if you didn't attend. He touched on a couple of things through out his talk but one that stood out the most was putting the savior in the center of our hearts, and to become more like him.

Elder Gunnerson shared with us an experience he had when he was 15 years old. It was a typical Sunday, even though Elder Gunnersons ward had priesthood and Sunday school in the morning and regathered for sacrament in the afternoon. On his way to Sunday school he had been offended by something a church leader had said. Elder Gunnerson decided to walk home, and considered not retuning to church ever again. Elder Gunnerson's father went home to look for him after he was told his son was no longer at church. "This was one of thoughts defining moments," shared Elder Gunnerson. He sat knee to knee and eye to eye with his father, as his father taught him an important lesson in life. His father drew 2 stick figures on a sheet of paper, one was Jesus and the other was Elder Gunnerson, in between them he drew another stick figure and said "this is elder so-and-so, my councilor."

He then proceeded to draw a line from Elder Gunnerson's head to the councilor's head and from there to the head of Jesus. After he did this he asked what's the problem here. Elder Gunnerson didn't understand what it represented. His father then explained, you can not see Jesus because of elder so-and-so. His father said,"Son, please don't ever let anyone or anything stand between you and Jesus."

After this father-son talk he went back to church and has never left since.

What happened to him that didn't allow him to see the savior?

"There are many distractions in life school work, family, activities, etc. If we are not careful we can get easily distracted from what is most important.

Someone offends us, we start running around with wrong friends. We may feel alone, we may feel we're not as good as others who seem to have everything going right.

These are ploys of Satan, sometimes they are subtle and sometimes they are direct."

Elder Gunnerson quoted Isaiah, saying that in the latter-days many would stumble and fall. It is our duty to reach out to those who are stumbling. If it was not for his father who reached out to him when he had stumbled, Elder Gunnerson might not have been able to get back on his feet.

"In all that we do we can not lose our focus of [Jesus] by embracing less important things such as studies, career or anything else."

"The essence of Christianity is not Christianity, the essence of Christianity is Christ."

"The study of great books of scripture including the king James bible is clear, they are through the spirit to bring us to Jesus."

We must help each other understand what is most important, Elder Gunnerson spoke of Lehi and his dream. He said the reason that Lehi had the dream was because of his concern for Laman and Lemual. Laman and Lemual although raised from good parents, had allowed something or someone to get between them and the savior.

Elder Gunnerson said these are thing Nephi had as to not become like his brothers.

• Desire
• Prayer
• Inspiration
• Humble attitude

Nephi like his father didn't allow anything or anyone get between him and the savior.

If you are spiritually strong Satan might not come at you directly, but in a different way so you will not notice. It takes our best efforts to withstand Satan's attacks and we must be diligent and prepared.

"We need to have our eyes focused on light, not truth in some abstract sense but, the joy of keeping the gospel of Jesus Christ and, the Joy of not having anything or anyone come in between you and your savior. If I decide I will not make light and the savior my primary vision I'm already out of the contest to see good, and to want and desire it in the midst of filth" -President Iring

In directing our life if we have as a foundation the savior and His doctrines we will find the ability and power to withstand Satan in times we lest expect.

Our focus needs to be on Him, the savior, not on lesser truths. Nothing should ever come between us and him.

"When you center your life on Jesus you will then have the foundation and the power to overcome any obstacles and difficulty, and be able to bless everyone you come in contact, you will become a true disciple. You will become an image of him to bless and bless and bless again until blessings become what you are."

-Elder Gunnerson.

Are you making Jesus Christ the center of you life?

Did you lose focus?