My teaching companion and I had a fun activity a few weeks back. He told me of a story he had heard where missionaries put pictures of Christ every where. Elder Nelson and I decided to put our pictures of Christ everywhere. We tried to put them in places where the other would find them as we were going through our morning routine. We had many pleasant surprises as we went through the next week or so. Here are a few pictures of the places we put them:
In the toaster!
In the fridge and freezer! Also just so everyone knows this had to be a Monday night or Tuesday with the fridge so full.
Elder Nelsons cabinet.
There is two pictures of Christ here. Where is the second?
Here it is!
One in my cabinet.
Easy one.
ha Yes even in the air Handler.
He watches over our plans and our area... Double time.
He is every where we go. Every Where! :)
One by the shower head.
Also one in the back of the shower
He's at the door. Also, in the bottom picture, suffering for us.
Got 'em!!!! Its in his protein bag! that was a good surprise for him!
By our heads when we go to sleep.
Yes he is even on the roof above Elder Nelsons bed.
At the foot where I sleep.
Following this activity and week of fun we noticed it helped us a lot. it helped us keep our thought solely on the people we are here to serve and on He who helps us with that. We felt it was because we acted like he was really there watching us, our every move.
I know that he is "The All Watching Eye." There is a beautiful quote/poem I love:"Christ is the center of our home, a guest at every meal, a silent listener to every conversation." Annie used this Quote., So did Hyrum (click the link and go to their Mormon.org profile)
We found this to be true just by putting his picture up in random places. It was a great reminder of this wonderful quote/poem. He is here watching us and helping us. "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." (Mosiah 14:5) I know this is true and that it can help anyone that will turn and ask him! After all, he loves us!
As a driver, there are road signs that lead and guide your way through your journey from the point of departure to your destination. These traffic signs and other safety features are there for our protection there are many different types of signs on the road; here are just a few:
The different signs tell us different things. The sign that has the arrow on it tells the driver that they are about to merge with traffic coming into their lane, if you are on the higher road. If on the lower road it tells you that you will be merging into oncoming traffic. On the lower road there is a guard rail. The guard rail's purpose is to protect you from going off in the ditch, wrecking your car and having to be towed up on the road again. The guard rail does not restrict your freedom to drive, it simply protects and guides the way. My blog post today will tie road signs, guard rails, and rear view mirrors in with the gospel or "Good News" of Christ!
Also on the lower road there is another sign that looks like this.
This tells the driver that the right lane is about to end and they need to merge into another lane.
Life throws us dead ends and lane changes all the time. This should not stop us from continuing on; we should just merge and keep going with what ever we feel god is telling us. Sometimes we should turn around and go another way.
Here are a few more common signs that have spiritual meaning as well:
Every once in a while we need to stop and go to the "hospital" of Christ.
We should always make sure were running parallel, and connected to the Church-cho train! :)
Sometimes life gets rough and uneven!
Savior Totally Offers Peace
Back to the Guard rail analogy. Imagine driving down a long mountain road with a lot of curves. There are guard rails all along the way to protect you from falling off the cliff where the bottom is hundreds of feet straight down. There are jagged rocks in the bottom. It is a dirt road with loose gravel and very narrow. I pose two questions: 1) How safe would you drive if you had a loved one in the car with you? 2) Would you try to bend the guard rail and go off the cliff? Anyone in their right mind would say "I would drive as safe as possible and No! I wouldn't bend the guard rail and try to drive off! It could kill me!"
situation 2 you are driving down the same road and same mountain. your the lead car and you and your friends are coming home after enjoying the outdoors. Could you stare in the rear view mirror the whole time glancing up to see if your on course, and make it safely down the mountain? Of course not you would eventually wreck into the rail. It is the same in our lives, there are road signs and guard rails to keep us safe, rear view mirrors to help us see that everyone else is okay and to help us get home safe with our loved ones. The guard rail can be interpreted as the commandments that God has given to us. They are there to help give us guidance in our lives so we don't end up off the cliff! We can not afford to try to bend them or run straight through them doing so would put us off the cliff and could kill us spiritually. By driving slow we can control the car. Sometimes in life we need to slow down, step back, and see! We might be able to see a better path that we would have missed cause we were driving too fast. This will control the "car" or our lives, families, relationships,or what ever you would like to put there. We cannot look at the rear view mirror and expect to navigate the treacherous road of life! We can and should be looking forward at what is ahead and not so much what is behind us. In some situations it is helpful to glance in the mirror for help to see where we turned and how to do it better. However if looked in to long it can become a distraction taking our eyes off the road and end up crashing.
I will share a personal story from my life that goes along with this. It was my birthday and my dad got me tickets to go to a UFC fight from my uncle. My dad couldn't go so he sent one of our family friends with me to Las Vegas so we could enjoy the tickets. We went to the fight and enjoyed the fight, we had VIP passes and were in some very good seats. The fight ended and we came home late that night. For the next few days I was so proud that I got to go to the UFC that I took my pass and hung it on the rear view window of my car.
I replayed the events of that night time and time again. Well Sunday rolled around and I got up got ready for church and started on my way to church. Our church is 6 miles from my house in Nevada and like almost all Nevada roads it is a country road with not much to look at and besides I had driven this road many times "I knew it like the back of my hand." The Speed limit is 70 mph and so I drove 70 mph I came over a hill and was so proud of my VIP tag that I started making sure it was facing the right way and not spinning to much. It was going to be perfect I was going tell all my church friends about it. At the bottom of the hill there was a slight turn to the left, I was distracted by my tag and didn't look up for a while I felt it was about time to turn. I looked up to turn and I was almost off the road I pulled the wheel back to the left and when I did my back right tire hit the dirt and it put me in a spin at 70 mph on a corner with ditches on both sides. I spun into the on coming traffic lane and turned the wheel as hard as I could to turn around. The car started to correct and I started spinning the other way I was subconsciously tapping the brake and gas at just the right times to straighten me out. The tires finally caught and I halted to a stop I looked in the rear view mirror to see if traffic was coming. I ended up facing the opposite way that I was traveling and so I mashed the gas to get out of the way of on coming cars. Luckily there weren't any cars coming and I was able to pull off and catch my breath. My tires were very hot and smoking from the slide I was in.
Needless to say after this happened I drove in to church very safely and slow. I removed all the distractions that could possibly distract me from driving. I tell this story because it teaches me a lot about how to live life.
For me I was a pretty good kid and I was going to church, however something unfortunate happened to me. I learned that sometimes bad things happen to good people. Even those who look like everything is perfect in their lives. I also learned that even though it is okay to glance at something you can never become preoccupied by that one thing. I have also learned that God loves me and was looking out for me in several different ways. He gave me a speed limit other wise I would have been doing 90. He guided me to step on the brakes or the gas at just the right times as well as turning the wheel to maneuver out of my spin. He told me to look up at the very last second that I could have looked before running off the road. He gave me a parallel for repentance in that I had a distraction, it caused me to drift off very slowly and eventually start a down hill slide. Through his help I got stopped and turned around going the right way back to church. After I got stopped I removed all distractions that could possibly get me distracted again and then I was exactly obedient to the laws for the rest of the drive.
I know God is real he guides us he doesn't want us to wreck but if and when we do he has a "tow truck" there ready for us that will pull us on the road and get us going again. I know if every one follows all the guidelines of the road and of God then we will not ever get into an accident. We will be able to navigate the road of life and be led to a safe place where we can be with our families after our long drive. This blog gets two videos this week and they can both apply to the message.
Families are like sport teams! If you run the right plays you will win every game. They both take practice, patience, work, love, unity, drive, forgiveness. Every family and team is a little different in abilities and skills, Some like more aggressive play calls while others like more passive calls. What family/team are you? In sports there are an allotted number players on the court at one time. Their Goal is to score the most points and hold the other team to as few points as possible, who ever has the most points when time runs out wins the game. I had the privilege of playing sports in a small town in Nevada even though it was small, my school had produced many college athletes. Thanks to great coaches that taught us the game and related it to life experiences, many of us found a love for sports and for our families. Many of our coaches told us there were only 3 things that come before our team and sports 1) god, 2) family 3) school. They taught us to band together. They taught us that we were to stick up for each other off the court/field as if we were on the court/field. We learned to always watch our teammates and hold them up to the high standard our coach's had set for us, as a result we learned to be better people so that we wouldn't let our teammates or our coaches down. We conditioned often and ran our plays made sure that when game time came we would know how to make our plays outsmart the other team. Rarely did we get beat. on our basketball team we has a great point guard, he knew the game! he loved the game! he was smart with his dribbling and very skilled. he would execute the plays with exactness and expected the rest of us to as well if we slacked he would put us in line. we went on to play and win many tournaments. he was the leader and because he was so good he could often carry the team, he always out scored us and had the most steals and assists. this made many team members jealous and mad at him because we felt he didn't use our talents enough. He knew,even when we couldn't see it that, without the rest of the team he was nothing. He had to work with us to have him be at the top of his game. if we would have supported him more we would have been a lot better. it is the same with our families. in every family there is a "point guard", usually the father or mother. they call the plays and they need everyone else. sometimes the other doesn't see that they are needed and feel that the "point guard" is doing all the work, when truly they need the other to help them be the best they can be. We can "score" way higher if we set "plays" or goals and plans and then use them." just like basketball no one can do it alone it takes a whole team. My favorite sport is American football. I love it! In American football there are a few more players. In traditional American football there are 11 players per team on the field. The game is a little more physical than basketball. We had great coaches as I mentioned earlier. Football take the efforts of every single team member. if the center doesn't snap the ball right it makes the rest of the team work harder to pick up the slack, same with any other position on the field. So it is with our families. When one child slacks it takes extra effort by the rest of the family to pick up the slack to get back up to speed. In every game there are plays that go wrong there has never been a perfect game on both sides by every single player. However there are teams that win the State Championship, World Series, Super Bowl, ect. every year. It is the same with our families we will never be a perfect family where everything runs great no one ever slacks and every decision is made correctly. We can however all win our own Super Bowl, world series, or what ever our favorite match is. our families all have the key players that will make our "team" run as smooth as it possibly can! Being a missionary there are a lot of hard things that we see, one of the hardest for me is to see how families are being attacked from ways that we cant always see. Many families think that they have already lost to many games to have a come back win. This is common thought but it simply is not true! Our Savior Jesus Christ has suffered so that us personally can " make a come back" but he has also suffered for our families. Families are central to gods plan. He loves families and wants them to stay together. I hope that you all will read The Family: A Proclamation to the World which will be on the page of links I like on the side bar.
What am I gonna do? How will I make all this work out? I cant afford to pay for this right now." Jim asks himself. Immediately he turns to the one who can help, " Father in Heaven I am thankful for giving me this dilemma to help me learn something, please help me find the best way to have this work out. I love thee and need thy guidance. In the name of Jesus Christ amen." One simple action of asking for help built Jim's faith for life!
The background on Jim's situation is he had his car in the shop to be worked on. He was low on his income and has always tried his best to be thrifty with his money. The total was more than his monthly income could handle. Jim also needed to buy a tool for work that would enhance his effectiveness and felt that it was something that would help him greatly in the future. That tool was about 60% of his monthly income, he had been saving for months now to get this tool. He now has enough but cant afford to pay for both and it is causing him stress. Jim Decided to go to lunch to lessen his stress. As Jim ordered his food the man across the counter (his name will be Bob) smiled at him and said keep up the good hard work. This was the first answer to Jim's prayer. However not realizing that was a simple answer that God is aware of his situation, he smiled and said thank you. Jim and his co-worker sat down and started to eat when Jim's co-worker realized that Bob was walking over to them. Then Bob said "I noticed the company name on your shirt I want you to know that he is a good man and will help you if you ask him. Here have $50 you looked a little worried, and I feel that it is based from finances." Jim, then knowing that God heard his prayer was speechless. All Jim could say was "Thank You!" They talked a little and then Bob went back to work and Jim Prayed right there thanking God for answering his prayers and asking him to bless Bob with his desires and his needs. You see $50 was just enough to pay for the car and still use his money he had saved for this tool. The names, some conversation and Items in this story were replaced, but this is based on a true story. In Jim's case it was almost immediately. However it is not always so, God Hears our heartfelt prayers and he will answer them. He is aware of our many different situations and problems and will always give you a gentle reminder that he has heard your prayer, whether by a feeling of peace by a kind word that some one shares, or what ever it is he does give it to us, he will always give us enough for our needs. God Does Answer Prayers!
