Elder Scott's Talk

 Elder Scott spoke on Exercising our Faith.  I loved it when he said he would talk about 4 different tools we have and that we must seek guidance to see how we could use them better.  We hear it over and over again Prayer, Scripture Study, Family Home Evening and Temple Attendance are the keys to our staying on the straight and narrow path.  We hear it so often that it becomes an automatic answer to most questions asked in Sunday school and Relief Society.  We tend to tune out a little because we KNOW this and now want to talk about something else.  But this time I paid close attention to what he was saying because I thought, “ You are influencing your Grandchildren now, maybe you need to do something different than you did with your kids, after all each generation will face tougher challenges than the one before”.  I am adding the thoughts that came to me as I was re-reading this talk as well as what was said from the pulpit.

Prayer, Heavenly Father wants to hear from us, He wants to hear what we are doing are thinking and feeling.  Just like when your child (or Grandchild) comes to you and you are so excited to hear what they want to say, even when you already know more about it than they do, you still listen and care about what they say and how they feel.  You light up when a child hugs you or just wants to sit beside you because they love you.  Heavenly Father feels the same way.  He gets excited to hear our prayers and wants us to come to Him and be close to Him because we love Him.  When I pray I need to converse more about my life and make Him more of a friend.

Scripture Study, this is how Heavenly Father speaks to us!  How can we learn how much He loves us if we do not take the time to listen (or read) what He is telling us?   Take the time to study the words of God through our scriptures and words the General Authorities have spoken, it will bring you peace and love.  I need to be more diligent with do scriptures with the kids.  They need to learn the stories from the scriptures just as much as I need to tell them.

Family Home Evening, This is the time you need to set aside to strengthen your family.  This will give your children the strength they need to combat the things of the world.  This is where you teach the gospel to your family and give each member an opportunity to bear their testimony and learn skills such as how to teach, plan and organize a lesson.  This is where I have fallen down.  Since the kids graduated High School I have stopped doing FHE because they all go their separate ways.  I need to have something for whoever is at home at the time, even if that is only me.

Temple Attendance – We need to attend as often as possible.  This is where I need to really work on my thought process.  As Often As Possible has turned out not to be often enough.  I do not have time to go to the Temple because I am always taking care of someone else or I have gotten too tired to do anything after I am relieved of my duties! I need to start going in the morning as soon as they open so that I have the strength I need to keep me going and in a good mind frame.  I need the wisdom found in the temple.  I need to stop making excuses for not going and just go.  Maybe I can swap babysitting with someone so that another can have the same opportunity to go to the temple as I will have.

Basically I need to get back to the basics with more enthusiasm than I have had lately.  I need to remember the feelings I had when I first learned about these things and how wonderful it was when I was using them properly!