My personal Ministry

Elder Martinez of the seventy spoke on Our Personal Ministries.  Keep these words in our minds and in our hearts “He who serves in some thing is good for something, he who serves in no thing is good for nothing.”  There is great worth in each of Heavenly Father’s children and the Savior focused on the individual and the family.  We each have a personal ministry here on this earth; we must learn to tend to the needs of others just as Christ did.  “First observe, then serve.”  Heavenly Father and our Lord, Jesus Christ knows us individually and personally.  They know our needs.  They place people in our path to help us and we are placed in other people’s path to help them.  Our service and personal ministry are not limited to the living on this earth.  We can also do work for the dead by doing family history work.  But we can also minister to the living by keeping a journal of family histories to turn the hearts of the living towards the family, those living and those who have gone on before us.  We need to link our families, generation by generation.  My personal ministry is to focus on my family.  I am the welding link that holds the family together, not just my husband and children and grandchildren but our ancestors as well.  When we joined the church we were the pioneers of our families.  We were the only members on either side to join the church.  Three of us were baptized that day, Jeremy, Robert and I.  Now we have 12 of us in the church, our children, their spouses and our grandchildren.  I have given great service to my family and I try every day to serve them in some way.  I tend my grandchildren for free so their parents can have a little bit easier time of it.  My service to my children and grandchildren is given freely and with love.  My family service does not stop there.  I search out my ancestors and their children and grandchildren so that they can be together as well.  Long ago I realized that my personal ministry was to weld together our family, those in the past to those in the present to those in the future.  It is my greatest desire, to have my family all together in the Celestial Kingdom and I will spend every minute that I can working towards that goal.  

Elder Allan F Packer's talk

Elder Allan F Packer of the Seventy had a talk called “The Book”.  I have a question, What is the handbook of instruction that he mentions?  Is this just for the General Authorities?

We need to qualify for exaltation.  Study the plan of salvation and we will know what we need to do to qualify and we can be saved by Christ’s Atonement.  There are 4 focuses of the church. 

1.  Help members live the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

2. Gather Israel through missionary work. 

3. Caring for the poor and needy. 

4. Enabling the salvation of the dead by building temples and performing vicarious ordinances.

Because the family is the center of the plan of salvation we need to focus our attention on our own family.  Temple and Family History work is part of that plan and we need to be teaching it in our home.  The First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve have placed renewed emphasis on family history and temple work and if we work on this in our home our joy and happiness will increase.  THE BOOK is the book that will hold all the names of those worthy to enter into God’s kingdom.  When we do our family history work we are providing a way for our ancestors to be in that book.  This work is not limited to those who are retired and have extra time on their hands, it is for all.  I remember when I joined the church and learned about family history, I would take the kids down to the Family History Library in Salt Lake and spend the day there.  Each child would take a backpack with snacks and toys in them.  They would sit at a film reader and scroll through films looking for any mention of family names.  They each had an index card in front of them with our family surnames written down on them and when they found something they would call me over and I would either write it down or explain to them it was not one we were looking for.  After doing this for a while each one would sit on the floor under the reader and eat a snack or play with some toys for a while then get back up and start again.  Joy was 3, Jenn was 4, Jack had just turned 6 and Jeremy was 10.  Even a 3 year old could look for a name on a card and find it on the film she was scrolling through.  She took more breaks than the other but she still found many names we were looking for!  This is a family affair, not reserved for those who have a great knowledge.  This work is much easier now than just a few years ago.  This work is important.  It is different than it was in the past, it can be done at home and shared by all ages.  The church cannot do it for us, we must do the work ourselves.  We must change our priorities and put this work higher on our list of to dos.  We must not sacrifice our exaltation or that of our families for less important interests, this is the work of God!! 

Elder Godoy's talk

 Elder Godoy, who spoke in Portuguese, entitled his talk The Lord Has a Plan For Us.  There are three principles that he talks about:

1. We need to consider our options with the end in mind.

2.  We need to be prepared for the challenges that will come.

3. We need to share this vision with the people we love.

We need to look at the whole picture not just the scene we are currently in.  Is what I am doing today going to fulfill my promised blessings?  Reread your Patriarchal blessing with one thought in mind, am I living my life in a way that I will receive all the blessings promised to me?  I had recently re-read my blessing and I had discovered a few things that I had forgotten.  Now this talk reminded me to work towards those promises!!!  Changes are not easy.  Take a look at your life for the past 6 months, have you made any major changes?  Are they in line with your road back to Heavenly Father?  Now look at your next six months, what can you do to make that road back a little straighter??  Moving to a new place is like starting all over again.  No one knows you, this is your chance to be a strength to your new ward, your new neighbors.  If you have non-member neighbors, take the time to become friends with them.  Take them cookies or invite them to dinner.  DON’T preach, just get to know them.  What can you do for your new ward?  Be there to help someone move, or take meals to someone in need.  Give your time and talents to help others and you will be blessed in the process.  We all can learn and grow, no matter our age, this is the time to do that!  When we make changes in our lives, we need to make sure and share our vision with our family, those most important to us.  It is important that we take this journey together.  Do not leave out your partner when making decisions.  Make them together.  Talk about them. What you do does not only affect you, it affects your spouse and children as well.  Don’t give up your time with them, keep it sacred.  Just because something is going well does not mean there is not something better out there for us.

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!

Some Thoughts on Conference Oct 2014

Elder Ballard gave a wonderful talk about staying in the boat.  It is so important to keep our focus on Christ and He will lead us where we are to go.  It is so easy to get caught up in the things of the world or for that matter to get caught up in things, period.  Remember that talk a while back about choosing between what is good, better and best? We can get caught up in doing good things and not remember what is the best thing, which is returning home to our Heavenly Father more Christ-like than we are now.  We need to stay in the boat leading us home.  We need to wear our life jackets by reading our scriptures and the Ensign and other church talks and we need to hold on with both hands to what we have learned and been taught.  So often we tend to hold on with only one hand, maybe let go of scripture reading this morning because I am tired, or cut our prayers short because we are rushed to get somewhere, maybe we pass on Family Home Evening this week because work or school gets in the way.  Maybe we make an exception this Sunday to do work because it is convenient for someone else.   We need to stop hanging on with one hand and hold firmly with both our hands, keep strong in our convictions and keep our eyes on our goal to return home a good and faithful servant.  We need to surround ourselves with people that will help us reach that goal, people that can help us stay on that straight and narrow path back home.  Elder Ballard asked us to remember why we joined the church in the first place, maybe it is time we took a good long look at that and rededicate ourselves to not bending the rules, not letting go with one hand even if for a good cause.  Rededicate ourselves to helping others hold on as well. The pure love of Christ shines brightest when we are helping others.

More thoughts in my next post.