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FHE: Peace at Home

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In our family, we do a lot of arguing. Perhaps it is the same in your home too. Simple questions like who's turn is it to do the dishes? and which one of you kids ripped the space bar key off my computer?  comprise two of the many arguments that happen in our neck of the woods. Writing this would be much easier if all the keys were intact, but is it worth debating about it?  Fighting and arguing drive families apart yet we engage in them constantly. Sometimes every day. From where we vacation this summer to who lost the keys, we have important points that need attention; and, hopefully through peace-promoting means. This article is meant to be framework for family discussion, such as might take place in a Family Home Evening. By the end each family member would hopefully understand the value in collaboration and family consensus. Family Home Evenings are a formal time in our family where we talk, have fun, and associate with one another. It is a time and place where we discuss
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Firsthand Revelation

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At the end of the day, how are we to know that what anyone tells us about God is correct? We need prophets because they talk to God. The common man has never seen His face, and many cant even confess they have felt any particular feeling towards God. Moses talked to God face to face and published scripture. Jesus was the son of God, and taught the ways of eternal life. Other prophets ranging from Mohammed to Buda, to more obscure persons like Zoroaster, and even modern people have claimed to speak for God. Some have their own scriptures! Every man is entitled to believe in and what he may. His conscience is his own, not to be taken. For my purposes though, it is eternally important to discover who is right out of all these parties. Not just who is good, but who is right. In other words: who has the keys to the door of eternal life? It is readily apparent that you and I cannot take a prophet's word at face value. To many want our time and attention, and so little of spiritua
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Thirst for truth

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Truth is something that only the just truly seek. Those that are not motivated by a sincere desire to be just are usually motivated by Pride, vanity, and selfishness; the greatest criminals known to man. A just and righteous person seeks to change his life to conform to God's commandments, whereas, a man of opposite disposition would desire to change God and His commandments to conform to himself. The first is ready to admit that he is wrong the second contends that he is right and the world is wrong.   Throughout my experience, this has been the case. Thirst for truth is a desire of the honest at heart. They desire only to know what is right and are willing to sacrifice what they must to follow it. As a missionary, I have taught many people from various backgrounds. I have often wondered why some people change and become more Christlike and why others choose not to listen at all. While there are many factors involved in this, one of the greatest elements is w
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MyTestimony

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The first time I distinctly remember feeling the Holy Ghost is when I was 13. I was living in St. George Ut. at the time and going to Middle School. It was late one school night and I should have gone to sleep, but my mom and I got into a conversation about agency and liberty and what those Alma 61:15 ) I didn't know that was the Holy Ghost then. I would not learn to recognize it until years later while I was on my mission.   mean to us. She took the time in the middle of the night to teach. I felt her patriotic feelings and the Holy Ghost bore testimony to what she said as being true. (See My second encounter with the spirit of God occurred while I was 15, more than two years later. Many things had changed in my life over that course of time. We were now living in Woodland Hills, a tiny community at the south end of Utah Valley. The name, coincidentally is very literal: there were a lot of hills and a lot of trees, shrub oak in fact. I thought it might be wis
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​The Everlasting Gospel

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New York is not an obscure place. It's a splendid and curious wealth of people.  The world congregates  here, and the public transportation is evidence of that! Backgrounds very, customs overlap, and the religious beliefs often run the spectrum of practical to mystical and back again. We are all different;  there is no such thing as a cookie cutter person; but in a very real sense we all share something  unique in common: our humanity.                                                                            Indeed we are all brothers and sisters and have been so from the beginning. We believe in the same God and want to do right by our neighbor. Justice is an integral part of our beings. We just want to do what's best. An eagle eye could prove that even a New Yorker would go out of their way to help a stroller get up the subway steps.Yet despite our brotherhood, we find little things that tear us apart.Brick by petty brick we build walls between us t
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Finding God

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Manhattan , New York. You could say it is center of the world. The wealth that goes in and out every day is enormous, the arts and culture can match any city in Europe, the skyscrapers; Empire, Chrysler, One-World , and the Roc are considered the pillars that hold up the sky and are integral to the American universe. Then there is midtown with it's dual chambered heart; Time-square making up the left ventricle and Grand Central Station making up the right. All people flow to this core (like a giant pump) and back out, making a vibrant scene. But one thing is unanswered in this great whale of a city: Why?   Where is everyone  really  going? Why are they  really  here? What's  really  the point? Answers very. Answers are cheep. And most people pretend to have them. You could sit in Washington square Park for hours and lazily watch the gimmicks go by. You could stroll the Metropolitan Museum of Art as long as you'd care to but eventually every painting looks the sa
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The Chemistry of Salvation

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I want to describe the pan of salvation as a process, not so much a map or a timeline, but a process. Instead of a line with a lot of circles, lines, and symbolic astronomy,   what if we looked at the Plan of Salvation as a blueprint? Like a blueprint to a highly tuned machine. Imagine in your minds' eye that you could cut a car in half and see how it worked inside; or perhaps the interments used in chemistry would be a better example (with all the vials and tubes and camp stoves and all that dandy equipment.)   The premortal life wouldn't be a big circle on the left hand side of the page, it would be a milk jug. A large jug with the branding label ripped off. Inside would be a clear, viscous liquid containing thousands of little particles which would be poured into the first reaction chamber. There it would bubble and brim before approximately a third of it would be burned. That third, the dross, would be scraped off the surface and transported to a fuel injection tube
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