There are times in your life where your faith will be tested.  You have experienced it before, you will experience it again… times where you will have just picked yourself up from a terrible blow just to be knocked down again.  I have been there with you.  

Alma 32:28-34 contains my favorite scriptures on faith.  This comparison of faith to a seed speaks to my soul.  It paints such a pretty picture; however, as a gardener I also know that it isn’t always as easy as planting, watering, and allowing the sun to shine for a seed to grow.  You really need to want it to and sometimes the fight to allow that seed to grow requires hard work.  Weeds, pests, and storms all have to be dealt with.  

I love this story told by President Ezra Taft Benson.  It is about a lesson he learned from his aunt.  She lived on a farm and her family survived on the food they grew.  One particular year, seed was scarce.  She had just finished planting her peas in the spring.  She was back inside the house and saw out the kitchen window the rooster walking down the row of peas she had just planted. He was eating the seeds from the dirt.  She did not hesitate, but went right out, chopped off the rooster’s head, opened him up, found the seeds, replanted them, and then cooked up the rooster for dinner.

This story is a bit shocking, but I LOVE the lesson it teaches.  Reading on in Alma 32 we are instructed about the importance of nourishing the word.  It truly does take diligence and patience along with our faith to “reap the rewards,” so get up.  Plant those seeds of faith.  Nourish them.  Fight for them!

Goal setting and achievement can be pretty frustrating at times.  Often we fall short and useless thoughts will enter our minds about how pointless it might be to even try.  However, please understand that it is incredibly important to continue to set goals, do our best, and somehow keep ourselves from being overwhelmingly disappointed if we doesn’t achieve them 100%.  Today in my reading, I came across a good analogy.  

It goes like this…
“A teacher, trying to explain what a theory is, asked this question: “If you take a letter half the distance to a mailbox and stop, then start over going half the remaining distance and stop, then repeat the process over and over, theoretically will you ever really get to the mailbox?” 

One bright student said, “No, but you’ll get close enough to mail the letter.” 
We crave perfection, but we are told we don’t have to be perfect before we die.  We just have to keep moving forward, trying and trying and trying... and trying again.  
Keep setting those goals, you don’t have to be perfect.  Your goals don’t even have to be perfect!  Just keep working to close the gap.

I once had a dream I was climbing a ladder.  It was the longest ladder you could ever imagine and it went straight up the side of the sheer rocky face of the tallest mountain.  My ladder was just one of many.  I was discouraged by the great height I had to climb, but found that when I looked upward, I climbed faster.  I wanted to scale that ladder quickly, but I still could only do it one step at a time.  What was I climbing to? The top.  I couldn’t really see it, but I knew I wanted badly to get there.

Unlike almost all my other dreams, I still remember this one as vividly as the night I dreamt it decades ago.  This year I think I finally figured out what I am climbing for.  I recognized the answer in the words of C.S. Lewis, my favorite author.  He said, “Joy is the serious business of heaven.”  My in-depth study of the Book of Mormon this year adds an exclamation point to that truth.  I now know that I am climbing for joy.  I think we are all climbing for joy.

I’ve been learning about joy, one step on the ladder at a time.  This is some of what I have learned through my Book of Mormon study this year:

1. Joy is "the most desirable fruit.” (1 Nephi 8:12) It is not merely happiness.  It is not merely the absence of pain.  It is not merely pleasure.  In fact, pleasures too often become the enemy of joy.
2. “Men are that they might have joy.” (2 Nephi 2:25) Heavenly Father wants each one of us to have joy.
3. Joy is a choice. Free agency is the gift that allows us to accept the gift of joy.  “But he that knoweth good and evil, to him it is given according to his desires, whether he desireth good or evil, life or death, joy or remorse of conscience.” (Alma 29:5, Alma 22:13-15)
4. As we share our knowledge and testimony of Christ and the gospel plan with others, our joy can increase. (Alma 29:9)

While I was in college at Weber State, I had a professor whose name I can no longer recall. In his class I learned some of the most valuable lessons of my entire college experience.  Very few of them actually came from his lectures.  They came from his example - from the life he led.  He was always clean and neat, but his wardrobe only consisted of two changes of clothes.  One day he confessed to us that everything he owns can fit into one cardboard box with the exception of his bicycle.  He was renting an apartment, but it was empty.  He even slept on the floor.  He had one pan in which to cook his food and just ate right from the pan.  He didn’t live this way because of a lack of money.  He made a good income.  He just chose it.  I believe he was saving it.  He had ambitions to do humanitarian work in a far-off struggling nation - which one, I again can’t recall.  But the point is… this man with his one cardboard box of possessions had joy.  I don’t know much about what he deemed important enough to keep in that box, but I think often about what I would put in mine.  What physical possessions do you really need to bring you joy?  Think about it.

What a time we are living through.  Our world has just been turned upside down.  With the Covid-19 pandemic and an earthquake and all that comes with them, we have really had a wake-up call.  Our eyes have been opened to all we have to be grateful for.  From attending the temple to buying toilet paper when needed  and everything in between I now realize how privileged we have been.  I miss the temple terribly.  It has only been closed for two weeks, but since the prophet’s challenge to increase our temple attendance a year and a half ago, I have found myself there nearly every Friday.  When I haven’t been able to attend, I filled the gap with family history work.  Today I can’t even do that.  The FamilySearch website is overloaded, which although saddens me for the work I have a desire to do, thrills me at the same time to know that there are so many other individuals turning their hearts to their fathers as well.  

Some are saying this is the end and that the Savior is on His way. Perhaps He is, but I feel that there is much more work to do and hard times to endure before that blessing.  With missionaries returning home by the thousands as countries close their borders to foreigners it does appear to be fulfillment of the prophecy mentioned in this quote by Brigham Young: 

“When the testimony of the Elders ceases to be given, and the Lord says to them, ‘Come home; I will now preach my own sermons to the nations of the earth,’ all you now know can scarcely be called a preface to the sermon that will be preached with fire and sword, tempests, earthquakes, hail, rain, thunders and lightnings, and fearful destruction. … You will hear of magnificent cities, now idolized by the people, sinking in the earth, entombing the inhabitants. The sea will heave itself beyond its bounds, engulphing mighty cities. Famine will spread over the nations, and nation will rise up against nation, kingdom against kingdom, and states against states, in our own country and in foreign lands; and they will destroy each other, caring not for the blood and lives of their neighbours, of their families, or for their own lives.” 

I don’t tell you this to cause you fear, but quite the opposite… to help you know it has been prophesied so that you will not fear when you see these things.  Have faith in the Book of Mormon promise found in 1 Nephi 22:17: 

“Wherefore, he will preserve the righteous by his power, even if it so be that the fulness of his wrath must come, and the righteous be preserved, even unto the destruction of their enemies by fire. Wherefore, the righteous need not fear; for thus saith the prophet, they shall be saved, even if it so be as by fire.”

We must carry forward the work, push that stone until it fills the whole earth!  I agree with Mark E. Peterson when he said:

 “Your destiny is to do that very thing, and this is the kind of protection you will have. You do not need to fear about world conditions. You do not need to fear about anybody. Just serve the Lord and keep his commandments and build the kingdom, and as you do so you will be protected in these last days. God will have his hand over you, and you can plan your lives in confidence.”
​
Fear seems to be the biggest plague of all in the world right now.  My favorite scripture verse that I have come back to again and again through all this turmoil the last month is one that popped up by no coincidence in our Come Follow Me studies.  It is Jacob 3:1-2.  When I start to panic from the constant bad news that comes at me from every angle, I think of these scriptures and “firm up my mind.”  I leave them with you with my love and confidence in you.  You were prepared for such a time as this!​

“Look unto God with firmness of mind, and pray unto him with exceeding faith, and he will console you in your afflictions, and he will plead your cause, and send down justice upon those who seek your destruction.
2 O all ye that are pure in heart, lift up your heads and receive the pleasing word of God, and feast upon his love; for ye may, if your minds are firm, forever.”

...But you don't have to take my word for it - Words of your prophet

Me: Why have you been getting such low marks on your schoolwork lately?
Son: Teacher keeps telling me I am doing everything “half-fast!”

For years now, “half-fast” has become one of my favorite terms. I think on it a lot, giggle about the misunderstanding, but also ponder on the lesson attached.  In the scriptures we are told to “hold fast” to the iron rod.  In Lehi’s dream, Nephi points out the similarities and differences of two groups of people.  The first group pressed forward, clinging to the rod of iron. (1 Nephi 8:24)  The second group pressed their way forward, continually holding fast to the rod of iron.  (1 Nephi 8:30). The terms “clinging” and “continually holding fast” are very similar, but there is a difference.  Elder David A. Bednar said, “clinging to the rod of iron suggests to me only occasional bursts of study or irregular dipping rather than consistent, ongoing immersion in the word of God.”  To me, “clinging” is a synonym for “continually holding half-fast”.  This half-fast group ended up “falling away into forbidden paths and were lost.” (verse 28)

There is danger in holding on half-fast.  Life seems to be a test to try the strength of our hold. In the days of the early saints in the Salt Lake Valley, the test looked like this… leaky roofs, mice and snakes, gold in California, Indian attacks, crop-destroying crickets. (See Saints Volume 2, chapter 7)  All of these things plus more led to saints wandering off down different paths.  Only the most steadfast persisted and saw the miracle of the seagulls and the blessings after the trial of their faith.  In our day, the trials seem more spiritual in nature.  Our temporal needs are covered, we have plenty to eat, but our natural man appetites for worldly things are constantly tempted.  We keep our appetites under control when we are continually holding fast to the rod of iron, but our appetites control us when that grip starts to slip.

Lesson: If you practice piano half-fast or clean your room half-fast or do your homework half-fast, you may disappoint your mom, but she will get over it; however, she will not get over a half-fast hold on the iron rod.  If you love your mother, read your scriptures.  If you love your Father, read your scriptures.  Every day, Every day, Every day!

It is time. .. back to school time.  Are you ready?  Of course you are!!!
Here are my favorite 3 quotes from our Prophet, President Nelson, for this time of year.  Read them s-l-o-w-l-y.  Think about what they mean.

1. “Education is the difference between wishing you could help others and being able to help them.”
2. “I promise that if you study the Book of Mormon every day you will make better decisions every day.”
3. “In the pursuit of one’s education, individual desire is more important than is the institution you choose; personal drive is more significant than is the faculty."

“O be wise; what can I say more?” Jacob 6:12