I Have An Answer For You...

So, how did it go? Were you able to accomplish the challenge? I haven't met anyone that is able to do it in one go or without any help. So don't feel bad if you weren't able to figure it out. Someone had to show me how to do it. If you did get it, you're sooooo good!

The first nail represents the
ATONEMENT OF JESUS CHRIST

In order for us to place all our trials and burdens on Jesus Christ, we have to know how to do it. The most important thing that Jesus Christ completed was the Atonement. He made the atoning sacrifice (He died on the cross) so we can be cleansed from sin and from every wrongdoing that we've ever done in our lives if we are willing to repent and keep His commandments.

The second nail represents FAITH

The first step for us to fully appreciate the Atonement of Jesus Christ is to have Faith. Have faith in the Atonement and have faith in Jesus Christ. What is faith? Alma (a Book of Mormon prophet) says "if ye have faith ye ^bhope for things which are ^cnot seen, which are true." I feel that faith is the first step to everything, you gotta believe in what you're doing (even if you don't know the end result) in order for you to see it go through. Having faith in Jesus Christ is so important because you have to understand what He went through for us. He loves us and died for us so that we can return to be with Heavenly Father again, with our families. When you understand it, you appreciate it more.

The third nail represents REPENTANCE

When we understand the importance of having faith in Jesus Christ and what He did, it leads us to want to change our ways. To become the person that He would have us be, to become like Him. We will want to repent of our mistakes and wrongdoings. "Repentance is... much more than just acknowledging wrongdoings. It is a change of mind and heart that gives us a fresh view about God, about ourselves, and about the world. It includes turning away from sin and turning to God for forgiveness. It is motivated by love for God and the sincere desire to obey His commandments." All in all, Repentance is Change - changing our will so it aligns with the will of God for us.

The third nail represents BAPTISM

Jesus Christ has lead the way for us since the beginning of time and He is the perfect example of one who puts the will of the Father before His own. When He was on the Earth, He taught these principles - faith and repentance and He also was baptized to show us the way. Jesus Himself has said "...Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be ^aborn of ^bwater and of the ^cSpirit, he cannot ^denter into the kingdom of God."  Baptism has to be performed by someone who holds the priesthood authority (power and authority given by God to worthy men to act in His name).

The fifth nail represents the GIFT OF
THE HOLY GHOST

Baptism is incomplete without receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is the third member of the Godhead (along with Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father). He is a personage of Spirit without a body of flesh and bones. He will be our constant companion once we are baptized. He will reveal to us truths. He will testify to us of Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father and it is only through Him that we can receive a testimony of Them. The Holy Ghost can guide us in our decisions and protect us from physical and spiritual danger.

The sixth and final nail represents
ENDURING TO THE END

Once we have done these things - have faith in Jesus Christ, repent, be baptized, receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, we need to constantly work on it. It is not something that you need to do once, but is something that should be done consistently for the rest of your life. You continue to follow Christ's example. This continued faithfulness is called "enduring to the end".

The gospel of Jesus Christ will bless us if we know what we have to do and how to do it. It is Heavenly Father's plan for His children so they can be happy. The Atonement of Jesus Christ is central to this plan. Heavenly Father sent His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to show us how to live meaningful and happy lives and experience eternal joy after this life.

Through the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ, you can become clean from sin and enjoy peace of conscience. You can place your trials and burdens on Him if you let Him.



I have a challenge for you...

Are you willing to accept it? Yes...of course you are...

So, here I have a nail and a bottle cap.

This represents Jesus Christ.

Here I have 6 nails (and no, I do not know what kind of nails these are - all I know is that they're grey, pointy and have heads).


They represent the trials, burdens and struggles that we go through in life.

Ok, so the challenge is for you to place all your trials, burdens and struggles on Jesus Christ (place the 6 nails on the nail and bottle cap). It's the only way that we will ever be light and Jesus Christ has told us to bring our burdens to Him. Matthew 11: 28-30 "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

Here are the rules, well at least some of the rules (we kinda make it up as we go when people ask us questions on what they can and can't do).

- You can't lay the cap and nail on the side

- You can't place any one of the 6 nails anywhere on the cap

- You can't turn the cap and nail upside down

(Um, I think that's about it for now...if you have any questions, ask me, it's easier that way)

 

 You can't do any of these...

In my next blog I'll tell you what the secret is... Good luck...

Fam[ILY] - gotta love 'em

What does your family consist of? Mine consists of wonderful parents, dad and mum, (who would do anything for me, like send me chocolate every month from Australia) and a beautiful little 4 year old sister (who is the Princess of the family and thinks that she should get EVERYTHING she wants because she's 4 - and she does). And then there's the grandparents, the cousins, the aunties, the uncles who are all amazing people and are crazy-heads (but I totally love them!). And guess what?! I get to be with them FOREVER! I love it!


Why do I love the fact that I will live together with my family forever? Because my family is what makes me  the happiest... even though they may drive me crazy some times, I love them because they understand me (well, at least they try to) and they always have my back when things go wrong, but especially when things go right. I have grown because my family, especially my parents, have taught me how to be a better person and how to love and serve others.

In the temple, there are sacred ordinances (act or ceremony) that are performed so that families can be together forever. It is through the proper priesthood authority of God that this can happen and becoming a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is where it begins. This is why I am a missionary, so I can share it with the world and help people realize that families are important.

President Thomas S. Monson said,

“When we have sampled much and have wandered far and have seen how fleeting and sometimes superficial a lot of the world is, our gratitude grows for the privilege of being part of something we can count on—home and family and the loyalty of loved ones. We come to know what it means to be bound together by duty, by respect, by belonging. We learn that nothing can fully take the place of the blessed relationship of family life...

May our families and homes be filled with love: love of each other, love of the gospel, love of our fellowman, and love of our Savior. As a result, heaven will be a little closer here on earth."

I'm grateful for the family that I am a part of. I can see it in my own life, how we can rely on one another and how happy our home can be when we put in our efforts to work together (a family is like a rope). There is nothing in the world that I would replace my family relationship with because this is something that is important to me.

I know that families can be together forever because it's all part of Heavenly Father's plan for us, His children - I'm grateful to know that I am part of His family and that He wants us to return to Him and to be eternally happy! Families Are Forever!!!

(Told you they were all crazy-heads)

Hakuna Matata

Hakuna Matata! What a wonderful phrase.
Hakuna Matata! Ain't no passing craze.
It means no worries for the rest of your days.
It's our problem-free philosophy...

Hakuna Matata!

Ok, you can stop singing now. Don't you love Lion King? If you don't, then we need to talk. Hakuna Matata is such a catchy song to sing. I find that when I'm cleaning or if I'm feeling stressed I start singing.

My favourite line from this song is when it explains what Hakuna Matata is (now don't deny it, you didn't know what it meant when you first heard it). "It means no worries for the rest of your days". NO WORRIES!! If you've been around me for a while, you'll notice that I will say No Worries a lot of the time (it's an Australian thing, you can ask us). Instead of saying, "You're Welcome" or "It's All Good", I say No worries. Why worry? Everything is going to be all right.

I looked up the word worry and one of the definitions I found was "fearful". Now it didn't hit me when I read this definition because the first thing I thought was, how does fear relate to worry? And then a thought came to me, that derr, it's got everything to do with fear.

We tend to worry about little things that don't really matter like, what clothes am I going to wear tomorrow, what's for lunch today, what am I going to do if no one wants to talk to me today, or where should I stick my pictures on my blog (ok, these are what I worry about, but hey, I'm being real). But these "little" things tend to build up and then turn into this big huge pile called the "don't-want-to-go-there, but-I-will-anyway-just-to-worry-myself" pile and it suddenly overtakes you to the point that you're stuck and don't know what to do and then you're just frustrated and angry. Thank goodness for patient people that are in my life who tell me take it easy and breathe...I've learnt that all things happen for a reason, sometimes in ways that I wouldn't have wanted it to happen, but hey, that's life for you.

Someone once asked me, "Why are you always happy?" and I replied "Me? Happy? Um, are you sure you're asking the right person?" I continued..."I guess I make a choice...whether to wake up and worry about things that doesn't need worrying, or just go with the flow and "Come what may, and love it".

Sometimes it's hard to not worry about the more serious things in life but as long as you put your trust in Heavenly Father and rely on Him, things will be ok. Life is hard, there are good days and then there are not-so-good days. Lucky, I like to laugh, it gets me through the day. I found the following paragraph pretty interesting. It explains a lot of things.

"Someone (with a lot of time on their hand) has mathematically calculated that 40 percent of our worries will never materialize; 30 percent deal with old decisions that cannot be changed; 12 percent focus on criticism that is mostly untrue; 10 percent deal with our health, which only worsens when we worry; and only 8 percent are legitimate. The point we would make is that life does have real problems that may be met head-on when we eliminate useless and senseless worry."

- J. Spencer Kinard “The Spoken Word”

So make your worry count! If you're feeling like your "don't-want-to-go-there, but-I-will-anyway-just-to-worry-myself" pile is getting bigger and bigger - sing Hakuna Matata, it's a wonderful phrase!

He Hears

One night on a dark and dreary road, there...

Just kidding, I got nothing. I was trying to think real hard of how I could start this blog so I can get your attention but I didn't really have anything good, so... that's my introduction.


Last week, one evening, I was trying to get to sleep and I was getting a little mad because my companion (Sister Dalton) was already dead asleep and I was just laying there looking at the ceiling. We had to get up early in the morning so I wanted my sleep that I needed so badly. Then for some reason, I got really scared - the dark was freaking me out. I was closing my eyes real tight, hoping that I'll fall asleep (yep, that didn't work), I put my blanket over my face and I couldn't breathe and then I said a little prayer in my heart (it sorta helped, but the dark is just freaky!). I even thought about waking Sister Dalton up, but I didn't want her to know that I was scared. Now, I know that I'm all grown and I shouldn't be scared of the dark, but hey, there are times in our lives when we just have to recognize that we have fears and face them. So, this goes on for a little bit (closing eyes, blanket over head, etc) when a thought came to mind to sing one of my all time favourite childrens song...

 Heavenly Father, are you really there?
And do you hear and answer ev'ry childs' prayer?
Some say that Heaven is far away,
But I feel it close around me as I pray.
Heavenly Father I remember now
Something that Jesus told disciples long ago,
"Suffer the children to come to me."
Father, in prayer I'm coming now to thee.

Pray, he is there
Speak, he is list'ning.
You are his child;
His love now surrounds you.
He hears your prayer;
He loves the children,
Of such is the kingdom,
The kingdom of heav'n.
- Childrens Songbook #12


It was a definite answer to my prayers. As soon as I finished singing this song, I immediately felt peace and comfort. Shortly after this, I fell asleep - I was so grateful (you have no idea). It took me around 30 minutes and all I had to do was sing this song. Crazy!

I love the words to this song because it shows the relationship that I have with my Heavenly Father. He is my literal Father in Heaven. I am His daughter. He loves me and He wants me to be happy and to feel safe (yes, even when I'm scaring myself). I know that I can communicate with Him through prayer and I know that He will always listen. I'm grateful for my prayers because I know that Heavenly Father will answer my prayers, even when it's a silent prayer in my heart. Just as I can go to my dad here on Earth and talk to him about anything, I can always go to Father in Heaven in prayer and tell Him everything, knowing that I will receive an answer.

A Book of Mormon prophet named Alma was teaching his son Helaman about learning wisdom while he was in his youth. He then spoke to him about prayer, saying "...cry unto God for all thy support;...let all thy doings...thoughts be directed unto the Lord...and he will direct thee for good..." - Alma 37:36-37. This scripture passage continues to talk about how we should pray when we go to bed and when we arise in the morning. Prayers don't have to be long and extravagant but they should be sincere. They can be said any time during the day, it's between you and Heavenly Father. He will always love us no matter what.

I know He hears, He definitely hears.

It's Worth It!!!

I do not even know where to begin. I'm not good at these blogging things but hey, I'm excited to try something new. I gotta start somewhere so I guess I can start from the beginning (don't worry it's not long :o)

So I'm a Mormon missionary serving in the States for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a lot of people have asked me why I and my fellow missionaries leave our homes for 18 months - 2 years to do what we do... (now if you're not good at Geography like me, Australia is basically on the other side of the world from the United States of America - trust me, I know - I looked at a globe). I kinda asked myself that question too, why would I be a missionary? What's so important that I had to travel so far? Why would I give up 18 months of my life? Is it worth it?

I like to say that YES!!!, it is totallly worth it. It's totally worth it to wake up early in the morning, to exercise, to study and then to go out and work all day - doesn't that sound like fun. Now it's seems like it's all work and no play but I tell ya, teaching people about Christ is such an amazing experience. I'm learning new things every single day! I'm meeting different people who have influenced me so much - I've built life-long relationships with some people that I now hold dear to my heart.

I love sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with others because it makes me happy and I know that it will make them happy as they live it. I love seeing people change because of the truths they find and how blessed they are. I'm not saying that being a missionary is the easiest thing to do, it's not. It's one of the most difficult and challenging things I've ever had to do in my life. I do have trials and I do cry sometimes but I know that I'm always looked after - I know who I can turn to and that is my Heavenly Father.

So as I continue on this journey of mine, I will share the things that I have learnt or I've had questions about. I hope to share with you some of the things that have made me happy or have made me sad and then we can laugh or cry together. One of my friends say "You can either cry or laugh about it, but crying gives you headaches, so let's just laugh".

So here we go!

Have a fantabulous week! Until next time...