FAIR's Rising Generation

Archive for June, 2009

“[T]here was no contention in the land, because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people” (4 Nephi 1:15). This verse highlights what I think is one of the best kept secrets on becoming Christlike.

Love is obviously important. Staying away from sin is important. We know if we love someone we would never want to hurt them, but when we think of the best ways to avoid sin, does love jump out as the first solution?

Sitting at lunch one day, a few missionaries and I thought of all the ways we could become better people. Our sins and weaknesses were blared at us, and we desperately wanted to change. Despite our best efforts, none of us felt like we were getting anywhere.

One of the Elders found a talk in an old Ensign which revealed to us our solution. It said, “…Christ’s ultimate defense was not his supreme will-power but simply that, nurtured by the Spirit, he had no desire for Satan’s grimy alternatives. He loves the things his Father loves. Thus, as his desires became deeds, those deeds reflected a spontaneous righteousness that came from the very depths of his being.”

That was the answer. If we change our desires to “love the things God loves” then our desire to sin vanishes. The author goes on to say how making this change is possible, taking advice from the prophet Mormon:

What I wanted was charity, which was “the pure love of Christ.” And I could receive it if I would “pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ.” And Mormon also included the promise I needed–”that ye may become the sons of God … that we may be purified even as he is pure” (Moro. 7:47–48; italics added).

We can’t overcome temptation through love on our own. We have to pray for it. Elder Bednar promises that with this intent in our prayers we will notice a difference in how we act. “[T]here are occasions where normally we would have a tendency to speak harshly, and we do not; or we might be inclined to anger, but we are not. We discern heavenly help and strength and humbly recognize answers to our prayer. Even in that moment of recognition, we offer a silent prayer of gratitude.” We will notice the change of our very natures to be more Christlike.

And as the final part of the process, Elder Bednar tells us:

At the end of our day, we kneel again and report back to our Father. We review the events of the day and express heartfelt thanks for the blessings and the help we received. We repent and, with the assistance of the Spirit of the Lord, identify ways we can do and become better tomorrow. Thus our evening prayer builds upon and is a continuation of our morning prayer. And our evening prayer also is a preparation for meaningful morning prayer.

Praying with “all the energy of heart” is a cycle of morning and night prayers with conscious actions to improve in between them. When we follow the cycle asking our hearts to be turned toward Christ, our prayers will be answered. I know this is true. I love being in control of my life, with no desire to follow temptations I used to have, because now I view them the way Christ views them and love the things God loves.

-references-
The talk mentioned in this blog was Dennis R. Peterson, “To Love the Things God Loves,” Tambuli, Mar 1981, 17 which can be accessed on the lds.org website here

Elder Bednar’s article comes from David A. Bednar, “Pray Always,” Ensign, Nov 2008, 41–44 found here

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FRG needs more writers, regardless of age, who are interested in writing a guest post for us, so if you have a message to share you may submit a sample of your words to us via our web form at http://youth.fairlds.org/contact.php.  Chances are good that we’ll like what you have to say and set you up as a guest blogger on our site.

Growing up, primary teachers taught me again and again that Mormons are the happiest people on the earth because they have the Plan of Happiness. I thought that was pretty cool. I liked being one of the happiest people on the earth. In fact, I was one of those happiest people up until sixth grade when I was thrown out of my happy world. What challenged my world so dramatically? A girl (you could have guessed that). Her name was Christine Brauer. She had the most attractive smile I had ever seen. When she smiled, the entire room got lighter. Fortunately, she showed it often. However, what really shook me was that she wasn’t a member of the Church.

Wait. How can she be so happy if she isn’t a member of the Church? How is a non-member that happy and not one of the happiest people in the world? I know I sure didn’t smile that much. That’s when the terrifying self-realization hit: I wasn’t that happy. But even if I wasn’t happy, I was still competitive. I was a member of the Church, and I would be one of the happiest people in the world or else!

So I went home from school one day, ran to the bathroom and grinned where a big mirror hung. I scrutinized my smile, moving it around into every position I could. Not impressive. So I smiled harder, tried to control it, left the bathroom and kept smiling. I became a smiler, and with it, I became happier.

The sixth grade became a lot of fun for me. When other students hated life, I was happy. People came to enjoy my smile, and I got many compliments for it–despite being a little shy. At the end of the year, our class did a big award ceremony. Everyone in the class put down a name for a guy and girl who they voted top in each of the categories. For example, we had the bookworm award and, students would think of which guy and girl seemed to read the most books. The person with the most votes won.

Shy though I was, I was happy and won a fair few awards–I guess because people liked me for just being the kid that was happy with life. One award stood out above the rest. I won the best smile award for the guys, and with little competition, Christine won it for the girls. To be honored next to Christine Brauer for smiling was perhaps the greatest honor I could have dreamed of. Now the award isn’t a big deal to me. What is a big deal is that I’m happy, and I owe it to the Gospel, being determined and Christine Brauer.

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FRG needs more writers, regardless of age, who are interested in writing a guest post for us, so if you have a message to share you may submit a sample of your words to us via our web form at http://youth.fairlds.org/contact.php.  Chances are good that we’ll like what you have to say and set you up as a guest blogger on our site.

This is what Peter Priesthood doesn’t do: He doesn’t kill, steal, lie, drink, smoke, swear, do drugs, covet Ryan’s gf, commit adultery, fornicate, watch bad movies, listen to bad music, hang out with bad people, mistreat friends, abuse family members, take advantage of the less fortunate (or the more fortunate), break the law, gossip, judge, condemn, hold grudges, stay up late, sleep in late, blaspheme, drink coffee, drink tea…uhh, you get the idea.

If you’re more like me and less like Peter, you have a hard time keeping track of all the rules, and you’ve probably even broken most of them. Furthermore, if you’re like me, you have an even harder time understanding some of them. No tattoos? But how will I express myself? Only one set of earrings? For girls? Huh? But what about my death metal and gangsta rap? I haven’t heard the prophet talk about that very specifically or recently.

Forty years—no, I’m not changing the subject–that’s how long the Israelites wandered around after being rescued from Egypt by God. They had a lot of rules…too many, really, but luckily they were pros when it came to breaking the spirit of the law.

Again, if you are anything like me, you’re asking yourself, “Is there an out?” Yes, there is. Wow! And all this time you’ve been trying to find the big answers by thumbing through magazines at grocery store checkout lines.

Instead of defining Mormons (ie, Peter Priesthood) by what they don’t do, let’s define them by what they do do–again, I’m not changing the subject.
Being a Mormon means believing that if you listen, God will speak. It means believing that all things denote there is a God. It means believing that reason and revelation are not mutually exclusive, but complementary.

We aren’t afraid to ask, nor to receive. We are truth-seekers, and we’re hardcore, too; our goal is to have all the mysteries unfolded to us, partly as a Church, but moreso as individuals. Joseph Smith said that without the gift of prophecy, no one can be saved.

The Holy Ghost is your out. It does not elevate through passion, but knowledge. That is, it lifts you up to a broader sphere of knowing. If you want to cry, I don’t mind. If you’d rather do a little dance, go ahead. Personally, I’m quite prone to laughter when the Holy Ghost speaks to me, but remember that the Holy Ghost doesn’t make you cry, dance, or laugh…that’s just you making a spectacle of yourself–your response to the conversation so to speak. I say go for it.

The Holy Ghost has one job and one job only—to reveal truth: It lays out the Plan of Salvation, testifies of Jesus Christ, and imparts wisdom. It is the gateway to Christ, who is the Second Comforter.

Is Pepsi against the Word of Wisdom? I don’t know–bear with me; I’m not trying to change the subject. Are you trying to feel the Holy Ghost but can’t because you’re just dying for a caffeine/sugar/fizz fix? Then stop drinking it…or maybe drink less. Whatever works. The age-old debate has been solved; the Holy Ghost can do that. Wisdom trumps rules; it builds upon their foundation and transcends them.

I think I’ll also tack this one on: Listen to the General Authorities, but remember that they don’t replace the Holy Ghost, nor do they want to. Trying to abide the Prophet’s counsel without the Holy Ghost is like trying to jump on a trampoline while standing underneath it. Try to do it the other way, and you’ve lost the trampoline. Oops.

This is when Jacob throws in the towel and says, “O be wise; what can I say more?”

SuAnne Big Crow lived in Pine Ridge, South Dakota in an aboriginal community. She was a star player on her high school basketball team, a motivated student, and a positive person. There’s an intriguing and well-known story about SuAnne that may or may not be true. The story goes that her basketball team was getting ready to play in a nearby town when the crowd in the bleachers started jeering and heckling her and her team mates. They allegedly made mock Indian battle cries and called out offensive racial slurs. SuAnne purportedly responded to this by performing a traditional shawl dance with her jacket while singing a Lakota song, thereby hushing the crowd and inspiring peace and reverance for her culture.

Like I said, this may or may not have happened. There are contradicting accounts of the night in question, with some people saying the story is completely fabricated, some saying it’s exaggerated, and some saying it’s bang on.

Regardless, SuAnne Big Crow did inspire, uplift, and motivate people; she did work to build her community; and she did fight social problems and racism facing aboriginals. Through her achievements as an athlete and a student, she was able to reach out to her peers. She spoke across the United States on the dangers of drugs and alcohol and made great strides toward fighting racial bigotry. She also dreamed of a youth facility in Pine Ridge that would facilitate growth and learning in young people.

SuAnne’s life was tragically cut short in a car accident before she was even able to attend college, but the Pine Ridge community started the SuAnne Big Crow Boys and Girls Club in her honour.

The gym shawl dance story is dramatic and interesting, but I think her positive attitude and lifetime of encouraging those around her are more impressive. I would rather think of her as someone who did the little things every day until they accumulated into her life’s achievements. It would be nice if we could resolve contention once and for all with a dance, but it’s really our daily conduct the that defines our legacy. Whether the story of the dance happened or not, SuAnne was an admirable person simply because she worked endlessly to instill confidence into people facing great challenges.

If you know of anyone, personally or not, living or dead, from near or abroad, let me know about them! I’ll add them to my list of awesome people who I will be highlighting weekly.

I know you’re not supposed to express nervousness (and a few other emotions) when giving a talk, and I’ve automatically applied this rule to the blog posts. So, for your sake I won’t mention how nervous I am about doing a good job on this.

As this is my first blog post, I’ll introduce myself. My name is Christi, and at the age of fifteen, I am the youngest FRG member.

I’ve been wondering and wondering what I could possibly write about. What could I say that would make any difference to people I both know and don’t know? As the youngest member and just being me, I expected myself to write something different (I usually do), and I hope I’ve come up with something decent.

Recently the youth in my ward went on a temple trip, and thank heavens for it, or else I wouldn’t have been able to come up with anything to write.

This trip was special because we had two new beehives who hadn’t been in the temple before. It’s been over a year since we’ve had any new Young Women, so of course I was determined that they would enjoy their visit and feel the spirit.

It seemed to me that our temple trips had been getting less and less spiritual lately. I figured that it was because I was getting more and more used to the temple and the wonderful people inside it. However, after this temple trip I saw the real problem.

We started off by leaving the church late and in a hurry as usual. As soon as the driver had a free hand she turned on her iPod stereo and we listened to High School Musical and a bunch of mainstream songs to which everybody except for me knew the words. All we did the entire way was listen to music and talk about things having nothing to do with the temple.

Just before entering the temple, my friend leaned over and reminded me to turn off my cell phone. I’d just gotten my phone, and the thought of taking it to the temple had never crossed my mind. I asked myself why this hadn’t occurred to me and answered stubbornly, ”I have my priorities straight.”

Since we had more people than usual, we kind of rushed, and it seemed that we were done far too soon. Then a certain section of the young women (cough cough Beehives) took probably about half an hour in the bathroom playing with their make-up, talking about how excited they were to go to Dairy Queen. Dairy Queen after the temple has been a tradition since who knows when.

There were so many things wrong with this trip that it felt like a slap in the face to everybody above the age of fourteen. Nobody said anything, but I’m pretty sure that we were all hoping for a change–something to turn this around and make temple trips the spiritual experiences they had been before.

It saddened me greatly to have the beauty and overall wonderfulness of the temple overshadowed by improper motives, thoughts and conversations. For me the temple has always been a place of great peace and spiritual harmony where we fulfill very important practices which are key to our religion. However, it’s very obvious that the younger young women (cough cough Beehives) didn’t completely understand this. The older ones (including myself) could not prevent ourselves from being swayed; when you can hear a thirteen year old humming “Poker Face” right beside you, it’s hard to feel the spirit.

I didn’t really know what to do about it, in fact none of us did. But hey, that’s what the Bishop is for, right? He had the idea that instead of going to Dairy Queen we stay at the temple and have a picnic on the grounds. It’s things like this that have me convinced that the Bishop knows everything or can read our minds or something.

I think most of us breathed a sigh of relief. What a horrible thing it was to have our love of ice cream get in the way of our love for the temple.

Although nothing particularly miraculous or amazing happened while we had our picnic (which, lo and behold, the Bishop had been prepared for), I have the feeling that it’s the beginning of a better understand of the temple for all of us.

I cannot emphasize enough to you how truly important it is for us to get our priorities straight. Simply asking yourself questions like ”Which do I love more? The Temple or Dairy Queen?” can pave the way for better understanding and more spiritual experiences.

This story doesn’t really have much to do with the temple, but it’s a perfect example of how we must decide before we get into situations who we are and which spiritual path we wish to take.