Gospel Cogitations

For some time now I have been wanting to write about the awesome grandeur of the Plan of Salvation.  When I was a teenager, I read quite a few fantasy books.  They were very captivating because of the epic journeys and heroes and great struggles for the survival of humanity, a la Lord of the Rings.  But as I began to prepare for a mission, and especially once I left, I realized that the most epic story ever is the one we are living.  No author can ever come close to the greatness of the plan of our God ( 2 Nephi 9:13 ).  There have been many epic journeys throughout time, and many heroes, as recorded in the scriptures.  But beyond that, there is a battle raging for the souls of men.  It began long ago, and it will continue until the end of the world.  This is the plan of salvation; the most epic story you will ever hear. It has been my goal to write something for this blog once every week.  When I started contemplating writing about the plan of salvation, it occurred to me that this

All of us face trials in our lives, and we each carry burdens with us.  Sometimes those burdens can seem overwhelming, but there is hope.  Jesus Christ offers His assistance in these words: "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." ( Matthew 11:28–30 ) Many things in the gospel are taught as principles.  As Elder Scott once said , "Principles are concentrated truth, packaged for application to a wide variety of circumstances." Because truths are couched in the scriptures in this manner, it makes it possible for everyone to use these truths in a way that applies specifically to them.  However, it can be challenging to figure out exactly how to apply these principles. Someone asked me recently how they should go about applying this particular principle.  In other w

About once a month I have the opportunity to go with my ward to the temple.  Our stake patriarch is also a sealer in the temple, and he likes to pause once in a while between ordinances and talk to those on attendance about gospel truths he feels are important.  Recently he asked us if anyone knew what the "new and everlasting covenant" was.  I was surprised at the number of people who could not put into definite words what this means.  So I will endeavor to explain it to the best of my ability, relying heavily on the words of prophets.  It is my hope that this will enlighten all who have made any form of covenant. Through all ages of the world, God has made covenants with mankind.  The first recorded instance of this was with Noah, which made the rainbow famous (Gen. 9:8-17).  After that, we have the story of Abraham who made a covenant with God that he would be perfect, and God would bless him and his seed with the priesthood and posterity as numberless as the sands of th

Recently I had a friend ask me the question, why is it that Nephi should make particular mention of his stature?  It is difficult to engrave things on plates, and he does it twice, so it must be important.  Here are some scriptures that helped me gain a better understanding of this. First of all, my friend suggested that perhaps people in Old Testament times viewed stature as an indication of spirituality, as in the case of Saul the king: "...Saul, a choice young man, and a goodly: and there was not among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he: from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people." (1 Samuel 9:2) This may have been the case, but when David is anointed to be king after Saul, the Lord is very clear that stature does not indicate spirituality: "...the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature;... for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lo

As I mentioned in my last post, this weekend  aired the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Since I can think of nothing better or more striking to say than what has already been said over the past couple of days, let me share with you some of the quotes and key points I found to be particularly inspiring.  It is my hope that we can all benefit from and act upon the things we learned from conference, whether it was spoken out loud or to our hearts by the Spirit. In providing my summary of this general conference, I have only chosen to mention about 1/3 of the talks.  This does not mean that I believe these talks are more important than the others; they are not.  These are simply the ones that contained principles that stood out to me.  Even with this narrowed view of what was presented, this will likely be longer than most of my other blog posts.  However, the beauty of the Internet is that you can read this at your leisure. One of my favorite t