Good Timber

Good Timber
The tree that never had to fight
For sun and sky and air and light,
But stood out in the open plain
And always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king
But lived and died a scrubby thing.

The man who never had to toil
To gain and farm his patch of soil,
Who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man
But lived and died as he began.

Good timber does not grow with ease:
The stronger wind, the stronger trees;
The further sky, the greater length;
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.

Where thickest lies the forest growth,
We find the patriarchs of both.
And they hold counsel with the stars
Whose broken branches show the scars
Of many winds and much of strife.
This is the common law of life.
Douglas Malloch

sacred grove

the temple

Breath Taking

Peek Beyond the Leaves

Best Best Friend ever <3

My Talk for Church

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

It has been a long time since I have given a talk in this ward, and there are a lot of new faces I see who I don’t know and a lot of you probably don’t know me yet. My name is Arianna Brown, and I’ve lived in Chapel Hill since 2005 when my family moved from Washington. For the past year and a half I haven’t been living here, which would explain why many of you have no idea who I am, or at least haven’t met me. My talk this morning is about Conversion, with a focus on how youth can be converted.

So what exactly is conversion? From looking up the word Conversion on LDS.org I found this definition “Conversion is a process, not an event. Conversion comes as a result of righteous efforts to follow the Savior. These efforts include exercising faith in Jesus Christ, repenting of sin, being baptized, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end in faith.” “Conversion also includes a change in our behavior, but it goes beyond behavior; it is a change in our very nature. It is such a significant change that the Lord and His prophets refer to it as a rebirth, a change of heart, and a baptism of fire.” So how do we (as youth and as people make this change of heart in our lives?  As a youth being converted isn’t really something we think about, at least I didn’t in my early teenage years. Some people in my opinion are already converted and being a good follower of God comes easy, but for others it takes dedication, and a will power and desire to be converted and to be committed to our Heavenly Father and his will. When I was baptized of course I believed in God and that our church was true, but I never had any adversity to challenge my belief until later in my life, and that is when I truly became converted. I have always had the desire to be a good person, to be happy, and to strive to be better, but as most parents of teenagers and my fellow teenagers know, life for some reason becomes a lot more difficult and challenging. So as I said before I haven’t been living here for the last year and half, I won’t tell the whole story, because the story is like a novel. For the past year and a half I have been living in two different places, the first place I was living was in the wilderness of Utah for three months, in the west desert. The time leading up to me going to wilderness was full of anger, confusion and sadness, back in 2011 I was a lost soul, but the one thing I still knew in my heart was that God was real, that he loved me, and that was all that really mattered to me. In wilderness I had nothing but the clothes on my back, the food in my pack, and the sleeping bag I carried. I hiked more than 100 miles in 3 months, through rain, sleet, snow, the freezing cold nights and the blazing sun. I don’t have the normal high-schooler life story, the three months I spent in the wilderness taught me a lot about God. As children we are taught to pray every day, and to read our scriptures, and it seems pretty easy, but how many of us actually pray 3 times a day and read our scriptures everyday too, especially as teenagers, some of us get lazy, and forget to save time for God, it’s not that we don’t care about God and our faith, it’s just that sometimes we get caught up in everything else that goes on in our lives. But when you have 3 months without a phone, without a computer, without fashion, without makeup, without boys, without parents, without friends and without anything that we are used to, you have a lot of time on your hands. This is the story of my true conversion to God, it reminds me a lot of the story of Enos in the Book of Mormon. I didn’t just pray to my Heavenly Father, I cried to him, I talked to him, I told him everything, I talked to him like he was right next to me. “And my soul hungered; and I kneeled down before my maker, and I cried unto him in mighty prayer and supplication for mine own soul; and all the day long did I cry unto him; yea, and when the night came I did raise my voice high that it reached the heavens.” Enos 1:4 I know without a doubt that Heavenly Father listened and he was there for me, I felt his love, I feel his love, and I know he knows each and every one of us. But I haven’t always known my Heavenly Father, and for many of us in the church, we still don’t know, and we haven’t been truly converted. This “mighty change in your hearts” is what conversion is all about. President Joseph Fielding Smith said, “People are converted by their hearts being penetrated by the Spirit of the Lord when they humbly hearken to the testimonies of the Lord’s servants” (Church History and Modern Revelation, 2 vols. [1953], 1:40). “Converted means to turn from one belief or course of action to another. Conversion is a spiritual and moral change. Converted implies not merely mental acceptance of Jesus and his teachings but also a motivating faith in him and his gospel. A faith which works a transformation, an actual change in one’s understanding of life’s meaning and in his allegiance to God in interest, in thought, and in conduct. In one who is really wholly converted, desire for things contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ has actually died. And substituted therefore is a love of God, with a fixed and controlling determination to keep his commandments.” President Marion G. Romney. The Savior said: “Will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you? … If ye will come unto me ye shall have eternal life.” And in order to have God’s word impact our lives—to receive the promised blessings—(of Eternal Life) we must follow the commandments and follow Christ’s teachings. “One who is converted and committed will not simply “go through the motions” in fulfilling a Church service assignment. A converted home teacher will not be satisfied with just making a visit to one of his assigned families so he can report to his quorum leader that his home teaching is “completed” or “done.” A converted Primary teacher would not be content to merely “give” a lesson but would want to teach by the Spirit, thereby making a real difference in the impressionable lives of the children entrusted to his or her care.-General Conference 1996 W. MACK LAWRENCE”

 A Quote BY ELDER DAVID A. BEDNAR “Knowing that the gospel is true is the essence of a testimony. Consistently being true to the gospel is the essence of conversion.” We all make mistakes, we all mess up, and we all sin, that is what we are here to do, to live a life full of blemishes and still turn to God, to repent of our sins, become meek and humble and submit to our Heavenly Father. As long as we strive to follow the commandments and if and when we sin again we repent and cry unto the Lord and seek forgiveness. We can all become truly converted, but remember, conversion is not an event; it is a lifelong process, a rebirth and a change of heart. There are some things that will help with the process, don’t just pray, pray with intent, cry to God and speak to him, act as if Christ were in the same room as you, focus on others instead of yourself, love everyone, even those who have hurt you, and most importantly learn to love yourself, and to Love God and his Son.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen

The Mormon Effect

http://federalistpress.com/the-mormon-effect.php

The “Mormon Effect”

February 22, 2013 By Publius 99 Comments

During the 2012 presidential campaign, that awesomely deep well of perpetual wisdom, Alec Baldwin, proclaimed that if Barack Obama were not black, his vote total would have been 20 percent higher.
People of real intelligence realize that the opposite was probably true: if he had been white, his vote total would have been 20 percent lower. The African-American voting bloc combined with enough whites suffering from liberal guilt guaranteed a higher vote total for Obama.
The truth of the matter is, if Mitt Romney had not been a Mormon, his vote total might very well have been significantly higher.
In fact, according to a Gallop poll released in June of last year, while 4 percent of people said they would not vote for a black president, a full 22 percent said they would not vote for a Mormon. In fact, only atheists and gays ranked higher.
So Baldwin probably had it backwards, which he usually does, so that comes as no surprise.
What did come as a surprise to me is why people would have such negative views of Mormons. I have known lots of them in my life, and in most cases they have been hard-working, kind, generous family-oriented people—just the kind of people this country used to value (and maybe that’s the problem right there.)
Mormons have intrigued me ever since Mike Huckabee back in 2007 claimed that Mormons believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers. With the recent election over, I decided to check out Mormons a bit more.
My hope in doing this was to explain to readers who Mormons are and whether or not 22 percent of the people were justified in opposing having a Mormon president.
But instead I’m going to share an intriguing bit of Mormon theology I learned that I think makes them perhaps the most politically wise human beings on the planet. Ironically, this story stems from that Huckabee quote about the relationship between Jesus and the devil, but the lesson to be learned is one that, regardless of our political or religious views, we would all be wise to consider.
So here’s what I learned: Mormons, unlike most other Christian sects, believe that all humans lived a life before mortality. They call this the pre-existence or pre-earth life. At birth a veil is placed over our minds so that we don’t remember it (you’ll see why in a minute).
In this pre-earth life, we were all in the presence of God as His spirit children. Jesus was there—the first-born of God’s spirit children, and a leader in the councils in Heaven. Lucifer was also there, and was another leader among the children of God. He was called a “son of the morning.”
At some point in this existence, the Father called all of His children together to explain how things worked. All of His children would have to leave His presence and come to earth for a period of testing. The goal was to see if we would live a righteous life even when we had to live by faith, as we would no longer be able to remember God or heaven (that’s the reason for the veil).
If we would live a righteous life, we would be given the opportunity to return and live with God forever. Otherwise we would forfeit that chance, because no unclean thing can live in God’s presence. However, God knew that we would all make mistakes, so he would provide a Savior for the world. This Savior would live a sinless life, and because of that, he would qualify to pay for the sins of the world through what would be called the “Atonement.” If people would sincerely repent of their sins, then the Atonement would essentially erase their sins, and they could still return and live with God. The Father called for volunteers to be this savior, and two stepped forward: Jesus and Lucifer.
Lucifer said that he would be the savior and he would force everybody to live righteously, thus guaranteeing that all of God’s spirit children would return to Him in heaven [and he, Lucifer would receive all the credit/glory]. Jesus said that He would follow the Father’s plan and allow God’s children their free agency [and all the glory would go to God]. They could choose for themselves whether to live righteously and take advantage of the Atonement or whether to live in sin and forfeit the opportunity to return and live with God.
God rejected Lucifer’s plan, causing Lucifer to rebel and declare war on God. One-third of God’s spirit children joined Lucifer in this rebellion. In the end, the rebellion failed and Lucifer and his followers were cast out of heaven. They came to earth without bodies and now, continuing the war they started in heaven, they tempt men to do evil to one another and lose out on the chance to return to God. [Luke 10:18; Revelation 12:9; Isaiah 14:12]
PAY ATTENTION HERE; THIS IS THE GOOD PART
Now, any traditional Christians reading this will see similarities to their own belief system. Most traditional Christians believe that Lucifer lived in heaven as an angel, but then declared war on God and was cast out. However, the causes for that war are not necessarily clear in traditional Christian theology.
That is where Mormon theology is so intriguing. For Mormons, the greatest of all battles, the war in heaven, was fought over LIBERTY—or as they call it, “free agency.”Lucifer wanted to take it away, while God demanded that humans have it.
Although a Mormon might balk at my making comparisons between their religious beliefs and modern politics (and as I said earlier, every Mormon I’ve ever known was a very good person, so I apologize to any I offend), I see a direct correlation here. For a Mormon, the battle for liberty is not unique to this life; it is the core battle of the ages. Lucifer lost the war in heaven (he really thought he could beat God?), but the war continues on earth. So seeing the government become more and more tyrannical is not just a political concern; it’s a fundamental, eternal concern.
I’m inspired by this Mormon theological idea: God intended for humans to be free to make our own choices and live with the consequences of those choices. The Founding Fathers of this country said essentially the same thing in the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evidence, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
My study of Mormonism has not only given me newfound respect for this people and their religion; it has also made me evaluate my own attitude towards the liberty that seems to be slipping through all of our fingers. Is this just something that is nice to have, and for which I thank the Founding Fathers? Or is it really something that is endowed by God, and that He expects me to fight for. According to Mormon theology, I already fought for this once. The fact that I’m here says that I was on God’s side in the war in heaven, and fought for liberty.
A Mormon might ask, why should any of us be less willing to fight for it here than we were there?
Reprinted from “SMART MORMONS,” By Mike Jensen, January 22, 2013