My dear friends,
What an amazing week every week can be thanks to the knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ that we have. This week was full of very interesting and bizarre events haha. We had to move back into a different apartment so my new address till. There is only a slight ant infestation in this apartment so the lord has most definitely showered us with more blessings from above! I can say that im in winter phase 1 as we are hitting temperatures of 60 at the highest. This is not that cold, but when thats the "winter" temperature of las vegas. You can't blame me right? We got pranked by some of our investigators this week as they recorded us to try and catch our reactions. But being the old prankster that I am.. I spotted the hidden camera haha. Can't say i have ever been recorded before though. We also got a brand new 2017 Toyota Tacoma to drive around ahah it had 60 miles on it when we got it so that has been fun to drive around haha.
My thoughts from this week come from a few different sources and insights. Over the course of the week I realized once again how much I am under utilizing one of the greatest gifts our Heavenly Father has given us. That is the enabling and strengthening power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
I would say that many of us are quite familiar with the redemptive power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. But do we as latter-day saints and children of God utilize the enabling and strengthening power?
I love 1 Nephi chapter 17 because Nephi was asked to do alot of different things in this chapter that I would add.. weren't exactly the easiest things either.
in verse 3 we read about one of the most stressed and talked about principle in the Book of Mormon.
"And thus we see that the commandments of God must be fulfilled. And if it so be that the children of men keep the commandments of God he doth nourish them, and strengthen them, and provide means whereby they can accomplish the thing which he has commanded them; wherefore, he did provide means for us while we did sojourn in the wilderness."
We later read in verse 51:
"And now, if the Lord has such great power, and has wrought so many miracles among the children of men, how is it that he cannot instruct me, that I should build a ship?"
We can take that verse and change "that I should build a ship" to any commandment of our Heavenly Father that we are struggling with. The key is are we accessing that enabling and strengthening power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ?
In Elder David A. Bednar's talk " In the Strength of the Lord" he shares a powerful example:
“Game soon became so scarce that we could kill nothing. We ate all the poor meat; one would get hungry eating it. Finally that was all gone, nothing now but hides were left. We made a trial of them. A lot was cooked and eaten without any seasoning and it made the whole company sick. Many were so turned against the stuff that it made them sick to think of it. . . .
“Things looked dark, for nothing remained but the poor raw hides taken from starved cattle. We asked the Lord to direct us what to do. The brethren did not murmur, but felt to trust in God. We had cooked the hide, after soaking and scraping the hair off until it was soft and then ate it, glue and all. This made it rather inclined to stay with us longer than we desired. Finally I was impressed how to fix the stuff and gave the company advice, telling them how to cook it; for them to scorch and scrape the hair off; this had a tendency to kill and purify the bad taste that scalding gave it. After scraping, boil one hour in plenty of water, throwing the water away which had extracted all the glue, then wash and scrape the hide thoroughly, washing in cold water, then boil to a jelly and let it get cold, and then eat with a little sugar sprinkled on it. This was considerable trouble, but we had little else to do and it was better than starving” (Daniel W. Jones,Forty Years Among the Indians [Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1890], 81).
All that I have read thus far is a preparation for the next line from Daniel W. Jones’ journal. It illustrates how those pioneer Saints may have known something about the enabling power of the Atonement that we, in our prosperity and ease, are not as quick to understand: “We asked the Lord to bless our stomachs andadapt them to this food” (Jones, Forty Years, 81; emphasis added). My dear brothers and sisters, I know what I would have prayed for in those circumstances. I would have prayed for something else to eat. “Heavenly Father, please send me a quail or a buffalo.” It never would have occurred to me to pray that my stomach would be strengthened and adapted to what we already had. What did Daniel W. Jones know? He knew about the enabling power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. He did not pray that his circumstances would be changed. He prayed that he would be strengthened to deal with his circumstances. Just as Nephi, Amulek, and Alma and his people were strengthened, Daniel W. Jones had the spiritual insight to know what to ask for in that prayer. “We hadn’t the faith to ask him to bless the raw-hide, for it was ‘hard stock.’ On eating now all seemed to relish the feast. We were three days without eating before this second attempt was made. We enjoyed this sumptuous fare for about six weeks” (Jones, Forty Years, 81–82).
The enabling power of the Atonement of Christ strengthens us to do things we could never do on our own. Sometimes I wonder if in our latter-day world of ease—in our world of microwave ovens and cell phones and air-conditioned cars and comfortable homes—I wonder if we ever learn to acknowledge our daily dependence upon the enabling power of the Atonement."
I know this power is real. May we use it. May we also prepare ourselves to head to the words of our modern prophets and apostles to hear what commandments the Lord will ask us to accomplish. We aren't alone in this life! we never are!
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| Look to the Lord, He will guide your Path! - Elder Gerrard and Elder Pettijohn |
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