Lesson for December 14, 2014

Today our lesson was given by Megan Miller. She started out with scriptures from D&C 45:22-33, Matthew 24:14, and 3rd Nephi 25:5-6 about signs of the Second Coming of Christ. Some of the signs in these scriptures are the light of the Gospel being restored, the gathering of Israel, commotion in the Earth, wars and rumors of wars, iniquity abounding, desolating sickness and sickness in general, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ, missionary work and rejection of missionary work, disciples standing in holy places, the hearts of the children shall turn to the fathers and the hearts of the fathers to the children. Megan asked if we are prepared for all of that. President Smith said that most people have the wrong idea by what is meant by the end of the world. When Christ comes, there will be an end to the world. Instead, people will obey and God’s kingdom will come. Megan said we are often scared by the idea of all the things we will face, but if we have the right idea, we can look forward to the end of the world and not be afraid. If we look at the things that will happen, we can see that many have already happened or are happening. So many of the positive things are happening, from missionary work and the Restoration, the boom in family history, the gathering of Israel, etc. Megan went on in the lesson where President Smith said the Lord is not going to wait until we are righteous. When He is ready, He is ready and if we aren’t ready, it will be just too bad. So what can we do to prepare? Don’t panic and don’t worry, if we are living righteously. The Second Coming will happen to all of us no matter if we are on earth or in heaven. We should not worry about offending someone and be glad we are members of the Church. Everybody needs somebody and it might just be the right one who makes a difference. Take every opportunity to serve and grow. Every day, if we are working on improving, we should be prepared. Put oil in our lamps so we can be prepared. In Matthew 24:14 it states that the gospel will be preached in all nations. How have we seen this begin in our lifetime? There are many different kinds of missions now—even from our own homes and on the internet. When the age limit was lowered, so many people were energized to leave. Wasn’t it amazing that their parents had prepared and prepared their children enough to support that kind of mass exodus? So many young people want to go to the temple and do baptisms for the dead. Now so many people have access to Church materials through the media. The Church has a great ad campaign about Share the Gift that Jesus Christ is the gift to the world. There is even a huge ad on Times Square in New York. We can share the Church magazines with each other, as well. Megan turned to the lesson where President Smith said the Latter-day Saints may be considered strange and peculiar that they are the ones to spread this message, but we have confidence that we are the ones and that when the Lord comes again, we will have preached the gospel to everyone. Megan’s brother has been sharing something every night with things he shows his family about the Savior. He does it on Facebook and many people have been touched. In 3rd Nephi 25:5-6 Family History work is mentioned. How is it preparing you? The youth in our ward are so excited to do family history. It is so easy to get on the Internet. Many times the temple is full and there is a good reason why we have so many new ones. The spirit of Elijah is also working on non-members and they are getting excited, too. Even the Vue had Ancestry.com on their television show. It’s great that we see that for what it is and that the Lord has a hand in it. Even the youth who are so tied to their cell phones are trained to do family history. The stories are important, so look for the stories. Only a small portion of the things we have are not digitized. We need to get the stories and pictures digitized. Now up to fifteen minutes of an audio recording can be uploaded to Family Search. Megan showed the video about the 10 virgins where only 5 were wise and 5 were foolish. The foolish ones wanted some of the wise virgins’ oil and were told to go buy some for themselves, but there was none to buy and by the time they got back, the door was closed. We need to be prepared and if we are not, we need to make ourselves be prepared.