Lesson for April 27, 2014 Our lesson today was given by Kristine Hanson. From Elder Bednar’s talk “Bear Up Their Burdens with Ease.” We sang an Easter/Sacrament song because Kristine feels we should celebrate Easter all month. Elder Bednar’s talk began with the story of the man who wanted a truck, took it up in the mountains to cut wood. He got stuck and decided to fill up his truck with the wood he had come for. It was the load of wood that provided the traction to get the truck out of the mud. When he got stuck, he did not sit and wait, he went to work, unlike Bill Card, who had a broken ankle and had to sit and wait for God to answer his prayers. Elder Bednar said we each carry a load made up of opportunities, responsibilities, privileges, and constraints. We need to ask ourselves if our load is the type to lead us back to God. So, children, family, church callings, talents, duties around home, are all privileges, blessings, duties, and loads that can lead us back to God. There are problems that are also loads and these can be constraints. We do want to have enough, but not to excess. We all carry a load. Often our blessings create responsibilities that are loads. Sometimes we may mistakenly believe that the absence of a load is a blessing, but this is not how we are supposed to live. Although there are some things we don’t have to carry, such as guilt, worry, comparing ourselves to others, unreal expectations, carrying grudges, fear instead of faith, remaining offended, judging others, remorse and sorrow, clutter, too many obligations and commitments. We need to have just the right weight to give us the traction we need. The Savior’s Atonement will help us carry our loads. Christ said for us to give Him our burdens and he will help us. His burden is light and easy. We often feel like we have a yoke on us, but the Savior’s yoke is easy to bear. The story of Alma and his followers and Amulon who placed great burdens on them in Mosiah 24:10-15. The people poured out their hearts to God and were answered that their burdens would be lightened and then taken away so they would know that the Lord can ease burdens and is their God and because of the covenant they had made with God. We need to be yoked with the Lord by our covenants and together we can pull much more than we might expect. Emily Campbell told us about how her covenants have helped her. She said that being yoked, we are side-by-side partners with the Lord. She said the talk related to her situation with three children with a terminal illness. The younger two are getting somewhat better, but the oldest just wants to die. The heavy load they carry helps them to know God, to know that certain things are true and to know real joy. The pain and trials have given them joy and an increased capacity beyond their normal strength. The ways you stretch and grow stay with you so you are stronger and better than you were before. It removes your focus from the world and gives you the assurance that her covenants made in the temple mean something—that she gets to keep her children. Kristine asked how covenants have helped us. Bonnie said her husband has many health problems and her oldest son has cancer. She has received a witness that these things don’t matter as long as she and her family keeps the covenants. Cyrstelle Boyadjin said she is not a humble person and can hold a grudge forever. Her parents are divorced and her stepfather was abusive. When she found the gospel, she had to get over the hate she felt for that man. After she saw him again years later and saw how sick he was from being an alcoholic, she felt free of the hate and she felt sorry for him. She felt like she was finally able to understand the covenants she had made with the Lord and the bondage she had been under. She said pride is a bondage, but we need to remember our covenants and be humble and we will be rich in blessings. She is grateful that the Lord freed her. Heather Cantrell realizes that because her son died as a drug addict, she must live the best she can and make it so she can be with her son again, who must experience the refiner’s fire. Most of us know that when we must repent, we can come clean through the Atonement, but we must also acknowledge that the Atonement is for all of us.

Lesson for April 27, 2014 Our lesson today was given by Kristine Hanson. From Elder Bednar’s talk “Bear Up Their Burdens with Ease.” We sang an Easter/Sacrament song because Kristine feels we should celebrate Easter all month. Elder Bednar’s talk began with the story of the man who wanted a truck, took it up in the mountains to cut wood. He got stuck and decided to fill up his truck with the wood he had come for. It was the load of wood that provided the traction to get the truck out of the mud. When he got stuck, he did not sit and wait, he went to work, unlike Bill Card, who had a broken ankle and had to sit and wait for God to answer his prayers. Elder Bednar said we each carry a load made up of opportunities, responsibilities, privileges, and constraints. We need to ask ourselves if our load is the type to lead us back to God. So, children, family, church callings, talents, duties around home, are all privileges, blessings, duties, and loads that can lead us back to God. There are problems that are also loads and these can be constraints. We do want to have enough, but not to excess. We all carry a load. Often our blessings create responsibilities that are loads. Sometimes we may mistakenly believe that the absence of a load is a blessing, but this is not how we are supposed to live. Although there are some things we don’t have to carry, such as guilt, worry, comparing ourselves to others, unreal expectations, carrying grudges, fear instead of faith, remaining offended, judging others, remorse and sorrow, clutter, too many obligations and commitments. We need to have just the right weight to give us the traction we need. The Savior’s Atonement will help us carry our loads. Christ said for us to give Him our burdens and he will help us. His burden is light and easy. We often feel like we have a yoke on us, but the Savior’s yoke is easy to bear. The story of Alma and his followers and Amulon who placed great burdens on them in Mosiah 24:10-15. The people poured out their hearts to God and were answered that their burdens would be lightened and then taken away so they would know that the Lord can ease burdens and is their God and because of the covenant they had made with God. We need to be yoked with the Lord by our covenants and together we can pull much more than we might expect. Emily Campbell told us about how her covenants have helped her. She said that being yoked, we are side-by-side partners with the Lord. She said the talk related to her situation with three children with a terminal illness. The younger two are getting somewhat better, but the oldest just wants to die. The heavy load they carry helps them to know God, to know that certain things are true and to know real joy. The pain and trials have given them joy and an increased capacity beyond their normal strength. The ways you stretch and grow stay with you so you are stronger and better than you were before. It removes your focus from the world and gives you the assurance that her covenants made in the temple mean something—that she gets to keep her children. Kristine asked how covenants have helped us. Bonnie said her husband has many health problems and her oldest son has cancer. She has received a witness that these things don’t matter as long as she and her family keeps the covenants. Cyrstelle Boyadjin said she is not a humble person and can hold a grudge forever. Her parents are divorced and her stepfather was abusive. When she found the gospel, she had to get over the hate she felt for that man. After she saw him again years later and saw how sick he was from being an alcoholic, she felt free of the hate and she felt sorry for him. She felt like she was finally able to understand the covenants she had made with the Lord and the bondage she had been under. She said pride is a bondage, but we need to remember our covenants and be humble and we will be rich in blessings. She is grateful that the Lord freed her. Heather Cantrell realizes that because her son died as a drug addict, she must live the best she can and make it so she can be with her son again, who must experience the refiner’s fire. Most of us know that when we must repent, we can come clean through the Atonement, but we must also acknowledge that the Atonement is for all of us.

Easter Lesson--April 20,2014

Lesson for April 20, 2014 Our lesson today is about Joseph and Hyrum Smith, Witnesses for Jesus Christ and is given by Amy Fehlberg. Something she read stuck with her—that Joseph Smith and Jesus Christ both brought about things that help people and their salvation—Jesus Christ atoned for our sins and Joseph Smith helped restore the gospel so we can benefit from the Atonement. Joseph Fielding Smith was the nephew of Joseph Smith and the grandson of Hyrum Smith. Joseph Fielding Smith learned about Joseph Smith from his father, Joseph F. Smith. Amy gained her testimony from her father who is interested in Church history. We can enjoy the blessings and benefits that are a result of Joseph Smith restoring the gospel. We can help others gain a testimony of Joseph Smith by teaching them to read the Book of Mormon, help them read Joseph Smith’s own testimony, help our children to teach each other about the Restoration. We can point out to teenagers that older people have experienced the world, but of course Joseph Smith had not yet been tainted by the world, so of course God would choose to restore the gospel through someone untainted by the world. Joseph Smith had a knowledge of the plan and the restoration by the gift of God. If we struggle with saying that we know that the gospel is true, we have a spiritual knowledge that is different from scientific knowledge. Before Joseph Smith saw God, he was a fourteen-year-old boy with only the education of about the fourth grade. But he had been taught well by his parents. If he had been educated by the world, he would no longer be innocent and have to unlearn it. Sister Bahr said it was not the learned who believed in Christ. Someone who is learned would have to unlearn the falsehoods of the world. Sister Cantrell said the Lord had judged the contents of Joseph Smith’s heart and judged him worthy to restore the gospel. Joseph Smith probably knew that who the Lord calls, He qualifies. He had to do it with the Lord’s help. In the Book of Mormon it says that the Lord will make him great. As long as we put our trust in the Lord and know he will help us do difficult things. If we are supposed to forgive seven times seventy, how many times will the Lord forgive us? Having the gospel in our lives helps us through them. We need to put our trust in the Lord so we can do all things that the Lord wants us to do. We don’t have to do it alone, as Joseph Smith had Hyrum. How do we treat our younger siblings? Hyrum was a helper to his brother, which is not often the case with older brothers. The Lord said that he loves Hyrum because of the righteousness of his heart. Hyrum had deep tenderness of heart and loved that which is right. He loved his brother better than his own life. They had been through a lot together and knew they could trust each other. Emily Campbell said that their trials and bearing each others’ burdens have made her children love each other more than she loved her siblings. God wants us to treat each other as sisters and brothers so we can have heavenly love for each other. Joseph said that Hyrum’s name would be written in the Book of the Lord as a pattern for others to follow. They supported each other. Who is our companion here on earth? The Holy Ghost, friends, families, companions, all help us, because we can’t do it alone. Joseph Smith said his testimony last of all is that Jesus Christ lives.

Lesson for April 13, 2014

Lesson for April 13, 2014 Our lesson today was given by Maggie Kopp. It is on the Significance of the Sacrament, Chapter 6. We are focusing on preparing for our Easter holiday next week. The partaking of the sacrament is one of the most sacred ordinances in the Church. We take the name of the Savior on us to stand as a witness of Him. It is a renewing of our covenants. It is a promise to always remember Him. It is a covenant to keep the commandments. Maggie wants to talk about getting ready. She experienced graduate school at a Catholic school and they tried to remember the Atonement, very seriously. What are some things we can do to remember the Atonement? How can we keep our covenants to keep the Spirit with us so we can remember? She asked when we have been prepared to keep Easter. Jill Judd said that it has helped to realize that we need it now. Singing hymns, especially sacrament hymns, makes it more special to us. When we explain it to our children, helps us understand it. Charlene Farnworth remembered a time in her mission during a political coup and when they were able to get to church in that hard time. It meant more to her. One sister had to stay in Laramie, Wyoming after doing temple work in SLC, because of a storm. On the way home on the bus they had a 3-hour sacrament meeting that left an impression. The sacrament is a special time to President Smith. Kristine Hanson sometimes re-reads the hymn just sung, sometimes she reads scriptures, sometimes she prays. Others read the sacrament prayers. Maggie loves two poems that express the meaning of the sacrament. She was given one by Eloise Bell, a professor at BYU. Paige Gibson said that to just take it and not think about it is not right, but that we need to appreciate what the sacrament means. Another poem by a woman who used to publish in the old Relief Society magazine. This one is about the effort put into the making of the bread. The things that we do with our hands for one another are a labor of love. The sacrament bread being broken feeds all of us, our brothers and sisters. President Smith said it is impossible for us to understand the extent of Christ’s sacrifice for us, but we can recognize that it was extraordinary and was taken on by His love for us. Therefore, there is nothing that the Lord asks of us that is too much for us to do. If we take the sacrament and keep the commandments and remember the Lord, we will be less likely to do something wrong. SueAnn Hardng said it is also a time for us to recommit to doing what we should. Lisa Anderson said it is a time for us to get a fresh slate. It is a time to repent and recommit. Even if we do something wrong, we can repent. There is a difference in our lives when we can. Vira Bahr said the exhibit at BYU of Carl Bloch’s paintings affected her a great deal. She loved seeing the paintings depicting the Savior’s life, because they brought His life to light. We also discussed ways to get ready for Easter, such as special food, having Easter egg hunts on Saturday, going on an Easter walk finding symbols of Christ’s resurrection. Music is a great symbol of Easter. As we are preparing for Easter, maybe we can challenge ourselves to find other things to remind us of Easter and create traditions.

Relief Society Dinner Tuesday, April 15

At 6:30 this Tuesday evening is our Relief Society dinner. Babysitting provided.

Combined meeting for Relief Society and Priesthood

We learned about missionary work and how we learn and grow in the gospel.

Lesson for March 23, 2014

Lesson for March 23, 2014 Our lesson today was given by Kristine Hanson, the Moral Force of Women. She started with a story, “ Consider now, in summary, a true story from Australian history that illustrates the power of women’s moral influence as mothers of hope, women of fidelity, wives of commitment, and nurturers of human ties. In its early decades as a British colony, Australia was a vast wilderness designated as a jail for exiled convicts. Until 1850, six of every seven people who went “down under” from Britain were men. And the few women who went were often convicts or social outcasts themselves. The men ruthlessly exploited them, sexually and in other ways. With few exceptions, these women without hope were powerless to change their conditions. In about 1840, a reformer named Caroline Chisholm urged that more women would stabilize the culture. She told the British government the best way to establish a community of “great and good people” in Australia: “For all the clergy you can dispatch, all the schoolmasters you can appoint, all the churches you can build, and all the books you can export, will never do much good without . . . ‘God’s police’-- wives and little children--good and virtuous women.” Chisholm searched for women who would raise “the moral standard of the people.” She spent twenty years traveling to England, recruiting young women and young couples who believed in the common sense principles of family life. Over time, these women tamed the men who were taming the wild land; and civil society in Australia gradually emerged. Also, the colonial governments enacted policies that elevated women’s status and reinforced family life.[23] As one historian said, “the initial reluctance of the wild colonial boys to marry was eroded fairly quickly.” Eventually, thousands of new immigrants who shared the vision of these “good and virtuous women” established stable families as the basic unit of Australian society more quickly than had occurred “anywhere else in the Western world.”[24] This striking story of women’s moral influence grew from a conscious design to replace “the penal colony’s rough and wild ways” with “a more moral civilization.” The reformers intentionally capitalized on women’s innate “civilizing” capacity. [25] These women made Australia a promised land that flowed with a healthy ecosystem of milk and honey. And the milk, literally and figuratively, was mother’s milk--the milk of human kindness. That milk nurtures those habits of the heart without which no civil society can sustain itself. Anne Summers, Damned Whores and God’s Police (Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 1975, 1994) Women have a moral force. Elder Christofferson said “Women bring with them into the world, a certain virtue, a divine gift that makes them adept at instilling such qualities as faith, courage, empathy, and refinement in relationships and in cultures.” Women exert their moral force in the home, where a father and a mother work in harmony to provide for, teach and nurture their children. A mother’s love and high expectations lead her children to act responsibly without excuses, to be serious about education and personal development, and to make ongoing contributions to the well-being of all around them. “Most sacred is a woman’s role in the creation of life. . . . As grandmothers, mothers, and role models, women have been the guardians of the wellspring of life, teach each generation the importance of sexual purity—of chastity before marriage and fidelity within marriage. In this way, they have been a civilizing influence in society; they have brought out the best in men; they have perpetuated wholesome environments in which to raise and secure healthy children.” Kristine told about her aunt whose funeral she just attended, whose family all gathered around the grave site and were examples of the influence she had on her family. Some of us feel the influence of our mothers even after they have gone to the other side. “A pernicious philosophy that undermines women’s moral influence is the devaluation of marriage and of motherhood and homemaking as a career. Some view homemaking with outright contempt, arguing it demeans women and that the relentless demands of raising children are a form of exploitation. . . There is no superior career, and no amount of money, authority, or public acclaim can exceed the ultimate rewards of family. Whatever else a woman may accomplish, her moral influence is no more optimally employed than here.” “Attitudes toward human sexuality threaten the moral authority of women on several fronts.” Claudia Laycock said it all comes down to what you can do. Some mother are great mothers and some are pretty poor, but some really can do it all. We need to understand that each person is in a unique circumstance. It is important to know that no matter their circumstances, childless or not, they can be role models to others and still be a moral influence. Lisa Buckner said her sister-in-law is a great moral example to Lisa’s daughter. Still, we need to contribute to the positive, and not the degrading equal opportunity promiscuity, coarseness in language, immodesty in dress. The world has a double standard that have caused men not rising to a higher standard, women have lowered their standards to wallow in the muck with men without conscience. We need to stand up and teach girls and boys to keep the standard of moral purity that will benefit society or society will experience degradation and. The third problem is when the line between genders is erased. We need to teach children that it is OK to be girls and OK to be boys. How do women maintain their ability to be a moral force? We need to preserve our innate virtue that is within us. And we need not apologize for our moral standards. God is the source of our moral power and we need to strive to maintain that relationship. Recommended reading: Bruce L. Hafen, “Motherhood and the Moral Influence of Women,” http://worldcongress.org/wfc2_spkrs/wcf2_hafen.htm Sheri Dew, “Are We Not All Mothers?” Ensign, Nov. 2001.