Hola!! Feliz (día después) día de
los madres!!
It was so awesome to be able to talk
to you guys yesterday!! I love you! You're the best. :)
We didn't end up having a lesson.
They weren't there, but we talked with another lady who wants us to come teach
her family and give them a prayer that should be cool. :)
That's weird that you're talking to
Abi, but it's cool. Haha yeah I miss Bradenton, but it'll be fun to go visit.
We might go exploring later. We haven't had much time yet. And Elder Lagunas
family is good. Everything is going well.
Alright, well, not much to say so
I'll combine the spiritual experience and the scripture again. I'm just going
to put the gist of my talk from sacrament in here. It's kind of long, but it
was fun preparing for. Here it is:
"So I was asked to speak on how
to make and keep covenants to lead us to the temple. And along with that, I
need to incorporate mothers.
I am going to be taking ideas from
two conference talks for today. One of them was from last October. It is called
"Personal Strength Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ" - Elder
Richard G. Scott. The other is from this last one in April. It is titled
"A Priceless Heritage of Hope" - President Henry B. Eyring.
A Priceless Heritage of Hope... What
does that mean? Well, a heritage is something we leave behind for our
descendants and, this heritage is priceless. President Eyring talks about one
of his Great Grandparents who was a convert from Germany. This man went through
a lot. He served 3 missions, all of which were longer than 2 years, and he left
a family for all of them. He suffered many trials and afflictions, but he was
happy. He knew the truth that this gospel has and he taught his family that. He
left President Eyring with a priceless heritage of hope. We can do the same.
Ere is an example of this in the BOM. I would like to share this story with you
today and while I am going through the story I will pause and kind of pull it
apart so that we can relate it to ourselves.
Now, we all know the story of the
2000 stripling warriors. They were a band of young men who had to fight because
their fathers had sworn to never again pick up their weapons of war. Although I
love the story of these courageous young men, I would like to focus on their
fathers. Their fathers grew up as Lamanites. They hated the Nephites and
delighted in the shedding of blood. They loved war. They were carnal. However,
they were converted by some missionaries and they immediately Covenanted with
God to bury their weapons of war. These brave men would rather just stand there
and die when their enemies came to fight them, rather than take up their arms
and fight back. This act ended up converting many of their enemies, who then
joined their band and buried their weapons as well.
Now, I have your attention and want
to bring something else up. We will come back to the story in a minute. We have
many covenants that can and will lead us to the temple. We have the baptismal
covenant, which we hear every week as the sacrament is blessed. The men in this
chapel have priesthood covenants, and the women are there to help us keep these
sacred covenants. And, of course, we have the covenants that we make in the
temple. But how do we make and keep our covenants in order to get to the
temple? Well, baptism is an essential ordinance in order to make the baptismal
covenant. There we made the covenant. Now what? How do we keep it? Well, we
need to know what it is first. We promise to always remember our savior.
Always. This takes a lot of effort. This takes time. And in turn, we are
promised to always have his spirit to be with us.
These basic covenants are not the
only ones that we can make. This is where the story comes back into place. The
fathers could not fight because they had made a covenant with The Lord. The
sons, however, could fight, because they had not made the same covenant. They
did not need to. Sometimes, we make mistakes. We mess up. Each of us has our
own weaknesses. Some may be similar, but they are different depending on the
person. These fathers knew that if they began to fight again, they would fall
back into their old ways. Yes, they had repented and they had been forgiven.
But once they put themselves in that situation, Satan now has more power. He
knows us perfectly. He remembers before this life. He knows how to tempt us. So
these fathers could not break their covenant. Sometimes, we might have to make
our own personal covenants with God. We know our weaknesses. We know how Satan
works on us. So, in order to get to the temple, we need to follow those basic
essential covenants, but we might also have to make our own, specifically for
us.
The great thing about this, is that
we don't ever have to do it alone. We always have God there with us, and we
also have our earthly parents. This is where our mothers come into play. They
raised us, they cleaned up after us, they taught us right from wrong. Our
wonderful mothers have made us who we are today. And the 2000 stripling
warriors were successful because of their faithful mothers. I would like to
read two quick versus in Alma 56: 47-48. It says:
47 Now they never had fought, yet
they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their
fathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had been taught by their
mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them.
48 And they rehearsed unto me the
words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it.
The mothers of these young men
had taught them how to be faithful, trusting, obedient, loving, dependent on
God, and of course, how to keep a covenant.
Due to the faith of these mothers
and the way they had raised their sons, none of the 2000 warriors were killed
in battle. They were all injured to some degree, but none of them lost their
life. As we make and keep our covenants we will face trials. Things will be
hard. We might have to deal with some spiritual blows and some tough times. But
as we stay faithful and rely on The Lord and what we have learned, we will
never die. We will always triumph over evil and we will be able to make it to
the temple to continue making and keeping our covenants. These wonderful mothers
left their sons with a priceless heritage of hope. Each of us can start now. We
need to do our best to make and keep covenants, as well as show and teach our
children how to do the same. They look up to us and we need to lead them along
the right path.
Motherhood is difficult. Nobody said
it was supposed to be easy. But each of you are part of a divine partnership
with God. Yes, you are raising your children, but they are his children too. He
is always there to help you, especially during those times when you don't think
you can keep going. God loves each of you for your sacrifice and for your
willingness to help him raise his children. Each of you, is leaving a priceless
heritage of hope for your children. They might now realize it now, but they
will eventually. I always knew that my mom made sacrifices for me and my
siblings, but I never realized how difficult it was for her until I got out here.
I am so grateful for my mom and everything that she has done for me. I would not be here right now if it weren't for her. And I am so grateful for all of the faithful women in my life. I am grateful for the opportunity that we have to celebrate you amazing women today. You don't receive as much thanks as you deserve, yet you keep going. You are blessed daughters of our Heavenly Father and he loves you very much. I know that this church is true and I know that we have the families that we have for a reason. "
So that was basically my talk. Some
parts were different, but those are kind of my notes from all week. :) I love
you all!! Have an amazing week!! Happy late Mother's Day to all of you
wonderful women!!
Love,
Elder Moyes
