Class 2 (Spring 2012)--4 Legs of the Table

Katie’s Experiment (Negativity Fast)

Katie took Sister Tanner’s parenting class 4 years ago.  Her biggest problem was that she didn’t feel “joy in motherhood.”  For 4 years she has constantly been re-evaluating.  Each year on the 1^st fast Sunday of the year she fasts to find out what she needs to work on for the year.  This year she knew she needed to work on her anger and negative things she was always saying.  Her thought was “I need to do a 28-day Negativity Fast”.  The feeling came over her that she needed to find the positives.

She would miss seeing the clean laundry was folded, but instead commented on the dishes that weren’t done.  She decided that she needed to say 5 positive things before she anything negative.  She made a list of what she needed to do. 

1. Pray in the morning before leaving her bedroom.
2. Repent of her weaknesses during prayer and ask for help and guidance from Heavenly Father throughout the day. 
1. Mornings were always rough with one child.  She would end up in her room in tears or calling her husband. 
2. Katie decided that her daughter’s day doesn’t reflect her day.  Her moments aren’t my moments.  There has been more peace in her home.
3. Daily repentance in prayer allows her to start over. 
4. Those little things that happen during the day don’t become her day. 
5. She is not perfect, but she expects to repent everyday.
6. She is starting to recognize her physical response and can repent immediately. 
3. Look at the positives
1. Say 5 positives before you say anything negative.
2. Look for positives in children as well as spouse.
4. Rid myself of my negative talk
1. “Stop!”  “Quit!” “I’m done!”
5. On her to-do list she has “serendipities” which are things she looks for during the day in her children.  Good joyful mother moments.
6. Say 3 positives everyday to each child
7. Gratitude journal for the day
8. End the day in prayer & review, but continually pray through out the day.

 

·       She is their camp counselor down here on earth.

·       This experiment is one that all LDS women need.

·       We get down on ourselves because we aren’t perfect.  We need to find joy in the journey.

·       We often pray Heavenly Father a “to-do” list rather than deciding what we need to do and then asking for his help in doing what you have decided.

·       Her prayer was a specific “I will do this for 28 days….we you help me thru it.”

·       The key is daily repentance.  Repentance is a commitment to change.

·       Then return & report at night.

·       At the end of 28 days she will have a new habit, but won’t be perfect at it.

·       She’ll catch herself more often before she has those explosive moments.

·       The Atonement cleanses you.

·       This is teaching the gospel brought down on a daily living level.

·       Our desires are impeccable.  We have righteous desires.  How do we go about implementing that?  We get hung up in the mists of darkness.

·       In the “Tree of Life” when Lehi partook of the fruit and then looked around for his family.  Sariah came.  Laman & Lemuel didn’t come.  Some came to the tree and partook then drifted away.  The tree was not a destination.  Fruit = joyous moments).  We don’t live in those even if we want to.

·       What is your personal mist of darkness?

·       What keeps you from partaking of the fruit more often?

·       You can be “doing” and still be encompassed in the mists of darkness.

·       What would you be willing to do to get out of it.

Ensign 1976Jeffrey R Holland 

“The quality of our obedience to God’s commands is still the clearest expression of the quality of our faith in him.”

Donald L. Staheli, "Obedience—Life’s Great Challenge", Ensign, May 1998, 81

President Ezra Taft Benson put it most poignantly when he said, “When obedience ceases to be an irritant and becomes our quest, in that moment God will endow us with power.”

·       The Pharisees obeyed every law with exactness.  They lived the law.   Jesus Christ called them hypocrites. 

·       It has to do with the intentions of the heart.

Dieter F. Uchtdorf, "“You Are My Hands”", Ensign, May 2010, 68–70, 75

“We can spend our days obsessing about the finest details of life, the law, and long lists of things to do; but should we neglect the great commandments, we are missing the point and we are clouds without water, drifting in the winds, and trees without fruit.”

·       There is no guilt….we just want to try harder, change percentages.

STORY:

Cory, Sister Tanner’s son, works for Johnson & Johnson.  He is getting ready to move back to New Jersey.  He will be part of a Global team to market ‘Aberaderone’.  It is not on the market yet.  Usually drugs have to be tested for 3 years before going to the FDA, however this drug was so successful that after 18 months they took the patients that were on the placebo off the placebo and put them on Aberaderone and sent the medication directly to the FDA for approval.  The medication increases the life expectancy of someone with Prostate Cancer that has only 1 year left to live for another 4-6 months.  There will be a huge demand for the drug.  It will cost $5000/month for the medication, but the medication gives people hope.

·       How much would you pay to have a drug to save your family?

·       Heavenly Father has given us the drug.

·       Do you think in the last 10 years when things have gotten tough that Heavenly Father closed the heavens to protecting our families?

·       We get crazy fearful about protecting our families

·       Because the way is simple we don’t do it.

1 Nephi 19:7

For the things which some men esteem to be of great worth, both to the body and soul, others set at ^anaught and trample under their feet. Yea, even the very God of Israel do men ^btrample under their feet; I say, trample under their feet but I would speak in other words—they set him at naught, and ^chearken not to the voice of his counsels.

·       The law of the witnesses – in 2 or 3 all things are testified of.

·       If you have a table and all 4 legs are sturdy and strong the table will be secure and it will stand firm.  No matter the trials, no matter the filth.  It will keep the foundation firm. 

4 Table Legs:

1.     Family & Personal Scripture Study

2.     Family & Personal Prayer

3.     Family Home Evening

4.     Temple Attendance

D&C 130:20-21

20There is a ^alaw, irrevocably decreed in ^bheaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all ^cblessings are predicated—

21And when we obtain any ^ablessing from God, it is by ^bobedience to that law upon which it is predicated.

·       If you want a particular blessing find the blessing you want and obey the law to get that blessing.

·       In our homes we want respect, love, obedience, testimony, responsibility, & hard work from our children.

·       We want the blessing list and want to get rid of the problem list.

·       Do them with the attitude of a quest instead of just obeying the law.

Stephen Covey’s story about big rocks. Here’s the story:

In the middle of a seminar on time management, recalls Covey in his book First Things First, the lecturer said, "Okay, it's time for a quiz." Reaching under the table, he pulled out a wide-mouthed gallon jar and set it on the table next to a platter covered with fist-sized rocks. "How many of these rocks do you think we can get in the jar?" he asked the audience.

After the students made their guesses, the seminar leader said, "Okay, let's find out." He put one rock in the jar, then another, then another--until no more rocks would fit. Then he asked, "Is the jar full?"

Everybody could see that not one more of the rocks would fit, so they said, "Yes."

"Not so fast," he cautioned. From under the table he lifted out a bucket of gravel, dumped it in the jar, and shook it. The gravel slid into all the little spaces left by the big rocks. Grinning, the seminar leader asked once more, "Is the jar full?"

A little wiser by now, the students responded, "Probably not."

"Good," the teacher said. Then he reached under the table to bring up a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in the jar. While the students watched, the sand filled in the little spaces left by the rocks and gravel. Once more he looked at the class and said, "Now, is the jar full?"

"No," everyone shouted back.

"Good!" said the seminar leader, who then grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it into the jar. He got something like a quart of water into that jar before he said, "Ladies and gentlemen, the jar is now full. Can anybody tell me the lesson you can learn from this? What's my point?"

An eager participant spoke up: "Well, there are gaps in your schedule. And if you really work at it, you can always fit more into your life."

"No," the leader said. "That's not the point. The point is this: if I hadn't put those big rocks in first, I would never have gotten them in."

In both our business and personal lives, we have big rocks, gravel, sand and water. The natural tendency seems to favor the latter three elements, leaving little space for the big rocks. In an effort to respond to the urgent, the important is sometimes set aside.

·       Pray before leaving your room.

·       Temple attendance commandment is “regular temple visits”.  If you only go 1 time a year you might be keeping the commandment, however if you looked at it as a “quest” could you find time to go more often?

 

Family & Personal Prayer:

How many time per day are we commanded to pray?

·       2x/day Family prayer—morning & night

·       2x/day Personal prayer—morning & night

·       3x/day Blessing on the food

·       1x/day Couple prayer

·       Total is 8x per day at least!!!

It is a protection to your family

·       We are brought out of the world 8x/day to return to the Lord.

·       It is easier to keep our priorities straight

·       Personal prayers---purpose, real intent, & return and report

President Faust in the World Wide Leadership Meeting Jan 10, 2004 said, "there are many challenges facing the family." 

Commandment:  Prayer

Blessings:           -Bonding Experience  

                    -Indispensable to personal happiness

                    -Love increases

                    -Receive answers to family problems

                    -Ease family tensions

·       If you are having a hard time finding out how to make it work change our outlook….make it a quest….if you are on a quest you will seek others out and ask them how they are doing it and try some of their ideas.

o      One family does a family cheer after prayer.  If the 2 year old is good during prayer she can participate.

“When we kneel in family prayer, our children at our side and on their knees are learning habits that will stay with them all through their lives,” said President Spencer W. Kimball. “If we do not take time for prayers, what we are actually saying to our children is, ‘Well, it isn’t very important, anyway. We won’t worry about it. …’ Unless planned for, [prayer] never seems to be convenient. On the other hand, what a joyous thing it is to establish such customs and habits in the home that when parents visit their children in the latter’s homes after they are married they just naturally kneel with them in the usual, established manner of prayer!” (The Miracle of Forgiveness, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1969, p. 253.)

·       The atmosphere before and after is important.

·       Ask each person if there is something that they need help with that we can pray for. 

·       Don’t allow others to demean them when they ask for help.

·       Pray for help on behalf of that family member.  It will draw families closer together.  Then the next night check up on that person (return & report) and see how things went.

·       Families started falling apart after WWI when women left home and went to work.

Personal Prayer:

·       Prepares you to be a teacher through out the day.

·       It’s like putting gas in the care.  It gives you power to face the day.

·       Book:  “Drawing on the Powers of Heaven” by Grant Von Harrison

Family Scripture Study:

Commandment:          Ready scriptures daily, but there is not a length requirement.

Blessings:              -Spirit of reverence will increase

                              -There will be mutual respect

                              -Spirit of contention will depart

                              -Parents will counsel in love and wisdom

                              -Children will be more responsive and submissive

                              -Righteousness will increase

                              -Faith, hope, and charity will abound

                              -There will be peace, joy, and happiness

                              -Follow counsel

                              -Love more intensely those whom we should love

                              -Lessons of life learned more readily

                             

The spirit of contention will depart. Parents will counsel their children in greater love and wisdom. Children will be more responsive and submissive to that counsel. Righteousness will increase. Faith, hope, and charity—the pure love of Christ—will abound in our homes and lives, bringing in their wake peace, joy, and happiness.” (Ezra Taft Benson, “Cleansing the Inner Vessel,” Ensign, May 1986, 4"  Quoted  Marion G. Romney, in Conference Report, Apr. 1960, pp. 110–13)

Practices:

·       Each child needs their own set of scriptures

·       Red pencil

·       Teach them how to read the scriptures (directly from the scriptures, not movies, or dramatized books)

·       Teach them their scriptures are a workbook for life.  They don’t have to be kept neat and clean and never be written in them.

·       “Scripture Scouts”---stories and songs

·       Children are learning to love the scriptures

Family Home Evening:

Commandment:          Have regular Monday night Family Home Evenings

Blessings:              -Love for parents strengthened

                              -Love for siblings enhances

                              -Love for Lord increased

                              -Love at home

                              -Obedience to parents increase

                              -Faith will develop

                         -Gain power to combat the evil influences

·       Most of the time prophets don’t say “Thou shalt” before they give you a commandment.  If they did you would probably listen to it and do everything in your power to make it happen. 

Gordon B. Hinckley, “To Men of the Priesthood,” Ensign, Nov 2002, 56

“And we urge, in the strongest terms possible, that fathers and mothers regard most seriously this opportunity and challenge to make of Monday evening a time sacred to the family.”

• Purpose of FHE is for the family to bond together and teach gospel principles. Occasionally you can have other activities, but that should be the exception not the rule.
• Have fun learning the gospel
• Make it fun
• Prepare it with enthusiasm.  It should be a quest not an irritant.
• It requires a huge effort.
• Have children be involved.
• Make sure you teach all 4 levels of application:  Knowledge, Understanding, Internalize, Apply.

(President Harold B. Lee; "Ye Are the Light of the World", pg 82; also found in the LDS Speakers Source Book)

"We promise that great blessings will result.  Love at home and obedience to parents will increase faith will develop in the hearts of the youth of Israel and they will gain power to combat the evil influences and temptations which will beset them." 

David A. Bednar, "More Diligent and Concerned at Home", Ensign, Nov. 2009, 17–20

As our sons were growing up, our family did what you have done and what you now do. We had regular family prayer, scripture study, and family home evening. Now, I am sure what I am about to describe has never occurred in your home, but it did in ours.

Sometimes Sister Bednar and I wondered if our efforts to do these spiritually essential things were worthwhile. Now and then verses of scripture were read amid outbursts such as “He’s touching me!” “Make him stop looking at me!” “Mom, he’s breathing my air!” Sincere prayers occasionally were interrupted with giggling and poking. And with active, rambunctious boys, family home evening lessons did not always produce high levels of edification. At times Sister Bednar and I were exasperated because the righteous habits we worked so hard to foster did not seem to yield immediately the spiritual results we wanted and expected.

Today if you could ask our adult sons what they remember about family prayer, scripture study, and family home evening, I believe I know how they would answer. They likely would not identify a particular prayer or a specific instance of scripture study or an especially meaningful family home evening lesson as the defining moment in their spiritual development. What they would say they remember is that as a family we were consistent.

Sister Bednar and I thought helping our sons understand the content of a particular lesson or a specific scripture was the ultimate outcome. But such a result does not occur each time we study or pray or learn together. The consistency of our intent and work was perhaps the greatest lesson—a lesson we did not fully appreciate at the time.

·       You can find the answer to everything in the scriptures.

TEMPLE ATTENDANCE:

David A. Bednar, "Honorably Hold a Name and Standing", Ensign, May 2009, 97–100

For many years Sister Bednar and I hosted faithful men and women as devotional speakers at Brigham Young University–Idaho. Many of these speakers were emeritus or released members of the Seventy who had served as temple presidents following their service as General Authorities. As we talked with these stalwart leaders, I always asked this question: “What have you learned as a temple president that you wish you had better understood when you were a General Authority?”

As I listened to their answers, I discovered a consistent theme that I would summarize as follows: “I have come to understand better the protection available through our temple covenants and what it means to make an acceptable offering of temple worship. There is a difference between church-attending, tithe-paying members who occasionally rush into the temple to go through a session and those members who faithfully and consistently worship in the temple.”

Commandment:          Regular Temple Attendance

Blessings:               (Vaughn J. Featherstone)

1-If a man, you will become mighty;  if a woman, powerful  (D&C 109:22   And we ask thee, Holy Father, that thy servants may go forth from this house armed with thy power, and that thy name may be upon them, and thy glory be round about them, and thine angels have charge over them;)

                              2-It will serve as great "insurance protection" for your marriage (D&C 132:19  And again, verily I say unto you, if a man marry a wife by my word, which is my law, and by the new and everlasting covenant, and it is sealed unto them by the Holy Spirit of promise, by him who is anointed, unto whom I have appointed this power and the keys of this priesthood; and it shall be said unto them—Ye shall come forth in the first resurrection; and if it be after the first resurrection, in the next resurrection; and shall inherit thrones, kingdoms, principalities, and powers, dominions, all heights and depths—then shall it be written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, that he shall commit no murder whereby to shed innocent blood, and if ye abide in my covenant, and commit no murder whereby to shed innocent blood, it shall be done unto them in all things whatsoever my servant hath put upon them, in time, and through all eternity; and shall be of full force when they are out of the world; and they shall pass by the angels, and the gods, which are set there, to their exaltation and glory in all things, as hath been sealed upon their heads, which glory shall be a fulness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever.)

                              3-The blessings of the Eternal Gods will be called down upon you.  (D&C 109:12, 14 That thy glory may rest down upon thy people, and upon this thy house, which we now dedicate to thee, that it may be sanctified and consecrated to be holy, and that thy holy presence may be continually in this house;  And do thou grant, Holy Father, that all those who shall worship in this house may be taught words of wisdom out of the best books, and that they may seek learning even by study, and also by faith, as thou hast said)

                              4-Unseen angels will watch over your loved ones when Satanic forced tempt them (Acts 27:33  And while the day was coming on, Paul besought them all to take meat, saying, This day is the fourteenth day that ye have tarried and continued fasting, having taken nothing.)

                              5-Your families will draw close to the Lord and there will be no empty chairs in the celestial kingdom. (Hymn#301 I Am A Child of God)

                              6-Your children will go on missions (D&C 109:58  That from among all these, thy servants, the sons of Jacob, may gather out the righteous to build a holy city to thy name, as thou hast commanded them.)

                              7-Your children will marry in the temple. (Conference Talks)

                              8-The veil will be thin, you will have great spiritual growth and many spiritual experiences will distill upon you.  (D&C 138)

                              9-You will be prepared for exaltation--with a celestial mind, celestial body and a celestial personality (3 Nephi 12:3, 20  Yea, blessed are the poor in spirit who come unto me, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Therefore come unto me and be ye saved; for verily I say unto you, that except ye shall keep my commandments, which I have commanded you at this time, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.)

                              10-You will see clearly how to make critical decisions that weigh heavily on your mind (D&C 109:42  But deliver thou, O Jehovah, we beseech thee, thy servants from their hands, and cleanse them from their blood.)

11-You will become Christlike.  (D&C 109:22-25  And we ask thee, Holy Father, that thy servants may go forth from this house armed with thy power, and that thy name may be upon them, and thy glory be round about them, and thine angels have charge over them;

  23 And from this place they may bear exceedingly great and glorious tidings, in truth, unto the ends of the earth, that they may know that this is thy work, and that thou hast put forth thy hand, to fulfil that which thou hast spoken by the mouths of the prophets, concerning the last days.

  24 We ask thee, Holy Father, to establish the people that shall worship, and honorably hold a name and standing in this thy house, to all generations and for eternity;

  25 That no weapon formed against them shall prosper; that he who diggeth a pit for them shall fall into the same himself;)

·       We have to increase in light and knowledge to become consecrated.

·       In the temple is a great power of protection that will be around our families to keep them safe from the adversary.

D&C 109:22

22 And we ask thee, Holy Father, that thy servants may go forth from this house armed with thy power, and that thy ^aname may be upon them, and thy glory be round about them, and thine ^bangels have charge over them;

President Ezra Taft Benson said, "There is a power associated with the ordinances of heaven, even the power of godliness, which can thwart the forces of evil, if we will but be worthy of those sacred covenants made in the temple of the Lord. Our families will be protected, our children will be safeguarded as we live the gospel, visit the temple, and live close to the Lord." (The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, p. 256)

       If you step it up Satan gets fearful and he steps it up too.  

H. Kent Rappleye, "“No Substitute for Family Prayer”", Ensign, Feb. 2001, 25

President Ezra Taft Benson taught: “Just a few words added to the blessing on the food, as is becoming the custom in some parts, is not enough. We need to get onto our knees in prayer and gratitude.”

·       Family Prayer – meaningful – create environment.  Ask them what is the most important things you need right now.

·       Jesus Christ submitted his will to the Father.  We need to submit our will to Heavenly Father

John 7:13  “If any man will ^ado his ^bwill, he shall ^cknow of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.”

·       If you are going to do a test the soil (environment) has to be fertile

HOMEWORK:

·       See which leg of the table needs to be strengthened.

·       Do with Exactness your own personal prayer or scripture study this week.

·       Have FHE next Monday