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VIEW PERSONAL BELIEFS
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POSTED BY:
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KrazyKay
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DATE:
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23.11.2008 |
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SUBJECT:
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KrazyKay's Testimony |
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LOCATION:
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Magnolia, United States
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I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I was born into the church. My mom has been a member her entire life and my dad joined the church while in college. I believe it was in 1976, but I could be off by a year. I know the Book of Mormon is true and is another testament of Jesus Christ. I wasn't always sure about the Book of Mormon until one day while in high school. I don't recall the exact date of that day or even what year it was. I just remember I was in high school. I read in the Book of Mormon where it had Joseph Smith's testimony then decided I should pray to know if The Book of Mormon is true for myself. So I knelt by my bed and began to pray with full faith that I would find out if the Book of Mormon is true. Immediately I got a warm comfortable feeling and I opened my eyes to see an angel of the Lord before me. He just nodded his head yes before disappearing. Ever since that day, I have never doubted the Book of Mormon - even during my year of inactivity. I truly love the Book of Mormon and I love reading what the prophets during the Nephite and Lamanite times said. I know we have a living prophet today who does talk with the Lord for the benefit of the people living now. I know Jesus Christ lives and I know he loves each individual person - including those who are the most rebellious. I know Jesus atoned for our sins in the Garden of Gethsemane and that He died for us on the cross so that we can live again. I know that Jesus' second coming is very close to happening but somethings must happen first that have not come to pass yet.
We are always told that we must endure to the end. To me this means we must continue doing the best we can and take life one day at a time. We must pray continuously in our hearts and often out loud with our lips. We must read our scriptures daily and study the words diligently. An analogy is to think of my bike ride to and from work. It's 9 miles each way, but it isn't all flat and smooth. There are many hills - some easier to go up then others. There are many more cars as well as traffic lights. As we go through life to endure to the end, we have challenges we must face. These challenges are like the hills I have to conquer as I ride my bike. Some of our challenges are easy and some are hard, just like some hills are easy to ride a bike up and some hills are hard. Sometimes while going up the hill, we might feel like we can't make it. That is when prayer really helps. From my experience, it seems the Lord is more willing to help in our time of need if we have been praying and communicating in times that are going well. I like to think of the gears on the bike as the Lord helping to ease our burden. If we ride a bike in high gear up a hill, we might not make it. But if we ride the bike in low gear up that same hill, it is much easier and we feel we can make it. The same is true in real life. If we are not in the habit of praying often as we go through easy times, then when the hard times come, the Lord will be slow to help and we will be in the hard gear as we go up the hill. However, if we do pray often during easy times, then when the challenges come, the Lord will help us out so we are in low gear going up the hills. Then once we make it to the top of the challenge, the downhill part is easy. But we must be careful as we go down the hill, we do not want to lose control of our bikes and not make it to the end, to our final goal - which I hope for everyone is the Celestial Kingdom. Sometimes we have to stop to assess our situations in life, these are like traffic lights. While we are stopped, we can look around and get a bigger picture of that part of our life, just like when we are stopped at a traffic light, we can notice what cars are around, how the trees look, which buildings are where, if there are people walking or also on their bikes, and what the animals are up to. So too, when we have to stop to take a look at the bigger picture of that point in our life, we notice who was in our life but now isn't, who was not in our life before but now is, who do we know that needs help and we can serve them, what help do we need so that others have an opportunity to serve, what areas of our life needs to be improved and what areas are we doing well in. When the light changes to green, we can get going again. It is also important to have small goals to help us as we head towards our final goal. When I'm riding my bike those 9 miles either to work or from work, I have small goals that help me get there. The first goal is to the end of the subdivision, then to the gas station a little ways from the entrance of my subdivision, etc. Each small goal is easy to see from the last small goal, which makes it easier to get to. While going through life, we need these small goals to help us. Without small goals, it is easy to say "I give up" or "I can't do this". But the small goals help. Examples of small goals could be to read all of the Book of Mormon during a certain time period. This time period will be different lengths for different people - one person it could be 1 month and someone else it could be 1 year with others in between. Another example of a small goal could be being sealed in the temple for eternity. These are just exampels as there are many different small goals we could have and each person's small goals will be different since each person is on a different part of the road that leads to eternal life.
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