The BREAD of LIFE

WE BELIEVE: Second Article of Faith

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God has paid us the ultimate compliment: He holds us responsible and respects us as free, rational beings. He has given us this freedom through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The concepts of individual freedom and personal responsibility are at the very center of the Atonement. As Lehi [a prophet in the Book of Mormon] noted, the sacrifice of the Messiah removed from us the consequences of the Fall of Adam, which bound our bodies to death and our spirits to hell. Being redeemed from the Fall, we are “free forever, knowing good from evil; to act … and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day. … Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man” (2 Ne. 2:26–27). In the words of the second article of faith, “We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression.”
By: Elder Robert S. Wood, March 2002 Ensign

My Thoughts:
To be free and to have choice is a great freedom we have and it is God-given. Because someone made the choice to partake of the fruit of the tree, Adam, we his posterity, are NOT responsible for that choice. The Atonement of Christ took care of that. The thing that we must remember though is that we ARE responsible for our own choices. I have so appreciated the fact that I don't have to bear the responsibility of the choices of another, only for my own and through the atonement of Christ, I can repent and be forgiven for those choices I have made. I don't have to repent or be reponsible for something that I did not do, namely Adam's choice.

WATCHMEN on the Tower: Our Living Prophet & Apostles

How fragile life, how certain death. We do not know when we will be required to leave this mortal existence. And so I ask, "What are we doing with today?"

President Thomas S. Monson, prophet, seer, and revelator

Keeping Scripture Study Alive

Scripture study can be a hard thing to do regularly and understanding what is being said as well. I have made it a habit to study. Studying daily over the years has helped me to understand the scriptures better than when I first began. As I live the kind of life that our Savior has asked us to do, I qualify for an even greater understanding through the promptings of the Spirit, for which I would be lost without.

The Church admonishes us to read daily from our scriptures, particularly the Book of Mormon.

I have thoroughly loved reading the scriptures
over the years. In addition to the Bible, we also have the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. I read daily from any of the above books and record those things that the Lord is trying to each me. I so love immersing myself into the scriptures. At the bottom of our scriptures there are footnotes that helps me to understand more of what I am reading and it cross references all the other books.

I found this quote by President Kimball, one of our past prophets who has since passed away. I have experienced what he has said and know that it is true. Immersing is the answer!

Our church uses the King James version of the Bible.

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August Visiting Teaching Message

I have finished the Visiting Teaching message for August. Do hope that you enjoy it. It speaks for itself. If you would like to have the complete article, as this is only an excerpt of it, you can find it online at LDS.org>gospel library>Magazines>Ensign

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WE BELIEVE: First Article of Faith

I am now doing a series on the 13 Articles of Faith of our Church. These 13 Articles of Faith will tell you just what we believe in in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. These 13 Articles of Faith will be known as the "WE BELIEVE" Series. More will follow until all 13 have been made published here and spoken about.


The first article anchors our belief in God, our Eternal Father, in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost. How grateful we are for a knowledge of Supreme Beings that rule and govern this world. Our belief does not come from the speculations of men about the existence and nature of God, but from firsthand experience from the Prophet Joseph Smith in the Sacred Grove. His experience clarified for mankind the existence of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Thus to the world came the vision that three personages comprise this great presiding council of the universe and have revealed themselves to mankind as three separate beings, physically distinct from each other as demonstrated by the accepted records of their divine dealings with mankind. Elder L. Tom Perry

My Thoughts:
GOD: I have been taught and many of you may have been as well to pray to God. Everytime that I kneel down to pray, I could not imagine trying to pray to a being that cannot be comprehended, that does not have a body, parts, or passions. Who and what would I be praying to? An object? Because of my understanding of this beautiful Article of Faith and my own testimony that there are 3 separate Beings that govern the universes and galaxies as innumerable as they may be, that when I pray to God, my Father, I know that He is there and that he listens and answers my prayers.

JESUS CHRIST: Christ has asked us to follow Him and try to be as much like Him as possible. He knew that we would make mistakes, He also knew that some of us would simply do wrong and bad things by choice. Through His atonement the wonderful blessing that has come to mankind has been the fact that mercy was granted to us by giving up the opportunity to repent of those things that we have done that have been wrong and a universal resurrection for all mankind, which is freely given.

I have come to know that through the process of repenting that my guilt was swept away. Something that can only come through our Savior's atonement. Not having to live with guilt is such a wonderful thing and one can experience that through proper repentance and taking advantage of the Savior's mercy at this time.

HOLY GHOST: The Holy Ghost is a personage of spirit. Through Him we can feel comforted, receive guidance in daily living, be taught by Him to our hearts as we have an open heart and learn and know truth. When one is baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, following baptism, one receives the Gift of the Holy Ghost. We are admonished to listen to this "still small voice" which can only be heard as we live righteously. When we do wrong, He withdraws his spirit from us and we are left along. Having him help to guide our lives is probably one of the best friends one can have!

We are admonished to take the spirit to be our guide for our lives. This I have tried to do. I am the happiest when I have listened to the Spirit.

Stories: Lessons Learned

"A matter of a few degrees"
Pres. Dieter F. Uchtdorf

In 1979 a large passenger jet with 257 people on board left New Zealand for a sightseeing flight to Antarctica and back. Unknown to the pilots, however, someone had modified the flight coordinates by a mere two degrees. This error placed the aircraft 28 miles (45 km) to the east of where the pilots assumed they were. As they approached Antarctica, the pilots descended to a lower altitude to give the passengers a better look at the landscape. Although both were experienced pilots, neither had made this particular flight before, and they had no way of knowing that the incorrect coordinates had placed them directly in the path of Mount Erebus, an active volcano that rises from the frozen landscape to a height of more than 12,000 feet (3,700 m).

As the pilots flew onward, the white of the snow and ice covering the volcano blended with the white of the clouds above, making it appear as though they were flying over flat ground. By the time the instruments sounded the warning that the ground was rising fast toward them, it was too late. The airplane crashed into the side of the volcano, killing everyone on board.

It was a terrible tragedy brought on by a minor error--a matter of only a few degrees.

Moral of the story: Through years of serving the Lord and in countless interviews, I have learned that the difference between happiness and misery in individuals, in marriages, and families often comes down to an error of only a few degrees.

My Thoughts: What I have learned over the years myself about stories and lessons learned, is that oftentimes if one will learn from the lessons of another many times heart ache and adversity can and may be avoided. But I do recognize that some people simply have to experience for themselves in order to learn!

Visiting Teaching

Once a month we as sisters in the Church visit teach 2-4 other sisters. We go to their homes, see how they are doing, help and serve them in anyway that we can and we also leave a message. This usually takes anywhere from 15 min. to 30 min tops. It is a way to get out of my home and help and visit others.

Once a month the Church has a Visiting Teaching message. This is the message that we give to the sisters that we are assigned to. I do alot of scrapbooking and each month I scrapbook a portion of the message to highlight. Here is that portion for July's message.
The title of the message for the month is at the top.

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The Sacred Grove

My beliefs in my religion, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" began here, "The Sacred Grove."

The caption under the picture reads:
"What happened here changed the world. Let it change your life."

I would really like to have a discussion from people who are truly searching for something in their life. I am not looking for argument at all. I simply want to share what I know and if it can apply to you, then you can partake of it as well. It HAS changed my life and I am a happy contented person because of it.

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