lupe's notes April 21st ~ Manila 12th Ward Relief Society

Good afternoon sisters. What a beautiful day.

THOUGHT: “The Lord wishes to establish a closer and more intimate relationship between Himself and us; He wishes to elevate us in the scale of being and intelligence, and this can only be done through the medium of the everlasting Gospel which is specially prepared for this purpose.”

President Lorenzo Snow

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Thank you to all who participated in the Humanitarian Evening. It was a wonderful opportunity to visit and do service. There were two pairs of scissors that were left behind and if you are missing some scissors, contact Melissa Brady.
Our Humanitarian Project was fantastic! The girls and young women were so enthusiastic and brought a fun energy to the evening. It was great for the sisters in our ward to visit and enjoy each others company while we provided service. We accomplished “a great work” together just like our pioneer Relief Society sisters. Thank you for your contributions. - Melissa

This is what we made: 55 foam shape rings, 48 yo-y- hair clips, 15 caterpillars, 30+ matching games, coloring books and file folder games; 8 stuffed animal cats, 11 soft fleece balls, 4 baby blanket with more being finished up soon. WOW!!
MOMMY MINGLE! On Wednesday the 24^th at 10:30 am at the Brady's back yard.
Preparedness Fair on Saturday, 27^th at the Stake Center – Open House 1 – 4 pm.. Look at the attachment.
Stake Newsletter – The Stake presidency invites you to read their monthly message using the Newsletter link on LDS.org. After logging in, the Newsletter links allows you to see both ward and stake messages. Members of the presidency will post a new monthly message at the beginning of each month for you to read.
Check the RS Blog. There are some fun things ins tore for next month.
Put on your calendar: Thursday, May 9^th 7 pm at the church, we will have an opportunity to meet the new people who have moved into the Ward.
Jami has requested that if you have any pictures of Bishop E. with the Scouts, YW or whatever to please email to her. jami@imagesbyjami.com, As we now know, Bishop will be released this coming Sunday and she is planning something special. Thanks.
Thank you Jami and your family for the great sacrifices during these last six years. We have been so blessed to have a wonderful Bishop serve us.

BIRTHDAYS: April 24^th – Shelly D. and April 25^th – Petra C. Happy Birthday sisters. Enjoy your day.

Our lesson today was from Lorenzo Snow manual, lesson #8 “Search Me, O God, and Know My Heart”.

Pat wrote on the board: Examine your own worthiness.

Is your heart right before the Lord?

This has been a difficult lesson I hope that you have read the lesson; I know at least two of you did. If you haven't, I encourage you to go home and read it. We have a prophet teaching us lesson materials. We'll quote a few things. The objective of the lesson is Righteous Latter-day Saints strive to “establish a character before God that would be relied upon in the hour of trial.” I have shorten it to 'Is My heart right with the Lord?'

“On December 15, 1899, President Lorenzo Snow, then President of the Church, spoke at the funeral of President Franklin D. Richards, who had served as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Near the end of his sermon, President Snow said, “I ask the Lord of Israel to bless the Latter-day Saints and that we may be prepared for the events of the near future, with our hearts right before the Lord.”

Lorenzo Snow and Franklin D. Richards were very good friends.

Sometimes we ask over and over for things. I pray for often as I know you also pray often to the Lord. I pray several times a week for the resiliency of my children that they will get through these challenges in their lives. That they will not get angry at the Lord. Some of our children are strong and can handle challenges with faith. Then I see others who have a difficult time, I pray that their faith will sustain them and not mow them down. Some seem to blame the Lord because he doesn't prevent some things from happening. We know that He is able and can remove and intervene, but He knows best. This is very meaningful to me as it is to all mothers. I think it gets more difficult as I get older and as our children get older.

President Snow continues: “Illustrating the need to keep “our hearts right before the Lord,” President Snow told of an experience he and President Richards shared in the 1850s, when they were new Apostles. At that time, President Brigham Young led a reformation in the Church, calling on Latter-day Saints everywhere to repent and renew their commitment to righteous living.”

I was not familiar with this incident. I grew up with Franklin Richard and his words. In my day it was Franklin D. Richard. He was a powerful man. They were both called as apostles in the 1850s. Brigham Young never minced words. Elder Holland is becoming of that statue.

President Young was not happy with the membership of the Church. “When President Young was aroused to call upon the people to repent and reform, “ recalled President Snow, “he talked very strongly as to what ought to be done with some people—that their Priesthood ought to be taken from the, because of their failure to magnify it as they should have done. The brethren who lived in those days will remember how vigorously he spoke in this direction. Well, it touched Brother Franklin's heart and it touched mine also; and we talked the matter over to ourselves. We concluded we would go to President Young and offer him our Priesthood. If he felt in the name of the Lord that we had not magnified our Priesthood, we would resign it. We went to him, saw him alone, and told him this. I guess there were tears in his eyes when he said, “Brother Lorenzo, Brother Franklin, you have magnified your Priesthood satisfactorily to the Lord. God bless you.”

This touched my heart. Imagine President Monson talking to the Priesthood men in our day and telling them the same thing. Remember this was in the 1850's and after all the trials that the Saints had gone through, he felt they were getting a little bit lax. Now we are being called to repentance, he is teaching us. I wonder if in our own self-examination, does it mean as much to us as it meant to them.

When I read this, it reminded me of an example in the New Testament. It was the Last super of Christ and his disciples were surrounding Him. Jesus Christ explained to his disciple that one among them would betray him. These were the followers of Christ. He was about to go through the Atonement process. When he explain that one among him would betray him, what happened?

Karen M: One by one they asked, “is it I?”

The humility in their hearts caused them to ask that question, being aware of their own weaknesses. I thought of the humility of Lorenzo Snow. They didn't know what the apostle would say. Now the question comes and throughout his life he asked people to examine their hearts.

How do you go about examining your worthiness, if your hearts are right before the Lord. How is it done and how often?

Marlene L: I am reminded that the Lord knows our hearts and knows my children perfectly. I ask the Lord. My experience is that I know that the Lord never overwhelms us. He always gives us understanding of what is needed with the light and sustaining power. You understand better what it is that we need to do.

Amy W: Very carefully for me. My personality is driven to look at myself. I have heard that we are usually hard on other people and easy on yourself. That is not the case with me. I'm harder on myself. This idea of asking myself, 'how am I doing now?' If I am not careful, I can beat myself up. I have so consciously and carefully gone through the whole process, because I can lose the spirit. What the Holy Spirit will do is tell us first what we can fix right now. Ether 12:27 “And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.”. There is always a part of one thing that we can work on right now. Prayer is crucial.

We can identify with that. We do need to be careful.

Laurie A: Elder Cardon from the Seventy spoke at General Conference about forgiveness. We do pretty good and then we blow it and feel like a failure. “In this forgiveness we see the enabling and the redeeming power of the Atonement harmoniously and graciously applied. If we exercise faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the enabling power of His Atonement strengthens us in our moment of need,” and His redeeming power sanctifies us as we [put] off the natural man. This brings hope to all, especially to those who feel that recurring human weakness is beyond the Savior's willingness to help and to save.” It doesn't matter if we mess up. We have to make an effort. Have to keep trying. The Lord is always there to forgive and to help us keep our hearts in the right place.

Lorenzo Snow said: “I am under the strongest impression, that the most valuable consideration, and that which will be of the most service when we return to the spirit world, will be that of having established a proper and well defined character as faithful and consistent Latter-day Saints in this state of probation. It is a progressive state. Repent and do better. People who are the hardest on themselves are those who are doing better.

President Snow: “In cases where a stranger applies for employment, or an office of trust, it is often required that he produce papers attesting his worthiness, from reliable parties, letters of recommendation and of introduction which are exceedingly useful in their way, assisting in obtaining favors and privileges which otherwise would be difficult to secure. It is, however, comparatively easy to obtain a written character, as it is termed, a character that one can put in his pocket; and, indeed, according to my observation it is not infrequently the case that people are the bearers of written characters which their real and true character fails to attest.”

When Elder Oaks was president of BYU he had a student who was graduating asked him for a letter of recommendation. He was very concerned because he knew this young man and was friends with the family. He knew the student as he grew up. He considered the student as being lazy, who did not try his best while in school and had not meet the expectations. He prayed about it because he did not know what to do. If he told the truth, the young man would probably not get hired and the friendship with the family would be hurt. But Elder Oaks, having a legal mind, came up with something. He wrote “If you can get this young an to work for you, you will indeed be blessed.” The only recommendation we need is the one that comes from the Lord.

“There are those among us who are recognized as members of this Church who take a vast amount of pains to be favorably known by those around the, but whose real character, or the inwardness so to speak, of such people, is veiled or disguised....Now this prayer that I [refer] to--”Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting”--is very significant; it was a prayer that David in the principal course of his life could conscientiously and with a degree of confidence offer up to the Lord. But there were times when he would feel the faltering and quivering sensation of weakness in offering up a prayer of this kind.”

There was a talk given about having clean hand without having a pure heart. There may be activity in the Church but not be right in the heart. Even in our day, there are people who appear good and righteous but are veiled or digusied in the heart. Utah is the capital of defraud. We are such a trusting people. We recommend people because they are members.

A few years ago there was a sister who came to the Temple every Tuesday night. She was beautiful, tall, white skin and black hair and red lips. She was beautiful on the outside. One day she didn't come and didn't come thereafter. I asked the Matron why she was not coming. She said that we all missed her but that she was going through legal battle. She had lost her membership for defrauding people in the church. It was a good experience for me to have. I know that we can be doing the right things, but not have our heart be right with God.

Holly M: I have been struggling for months, even dealing with depression at times because of a situation that happened at Christmas time with a member of my family. She said some things that hurt me deeply and even though she has apologized and asked for my forgiveness, I have had a hard time doing so. I have cried to the Lord to help me in forgiving. Can't lie to the Lord, I go to Him almost like a PPI. I know that I am hurting myself if I quit going to the Temple. It's like the Lord is teaching me gently about forgiving 70 times 7. He knows my heart and how that's hurting me.

I want to end with two comments. One is that I am thankful that the Lord knows our heart and judges us. Lots of people are making mistakes, have good hearts, in the Church and out of the Church. I have seen many people not active but will be down under a widow's car. It's so wonderful, we don't have to judge other people's hearts.

The second thing is my Home Teacher came and gave me a lesson about President Eyring. He has a PPI with the Savior weekly as he partakes of the Sacrament. “President Eyring teaches that as we listen to the sacrament prayers, we can feel like we are having a personal interview with God. President Eyring thinks of the following three areas. Consider writing these questions in your journal and pondering them each Sunday this month. As you ponder and receive impressions from the Holy Ghost, you can also write about those in your journal.