Mormon Bloggers

Faith vs. Works . . . this is something that I have frequently chatted with people about when they come online to Mormon.org to chat with a missionary.  Many times, those of other Christian faiths will come and ask me why I believe that I can work my way into heaven because they don’t quite understand what we really do believe concerning this topic.  In the Book of Mormon, Nephi teaches us “For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.” (2 Nephi 25:23)  Many people misunderstand this scripture in several ways, so I wanted to take a minute to look at this further.  Essentially, we believe that everything we do is a work of some type.  Thus to even have faith in Christ, we are making a decision/taking an action, which is a work. That is what Nephi was trying to teach us.  He pointed out... Read the rest of this entry »

What a wonderful day it is to consider together our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ.  I’m grateful to partake of the sacrament with you and to renew my covenant to remember him and to follow him.  I’m not sure that I really understood the significance of that covenant when I first took it upon myself at age eight. I’m still trying to understand what it means to really keep that covenant each day.  Some days I do better than others.  Sundays are a joy to me because I spend them in activities that are centered on the mission of the church – to invite all to come unto Christ.  It’s during the week that I sometimes struggle to remember Him. I suppose it’s a life-long pursuit, isn’t it? – To figure out how to really come unto Christ as we have been commanded to do. As Moroni taught, “Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness … love God with all your might, mind and strength …” – Moroni 10:32 Another Book of... Read the rest of this entry »

The concept of “testimony” and “personal revelation” are not common practices in the Christian world.  However, it is a very natural concept among LDS Christians who seek a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and view Him as an accessible and a personal Savior. The Holy Ghost testifies of the Father and the Son.  God also communicates to us through the Holy Spirit.  Gospel truths are learned and verified with the help and witness of the same Holy Spirit also known as the Holy Ghost. So what does it feel like when the Holy Ghost communicates with us? Julian asked a few questions which I answered in an email earlier this week.  One of them was how did I know the Book of Mormon was true?  This is what I wrote him back…“…This is how I got my testimony.  But to be more specific to your questions as they relate to you.  I feel to explain certain principles.First, the Spirit works by testifying to truths, to that... Read the rest of this entry »

This is not new to a lot of us, but Alma’s seed analogy is one of the most wonderful, simple lectures on faith that I’ve ever come across.  Just happen to be reading this morning from Alma 32 in the Book of Mormon.  This analogy explains in uncomplicated terms, how to find and recognize Truth, how to gain real faith.  But first, let me explain… One of the essential elements of our faith is that EVERYONE can have their own personal, direct connection with God through the Holy Spirit.  Everyone can test and try any principle of the gospel, any matter of truth and know for themselves if a concept is real.  This knowledge need not be dependent on anyone else.  Not only that, we are encouraged to strive for personal revelation, and to have a personal relationship with the Savior ourselves.  In other words,  conscious contact with God. I was so surprised to learn that we as LDS Christians are peculiar in this aspect.  That a lot... Read the rest of this entry »

For my blog post today, I wanted to break the mold of what I have been posting for the last little while and just do more of a post with my thoughts about a more general topic instead of a discussion about a talk from our last General Conference.  So today I will be talking about something that has always been important to me, and I believe that it is a subject very important and dear to many hearts.  This past week I have come to see really how much other people care about me!  So many people have done wonderful little things for me that have really boosted my days and helped me see how much Heavenly Father is watching out for me.  I just wanted to share a couple of these experiences with you and how much they meant to me. So this past week, I received three brand-new shirts in the mail, and at first, I assumed that they had come from my family.  But upon further investigation, I discovered that these three shirts had actually been sent to me by an anonymous... Read the rest of this entry »

I wanted to continue my posts today by looking at and commenting on another talk from General Conference.  This talk actually comes from the last session of Conference, and it wasn’t one talk that I was originally planning to talk about.  But after seeing this short video about a talk that Elder Robert D. Hales gave in a General Conference this past April, I felt that I needed to comment on both of these things.  Here is the Mormon Messages video of Elder Hales’ talk, and I think that this introduces the subject matter of this blog post quite nicely. Elder Hales’ talk ties in perfectly with Elder Larry R. Lawrence’s talk from the most recent General Conference where he talks about parenting as well.  His talk is entitled “Courageous Parenting,” and he focuses on the idea of parents being their children’s parents and not their children’s friends as I like to put it.  He says, “What the world really needs is courageous parenting from mothers and... Read the rest of this entry »

The Book of Judges begins and ends with this interesting observation:  “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21: 25)  At first glance, this arrangement might seem ideal, every man followed after the dictates of their own conscience and there was no one to enforce a single will, doctrine or ideal among the children of Israel.  Yet the Book of Judges is not a record of the triumph of individual wills in the construction of Zion, but instead a tale of the descent and degradation into a pattern of almost continuous apostasy and bondage for the four centuries following the death of the Prophet Joshua.  This cycle included a series of foreign invasions as well as one massive civil war in which the entire Tribe of Benjamin was almost annihilated by their brethren in the other 12 tribes.  (I’m not counting the Levites, and I am counting Ephraim and Manasseh as separate tribes here).  It was a time of perversion,... Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes I just don’t understand how I can be so blessed in my life.  Over the past week, I have come to realize how much I really do have.  A couple of weeks ago now, I was going through a difficult time.  There were several things that didn’t seem to be going the way that I particularly wanted them to, so I was getting discouraged as sometimes happens to us all even missionaries.  I started to get into a slight stupor where it was difficult to continue working each day.  After a day or so like this, I decided that something needed to change so I went to talk to a good friend and confidant that I have been blessed to gain here on my mission.  He counseled a bit with me, and we started talking about things that needed to happen for me to get back to my regular, positive self concerning missionary work.  We discussed several things that I could change around me that might help since we thought that being in one place for so long might be part of the... Read the rest of this entry »

There is a new post at The Fulness. This is a reminder that The fulness has moved to: www.justandtrue.com  Read More →

A new post is available on The Fulness. Reminder: The site has moved to www.justandtrue.com.  Read More →

There is a new post on The Fulness. The Blog has moved to www.justandtrue.com. Please swing by for another annoying post.  Read More →

Brigham Young had a commanding way of speaking and communicating ideas.  Reading what he has to say in the Journal of Discourses has been a rich experience.  Consider the following excerpt: “But I am proud to say of my religion, I have studied it faithfully for twenty-two years, day and night, at home and abroad, upon the rivers, and upon the lakes, when traveling by sea and by land; have studied it in the pulpit; from morning till night; whatsoever might be my pursuit, I have studied it with as close an application as any college student ever did any subject he wished to commit to memory; and I can say I have only just got into the ABC of it…” “Suppose the Almighty should unfold the future destiny of the nations to you, and wrap you in a sea of vision, and show you the eternity of knowledge, with the history of worlds on worlds, and their destiny—you can then have a faint idea of what it is like… the Lord Almighty is in the midst of... Read the rest of this entry »