Joy and Peace in Christ

A great, wise king ruled a vast and prosperous kingdom.  He had a beautiful queen, and many children.  While each child was still very young, they were sent to a neighboring kingdom to grow up and be educated.  This kingdom was very poor.  Though the castle was nothing like the soaring palace where the children had been born, it was beautiful in it's own way. Some of the children lived in the castle, while others were sent to live on farms, and in small villages.  All were told that they were a prince or princess of a grand kingdom, and their father loved them dearly. Having been very young when they were sent away, none of the children remembered their true home and family.  Many of them believed, and many did not. The children were told that to return home, they had to earn the money for the return trip.  The children who believed in their royal heritage worked hard to complete their studies, become apprentices, and earn the money...

I have just a short thought this evening.  It's an idea that is told in many forms by many different people, and it has many names.  My geography professor calls it The Law of Small Successes.  It's the idea that if you have a large goal or project, to break it up into smaller pieces.  What makes my professor's idea slightly different from most is that he says to c e l e b r a t e when you finish a step.  My large goal is to write a Python script that solves the Location-Allocation problem and I just got my code to take input from a user.  YAY!!!! My large goal is to run a marathon and I ran a mile without stopping.  YAY!!!! My large goal is to get married and I asked a boy I like to lunch.  YAY!!!! My large goal is eternal life.  This one can be really daunting, but the same principle applies.  I set a little goal to say my prayers every day for a week.  I set a little goal to text my ministering sisters when I think a...

In Relief Society today we talked about Elder Robert C Gay's talk "Taking Upon Ourselves the Name of Christ" from last General Conference. One line really stood out to me.  Elder Gay said "To take upon ourselves the name of Christ, we must not only see as God sees, but we must do His work and serve as He served." That really bothered me.  How can we possibly serve as Christ served?  He was perfect, He served all day, every day.  I can't possibly live up to that. As I pondered that, I started to get little impressions and ideas.  I can't serve all day, but when I serve, I can do it wholeheartedly, with love.  I can't do big things every day, but I can pray for my friends, smile to people on campus, hold doors open. Then my friend shared a part of the talk she really liked. "God will work wonders among us as we sanctify ourselves." God will work wonders among us.  And, He will do it while we are trying.  It does not say "After y...

The chorus of the 2018 Mutual theme song inspired the title of this blog: He gives us hope When hope is gone He gives us strength When we can't go on He gives us shelter In the storms of life When there's no peace on Earth There is peace in Christ Lately, I've been depressed and sort of down.  I do things that make me happy, I love to hang out and laugh with my friends, and I love school and my job.   But when I'm alone, and when I have free time, I'm sad and lonely.  I want to go back to the girl I was three years ago.  Happy, optimistic, with an easy laugh and a ready smile.   I want to serve and share the light of the gospel.   I want to talk about things I'm thinking about, things I've learned.  I want to make others happy and lose myself in the service of God.   As I thought about these things and reflected on how I could do them, I was reading an article on lds.org about sharing the gospel, and I felt I could do a b...