One of my friends asked everyone to send in their three favorite scriptures and why they are our favorites for a personal project she is doing. It looked like a really fun project so I sent her my three, and I decided that I wanted to post them up here as well.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to give you my three all time favorite scriptures… because they tend to vary. But here are the three that come to mind right now:

Jarom 1 (because that’s the only chapter there is) verse 2–

And as these plates are small, and as these things are written for the intent of the benefit of our brethren the Lamanites, wherefore, it must needs be that I write a little; but I shall not write the things of my prophesying, nor of my revelations. For what could I write more than my fathers have written? For have not they revealed the plan of salvation? I say unto you, Yea; and this sufficeth me.

I love this scripture because it just says it all so plainly and simply. I lovingly refer to Enos, Jarom & Omni as the books of slackers because you have at least 7 different authors who can barely pull together 7.5 pages in over 300 years (my favorite example of this is Omni 1:9). But I love what Jarom says, because I think that too often we try to look to hard and we miss what’s staring us right in the face. We want more and more revelations, but we don’t really do enough with what we already have. The gospel is really a lot more simple than we make it.

Alma 5:46 –

Behold, I say unto you they are made known unto me by the Holy Spirit of God. Behold, I have fasted and prayed many days that I might know these things of myself. And now I do know of myself that they are true; for the Lord God hath made them manifest unto me by his Holy Spirit; and this is the spirit of revelation which is in me.

I really like this scripture in context. Remember that this is the same Alma who was stopped from persecuting the church by seeing an angel. Here he says that he has a testimony because he has “fasted and prayed many days that [he] might know of [himself].” An angel didn’t cut it. We can all have just as strong of testimonies as Alma. Miracles and heavenly manifestations do not make a testimony, a testimony comes from within.

Alma 56:47-48 –

Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them.

This is another one that I like in context. Remember that the Anti-Nephi-Lehi’s were the ones who decided to bury their weapons of war in the earth. Then when the Lamanites came to attack them they knelt down and prayed to God while the Lamanites slaughtered them. It says that they killed over a thousand of these people before they stopped. The men that were killed in the process of these prayers were the fathers of many of these stripling warriors. And it says that their mothers, the wives of these slain men, knew that “if they did not doubt, God would deliver them.” I just think that’s such a powerful testimony. If anyone had good reason to doubt that God would deliver their sons in battle it was definitely these women who watched their husbands be killed by the sword because of a covenant they had made while in the act of praying to their God. But as it says in the next verse they “did not doubt [their] mothers knew it”. Maybe to some people that would weaken the testimony, but the faith of these women I think is remarkable.

I don’t know if I would choose those three scriptures ultimately if I could only have three, but I guess those are the three that are most on my mind as of late. It probably won’t surprise you that I’m reading the Book of Mormon right now, and that I’m getting close to the end of Alma. But those are definitely 3 scriptures that I really like a lot.

Oh, I guess the other one that I really like, is D&C 76:22.

And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives!

It’s a scripture mastery so it’s not very original. But I really like it because it just sorta spells out what the gospel is all about. That after everything else that’s been said, this is what we want to say last of all, this is what’s important. That Christ Lives. I think it says so much in so few words so elegantly. Anyways, I know that it puts me past my 3 but that one is probably more of an all time favorite whereas the other three are more of current favorites.

In Relief Society today we had a lesson on hymns. Someone started talking about an experience she had on her mission and I was… humbled. She told us about a really bad day that she was having when the hymn “Count Your Many Blessings” came into her mind. As she recited the lyrics (which, granted I’ve heard a million times before) it really hit home to me.

When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed
When you are discouraged thinking all is lost
Count your many blessings name them one by one
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done

Lately I have been discouraged and definitely have felt like all is lost. But I’ve decided to try and count my many blessings (because let’s face it, the gospel is true, temples are beautiful… it’s all just a matter of perspective) instead of focusing on things I can’t control. Does it mean things will be any easier? Nope. Does it mean that all the pain will disappear? Not really. Does it mean that every morning I will wake up and my life will be going perfectly? No. But it does mean that I can see the sunlight through the clouds and be happy despite them.

Later in sacrament meeting it was pounded into my head again as we sang that song for the closing hymn. Although… I nearly passed out towards the end of the last verse because I hadn’t eaten anything yet today. I hope that’s not a sign…

Anyways, that’s what I learned today and I just wanted to share.

I finally did it! I started my own LJ [blog]! It’s about time, wouldn’t you say? I decided this would be better than my exceedingly long away messages that I write like every night. I guess partly I like it too just because it’s a little bit more permanent. I mean, if I post things in an away message, by tomorrow, it’s gone. This can stay up for… forever. Well, maybe not that long, but you get the idea.

I just had a few things that I wanted to get out of myself so that I could get some sleep. Mostly stuff from my scripture study this evening.

I decided to start reading the True to the Faith book a little bit so I started flipping through it. Just sorta skimmed and as things caught my eye I would read them for a little while before finding the next interesting looking topic. Yeah, I know that all of the topics are interesting and important in their own right but this was just sorta my preliminary skimming of the book. I only made it as far as the P’s tonight, but that was ok. I found a lot of the things I was looking for.

The first thing I found was actually kinda unexpected. One of the topics that randomly caught my eye was fasting and fast offerings. For whatever reason I’ve sorta been on a fasting kick over the past year. It seems to help with just about anything you’re going through. Although, I think I almost ran into the problem of fasting too much to the point where it was almost dangerous to my health if you know what I mean. I don’t want that to sound self-righteous, it was just sorta that I got to the point where I was ok without eating, so really fasting didn’t have all that much effect. It was the same as any other day because I was never eating. Kinda weird.

Anyways, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my own weaknesses and how I’m going to overcome them. Then I read this: “If you have a weakness or sin that you have struggled to overcome, you may need to fast and pray to receive the help or forgiveness you require.” I guess I just hadn’t really thought about having my own fast to overcome a weakness that I have. I guess I’ll be putting that one to use in the near future. The other thing I realized while I was reading it over was the importance of making a fast offering to go along with fasting. I guess I’d just never really thought of that before. But it totally makes sense. I think that’s going to be something that I’ll do a lot more as I get up to BYU this year and I’m really on my own as far as food and everything goes for the first time. So that was really good.

I found a lot of really interesting stuff under Honesty as well, but there was one thing that I found to be really interesting and another statement that I found to be truly profound. I really liked where it said: “If you lie, cheat, steal or neglect to give the full amount of work for your pay, you lose your self-respect.” I just really liked that last part about “[neglecting] to give the full amount of work for your pay..” I guess integrity has been something I’ve totally focused on probably since middle school, and it’s become really important to me. A lot of people don’t look at “working the system” as being dishonest. But I think it’s pretty clear in here that it is. No, maybe it doesn’t fall under what we generally classify dishonesty as in the clear cut “lying, cheating and stealing” sense, but it is every bit as dishonest as any of those.

Finally, I liked the very last bit in that section, “Being honest often requires courage and sacrifice, especially when others try to persuade you to justify dishonest behavior. If you find yourself in such a situation, remember that the lasting peace that comes from being honest is more valuable than the momentary relief of following the crowd.” I liked that a lot. It was just really profound.. and kinda a zinger. Enough said…

Another thing I ran across while studying my scriptures tonight was a quote that I got from my favorite sticker-loving seminary teacher (and no… I’m not talking about Brother Bryan) I keep flipping my scriptures open to this page and I constantly read D&C 132:16-19. But on Sunday night I finally read over the quote and realized that it was in relation to verses 20-24. Very interesting if you think about it. Anyways, after re-reading the quote the other night I really liked it and I sorta want to make it into a motto for my life. It’s from Joseph Fielding Smith in the Improvement Era from November of 1909. It says “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, basing its belief on divine revelation, ancient and modern, proclaims man to be the direct and lineal offspring of Deity. God himself is an exalted man, perfected, enthroned and supreme… Man is the child of God, formed in the divine image and endowed with divine attributes, even as the infant son of an earthly father is capable in due time of becoming a man, so the undeveloped offspring of celestial parentage is capable, by experience through ages and eons, of evolving into a God.”

On the same handout it also has Lorenzo Snow’s famous quote “As man now is God once was; As now God is, so man may be.” The thing that really has struck me as of late is that God used to be just like us. I know it sounds irreverent to put it this way… but God wasn’t perfect! He had to go through a life, same as us, so that He could become who He is now. At one point even God had weaknesses, and trials and failings that He had to overcome to become exalted. We’re ok!! Even if we have to reach perfection through lots of repentance, we’re not all that far behind. God had to do the same thing. Yeah, He’s over it now… but it doesn’t make him all that different from us.

Maybe an analogy would help this to make a little bit more sense. It’s kinda like looking at someone who has a doctorate. When you look at them you say “Wow, look at them, they’ve got a PhD.” But really, 10 years ago they were in your shoes. Just starting college, maybe failed a couple of classes. Changed majors 10-12 times. Had a hard time balancing friends and studies. They didn’t just suddenly appear and had a PhD, they started from the bottom and worked their way up. It’s the same way with God. At one point He was on an Earth and He probably had troubles getting along with His siblings. He might have needed to overcome laziness. Maybe He even had some big sins that he had to work through. But He did it. That’s why He can tell us with absolute certainity, “it’s going to be ok. You can do it.” He’s already done it! He wants to help us because He knows what it’s like to have a Father in Heaven that is willing to help. What a wonderful concept!!