I have touched the future and the past.

By A. W.

On a warm September Thursday evening last year, I had the rather unexpected opportunity to assist my  daughter as she gave birth in the living room. Her stoicism and courage through that blessedly brief and safe ordeal were amazing to watch. As the sun set that afternoon, I marveled at the blessing of a healthy new granddaughter, even if her arrival was a bit more sudden than we anticipated. How joyful I felt to help and watch as my family extended one more generation. If all goes well, this beloved new little girl could live to see the twenty-second century at the grand age of 87. In some little way, I have touched the future.

Two months later I traveled to Omaha, Nebraska for Thanksgiving. While there, I visited a museum honoring the pioneers who crossed the Great Plains on their way to build a new home in the west 170 years ago. Among the artifacts protected by glass cases was a handbook for midwives. The blurb
reported that the book had been the property of a woman who helped deliver babies along the trail. Her name was Patty and, coincidentally, I recognized her as one of my own ancestors.

 Looking at her little handbook, for a moment I had a sense of her courage, dedication and patience, of the love and sisterhood she demonstrated in helping other women bring new sons and daughters into the world. I imagined her bent over in mud and cold, working with whatever she had to keep those mothers safe, warm, and comforted. I am sure she feared for every laboring woman, and worried over every new infant.

What a contrast to the pleasant sheltered room where my daughter realized that her baby was arriving on a schedule none of us had planned. We had clean water and a comfortable bed when it was over, instead of another thousand miles of hard trail. While our experiences were very different, I can imagine that Patty’s prayers and gratitude for each safe arrival were the same as mine that day. And so I felt the past touch me.

I have pondered the connection stretching between my new granddaughter and my many-greats-
grandmother through me. I don’t know what Patty looked like. We have no records of the children she delivered. I don’t know what she liked to do or the words she chose to use when she spoke. I don’t know what made her laugh. But I can imagine that she stood in awe of our Heavenly Father’s great love for us as she worked with nervous fathers and laboring mothers. Patty’s willingness to leave her home and travel west to build a new life served as a foundation for my family; her service to other women built many other families, too.

Now I hold one more little girl, another granddaughter further. Someday she will hear the story of her remarkable birth and I will tell her about another grandmother who served little children and their mothers. I am grateful for the promise that someday I will be able to meet Patty and we will be together as a family of strong and faithful women. That is the promise of being resurrected as an eternal family. That is my heart.

Malachi 4:6: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers.

How have you touched the past and the future through your family?

Conversion, the Atonement, and the Change of Heart

By Allie D.

One thing we know from the gospel is that the ultimate goal of everything we go through is to bring us back to God's presence. The things that separate us from God are sin and death. Alma taught that the Atonement bringeth to pass the resurrection of the dead. The Atonement, however, also offers us salvation from the damning effects of sin, which preclude us from joining God. We overcome sin by accessing the Atonement through repentance. These aspects of Jesus's atonement give us the opportunity to overcome both sin and death, and live with God, happily, forever, in our eternal families, as we make and keep sacred covenants such as the ones we make at baptism. Because of the Atonement, we can be assured of the possibility of happiness in the eternities, having perfect bodies, being united with God and all our loved ones.

However, a truly miraculous aspect of the gift of the Atonement is that we don’t have to wait for the Resurrection, after we are dead, to enjoy it--and make no mistake, the Atonement is a gift that is meant to be enjoyed. We are meant to enjoy it. God yearns for us to take this gift with both hands, and clasp it to our hearts, and cling to it and use it every single day. He longs for us to love this gift and use it to find joy in our day to day lives, here and now.

God begs us to use the Atonement to repent, to receive divine forgiveness of our sins. This forgiveness is one of the many reasons we chose to be baptized with the authority of the priesthood, and why it feels so breathtakingly amazing to get out of that water, knowing that you've left your sins behind. God wants us to feel that post-baptismal joy all the time. That’s why we meet here every week, to renew our baptismal covenants through the taking of the bread and water, and hopefully to find the same joy each week as we partake of the sacrament as we did when we were baptized. God loves us and wants us to consistently experience the joy that comes from His forgiveness.

God wants us to use the Atonement to find joy in our forgiveness of others. A few years ago, my family found out that my disabled brother had been horribly and intentionally hurt and that he would suffer the consequences of another person’s evil for the rest of his life. This was after he broke his hip. I was asked not to tell my other brother, Sam, who was serving a mission at the time, out of concern for his state of mind. But I felt strongly that I should tell him, and I did. And that knowledge broke his heart just as it broke ours.

But he wasted no time in accessing the Atonement. He knelt down to pray and gave that burden over to Jesus Christ, whose Atonement enabled Him to take the weight off my brother’s shoulders. And that night, my younger brother was filled with forgiveness for my older brother’s assailant. Through the miracle of the Atonement, in the darkest hour my brother was able to find peace. It was through the Atonement that I myself eventually found peace regarding that situation. You can’t have joy without peace in your heart. God desires for us to seek that peace, so we can feel that joy.

The Atonement heals us from our sorrows, when we use it for that purpose. As part of the Atonement, Jesus became one with each of us, personally and literally experiencing everything that each of us has gone through and will go through. Because of his intimate and first-hand experience with our personal trials, He knows exactly how to comfort us. When we are brave enough to hand over the angers and the sorrows, the disappointments, the doubts, the regrets that we cling to--when we are brave enough to pry our fingers off those things and hand them with open palms to Jesus Christ, He takes them from us. The more completely we turn our burdens over to Him, the more completely He takes them from us.

If you’ve ever been motivated by anger, or revenge, or guilt, or bitterness, you know it can feel as though those things are occupying important and irreplaceable parts of your heart. It can feel as though without those things, you’ll be left with just a hole. But in reality, when we give those poisoned pieces of our hearts to Jesus Christ, He heals us, and fills our hearts with love and light.

When Adam and Eve first partook of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and first realized the difference between right and wrong, the first thing they realized was that being naked in public is wrong. So they tried to hide their nakedness by making themselves clothes of leaves.

When The Lord found them and they confessed what had happened, and that they were trying to hide their nakedness now that they knew public nudity was wrong, He was understanding of their clothing predicament and made for them garments of skins, to keep them safe from both the sin of being inappropriately nude, and from physical discomfort. When we show The Lord our own spiritual nakedness, He clothes our hearts in figurative garments just as He first clothed Adam and Eve, and for the same purpose: The Lord longs to offer us the warmth and the protection and the strength and the peace that come from being enrobed in His forgiveness, His love, and His righteousness--but, like Adam and Eve, we have to seek Him, give up our fig leaves without reserve, and accept His offering to us in return.

We can use the Atonement in our daily lives: it is as simple as asking God for help in its application. If you don't know how to use the Atonement, pray and ask. God wants to answer that question. He wants you to use the Atonement every day and love it.

Preach My Gospel states that everything that is unfair about life can be made fair through the Atonement. In the eternities, God uses the Atonement to repay us with joy for every sorrow we experience on earth. And God delights in the chance to reward us with joy for our sorrows.

The Atonement enables us to experience the mighty change of heart that makes us more like Christ--the change of heart crucial to our salvation. As the first prophet of the Restoration taught, a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has the power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation. Taking advantage of Jesus's sacrifice for us requires sacrifices of our own, as we give away all our sins to know Him, as Lamoni of old. No unclean thing can enter into the kingdom of heaven. Jesus's Atonement enables us to repent so that we can become clean, new creatures in Christ, and return to God's presence. When we repent, we allow God and Jesus Christ to change our hearts so we no longer desire to do evil.

It is one thing to believe that Jesus is the Christ, and another to let that belief work in us until we are changed. We are saved by His grace when we are changed by His grace.

I know that Jesus is our Savior, the only means whereby man can be saved and receive true peace and joy. I know He loves us.

D&C 19:16-19:For behold, I, God, have ^asuffered these things for all, that they ^bmight not suffer if they would ^crepent; But if they would not repent they must ^asuffer even as I; But if they would not repent they must ^asuffer even as I; Which ^asuffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might ^bnot drink the bitter cup, and shrink—Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and^afinished my preparations unto the children of men.

How has the Atonement impacted your life? Have you ever felt the peace that comes from repentance?

I delayed my fitness goals to be a mother.

By Nayeli J.

Thinking about the nets that we give up to follow our Savior, and being very pregnant now, I thought about how we give up our bodies and overall health to be able to have babies.  I had made lots of fitness and wellness goals for the last 6 months in the year 2012 before my husband I planned to go on a cruise together. Both my husband and I made great improvements in our over-all health and even into the year 2013 we were still keeping up with our goals.  One of my long term goals that I wanted to accomplish sooner than later was to become a Zumba instructor!  I love Zumba and wanted to do something for myself and share that love of dancing with others.

  Then, that summer my husband and I decided that it was the best time for us to get pregnant because if we waited, we were going to be moving across the country and my husband would be starting his residency and we knew that would be challenging with already having two little ones.  At this point, I decided to put aside my wellness and fitness goals, my feeling good about looking better and being able to be more active.  I decided that being a mother was a priority and was something that Heavenly Father wanted me to do more than anything.  Now was the best time to do it!  Going into my pregnancy I made new obtainable goals being pregnant, so that I would have a healthy pregnancy, etc.  However, because this is my third baby my joints have been so sore and I haven't been able to be as active as I would like because I'm already chasing after 2. Being 32 wks now I can hardly move and I am on partial bedrest because I was doing too much.

I know that families can be together forever and that my family is definitely a priority in our lives.  Giving up this fitness/wellness "net" to bear more children is so worth it!  Our children are so very special and unique in many ways.  I can't wait to be able to nurture, teach, and care for another little spirit that will come down from God's presence.  Now, how miraculous and wonderful is that?  I feel honored that Heavenly Father would trust me to do such a thing:)

• Matthew 4:20: And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.

Taking care of our bodies is a good thing--but it can be easy to prioritize fitness over the sacred role of motherhood. What sacrifices have you made to put the Savior's plan for families in action in your own life? 

What do we give to follow Jesus?

By Allie D.

Jesus died on the cross for me--for you--for everyone--so that we all could experience both immortality and eternal life. He suffered excruciating pain, both emotional and physical, during His Atonement, so that we could one day be reunited with Him and our Father in Heaven. All He asks is that we follow him.

Some people give up everything to follow Jesus, and they do it as soon as they are asked.  Consider this story from Matthew 4:18-22 (emphasis mine):

 18 ¶And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were ^afishers. 

 19 And he saith unto them, ^aFollow me, and I will make you^bfishers of men. 

 20 And they straightway left their nets, and ^afollowed him. 

 21 And going on from thence, he saw other two brethren, James the son of ^aZebedee, and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and he ^bcalled them. 

 22 And they immediately left the ship and their father, and followed him.

 What an inspiration.

Peter and Andrew are fishing, catching the food to provide for their families, and Jesus comes up and tells them that famous line: "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." And immediately, they leave their nets in the water to follow Jesus.

Today, it would be as if Christ Himself walked into your office building, saw you at your computer, working hard to provide for yourself and your family, and invited you to come follow Him so you could be a fisher of men. What would you do? Would you stand up and leave your work?

What about the people who stared as you walked away?

What about your boss, gaping or threatening you as you left your job behind?

Then think of James and John, on the ship with their father. At Jesus's invitation, they leave not just their nets, but their ship and their father, Zebedee. What was Zebedee's reaction? Did he support them leaving him alone to mend the nets? Was he bitter that his sons would leave him to follow some uppity blasphemer from Galilee? It's possible that James and John left even their relationship with their father behind in order to follow Jesus Christ's calling to them.

Today, we're asked to sacrifice things too, in order to follow Jesus. He asks us to keep the commandments--not just the Ten Commandments, but the commandments to "love the Lord thy God with all thy ^aheart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself"  (Luke 10:27). The commandment to love God and others requires the sacrifice of our pride, our self-centeredness, our time, our resources--everything we have. These are the things we are called to sacrifice in order to follow Jesus.

I know that as we do sacrifice those things, Jesus teaches us better how to love Him and love others--and we are blessed for it more than we can understand prior to our sacrifices. The more we sacrifice to follow Jesus, the more He is able to bless us with the love that fills our hearts with joy. I know that as we follow Him, and love and serve others the way that He would, the end result is peace and a happiness that does not compare with the false happiness that comes from placing the self above all else. Jesus is the way to peace in this life, and I know that as we sacrifice to get to know Him better, He blesses us in return.

What do you give up in your life to follow Jesus? What blessings have you gained from following Him?