Between he and thee alone

D&C 28:11 talks about Joseph Smith and how he needed to talk to Hiram Page, a man who purported to be receiving revelation through a stone, his fault. The Lord told Joseph to go to him alone, essentially to not make the issue public. I think this is important, and a good principle. I need to approach people directly and not talk about them with others or make them look bad. He footnote leads to Matthew 18:15: ¶Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.

Then I read Uchtdorf's "The Merciful Shall Obtain Mercy," and it was so powerful and moving. Do I forgive? Am I the kind of person who forgives? I need to forgive. I need to think about the beams in my eye, and about the imperfections and sins that Jesus forgives in me. I need to show love to others and remember that maybe I am supposed to love them and help them. I need to fill my body and heart with love for God and let that govern my feelings and thoughts and actions. 

Fertile ground

I realized today after reading Eyring's talk from April 2016 that the parable of the seeds and the different kinds of ground applies to the various states of a one person's heart. That is amazing. I have a lot of agency in how soft I am, how fertile I let my ground be. I loved that talk. Eyring says things like how we choose to pray with all our hearts or we choose to offer our prayer along with other's, etc. It's powerful.

Women

Notes from Nelson's talk, "A Plea to My Sisters" in October 2015

Have faith that covenant-keeping women really will have an impact on the future of the Lord's Church, that they will bring others to it and to Jesus by the lives they live (Spencer W. Kimball). What's a covenant-keeping woman? One who keeps her covenants, who remembers the Savior, who takes His name upon her and represents Him, one who attends the temple, one who keeps the commandments, one who studies and learns the gospel, one who repents, one who dedicates her life to serving the Lord.

These are the qualities that will bring women of the world and their families to the Lord:
Virtue
Light
Love
Knowledge
Courage
Character
Faith
Righteous lives
Woman who know how to make important things happen by their faith
Woman who are courageous defenders of morality and the family
Devoted to shepherding God's children on the path toward God
Woman who know how to receive personal revelation
Who understand the power and peace of the temple endowment
Women who know how to call upon the power of heaven to strengthen their families
Woman who teach fearlessly (italicized because this is something I want to work on)

How to pray in a way that God can answer

Have the mind of Chrsit and the will of Christ. Remember the two overlapping circles. Left side is what I want, right side is that He wants. How much do they overlap? One way to help with this is to tack on "but if not" to my requests. 

And remember this: "I noticed that the things I want are largely circumstantial things—things based on the circumstances of life—while the things that God wants for me are mostly un-circumstantial (don’t look that up; it’s not really a word), or things relating to the state of my heart." LDS.org 4/12/2016

Take upon you His cross

I'm studying Jacob 1:8 today. The footnotes are great. The third one leads to use 14:27, which leads to a bunch more. From them I learned that taking up His cross means denying myself of ungodliness. Taking upon me His cause and name. It means bearing the shame of the world and not worrying about what there think or say about Him or my believing in Him. It means believing in Christ and becoming like Him. 

My soul is happy about the restoration

Recently I felt like I needed to strengthen my testimony of Joseph Smith and the restoration. So I started reading the D&C. Wow! Today I felt the blessings of it. I read a talk about Palmyra that was about this guy who had a question about why Palmyra was the place for Joseph Smith to see God and why and how there were crowds of people there. And basically his talk was about how we get answers to prayers if we seek them. As I read the talk, I just thought about how everything about Joseph Smith and the restoration was really unique and special. And it all and each happened because Heavenly Father loves us. And wants us to have truth. So many little things just worked out in our favor. What a blessing. And I'm so grateful. Then I read D&C 19. And I don't remember what it's about even now, besides Jesus talking about His experience and encouraging them to always repent and to teach repentance. But I remember the way I felt. The same as above. And this scripture pretty nicely and sweetly sums it up: "39 Behold, canst thou read this without rejoicing and lifting up thy heart for gladness?"

Sacrament meeting

I felt the spirit so strong today during Sacrament Meeting. Xavier Zamora gave a talk and he testified a lot in it and each time he did, I felt there Spirit confirming to me it was true. It's such a blessing to have experiences like that in Sacrament Meeting, experiences when I love he meeting and listen and my heart is touched and I feel truly edified. 

I learned from a youth's talk that in order to make my worship more worshipful during Sacrament Meeting, I need to think about the meaning of the words of the hymns. I need to pay attention to them. I need to sing them as praises or as prayers into God. This is something I'm going to try harder to do. 

I also had a day vision about me as a mother a few years down the road and my kids asking me why I read he scriptures each day. Instead of giving them a list of impersonal reasons why we should read the scriptures, this is what my day vision showed me to say: "My reason is different every day. Today is..." Hopefully, this will show them that some days I read them to get strength. Some days for more patience. Some days because I love God. Some days because I need answers. Some days because I'm preparing to teach. I want to be authentic to them. I can't wait to have conversations like that with my children.