Food for Thought by Weston 3-31-13

So today as I was talking with my wonderful sister Dena she shared a verse that she read today and I think it is great and we can all learn from it. It is from the Doctrine and Covenants section 29 verse 39. 39 And it must needs be that the adevil should btempt the children of men, or they could not be cagents unto themselves; for if they never should have dbitter they could not know the sweet— In this verse I learned that through whatever temptations or trials we go through is for our benefit because we learn the bitter from the sweet. I have noticed lately a few things that I just know I need to do better at and I have had a lot of things on my mind lately. This verse that my sister shared with me was great because it was something I needed to hear. Do you ever feel like when you have a moment like this that you just want to keep going and helping out your spirit? I usually do and I sure as heck did today which is why when I got home today I was on the churches website when I came across a great video that is just beautiful from President Eyring. I will attach the link here and if you have time to watch it do. You will not regret it. The video is called mountains to climb. In this video he talks about how we are all going through trials that might cause some to question their faith. He says that if you are in these trials and your faith is fading that you need to remember why trials come. The Lord passed through trials more terrible than we can imagine. He talks about how the foundation of faith needs to be embedded in our hearts or our endurance will crumble. It seems to me like with every gospel principle most the time it ties right back into agency and action. We all have the agency to act upon our faith and we can either move up that ladder which leads to eternal life or we can let the adversary knock us down time and time again as he comes at us so quickly and relentlessly. We have to protect our faith in our savior because if he is the rock of our faith our testimonies will never crumble. Things will get better in due time because the Lord will not forsake us. I have noticed in my own life that sometimes the best way to heal our spiritual wounds is time but we cant just let time go by. President Eyring clearly points out that we have to serve diligently with full heart and soul into spiritual strength. We all can find this happiness and know of the sweet sensuous times and recognize them and embrace them to the fullest and know of heavenly fathers unfailing love for us as we have the faith that president Eyring talks about. The last thing that I wanted to bring up in this email is from a quote by Dallin Oaks from a conference talk he gave in 2000. The piece of this talk that stood out to me is where he stated "to testify is to know and to declare. The gospel challenges us to be converted which requires us to do and to become." Everyone that reads these emails has a testimony of the gospel but the true question is what do you do about it? When you can answer that question by saying you declare and strive to become like your savior thats when I feel you know without a doubt that you are truly converted. I love how he talks about becoming because that is so vital in conversion. Let us all be more of a becoming group of people so we can testify, declare, and do the things that show we are representatives of Christ. Thank y'all for reading and remember not only to keep on keepin' on but to look for good in others. -Weston Reay https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/mormon-messages?lang=eng&country=ca#2013-01-003-mountains-to-climb