Mormon Musings

There is a way by which persons could keep their conscience clear before God and man, and that is to preserve within the spirit of God, which is the spirit of revelation to every man and woman.  It will reveal it to them even in the simplest of matters, what they shall do, by making suggestions to them.  We should try to learn the nature of this spirit, that we may understand its suggestions, and then we will always be able to do right.  This is the grand privilege of every Latter-day Saint.  We know that it is our right to have manifestations of the spirit every day of our lives. ...From the time we receive the Gospel, go down into the waters of baptism and have hands laid upon us afterwards for the gift of the Holy Ghost, we have a friend, if we do not drive it from us by doing wrong.  That friend is the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost which partakes of the things of God and shows them unto us. This is a grand means that the Lord has provided for us, that we may k...

By Elder Neal A. Maxwell Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles Elder Neal A. Maxwell passed away on 21 July 2004 as this issue of the  Ensign  was being prepared for publication. After reciting a litany of social ills during his time, Mormon consoled his son, Moroni, suggesting that somber world conditions could unnecessarily “weigh thee down” ( Moro. 9:25 ). 1   Today, I write lest you be unnecessarily “weighed down.” What follows will include several stern but needed prophecies, yet my comments will mostly be about some very reassuring and positive things. Though I write primarily to the youth of the Church, these assurances have ready application to all gospel teachers who have been entrusted with nurturing this royal generation. My text is a later Nephi’s phrase about his own time and season on earth. As he became less nostalgic for an earlier time and more submissive as to doing his duty in his particular season, he said, “I am consigned that these are my days.” I inv...

When a man receives knowledge, he is prompted to impart it to others; when a man becomes happy, the Spirit that surrounds him teaches him to strive to make others happy. It is not so in the Gentile world. If a man attains to any important position, he does not strive to elevate others to participate in the same blessings. In this respect there is a great difference between the Latter-day Saints and the world of mankind. The object of the Priesthood is to make all men happy, to diffuse information, to make all partakers of the same blessings in their turn. Is there any chance of a man’s becoming happy without a knowledge of the Gospel of Christ? A man may make the thunders roll, the lightnings flash; but what has that to do with making a man happy? Nothing. Though in the world they try to make themselves happy, still they are not successful in what they strive to accomplish. They cannot be happy except upon one principle, and that is by embracing the fulness of the Gospel, which teaches...

The organized spirit which God gave us is the one which conceives through the revelations that are given from on high. The nature and the character of those teachings that come from the Priesthood are such that we comprehend them: the Spirit manifests them unto us as they are. By it we learn our duties to God and man. We are taught by it to shun the evil and cleave unto that which is good. We understand this, if we are in the path of duty. It is not miracles that produce within us that living faith of which President Young so frequently speaks; but we learn the nature and character of our religion. We learn that which is calculated to enable us to shun all evil power and to make us happy. When a man receives knowledge, he is prompted to impart it to others; when a man becomes happy, the Spirit that surrounds him teaches him to strive to make others happy. It is not so in the Gentile world. If a man attains to any important position, he does not strive to elevate others to particip...

We cannot always do what we would like to do, but we shall have the power to do that which we should do. The Lord will give us the power to do this.  (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Lorenzo Snow, Chapter 11: “I Seek Not Mine Own Will, but the Will of the Father”) We depend upon God; and in all our works and labors, and in all the success that attends us in our labors, we feel that it has been God who has wrought it.  (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Lorenzo Snow, Chapter 11: “I Seek Not Mine Own Will, but the Will of the Father”) See also 1 Nephi 3:7

Sailors and mariners become wise, useful, and qualified for their stations only by experience. Storms, tempests, and hurricanes have to occur in order to give them that experience. If all was calm, and storms never arose at sea, where would the mariner get the experience that is necessary for him to have, that when storms do occur and difficulties arise, when the ship sails out upon the ocean, he shall be prepared to manage and guide his his vessel safely into port. If there are individuals on board that have never experienced storms, or perhaps have never ventured away from land before, when storms arise, you see that trepidation of spirit that you do not witness in those that have had experience. So it is with ourselves in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we have to learn by the things that take place around us and act in the stations assigned us by the circumstances that transpire and the experience we gain. President Lorenzo Snow, Journal of Discourses 5:322

“As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be.” President Lorenzo Snow - Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Lorenzo Snow,  83

I presume to say that we do not all of us fully comprehend the blessings and privileges that are prepared in the Gospel for us to receive. We do not fully comprehend and we do not have before our view the things which await us in the eternal worlds, nor, indeed, the things which await us in this life and that are calculated to promote our peace and happiness and to answer the desires of our hearts… We frequently, in the multitude of cares around us, get forgetful, and these things are not before us; then we do not comprehend that the Gospel is designed and calculated in its nature to bestow upon us those things that will bring glory, honor, and exaltation—that will bring peace and glory. We are apt to forget these things in the midst of the cares and vexations of life; and we do not fully understand that it is our privilege, and that the Lord has placed it in our reach to pursue that Gospel whereby we may have peace within us continually. All this trouble and vexation of...

The whole is summed up in this—DO RIGHT. Lorenzo Snow Journal of Discourses  5:316

“There is no Latter day Saint who dies after having lived a faithful life who will lose anything because of having failed to do certain things when opportunities were not furnished him or her. In other words, if a young man or a young woman has no opportunity of getting married, and they live faithful lives up to the time of their death, they will have all the blessings, exaltation, and glory that any man or woman will have who had this opportunity and improved it. That is sure and positive.”  (   The Teachings of Lorenzo Snow,  ed. Clyde J. Williams [1984], 138. ) 

“When you find yourselves a little gloomy, look around you and find somebody that is in a worse plight than yourself; go to him and find out what the trouble is, then try to remove it with the wisdom which the Lord bestows upon you; and the first thing you know, your gloom is gone, you feel light, the Spirit of the Lord is upon you, and everything seems illuminated.”  (   Conference Report,  Apr. 1899, 2–3. ) 

“As man now is, God once was; as God is now man may be.”  (   The Teachings of Lorenzo Snow,  ed. Clyde J. Williams [1984], 1. ) 

http://jdquotes.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/storms-of-life-give-us-the-requisite-experience/

http://jdquotes.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/485/

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