This past week I (Anthony) was in a class where the teacher taught an excellent lesson on gratitude. He had his students list 32 things they were grateful for in an NCAA type bracket. His students then did a “play-off” between the items, with the one they were more thankful for moving on in the thankful tournament. For example, if a student listed “chocolate” as one thing they were thankful for and then listed “the scriptures,” then chocolate would face off against the scriptures and whichever one the student was more grateful for moved on. This process continued on until people got down to the sweet sixteen and elite eight, final four, and personal national champion of the most thankful thing. It was interesting to hear which items made it through the thankful tournament, and the common themes that popped up as the most thankful thing in students’ lives. If you played the thankful tournament, what would be your final four, or your national champion? As it is Thanksgiving week we would like to know and keep the thankful spirit alive.
Thankful Tournament–What Would Win Yours?
November 28th, 2010
Why shouldn’t I just do whatever I want?
November 19th, 2010
Quotes to Help During Hard Times
November 14th, 2010
The following are some of our favorite quotes that help give perspective when life is hard. We hope they help some of you who may need it. Please pass this post on if you know of someone who could be helped by the words of the prophets as well:
The people in the magazine
November 6th, 2010In WHY? we referenced a movie that shows why you shouldn’t compare yourself to the people in magazines. We’ve linked to that video clip below and we love it!
Before you watch it, consider these two powerful quotes. “I plead with you…to please be more accepting of yourselves, including your body shape and style, with a little less longing to look like someone else. We are all different.” (Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, Ensign, Nov., 2005).
Mr. Satan—You’re Not That Scary
October 31st, 2010
It’s Halloween today, and in the spirit of scariness and goblins and ghouls, we thought we would do a quick post to remind us something about the original ghoul: the devil.
How can I balance all the good things in my life?
October 26th, 2010We’re not sure about your schedule, but some teenagers find they have way too much to do!
When you are feeling overwhelmed, one of the first things you want to do is try to find ways to cut back. But what to cut back on? Your AP classes? Scripture study? Time with family? Sports? Facebook? Argh, these decisions can be hard to make.
We Are All Human, and We All Have Temptations
October 20th, 2010As some of you know, these past few weeks President Boyd K. Packer’s general conference talk has been criticized by some who feel that he was insensitive to those who struggle with homosexual temptations. While we sympathize with those who struggle with same gender attraction, we also sympathize with those who struggle with opposite gender attraction for intimacy before (or outside of) marriage, and those who struggle with powerful urges to view pornography, and those who can’t seem to control their anger, or those who seem to be prone to laziness, lying, selfishness, self-hurting, and an innumerable number of temptations that can be part of our natural man. If we carefully read President Packer’s talk, we quickly see that he is not just speaking to those struggling with same gender attraction–he is speaking to all of us who struggle with temptations that are not in harmony with the plan of salvation, teaching us that through the atonement we can resist those temptations. He wasn’t speaking to just one group of people–President Packer was speaking to ALL OF US.
We are all HUMAN
WHY DVD Coming Soon
October 10th, 2010We’ve been working hard on a WHY DVD … it’s going to be different from any other LDS DVD that has come out. We created a YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/ldswhy) so that we can post clips from the DVD as they become available. The DVD clips aren’t quite ready yet, but we thought we would post the original television commercial advertising the WHY? book. We hope you’ll enjoy it! …More video clips to come soon!
14 Reasons Why We Follow the Prophet
October 3rd, 2010Man, isn’t conference weekend sweet? There is almost nothing better than to sit at the feet of the prophets of God and hear them teach for hours and hours…in our pajamas even! How we love general conference! And how we love the prophets of God. It seems that the greatest test of any generation is how they respond to the messages of the living prophets. That is one reason we wrote the chapter “Why Should I Listen to and Follow the Prophet” in the WHY? book and we wrote most of our new HOW? book based on the prophets’ directions telling us HOW to live the gospel.
Multiple times in this general conference reference was made to President Ezra Taft Benson’s classing talk “Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet.” We thought it would be cool to re-print the entire talk here for those who want to read that entire message. We testify that we truly are led by living prophets today, and that Thomas S. Monson is the Lord’s anointed spokesperson as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Here are the fourteen fundamentals in following him from President Benson’s talk:
NO true church?
September 27th, 2010
It used to be that people would argue with each other about which church was the true church (see Joseph Smith History 1:5-8). However, in our day, it is just as common to hear somebody say, “I don’t really think it matters which church you go to. As long as you’re a good person you will go to heaven.” This issue of there being “no true church” can be a difficult one to explain to others.
