David Journal

Tag: general conference

  • What are you building next? And how?

    —

    by

    David
    in

    This is the outline of how I imagine the lesson tomorrow unfolding. Review the 1820-1830 “days never to be forgotten” with the personal “decade never to be forgotten” that Elder Stevenson described. Compare those periods of time and consider how they relate to your current and upcoming years. Talk about the origin story nature of…

  • Ready for conference

    —

    by

    David
    in

    Today had been intended to prepare for conference weekend. I did work on that basically all evening after Noah and Ezra finished their tennis match and made some good progress but there are still some things to do in the morning. On the other hand, I’m very ready for conference—I need to tune out the…

  • Level up

    —

    by

    David
    in

    For several years I have made a point of studying each talk from General Conference before the next General Conference. I haven’t always succeeded but in those cases I have caught up after conference on top of trying to do the new talks. For the two or three most recent conferences I have added to…

  • A premonition

    —

    by

    David
    in

    Conference was awesome this weekend. At the close of President Nelson’s talk when he said farewell until we meet again Laura and I both felt it was different than before—as if he had a sense that his mission was drawing to a close. I wanted to record that as a reference in case that turned…

  • The ice cracks

    —

    by

    David
    in

    It has been two years that Laura has openly (to me, not anyone else) expressed her dissafection with the church. She has tried to persuade me not to believe in God and to stop paying tithing (back while I had an income). Tonight she went with the girls to Becca’s house for the women’s session…

  • Priestcraft

    —

    by

    David
    in

    When we try to assist righteous in order to be popular or to receive personal gain we are guilty of priestcraft even if we don’t think of it in those terms. Alma was very clear about that and about its final consequences in a society.

  • Healing not hiding

    —

    by

    David
    in

    The church is an automobile repair center, not an automobile showroom. Or goal is to receive the maintenance of repairs that we need, whether that is major body work, replacement of faulty or recalled parts, or a simple oil change. We don’t do ourselves any favors by coming to the service center in need of…

  • Teaching “On Being Genuine”

    —

    by

    David
    in

    The question I would like to focus on is: how do we recognize the line where keeping up appearances goes from being useful to being deceitful? Secondarily we might ask, what is it about keeping up appearances that can actually be useful? When does frankness cross over to being thoughtless, faithless, or tactless?

  • Prepare to defend your beliefs with courtesy and with compassion

    —

    by

    David
    in

    I reviewed “The Cost – and Blessings – of Discipleship” in preparation for teaching Elder’s Quorum today. Quote 1: With admiration and encouragement for everyone who will need to remain steadfast in these latter days, I say to all and especially the youth of the Church that if you haven’t already, you will one day…

  • Gratitude

    —

    by

    David
    in

    I tried looking at gratitude in the Topical Guide and it simply pointed to the entries for ingratitude and thanksgiving. Looking at thanksgiving definitely indicates that thanksgiving is treated as an attitude or lifestyle rather than simply as an act. The thing that for me thinking about the topic was our lesson in Elder’s Quorum…