RESTORED

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"The genuine and simple religion of Jesus will one day be restored: such as it was preached and practised [sic] by himself,"

Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Van der Kemp, 1820

Testimony and Conversion

It is a common error to feel that testimony means full conversion. We many times equate testimony with a man’s faith. We say, “He has great faith,” meaning that he has a strong testimony, or we say, “He has a strong testimony,” meaning that he has great faith. However, I don’t believe the two are always synonymous. Faith is based on knowledge; it is a hope in that which is not seen which is true. (See Alma 32:21.) Testimony is revealed knowledge.

Hartman Rector Jr., “The Strength of Testimony,” Ensign, May 1974, 109

Fathers Day Quotes

"The father is always a Republican toward his son, and his mother's always a Democrat." -- Robert Frost

"A father is a banker provided by nature." -- French Proverb

"I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." -- Sigmund Freud

"My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it." -- Clarence Budington Kelland

"Small boy's definition of Father's Day: It's just like Mother's Day only you don't spend so much." -- Unknown

"By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he's wrong." -- Charles Wadsworth

I was made for another world

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 121

Freedom in the face of opposition

“The people of Poland are giving us an imperishable example of courage and devotion to the values of freedom in the face of relentless opposition … the torch of liberty is hot. It warms those who hold it high. It burns those who try to extinguish it.”

- Ronald Reagan, December 1981

Learning from the difficult times

In spite of discouragement and adversity, those who are happiest seem to have a way of learning from the difficult times, becoming stronger, wiser, and happier as a result... Come what may, and love it. Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin

How to get Charity

But though natural likings should normally be encouraged, it would be quite wrong to think that the way to become charitable is to sit trying to manufacture affectionate feelings. Some people are 'cold' by temperament; that may be a misfortune for them, but it is no more a sin than having a bad digestion is a sin; and it does not cut them out from the chance, or excuse them from the duty, of learning charity. The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less. There is, indeed, one exception. If you do him a good turn, not to please God and obey the law of charity, but to show him what a fine forgiving chap you are, and to put him in your debt, and then sit down to wait for his 'gratitude', you will probably be disappointed. (People are not fools: they have a very quick eye for anything like showing off, or patronage.) But whenever we do good to another self, just because it is a self, made (like us) by God, and desiring its own happiness as we desire ours, we shall have learned to love it a little more or, at least, to dislike it less.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 116

parenting

"There is no book that you can read to fix your kids, but remember that while trying to change their behavior you also need to change how you react because that may be maintaining their behavior." - I don't know.

"Your toddler will do what they need to do, and not necessarily what you say. If you're patient, then they will be patient. If you speak gently, then they will be gentle. Whatever you want them to be, you have to start becoming."

-Helen Hunt

Beautiful! So well said. I love it. I want to start becoming!

In the beginning.... In the end.

In the beginning God didn't rest until He created man in His own image. In the end he won't rest until man creates in himself the likeness of God.

Marlena Tayna Muchnic
Jewish Convert to Mormonism

Life Purposes

"If you have problems in your life, don't assume there is something wrong with you. Struggling with those problems is at the very core of life's purpose. As we draw close to God, He will show us our weaknesses and through them make us wiser, stronger."

[Bruce C. Hafen "The Atonement: All for All,"

Ensign, May 2004, 97]

Taking off the fancy dress

We must not think Pride is something God forbids because He is offended at it, or that Humility is something He demands as due to His own dignity — as if God Himself was proud. He is not in the least worried about His dignity. The point is, He wants you to know Him: wants to give you Himself. And He and you are two things of such a kind that if you really get into any kind of touch with Him you will, in fact, be humble — delightedly humble, feeling the infinite relief of having for once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless and unhappy all your life. He is trying to make you humble in order to make this moment possible: trying to take off a lot of silly, ugly, fancy-dress in which we have all got ourselves up and are strutting about like the little idiots we are. I wish I had got a bit further with humility myself: if I had, I could probably tell you more about the relief, the comfort, of taking the fancy-dress off—getting rid of the false self, with all its 'Look at me' and 'Aren't I a good boy?' and all its posing and posturing. To get even near it, even for a moment, is like a drink of cold water to a man in a desert.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 113-114

Agency Plus

There is another responsibility correlated and even coexistent with free agency, which is too infrequently emphasized, and that is the effect not only of a person's actions but also of his thoughts upon others. Man radiates what he is, and that radiation affects to a greater or less degree every person who comes within that radiation.

David O. McKay

I find this quote scary. There is a guy who tells me I lack confidence. I do in the relationship realm of life. I have not been successful and it seems that my thoughts have effected not just relationships with men, but with everyone. I'm at a point right now, where I really don't know what to do with me.