Saying Goodbye To The 2016 Rio Olympics

Today the 2016 Rio Olympics come to an end.  During the past two weeks I found myself in awe of these athletes who have competed and succeeded at the highest level.  Michael Phelps, Simone Biles, Usain Bolt and many others demonstrated that they are the very best in their sport.  

Each one of these great athletes have devoted countless hours in training, practice, and competitions to get to where they are today.  One can not be successful in a competition today if they have not put in the effort necessary to tone their muscles, work on strength, endurance and fine tune the skills necessary to win at this high level of competition.

To illustrate the point of having to put in effort to be successful I offer this quote from President Howard W Hunter from a devotional address he have at BYU in 1987:

"The achievement of true greatness is a long-term process. It may involve occasional setbacks. The end result may not always be clearly visible, but it seems that it always requires regular, consistent, small, and sometimes ordinary and mundane steps over a long period of time”.

Each of us, no matter our circumstances in life, can enjoy the fruits of success. Success in your occupation, marriage, family, even relationships with friends rests upon us as an individual.  I find I have two major stumbling blocks to succeeding.  First is believing in myself.  The second is perseverance.  Having the patience to keep going when success does not come right away or I experience a measure of failure.

On the subject of perseverance Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said this in his October 1987 general conference address:

 “Perseverance is a positive, active characteristic, it is not idly, passively waiting and hoping for some good thing to happen. It gives us hope by helping us realize that the righteous suffer no failure except in giving up and no longer trying”.

This really hits the nail on the head for me.  We can not be truly successful without putting in effort on our part.  Certainly giving up and no longer trying does not lead to success.  On too many occasions in my life I have thrown up my hands in frustration and said "I quit".  

I came across this quote that hit home to me: 

“Genius is only the power of making continuous efforts. The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it; so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it. How many a man has thrown up his hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience would have achieved success? A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed a hopeless failure may turn into a glorious success. … There is no defeat except within, no really insurmountable barrier save one’s own inherent weakness of purpose” (author unknown,Second Encyclopedia, ed. Jacob M. Brand, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1957, p. 152). 

How many times have I given up when success would have been mine with one or two more steps?  A lack of determination, I believe, is the weakness that kept me from moving forward.

I plan to take some inspiration from this Olympic season.  I hope you will to.  My inspiration is to increase my determination to keep moving forward and not lose patience when the road seems rocky and impassable.  To draw some strength from this short quote from a talk that President Thomas S Monson gave in the 1987 general conference:

"One of God’s greatest gifts to us is the joy of trying again, for no failure ever need be final.”

Submitted by:  James Tanner

Why I came back to the church

When asked questions it's usually about what took me away from the LDS church. We all like drama and juicy details. Lately I've been asked multiple times what brought me back. I've been asked to share my answer through this week's blog. My reason for posting about this topic is a hope that at least one person will relate to me and find courage to come back.

Why did I come back? I listened. When people say, "God told me...", I always had a hard time identifying with that description, before and now. I've never felt like someone held my chin and told me what to do or what not to do. My version of receiving instructions from on high has always been in the form of my own thoughts. Me. A sudden awareness, or a careful progression of realization. In either case, this is what we in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints refer to as inspiration, or more reverently, personal revelation provided by an omniscient Heavenly Father. So what is so special about my return? Not much. I listened. Just listened. At first.

It would be hard to ignore a heavenly visitation (although we read that the brothers of Nephi, Laman and Lemuel, in the Book of Mormon, managed to pull that off). It's all the more easy to brush off your own thoughts. We often say we are "at war with ourself". The next time you say that, you need only do one thing. Listen. That is your moment, right in front of you. You just might be being spoken to, through your being, not just a private closed-door conversation with yourself, but accessing a spiritual channel so simple, you might miss it if you don't pay attention...and listen.

During my years away from the church (and even now I suppose), who is to say how many times I was spiritually spoken to and did not listen. I fear the count is quite high. However, the most dynamic opportunity for me to listen, and the switch that redirected my path, was in the form of a dream on August 11, 2005, 11 years ago this week. Dreams often leave us with such little value that we can often disregard them upon waking, to the point that we no longer have a detailed recollection even within minutes or seconds. This dream was gentle, subtle even. Yet, there was one unique attribute that turned up my "hearing".

The content of the dream has important significance for me, but what made that content become something worth listening to was nothing more than a feeling of love. In dreams we may feel a whole host of emotions, but what typically happens when we wake up? Those feelings are lifted, or at least shadowed by hunger, fatigue, or the need for a restroom. Not this time. I woke up and still felt the same exhilarating love. I sat straight up, baffled and amazed at what was happening. I felt like a child young enough to still have normal things to experience for the first time. Like my daughter, the first time she discovered she could whistle. Or my son, the first time he drank root beer. I am sure I had the look of deep analysis on my face, and the feeling remained. No angelic visitation. No voice heard in or outside of my head. A feeling that I had the choice to brush off and say, "That was weird. Now what should I eat". Rather I just sat there. And it came to me. I knew what I needed to do. Which included no small actions. However, this time I felt empowered; I had purpose to make a return. It all seemed so simple. Not to say that it was, because I went through quite a bit over the next period of time, but the scale had tipped. Being an analytical and logical person, returning to a life of righteousness was now the path of least resistance, whereas before it was a path of difficulty and doubt.

Hearing is not listening. I know my kids hear me all the time, and as their father I know how to demand that their hearing upgrade to listening, in order to get them to act. Our Heavenly Father works this way. That's where we learned it. He will speak, and we might hear Him, but not do anything with it. Perhaps this comes in the form of advice from a friend, or our own thoughts. We get so good at this avoidance that we exercise our ability to dismiss Him quicker and quicker. Until He demands that we listen, because He wants us to succeed. He will ensure that we consciously received the message. Even then, it is on us to use that information once we have consciously thought, "I should do this", or "I shouldn't be doing this".

So again, welcome those moments of being at war with yourself, and be brave. Choose to listen to whatever delivery method is being used. Use the Savior. He atoned for our poor choices for a reason. Let's not let that go to waste. Having the Savior behind us is much easier. I promise. Need help with this? Why do it alone? Try what worked for me. Meet with your Bishop. Tell him about your successes and your challenges. Express through prayer to our Father in Heaven that you received his message, and you have a desire to hear more. Examine your thoughts and feelings. After all, He engineered us all to have the built-in resources necessary to return to Him. And finally, listen. You will hear something.

Good luck and blessings to us all!

Submitted by: Nate Blackhurst