email from January 9, 2023
Hi everyone!
Hope everyone has had a great week! Second week into the new year, I hope it has been treating everyone well!
Last Monday, we had a couple lessons that went well.
Tuesday, it was pretty much the same thing lol. We had a lot of finding time and a few lessons. We went to a place called Pickle Barrell with Sister Smith, and I got a picture next to the sign (because of the pickle in its name!)
Wednesday, we had district council over Zoom. That was a unique experience because we didn’t get to see each other in person. The rest of the day we pretty much just had lessons and finding time.
Thursday, we had two lessons in the morning and then weekly planning for the rest of the day after that.
Friday and Saturday were both all finding time.
And then Sunday, we had Stake Conference. All of the talks were super good!! Even the youth speakers :)!! It was cool because I was able to see a bunch of the members from Warner Robins 2nd Ward (as I’m in the same stake), so that was cool. The General Authority Seventy that was there was Elder Craig. He was actually a really funny guy ?.
I wish that there was more to this week to share, but it really was mostly just finding peeps; the good stuff :).
For a spiritual thought today, I wanted to share some thoughts I’ve been thinking about Truth. One things that I have been learning is that truth can be relative depending on what way you look at something. If you take a sphere and on one side there is a square, but the other there is a triangle, depending on which side you look at it, you could say there is a triangle or a square inside of the sphere. The hard part is when one person looks at one side and another looks at another side and not know about the other sides, each person could say which one they saw and have two different answers, but both of them would be true. In this sense, truth can be Relative.
However, this is one thing that the Prophet has warned us, “Some would have us believe that truth is relative—that each person should determine for himself or herself what is true. Such a belief is but wishful thinking for those who mistakenly think they will not also be accountable to God.”
Say thee were just those two shapes in that sphere, and then someone came in and said I see a Trapezoid, clearly that would not be truth. So how can we have two truths (“square” or “triangle”) that seem relative, but are in fact absolute truths but we just can’t see the whole picture? President Nelson teaches in this same talk that God is the source of all truth. He can see the big picture, and as such “by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.” (Moroni 10:5).
To go one step deeper, I wanted to talk also about Eternal Laws. There was a video I saw this week where President Nelson says that he always strives to learn all of the Laws of Heaven. This brings us to Doctrine and Covenants 88 which part of it teaches that everything has a law that it follows. As 3 Nephi 15:9 teaches us, “Behold, I am the law, and the light…” One of the names of the Savior is in fact ‘the Law’ and so to go back to our sphere with a square and triangle, to tie it altogether, I am going to say that the Godhead is the Sphere that they are contained in.
So ultimately, while it might appear that truth is relative to some, as our wonderful Prophet has taught, God is the source of all truth. He knows the eternal Laws, and can see the whole picture. He has all truth. So with all that said, I would like to invite everyone to pray to God anytime you would like to learn truth. As James 1:5 teaches, God will give freely and not judge us for asking :). He is truly our Loving Heavenly Father, and He wants you to be happy. I’m sorry if that got a little too deep, but I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
