What Repentance Means to Me

I don't know that I can deal with this subject adequately, because it is a central issue. Along with agency and the atonement, it is a main part of the plan of salvation.

God gave us our agency, which is an essential part of the plan. We must choose to be like Him, if we want to truly develop those characteristics. They cannot be forced upon us.

However, agency gives us the opportunity to to make our own choices, and being mortal, we all make at least some wrong choices. The atonement provides forgiveness and course corrections, if we will only repent.

True repentance is the process of becoming more like our Heavenly Father. We discard behaviors that are not like his, and replace them with behaviors that are Christlike.

Some tend to think of repentance as a sort of punishment, where we have to change our ways. This is not correct. It is an opportunity provided by a loving Father to allow us to recover from our mistakes and still progress to become like Him even after our errors.

There are steps to repentance: recognizing error, feeling a desire to change and a sorrow for having done wrong, confession, making it right where possible, by making what restitution we can, and forsaking the incorrect behavior permanently. None of this is easy. None of it can be done without the Lord's help. Some errors also require confession to and help from a Bishop or other authorized servant of the Lord.

The wonderful miracle is that, when we sincerely repent, the Lord forgives and forgets our errors, remembering them no more; and that He then applies the atonement to us, which literally cleans us of our stains and changes us for the better. The entire plan of salvation, the entire goal of the "immortality and eternal life of man" would fail without this process.

I am very grateful for repentance in my life. I am now a better man that I used to be, thanks to this privilege. And, if I continue to repent as I should, my progress and improvement will continue until I am blessed with eternal life and exaltation.

What Christmas Means to Me

Today we had our annual Christmas program during Sacrament meeting. It was wonderful. Janet and I were in the choir. We sang several songs, and there were scripture readings and two talks. The talks were really good, and emphasized not only Jesus' birth, but also his mission in life and the purpose of his coming into mortality. This was made more poignant by the circumstance that yesterday a beloved member of our ward passed away at age 79. I joined his children and grandchildren in tears off and on through the meeting. This made it all the more wonderful that the speakers emphasized all that Christ has done for us.

Because of Jesus, our friend John's story is not done. He is reunited with his parents and siblings, and his beloved Norma will join them when her time comes. Because of Jesus all of our mortal loneliness and sorrow and illness and frailty has an end. Because of Jesus we can be reunited with or families in joy for eternity. Because of Jesus we have comfort and hope.

This, to me, is the bottom line about Christmas. It's great to celebrate the new-born babe. But it is even more wonderful to give praise and thanks for the mission this baby boy performed for his Father and for us. I am awed by the whole concept that He would suffer for me personally and for each of you personally. What an amazing love and grace He has for us!

I testify that it is only through this baby Jesus, and the adult Jesus that He became, that we have any hope of salvation, peace, hope, happiness, or eternal life. To provide these things for us is the reason He chose to come to earth. This is why it is so important to me to celebrate the birth of the Christ Child, and to love and worship and obey him.

Dickens and Van Dyke: Recommended Reading for the Christmas Season

Charles Dickens wrote The Life of Our Lord for his own children. It was very personal to him and to his family, and so was not published until many years after he passed away. It is a treasure, explaining Jesus' life in terms a child can understand. It shows the strength of Dickens' testimony of Christ.

This little book contains one of my favorite first paragraphs from all literature: "My dear children, I am very anxious that you should know something about the History of Jesus Christ. For everybody ought to know about Him. No one ever lived, who was so good, so kind, so gentle, and so sorry for all people who did wrong, or were in anyway ill or miserable, as he was. And as he is now in Heaven, where we hope to go, and all to meet each other after we are dead, and there be happy always together, you never can think what a good place Heaven, is without knowing who he was and what he did."

Highly recommended. I found it on line at The Life of Our Lord.

The other short book that I like to read during this time of year is Henry Van Dyke's The Mansion. This is a sort of parable about our reward on earth vs. our reward in heaven, and is a good reminder of what our real priorities should be. Though Van Dyke did not word it this way, he clearly teaches in this story that "when you are in the service of your fellow beings you are only in the service of your God."

I also like it because one of the characters is named Harold. Not that this should make any difference...

I found it on line at The Mansion by Henry Van Dyke.

I hope you enjoy these books. I think they would be well worth your time.

What the Privilege of Serving a Mission Has Meant to Me

I served a full-time mission for the church from 1974 - 1976, in Minnesota while waiting for my visa, and then, starting in July 1975 when my visa finally came through, in the Sao Paulo Brazil South Mission.

It was a great time in my life, a wonderful opportunity to serve the Lord by sharing in his goal to bring to pass the exaltation and eternal life of man. It was great to share the gospel with those who did not know of it, in its fullness.

It was not always easy. There were times of discouragement, illness, and even not getting along as well as I should have with my companion. There were many who rejected our message, most often without even beginning to listen.

Though the stated goal was to serve others, there was a great deal of growth that occurred in me. I learned to be more reliant on the Lord, to be reliable in my service, to get along better with others, to honor my priesthood, to recognize the promptings of the spirit, and many other lessons that have been a great blessing to me since that time.

These lessons and this growth has provided a base or foundation for the rest of my life. It has enabled me to serve better in family, church, and career.

More recently, two of my children have served and been blessed in many of these same ways. I see it as a great blessing that my children love the Lord, and act like they love Him.

In the future, if circumstances allow, after I retire, Janet and I plan to serve a mission together.