Men are that they Might have JOY

Upon hearing the words of Alma, the people at the waters of Mormon "clapped their hands for joy, and exclaimed: This is the desire of our hearts." The people are experiencing true joy which comes through the Savior Jesus Christ and His gospel.
Lately I have kind of been in a rut. I have been frustrated with work and school, so much so that I have started to get physically sick. I have tried to look for the positive, I have still been reading my scriptures and saying my prayers, but I haven't been happy. I haven't felt joy. The other day I woke up to snow, and I was so upset because I wanted it to be warm. But as I walked to class in the blizzard, I started to pay attention to each individual snowflake. And I started to think about this beautiful world that Heavenly Father created for us. He created the snow, and it looks so pretty, and as long as you are not driving... it is harmless. The Lord created all of this for us because He loves us. This changed my perspective. The snow that I had been despising all day long became joyful to me because I thought of His love for me, and I felt His love.
Then today, I thought work was going to be awful, and I spent a couple of hours solving one problem... but when I got done, I didn't feel upset. I was grateful that I was able to help someone. And it made me want to help other people to be happy and feel of God's love for them.
Knowing and learning about the gospel and those essential doctrines can bring us true joy. I am going to focus on making the gospel the desire of my heart. And then I will be able to find joy in the other aspects of my life as well.

Polygamy

In Jacob 2, Jacob condemns the people for having multiple wives. This makes me think about polygamy. Why did the Lord ask the early Saints to obey the law of polygamy? I don’t think we will ever know and it is okay for us not to know everything.

I had a teacher tell me that in this dispensation, we will not be able to gain a testimony about polygamy. Why is this? Think about when you gained a testimony of prayer or of tithing… my guess is the Lord didn’t just give you a testimony, but He had you pray and He had you pay your tithing. Through action, we are able to gain a testimony. But the Lord has not asked us to enter into multiple marriages, so we have no way of acting on this law and receiving a testimony of polygamy. That doesn’t mean that polygamy was a bad thing… we can gain a testimony that polygamy was a divinely inspired law at the time. If we gain a testimony of Joseph Smith as a prophet by reading the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants, we can have a testimony that the law of polygamy came from a prophet of the Lord for that dispensation.

I personally know that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the Lord asked the early Saints to practice the law of polygamy. I don’t know what the reason was… it could be to help grow the population, it could be an Abrahamic test, it could be part of the restoration. We won’t know for sure, but I won’t let it shake my testimony. I will focus on the “plainness” of the gospel, the things that are unchanging and clear: Heavenly Father loves us so He sent His son Jesus Christ to atone for our sins. And sometimes that all you need to know.

Applying the Scriptures to Our Lives

The authors of the Book of Mormon were not writing for themselves, they were writing for their descendants. They were writing for us. I don't write in my journal so that I can read it (although I have looked back on it a couple of times), I write it so that my children and grandchildren can know what I went through and what the process is so that they can learn from similar experiences. This is the same thing for the scriptures. We need to apply the teachings from the Book of Mormon into our lives, we need to have faith and act on these principles.
What does this look like? For me, this means that I am constantly thinking about the scriptures. I ponder what I read and make goals based on what I have studied. This last week I read the Isaiah chapters in 2nd Nephi. It doesn't do me any good to read it and then move on in my life. When I read about the latter-day churches, I learned about how the adversary tries to trick us. Satan is the father of contention, he loves to see us getting in arguments. He also tries to entice us with flattery and "you only live once" principles. Now that I have learned this, what do I do with it? I made a goal to pay special attention to my thoughts this weekend. When I do make mistakes, I will look back on them and try to recognize how Satan was tempting me. When we learn how Satan is tempting us, we are able to stay away from that temptation.
I'm not perfect with this. There are definitely some times that I read my scriptures and then forget about it. But, as we have the faith to apply these principles, it will be easier and easier to keep applying them. Living the gospel takes practice. It takes trial and error, it takes faith to act. The greatest thing about the gospel is that we know that the Lord does not give up on us, He stays with us and helps us. He allowed Christ to perform the atonement and because of that, we do not have to suffer alone. Christ went through everything we do.
The authors of the Book of Mormon went through a lot of trouble to get these scriptures to us. We need to read them often. And if we are already reading them, we need to study them. If we are already studying them, we need to apply them.

Jesus Christ and the Atonement

I am so grateful this week to learn more about the atonement. I had started getting into the habit of saying, "I am grateful for the atonement" and "I can rely on the atonement to get through this trial." But without Christ, the atonement would never had happened. He was the only one that was capable and willing to suffer the demands of justice for every single person who has and will live on this earth. And He did it because He loves us and He did not want us to suffer as He had to.

In the scriptures it says that Christ suffered for our pain, afflictions, sicknesses, and every other terrible emotion we could have. He did this so that He could completely understand us. But the scriptures never talk about the positive emotions. How does Christ fully understand our positive emotions? I think that Christ felt a lot of the positive emotions during His ministry. He was able to perform miracles and participate in the positive emotions that others were feeling. When Lazarus died, Christ mourned his loss, and just imagine the joy that he felt when Lazarus came walking out of the tomb. I think He also felt new positive emotions during His time in the spirit world and after His resurrection. Christ has felt everything that we have felt- happiness, loneliness, depression, hope... everything both positive and negative.
                      
I am so eternally grateful for my Savior. I am grateful that He suffered and died for me. I know that I can turn to Him when I am sad or hurt or lonely. By relying on the Savior, and His gift of the atonement, I can become clean from my sins. I can become healed from my hurt. I can become comforted in my pain. I can become hopeful in my despair. The atonement and Christ are inseparable, you can not depend on one without depending on the other. Now, I will say that "I am grateful for my Savior" and "I can rely on Christ to get through this trial."