Staying on target. On the mark!

A new school year and my mind always goes to time for Seminary to start.  I was surprised to find a note from Ami on Terry's FB.  (Maybe I still need to reconsider a site???)  What a sweet note!  Thank you, Ami.  Actually I'd been thinking of you and some book titles I want to share with you.  more on that later.

Again...thanks....
  
(Please Pass this on to your wife!)

Dear Nancy: Yesterday I was signing David up for Seminary and it surprised me how excited he was about it. It got me thinking how much I took you for granted in High School as my seminary teacher. I wish I was in a better place then but life turned out despite my bad attitude! I want you to know the one thing I did take away, which turned out to be most important, was your love for the scriptures. You spoke of them with a twinkle in your eye and I remember thinking- someday I want that! Today, I am excited for my son because I see that same twinkle beginning to grow. Sure hope it rubs off on me!
 Love you Nancy and your example of faith, it helped change my life.

I met Ami when she was 8 years old and newly baptized.  In Homer.  Then both our families ended up in WA and here we are, many years later, still connected by our introduction because of our Church activity.  

Church wise we were involved during her YW years which also coincided with my YW years of service.  I remember being her Laurel advisor and we did a service project, just the two of us, and took a shopping bag of things to a house where people were suffering from aids.  Remember, that Ami?  We tucked a Book of Mormon in also.

Every year at this time I think of all the past youth I was involved with either in YW/Roadshows/Drama/Seminary and it's so special to me.  

The new teaching program used in YM/YW has spread to Seminary and I enjoyed being able to listen to the entire training online.  True I'm not involved at all in Seminary but I am always so curious and interested in what is going on in that arena.  What a great way to prepare the youth for life.  I find the new way, comfortable and relaxed and can be done with ease.  Totally inspired.  Obviously.  How fortunate the students are and of course the teachers!  

When Ami mentioned that she could feel I love the scriptures, she was right.  I think it's easy to miss the mark.  There is so much information available in this era of technology.  The Church has made available, for our perusal , anything that they have about the Church.  It's all right there.  Then you also have every disgruntled apostate and their stories and misconstrued facts available.  Then you also have regular folks giving their take on what something means.  Means to them.  personally.  And that is before you have even  accessed every single talk given since 1971 at General Conference.  Talks you can see/read or whatever.  42 years!  and then manuals and monthly Church magazines and truly it's endless.  Books authored by both those knowing and non-knowing.  Oh, and let's not forget the fantastic LDS.org with it's myriad of info that is changing as we speak.  Videos and news and it is endless.

it makes me think though of the necessity of "getting understanding".  Proverbs 4:7
(  ^aWisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get ^bunderstanding) 

We hear a lot about core values on different issues and causes.  Sometimes dusting away the fluff, the diversion of others opinions, the distractions from the purity of the scriptures must be handled deftly or we get lost in the quicksand of gospel info, both truth and false propaganda.  

Over the years I've learned that pureness, extremely basic pureness scripturally, is as satisfying to me as a glass of refreshing ice water on a desert hot day.  Crystal clear with beaded drops that beckon.  Diamonds to drink (oh, drama mode is kicking in!!).  Nothing saccharin.  just soul satisfying truth.  Scriptures that withstand the test of time.  Scriptures that I can pull out to give myself a lift.  Pull myself up be my bootstraps.  Rejuvenate myself by feeling the Spirit tell me what I just read is true.

I am a Conference nut.  I love and appreciate the insight those talks teach.  They have helped me understand so much.  I love commentaries by authorities.  I love to learn.  I appreciate compilations of scriptures/Conference quotes.  On the other hand I'm a fusspot about what I will and won't read.  Don't like to waste time on articles that aren't truth.  Love to learn and be reminded as I relearn.

Over the years there was only one young man that made my life miserable in Seminary.  He was obviously miserable in his own life.... arrogant, intelligent, and he could bring me quivering to my knees with tears streaming down my face with his rudeness.  I told my supervisor that I could no longer teach but he wisely told me I could!  And I did! Other than him I have enjoyed every single youth that I was privileged to work with.  

Hmmmm.  Maybe I'll send a copy of this post to those I can find and tell them I love them.  Still!  

This is one of my favorite references about missing the mark, the target, because they went past the simplicity/the plainness of the words.  check out the highlighted words.  (Isn't technology amazing??)

 Jacob 4:14
14 But behold, the Jews were a ^astiffnecked people; and they^bdespised the words of ^cplainness, and ^dkilled the prophets, and sought for things that they could not understand. Wherefore, because of their ^eblindness, which ^fblindness came by looking beyond the ^gmark, they must needs fall; for God hath taken away his plainness from them, and delivered unto them many things which they ^hcannot understand, because they desired it. And because they desired it God hath done it, that they may ⁱstumble.