LEARNING TO FIND PEACE IN THE LORD WHEN THE TEMPESTS OF LIFE ARE RAGING (RYAN K. EGGETT): My soul delighteth in the song of the heart and it shall be answered with a blessing upon their heads. Emma Smith was given an assignment to compile hymns for the first hymnbook of the church. That took five years. W.W. Phelps assisted Emma in doing this. He wrote 26 or 27 hymns himself. The first hymnbook just had words, no music. The people knew the tunes. The Saints in England weren't familiar with a lot of the tunes in the hymnbook so came up with their own, the Manchester hymnbook. When many of them immigrated to Utah people carried both hymnbooks to church to sing some from both. Then additional hymnbooks were published and people were taking 5 hymnbooks to church. Finally they were consolidated into one, with an additional one for the children. The 1948 hymnbook had many songs for choirs and were in a key that was difficult for many people to sing. When the present hymnbook was published, most of the choir numbers were taken out. A recent convert to the church found himself stranded in South Africa with a broken down scooter. He remembered D&C 25:12 "For my soul delighteth in the song of the heart, yea, the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me, and it shall be answered with a blessing upon their heads." So he started singing, and his scooter started up again. He kept singing and his scooter kept going. If you need a blessing, sing the hymns. He taught this in a family home evening the night before his wife had a root canal and she told him the next day that she sang hymns in her mind the whole time she was having the root canal and it went very well. Hymns can bring us a spirit of peace, give us courage, inspire love and unity among family members, comfort us, move us to righteous action, fill our souls with heavenly thoughts, help us withstand the temptations of the adversary, move us to greater spirituality. If you'll sing a song of the righteous, you'll be blessed. Many carry heavy burdens. Some have lost a loved one to death or care for one who is disabled. Some have been wounded by divorce. Others years for an eternal marriage. Some are caught in the grip of additions. Many are heavy laden. The Savior healed every sickness and every disease among the people. He healed them all, including those whose sicknesses were emotional, mental, or spiritual. There are three types of wounds or sicknesses. 1. Wounds we cause ourselves. 2. Wounds caused by other. 3. Wounds that are part of our mortal existence The curate of Blagdon had been travelling along the road near the cliffs when a storm struck and he dashed into a cave for shelter. He wrote "Rock of Ages" in there. The Rock of Ages is Jesus, who died for us. When we wound ourselves, the Savior invites us to come and hide our sins in Him. How Gentle God's Commands. The man who wrote this was the 20th of 20 children. His mother died when he was 8 and his father died when he was 12. He was made a ward of the state. He carried great burdens, but wrote about casting your burdens on the Lord and trusting in His constant care. Why should the anxious load press down your weary mind? Come Unto Jesus. Orson Pratt Huish wrote this. Come unto Jesus, ye heavy laden. Careworn and fainting by sin oppressed. God's love will find you, even if you've done stupid things. Pray even when you don't feel like it. Why is it so hard to accept that the Lord really wants to help us? Suppose you have a child and warn them not to play with a knife, but they play with it anyway and cut themselves. Wouldn't you put a band-aide and ointment on it and try to help them? If cleaning was requires, wouldn't you do it, even if it strings a little? Master the Tempest is Raging. Mary Ann Baker was left an orphan and pulled together with her brother and sister. Then her brother dies. She felt like God did not care for her. But the Master's own voice stilled the tempest in her heart and brought her a calm of a deeper faith and more perfect trust. Different temperatures and times cause different properties in metals. A missionary got sick and had to be sent home, and wondered why God allowed that to happen. Why does the Lord put metal in fire? It purifies it. Once it's purified, it can be shaped into the type of tool you want. Sometimes the Lord cleanses and shapes us. Tempering makes metal hard. You need to temper it just enough so it makes it tough but not brittle. The Lord knows just how much to temper us. And it may be for a different temperature and a different amount of time than someone else. We trust that He knows what He's doing.
ONENESS IN MARRIAGE (RICHARD B. MILLER): When was a newlywed he and his wife were asked to teach a marriage class at church. He found out that when it came to marriage, everyone had an opinion. His primary source of information is the prophets, supplemented by research, which agrees with the prophets. Be one and if ye are not one ye are not mine. Unity is strength. Unity is power. A husband and wife who are yoked together are strong and powerful. Just like there should be unity in the church, there should also be unity in our families. We need to be of one accord, one mind. We need to be on the same page. Be united in all things. Have the same goals. There should not be contention with each other. Oneness does not mean to be identical. It means to be in harmony. Football players play as one on a team, but they aren't all quarterbacks. An orchestra plays together but they have different instruments, different notes, but they work together in a harmonious way. When people are in distressed relationships, their health often suffers. Kids in homes with parents who fight are more likely to get into trouble. When couples who don't get along well together, it hurts them, it hurts their kids, it hurts their productivity at work. You can't cleave unto you leave. You need to separate yourself from your parents and start your life as a couple. Our loyalty should shift. Determine that there will never be anything that will come between you that will disrupt your marriage. Be fiercely loyal one to another. Your married life should become independent from your parents. Whose voice do you listen to? If you're buying a new car, don't listen to what your father thinks and ignore what your wife thinks. Well meaning relatives have broken up many homes. Live your own life. Say positive things about your spouse. Many young adults demand to be treated like adults and resent their parents being involved in their lives. But the parents want to treat them like adults and wish they would act like adults. They keep wanting to borrow money or expect their parents to bail them out of difficulties.
CONTENTION--HOW TO ELIMINATE IT (S. DEE BARRETT): We've all probably embraced contention at one time of our life or another. We need to identify contention in order to control it. 3 Nephi chapter 11 starting with verse 23. It talks about baptism and contention. All three names of the Godhead are mentioned. They are one and there should be no disputations among you. We have made covenants not to have contention among us, so the Lord empowers us to avoid contention. Every Sunday when you renew your baptismal covenants as you partake of the sacrament, you can be empowered to overcome contention. Helaman 3:1-3 helps you understand what contention is. There was no contention save it were a little pride. So pride and contention are associated. Pride is contention. Enmity is placing something between two things. Enmity is the central feature of pride. Ephesians 2:12-15. What is the wall of partition between us? Who tears down the middle wall of partition? Suppose your spouse wants to use the car and you tell them they need to have the car back by 5:00 so you can attend a very important meeting. 5:00 comes and they're not back. Now this person that you love becomes a source of bad feelings for us. We start placing something between us. We build walls. About 5:15 your spouse walks in. You're going to be late. Do we lecture them, give them the silent treatment? We have opportunities every day to build or tear down walls. 4 Nephi talks about no contention in the land, because of the love of God which dwelt in the hearts of the people. Contention happens when we pull away our hearts and get bugged by what he other person is saying. Satan is the father of contention. For contention to take place, we have to pull away the love of God, which allows the spirit of contention to come into the room. One time they went out to dinner with a couple who had just had a fight and the spirit o contention was there the whole evening. It was awful! It was miserable for all of them. The spirit of contention can be contagious. You can be in a contentious situation at work and bring that home with you. Once we're in a contentious mood you're just looking for someone to be contentious with. We may not be perfect in this, but we can become quicker to get rid of it. We have moments every day when people do things to us, intentionally or unintentionally, but they bug s. We make a choice--are we going to allow something to come between us and other people? Problem size. Everybody has issues. When you're on the freeway, how many cars do you pass without even notice them? But you do notice the accidents that are off the side of the road. We notice the people who are having the problems. There are issues with contention, there are just issues, and then there are issues with problem solving skills. When you have an issue with contention, it makes it huge and almost unsolvable. Just plain an issue is medium size. But if you use problem solving skills on it, it becomes small. Contention over a period of time leads to hatred. Most o the issues that upset us we're embarrassed to tell people what we're upset about. Recognize how often you pull your heart away. Get a card and every time you pull your heart away, write it down. Keeping track is the key. For the next couple of days, or the next week, keep track of them. Unless you are so proud to b upset with somebody, more than likely we should not be upset. What is the antidote? Gratitude. Moroni 10:3-5. It's hard to pull your heart away from somebody when you're grateful for them. Can one moment ruin a whole day? It can if we allow it to. A high school tripped, fell, and her dress flew up over her head. Imagine how embarrassing this would be and she could be humiliated. But instead she turned to her friend and said, "Well, if this doesn't get me a date, nothing will" and they both laughed. Attitude made the difference. One little moment can either be a source of continued embarrassment or a source of laughter. Gratitude is not just a polite thing to do, it is a commandment. It is a saving principle. The Lord's wrath is kindled against those who don't confess His hand in all things. It's hard to pull a heart away when we're full of gratitude. Remember the previous example of your spouse coming home at 5:15. What if they were late because they were buying you a new car? There would be a different way to loo at things. When you leave the contention out of it, it makes it solvable. Think to thank. A few people are natural gifted at showing gratitude. But we can develop this marvelous spiritual gift and be a blessing to any group that we associate with. When gratitude is absent, rebellion often comes to fill the vacuum. Satan will stir us up to contention that he can harden our hearts against that which is good. When we have contention, we harden the hearts of those around us against anything that is good. One time he was assigned as a home teacher to a family where the kids rebelled and got in trouble with the law. He asked the bishop what he could do to help that family and the bishop told him that if he could get the father to get rid of the contention in their home, they would be just fine. A home where there is contention hardens the hearts of the people in he family. We have a choice to make when things happen, to take offense or not. When two people both choose to take offense the situation can escalate. While in the grocery store he saw a couple the knew where the husband and wife were bth shopping with separate carts and the husband accidentally bumped his cart on his wife's cart. She got mad and slammed her cart into his and they were yelling at each other in the store. His 12 year old son said he didn't think that couple had handled things very well and asked him what they should have done differently. He told him he'd show him. Then he on purpose rammed his grocery cart into his wife's cart. She smiled and said, "Excuse me" and went on her way. She has the gift of choosing not to allow something to come between them. His wife's attitude has resulted in them getting along well with each other. Good prayers are when we take enough time to thank the Lord that we start to feel gratitude toward Him and all the hardness of our hearts starts to break away. When we do that and get up from our prayers, we will find that we love our family. When our heart is soft, we can be a good husband and a good father. If we can just keep the telestial hardness out of our hearts. what a powerful gift, the gift of gratitude and appreciation. Murmuring is contagious We need to work on preventing contention and if it does happen to resolve it quickly.
INFLUENCING A CHANGE OF HEART WITHOUT THE USE OF CRITICISM (JOHN G. BYTHEWAY): It's difficult asking for a change of heart for someone else. We all have our agency. God will force no one to heaven. We know what we have to do to get a change of heart, but how do we order that for someone else? You can't. Even Jesus, with His gifts of love and teaching and healing, could not convince everybody. One woman said most of her problems in life she either married or gave birth to. He recently visited the Liberty Jail and asked the guide where their bathroom was. The jailer would lower a bucket from the ceiling. There was no privacy. D&C 121 was written in that place. We help others by persuasion, long suffering, meekness, and by love unfeigned Who changes hearts? The Lord changes hearts. You need to acknowledge that you can't do this by yourself. You need God. Why do people change? No one can change someone who is not willing to change. People don't change people. People change themselves or they're changed by the Holy Ghost. One of the biggest problems is the inability to forgive. Also lack of showing love and lack of priesthood leadership. The objective of people who criticize is to change the person criticized. But it is more likely to kill the desire to change than to to produce change. We have to stop criticizing stop holding grudges. We have to let go of that stuff so the spirit can come. Kathryn Hepburn said that if you want to trade the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, get married. It should not be that way. Criticism does not work. In our actions, we are either serving God or serving the devil. When we're serving the devil, we fight, contend, and are critical. Love one another and serve one another. The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing but expect a different result. What about constructive criticism? There is no such thing. Criticism does not come from above. Correction is different from criticism. Corrections are to be performed when moved upon by the Holy Ghost. Criticism is more judgmental and is not motivated by the Holy Ghost. The primary reason we're commanded to avoid criticism is to preserve our own spiritual well-being, not to protect the person whom we would criticize What if everybody believed in being honest, true, chaste, and benevolent? This happened in 4 Nephi. There was no contention in the land because of the love of God. You won't find communication skills in the topical guide of the scriptures. But you will find kindness and humility. Pride is manifest in fault finding, gossiping, withholding praise that might lift another, being unforgiving and jealous. Christlike attributes and selflessness change marriages. Couples whose marriages are in trouble usually are not praying or studying the scriptures. You don't criticize people into change. Stop holding onto grudges. Invite the spirit into your home.
MEET PEOPLE WHERE THEY ARE: UNDERSTANDING AND ACCEPTING DIFFERENCES IN PEOPLE (STEVEN EASTMOND): Pick which person is difficult. Patient #1 Male with mild dementia, left side paralysis, requires 2 person assist for ADL's, staff reports he makes lewd comments to them without responding to redirection. No one wants to work with him. Patient #2. Male stroke survivor, also half paralyzed and some dementia as well. Requires 2 person assist. Occasionally inappropriate, but easily redirected. Actually patient #1 and patient #2 were the same person. He was moved to another facility because the first facility could not manage him. What is a difficult person? There is no such thing as a difficult person. It's the behaviors that are difficult, not the person. Then why do I know some difficult people? People are only difficult to the extent that we have not yet developed the skills or tried the interventions needed to deal with the behaviors they bring to the table. We need to learn how to deal with the behaviors. The more you practice it, the better you get at it. That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do. Jesus came to us. He didn't JUST tell us to come where He is. We need to meet people where they are. The more difficult people are, the more they try to drive people away. The Lord will not leave us comfortless. You won't know where people are until you find out where they are. Go to that person. Really talk to them. Ask them questions. Don't make it about you. Make it about them. Don't lecture them. Do not judge. If you consider them difficult then chances are you will not see things the same way they do. Plan for that. The hardest people to love are those who do things that hurt us. We need to love our enemies. If someone compels us to go with him a mile, go with him two miles. Learn a new way to think. Reach out to people who drive us up the wall. When we reach out to them, things change. Some difficult people are people who have a problem but don't think they have a problem. Sometimes we need to be direct and clear, but we still need to show love. Don't judge me because I sin differently than you. Judge no. What's their secret? What don't you know about this person? Before you act, get more information. Suppose you see a well dressed woman with a briefcase running at breakneck speed, and there a scraggly looking man running behind her. Do you think she's running away from a man who is trying to attack her so you intervene and stop the man? But suppose you find out the briefcase belongs to the man and she's a well dressed thief. That changes things. But then suppose there is a dog foaming at the mouth running behind both of them, and you find out they are independent of each other and both running from a rabid animal. but before you intervene with the dog you find out there is a film crew behind him and they're trying to make a movie. What we see depends mainly on what we look for. Perspective is a point of view based on life experiences. Personality differences. Gender differences. He held up a piece of paper and asked everybody what color it was. We all said orange. Then he said suppose he said it was blue. We said he was color blind. Then he turned the paper around and it was blue on the other side. He said it was a matter of perspective. He served a mission in Guatemala where the average income is $5,200 a year, or $100 a week. He saw children having lots of fun playing with a bucket. Life was very different there and they saw things form a different perspective. A schizophrenic hears voices threatening to kill him. Imagine how he would feel and the fear that that would bring in. Suppose you go up to someone in church and said, "Good to meet you" and hold your hand out, but he ignores you and won't make eye contact. His father would do that. But people didn't know he was blind and deaf. He wasn't purposely ignoring them. Personality differences. Some people are outgoing and talkative and some are quiet and reserved. Some are fearless where others are cautious. The standard that we judge other people by is the way we would act in the same situation. We think other people are off because they don't do it our way. Gender differences. Men tend to be literal and women tend to be hinters. They'll say "That diaper sure smells." and men will hear "Yeah, that diaper sure smells" instead of "Go change that diaper." When his wife asks, "Are you going to wear that?" he's found that he should not answer "yes" and continue out the door. Women need to be more direct and men need to stop being so black and white. Men tend to be fixers. Sometimes women really just need someone to listen to them, not somebody to fix their problem. But men want to jump in and fix it. We need to be complimentary and help each other. Validation is NOT agreeing or disagreeing. Validation is important when you don't see things the way the other person sees it. You allow the other person to have their opinion and their emotions about the situation. You are not intimidated or defensive about things people may say to you. You might say, "I don't see things the way you do, but I can understand why you might be mad." Validation is a valuable tool in dealing with difficult people. Accepting differences. Differences are not necessarily wrong. They're just different. Is it best to mow your own in stripes, diagonally, or in a gradually decreasing box? Do you wear watching clothing (stripes and plaids together)? Is Disneyland fun for you? Different isn't necessarily wrong. Appearances can be so deceiving, such a poor measure of a person. Each person has his own beautiful sound, just like instruments in an orchestra.
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