In our family, there are two very special boys having birthdays really soon:
OCT 1 -- RYDER JUDE PALMER will turn two years old
OCT 3 -- JUDD REDMOND PLATT will turn five years old
Happy birthday to them both!!
Gentri, Heber and Leo are currently on vacation for 5 days in Kitty Hawk, South Carolina. We will stay tuned for photos on their blog. Hope they have a great time! The Palmer people continue to commute to school from Logan to Perry. The boys are doing great in school, although they have had some strep throats this week. Steve and Loni and company are doing great. Judd is planning a friend birthday party, and is very excited. Ford is now crawling and pulling himself up to the furniture. The guy is a go-er! Matt D. is working hard in school at Cedar City, haven't heard from him since last week.
Dad Lawrence was just called to teach the 12-13 year olds in sunday school in our ward. Can't seem to get enough of the teenagers and teaching. Mom is called as secretary to the young women in our ward. Recently, they had to speak in church. Since you may not have been there, here is the written version of mom's talk:
I am Lori Lawrence. I
am married to Matt Lawrence and I live next door to the west of this church
building in the tan/ peach brick house across the church parking lot. So you will know me a little better:
We both
grew up in Grantsville, attended Grantsville schools until college, where I
attended and
graduated from Utah State University (Go Aggies!!). Matt
graduated from BYU twice—has bachelor’s
and MS. (Go
Cougars??)
We were married &
After college, we moved back to Grantsville to begin our married life together.
As we started our family, Matt worked in marketing for a
Forms corp and I taught at good ol GHS.
We began our family and eventually enjoyed raising three daughters Carly, Loni, and Gentri and a son: Matt.
They have all grown up. The girls
are married, and Matt is attending SUU in Cedar City. We enjoy 7 grandsons and 1
granddaughter. Eventually, Matt’s job as
a Forms salesman became obsolete and he began teaching LDS Seminary.
As our family grew, I left teaching and changed
careers: working in insurance and
investments for the last 23 years. So
oddly, I graduated with a teaching degree and have worked mostly in marketing. Matt graduated in marketing, and has worked
mostly in teaching.
A phrase of our times is “Get Real” When you hear the phrase
"get real", it usually implies that it's time to be
honest, genuine, authentic. Getting
real is the act of giving yourself a reality check. If a person is trying to
convince you of something unrealistic, you tell them to "Get Real."
and to stop behaving as though they’re living in a fantasy world.
This can be applie to us--as children of God, followers of
Christ in the true and living gospel.
In our customary Church vocabulary, we often speak of
going to church, reading the scriptures, going to the
temple, and going on a mission.
Elder Bednar, in his book “Increase in Learning” suggests we
Get Real about our spiritual and church activities -- not
just Going to church, but rather to worship God and renew covenants as we
attend church.
--Not just
reading the scriptures, but studying with an attitude of feeding our spirit and
pondering
deeply the concepts and how they apply to us.
--Not just
going to or through the temple; but having IN our hearts the Spirit, the
covenants, and
ordinances of the Lord’s house.
--Not just going
on a mission; but being a missionary and serving throughout our entire life
with all of
our heart, might, mind,
and strength.
A good question is: Do
we “Get Real” about the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Do we Get Real knowing that the world offers
us nothing that will save us? Do we Get
Real
about our knowledge
of the Plan of Salvation and the blessing and promises that can and will be
ours,
based on our
faithfulness? –
Jacob (Jacob 4:13) in book of Mormon times wrote: ‘’…for the Spirit speaketh the truth and
lieth not.
Where fore, it speaketh of things as they really are, and of
things as they really will be; …for the
salvation of our souls.”
There are two key elements of our Heavenly Father’s plan of
happiness that are the doctrinal foundation
for knowing and understanding things as they really
are.
1. Obtaining a body
2. Understanding and utilizing the atonement
1. In OBTAINING A
BODY:
In D & C 88:15 the Lord reveals “…the spirit and the
body are the soul of man” A truth that
really is and
always will be is that the body and the spirit constitute
our reality and identity. (DC 93:32-33)
In “The Family: A
Proclamation to the World,” the First
Presidency and Twelve Apostles declare that as
spirit sons and daughters of God, we “accepted His plan by
which His children could obtain a physical
body and gain early experience to progress toward perfection
and ultimately realize (our) divine destiny
as heirs of eternal life.”
Joseph Smith also taught of the import of having a physical
body:
“We came to this earth that we might have a body and present
it pure before God in the celestial
kingdom. The great
principle of happiness consists in having a body. The devil has no body, and herein
is his punishment. He
is pleased when he can obtain the tabernacle of man, and when cast out by the
Savior he asked to go into the herd of swine, showing that
he would prefer a swine’s body to having
none.”
Our bodies make possible a breadth, a depth, and an
intensity of experience that simply could not be
obtained in our premortal state. Our relationships with other people, our
capacity to recognize and act
in accordance with truth, and our ability to obey the
principles and ordinances of the gospel of Jesus
Christ are amplified through our physical bodies. In the classroom of mortality, we experience
tenderness, love, kindness, happiness, sorrow,
disappointment, pain, and even the challenges of
physical limitations in ways that prepare us for
eternity. Simply stated: there are lessons we must learn
and experiences we must have, as the scriptures describe,
”according to the flesh” (1 Nephi 19:6, Alma
7:12-13). When the
body and spirit are separated, we cannot receive a fullness of joy (DC
93:33-34)
The Father’s plan is
designed to provide direction for His children, help them become happy, and to
bring them safely home to Him with resurrected, exalted
bodies.
Satan does not have a body.
Because of his rebellion, he has denied himself all of the mortal
blessings
and experiences made
possible through a tabernacle of flesh and bones. He cannot learn the lessons
that only an embodied spirit can learn. He cannot abide the reality of a literal and
universal resurrection
of all mankind. His
eternal progress has been halted. Just
as water flowing in a riverbed is stopped by a
dam, this word Dam,
illustrates his inability to continue developing and becoming like our Heavenly
Father.
So, for each of us “Getting Real” could mean that our mortal
clock is ticking. We should be taking
full
advantage of each opportunity for learning. We should enjoy each revelation taught us by
the Spirit
about who we are and what we will become. It makes me think of the primary song “I
Know my
Heavenly Father loves me”.
Whenever I hear (place hands to ears)
the song of a bird (open and close fingers like a bird’s beak)
Or look (look up) at the blue, blue
sky (raise arm in arching motion),
Whenever I feel the rain on my face
(make raindrop motions with fingers)
Or the wind as it rushes by (move both
hands in back and forth motion),
Whenever I touch a velvet rose
(pretend to touch or smell flower)
Or walk by our lilac tree (walk in
place),
I’m glad that I live in this beautiful
world
Heavenly Father created for me (outstretch
hands and arms).
He gave me two eyes that I might see the color of butterfly
wings,
He gave me two ears that I might hear the beautiful sound of
things,
He gave him my life, my mind my heart, I thank him
reverently.
For all his creations of which I am part, Yes I know
Heavenly Father loves me.
We know what is right and what is wrong, and we have the
individual responsibility to learn for
ourselves “by study and also by faith” (DC 88:118) the
things we should and should not do and the
doctrinal reasons you should and should not do those
things. We are
often reminded in recent General
Conferences of those things that do not help us toward these
goals:
--hours wasted
in excessive video or cyber activities, online socializing which postpones
vocational
or academic learning and achievement.
-- The
sacrificing of cherished and real
relationships avoided in
hours spent in spirit-numbing video and online games. Additionally, we need to consider
jeopardizing our physical well-being by involving ourselves
in substances and activities dangerous to the
freedom and health of
our bodies. And consider those who make
their body a strange kind of billboard
by placing on it designs, words, through ink tattooing.
Consider what we do as we are placing at risk the very
instrument God has given us to receive the
learning experience of mortality. We need to truly get real about minimizing the
importance of our
physical bodies.
2. Understanding and
Utilizing the Atonement
How do we completely understand the atonement? Elder Bruce R. McConkie, in spring of 1985
tells us
that the supreme act
the Savior performed for us was the key event that placed the Plan of Salvation
into motion. This
most transcendent event could only be performed by a God, and through it, all
of the
terms and conditions
of the Father’s eternal plan became operative.
Through it are brought to pass the
immortality and
eternal life of man. Through it, all men
are saved from death, when the body rejoins
the spirit in the Resurrection.
We know our Saviour suffered in Gethsamane, both body and
spirit, more than it is possible for man to
suffer. We know that
his suffering satisfied the demands of justice, ransomed our souls if we repent
from the pains and penalties of our sins in our bodies on
this earth, and made mercy available to us.
We know – with a body already drained of strength – the
Saviour was led away by a rope tied at his
neck, as a common criminal to be judged by Annas, to
Caiaphas, to Pilate, to Herod, and back to Pilate.
He was accused, cursed,
spat upon, and scourged with a whip which had sharp bones and cutting
metals woven into
it. He bled from a crown of thorns, and
then carried and collapsed from the weight
of his own cross.
Great mallets drove stakes of iron through his feet, hands and wrists to
adhere him to
the wooden cross, as it
would be placed to stand vertically on Golgotha Hill. All the infinite agonies of
Gethsemane then returned as he spent his final six hours
before giving his Spirit relief of death.
This Atonement, which the Saviour accomplished, provided the
way for all who believe and obey the
gospel of God, all who are true and faithful and overcome
the world, --All to become as our Maker
and sit with him in everlasting glory in Immortality.
How do we Get Real about this singular group of events? I
know in my own life it will be to study and
pray, and ponder. To realize for myself that these concepts are
true, apply to me. I want to have
the Holy Spirit bear witness that it is all true—for me to
understand the importance having a body in
which to learn and experience here and now—and for me to
understand the miracle the atonement
provides for me; for my own eternal progression.
And it will take faith like Elijah, like Nephi who wanted so much to
understand Lehi’s dream that the
Lord gave him the very vision. If I had faith like Joseph Smith—who humbly
prayed—and then brought
about the Restoration of the Gospel for our time. I desire the faith to obtain the Real Truth
(DC
93:24 “..and truth is
knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to
come;”
that I may “..know
how to worship, and know what to worship, that I may come unto the Father in
the
name of the Saviour Jesus Christ,” (DC 93:20)
1964 - 2012
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