Healthy Habits

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Behold, verily, thus saith the Lord unto you: In consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days, I have warned you, and forewarn you, by giving unto you this word of wisdom by revelation

D&C 89:4

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The Law of Health applies to all of us. It was given to us for our benefit and enjoyment.

The following excerpt was taken from a May 1996 Ensign talk, given by President Boyd K. Packer, entitled The Word of Wisdom: The Principle and the Promises. He comments:

 

"The story is told of a king who was choosing between two drivers for his coach. He ordered each of them to drive his coach down a steep, winding road cut into a high cliff.

 "The first driver came down slowly, hugging the wall of the cliff. The second driver demonstrated great talent and ability. He raced down the mountain, with the coach so close at times that half the wheel was off the edge of the cliff. 

"The king was very thoughtful, then wisely chose the first man to drive his coach. It is best to stay on the safe side of things.

"The Word of Wisdom is 'adapted to the capacity of the weak and the weakest of all saints' (D&C 89:3). It is buttressed by other scriptures. They teach that the good things of the earth 'are made for the benefit and the use of man, … Yea,' the Lord said, 'for food and for raiment, for taste and for smell, to strengthen the body and to enliven the soul, … to be used, with judgment, not to excess, neither by extortion' (D&C 59:18–20)."

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To see the Neighborhood News for Friday, 9 September, please click here.

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Ready for What's Next?

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When we make plans to take a trip, there's a lot of discussions on the subject, what way we're going to go, if we're going to fly or drive, and what we're going to pack.

Planning is part of life. We plan to go to school, or go on a mission, or go to the temple, we plan on doing our spring cleaning, or end of summer activities.

Did you ever plan on becoming inactive? Is that something we plan, or does it just happen? How about coming back to the church, is that planned?

Let's share the following excerpt from a March 2011 New Era article by Gary Leikness, A Small and Simple Rafting Trip.

In it, the author tells us how he'd been baptized at the age of eight, but through the years he and his family stopped going to meetings. Until one day after he'd spent some time with friends away from home, he comes back to find out his dad  had accepted an invitation from the bishop and had signed him up for a youth rafting trip. He met boys that he knew, but he wasn't involved with the 'church people.'

The thing is, he had fun at that trip, and noticed the difference between his worldy friends and his newfound friends. He was invited to come to church, and he said that maybe he'd come. The next Sunday he got up and got dressed, and surprised his family by going to church. He did that for a few weeks, until his family decided to join him.

He says:

"One small invitation led a family back to church. I earned my Eagle Scout Award and went on a mission. Patti and I each got married in the temple to returned missionaries. We’re now raising our own families in the gospel.

"If you invite a less-active person to an activity, it may or may not impact their lives. But if you don’t invite them, it definitely won’t."

So, tell us, what kind of trip are you prepared to take?

To see the Neighborhood News for Wednesday, 7 September, please click here.

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Personal Touch

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In today's Personal Touch interview Rebecca Cressman chats with Jo and Lois.

Jo Schaffer and Lois Brown are leading their first-ever boot camp for aspiring teen writers. The one-day event on April 23rd at Utah Valley University will help teens ages 13-18 learn the elements of story-telling from best-selling authors who will entertain and explain concepts like character development, plotting, and dialogue. The idea to encourage young authors bubbled out of the two women’s writers group called “Writers Cubed.” There they and other writers collaborate, practice, encourage, and support each other throughout their writing process, and they wanted to do the same for teens who dreamed of writing too.

Jo Schaffer, was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, to a literary, intellectual mother and an artist, naturalist father. Her parents instilled in her a love of art, books, nature, people and philosophy. Jo wrote her first book when she was six and has written ever since. Jo schooled in London, studying the arts and British literature and then in Utah, first focusing on archaeology and the humanities, and finally settling on English with a writing emphasis. She married and had three sons with her childhood friend who is an artist and filmmaker, living in LA, Oregon, the Bay Area and now Utah.

Lois Brown received her bachelor’s degree in journalism from Brigham Young University in 1991 and worked as a news correspondent for the Deseret News in Washington, D.C. She later returned to school and completed a Master’s degree in communications research which led her to working in the technology industry as a marketer/writer. After giving birth to her first child, she changed career courses again and started her own freelance writing business. Since 1994, Lois has written nearly fifty articles and books, including working as the chief editor to a former New York Times best-selling author Dr. Neil Solomon and co-writing a book on time management with former Miss America Sharlene Wells Hawkes. In 2007, she published a book about stress management with psychologist Victoria Anderson. Recently she has turned her interests to writing fiction after realizing the bedtime stories she tells her four children never put them to sleep. 

Web

http://www.writerscubed.com/events_TeenBootCamp.asp

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We want to thank Rebecca Cressman and her staff for their dedication and commitment to bringing us the Personal Touch interview every week.  We are sad to see them leave our family. They will be missed.

yourLDSneighborhood Staff

As always, we welcome your comments.

To view a copy of the Neighborhood News for Monday, 4 April, please click here.

Personal Touch

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In today's Personal Touch interview Rebecca Cressman chats with Betty. Betty Pearson connects thousands of mothers of LDS missionaries all around the world. She is the creator and Listowner of email groups for LDS Missionary and Military Moms helping women support and learn from each other while their children serve away from home. She and her husband, Karl, have 7 children. Six of the seven children, including two daughters, have all served missions. One of her sons is currently serving in Japan and their youngest is a senior in high school and plans to serve too. Betty is from Bountiful, Utah and attended the University of Utah studying Music Education. She teaches private cello lessons, loves gardening, and freezes/dehydrates/bottles everything she can. Betty has served in many different church callings over the years from teaching Primary to serving in Primary, Relief Society, and Stake YW Presidencies. Betty and Karl are currently ward Family History Consultants.


Web: http://www.ldsmissionarymoms.com/

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Now ye may suppose that this is a foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth
confound the wise.   

Alma 37:6

At the website above the moms have a 'Notable Quote' page. I found one that I really liked, and decided to copy it here:

JRR Tolkien and Alma 

MM, Kim (Utah) sent the following quote to us:

J.R.R Tolkien in the Fellowship of the Ring: "The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet it is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: Small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere."

Her missionary made the following comment about the quote:

"Mom, I love this! We are constantly tracting out ministers and pastors who say we are too young to really know about Christ and proclaim Christianity.

This quote is a reminder to the protestant world that all through the Old Testament God used weak things against strong things to show his power.... AND HE STILL DOES!! I also like that it refers to our necessity to ALWAYS push ourselves, ALWAYS lean on the Lord and ALWAYS rely on the spirit to do our teaching, very awesome!!"

Kim: "Later after I shared this quote with an elder here in our stake he said it made him think of Alma 37:6, by small and simple means the efforts of these young elders and sisters really can "confound" the wise and help the kingdom roll forth!"

Kim (source: here)

As always, we welcome your comments.

To view a copy of the Neighborhood News for Monday, 21 February, please click here.

Personal Touch

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In our Personal Touch with Rebecca Cressman segment, she interviews Mark Justice, President of the Castle Valley Pageant. Mark alongside theater directors, producers, technical crew and a cast of hundreds of volunteer actors gather together every other year to portray the trials, triumphs and tragedies of some of the first settlers of Castle Valley Utah, who set out to homestead a vast frontier. The Castle Valley Pageant celebrates the settlers faith in a strange and often unwelcoming land. Volunteers and members of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers host a "pioneer village" exhibit that instructs visitors on the skills required to survive as a pioneer. The first performance of the Castle Valley Pageant occurred on 11 and 12 August 1978. Since then it has grown from a small, simple production into a spectacular event, performed in an outdoor amphitheater with seating for 4,000. This year's Castle Valley Pageant runs through August 7th, 2010.

Our dear Cindy Beck brings to us a personal experience that she relates in her blog ‘Meandering Thougts.’ She calls her article “An Opportunity to Present the Truth”, and narrates a time when she overheard a couple talking about the Mormons. Her options were to keep quiet and let them keep talking, or interrupt and have her opinion heard. Is this something you’ve had to do, let someone know about the Church, or just let it pass, because is not any of your business? Read her story, and you’ll see that she made the right choice.

Since we’re talking about being brave and presenting the Gospel, let me share this blog I found called ‘Flooding the Earth with the Book of Mormon.' The author is Bookslinger, and I like his reasons for posting. In his own words: “My goals in keeping this blog/journal are: to encourage others to offer people copies of the Book of Mormon and the Bible, to illustrate the incredible number of recent immigrants who are eager for bilingual material, to illustrate the ease of encountering them and offering them material, and to make known the wonderful deeds of the Lord (Ps 105:1, Isa 12:4) in arranging many of these encounters.” I think it’s amazing that things like this can be done in this cyberspace age, and some people are in fact trying to spread the Gospel any way they can.

Convert stories are really good for sharing. I’m a convert and someday I will share my own conversion with you, but for now read this one posted by the folks from “Why We Believe”, a new blog from The More Good Foundation. There are many testimonies, so it was hard to choose, but read Keith’s personal conversion and you’ll probably remember your own. It’s my opinion that whether you are a convert or have been born in the Church, there’s a point in time when you go through a process of conversion, and find your own voice, your own testimony.



To view a copy of the Neighborhood News for Monday, 2 August, please click here.


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