Acting on Spiritual Promptings

Yesterday I had this distinct impression write my son who is serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It would not leave my mind or heart and so I sat down and sent him a quick note. He and his companions have been teaching a man that really loves what they are teaching him, but he is struggling to quit smoking.

This is what I sent him:

Hey, I just had an impression to share with you. To help your investigator quit smoking…

What is something that you have struggled with that was hard for you to give up? With pornography. What are some things you do that help you to keep your mind from wandering? What are some things that helped you turn your heart to the Savior? How has the Savior been a comfort to you through that journey and really the ongoing journey you are facing! What about your experience with music and throwing all of your heavy metal music in the trash and then eventually getting rid of all your guitars and equipment you had collected. You and your companion maybe discuss together some of the struggles you have had and how you work to overcome them. Share how when you exercised your faith God began to work miracles within you! Anyways love you and I know that as you continue to work with Darrel the spirit will testify to him of God’s love for him and how God will hold him up!!

So this morning I get a quick message from him. He said, “Darrell is on “date” as of last night” My heart just exploded with joy for Darrell. I do not know the full story and will not find out until Monday when we can talk! This much I do know, that God is aware of each one of us! I know that! I know that God sees our work, our efforts and I know that Darrell knows that God loves him. I know that as missionaries are working to teach others the gospel, others are mindful of them, praying for them, and seeking the help of Heaven. Every day I pray that my children will have missionary experiences that will lead those ready and willing to follow Christ onto the covenant path.

For those of you that are not of my faith, when we are baptized we make a covenant to follow Jesus Christ, do as he did. Love one another, bear one another’s burdens, morn with those that morn and stand as a witness of Jesus Christ in all places and in all things. And in return, we are promised by God that we will always have His Spirit to be with us to lead and guide us each and every day! It is through the holy spirit of Promise that we being our covenant journey back to God. Through His Priesthood Power, the Holy Spirit of Promise bestows all the blessings upon us, through our faithfulness and obedience to the things he has asked us to do!

So again I utter the words of the prophet when he spoke about revelation, “In coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.” Here is a link to the talk.

Take the time to find quiet times in your day, be attentive to the spirit and his guiding influence and then act on the promptings! God will use you more to do his work and you will find an increased measure of peace and love in your life!

I know That God listens to us and loves us more than we can even imagine! I leave this with you in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen

Darkness can never destroy the light

The last month has been a struggle for me. I have fought with my emotions. I felt alone and in need of something. Then today as I was studying Come Follow Me I realized that it was Satan that was holding me back. Giving me the opposition.

My son Joseph is leaving on a mission and will be set apart as a missionary tonight. He his hard headed and determined in everything that he does. Yet I worry about him as he struggles to do things on his own with out the help of someone to tell him what he is doing is ok. Last night I could not think, I did not feel well. This is when I prayed and poured out my heart to the Lord and pleaded for his help to calm my troubled heart.

When we endeavor on something that will further the work of the Lord Satan will put every road block in our way to try and stop it.

This morning while I was reading my scriptures I realized that is exactly what Satan did with Joseph Smith as he was pondering on his question of religion and what church he should join. We too are faced with opposition when God is about ready to work a mighty miracle in our heart. Every bit of light we receive brings us one step closer to Him!

How did I bring light back into my troubled and dark reality. I took the time to pour out my heart to him. And then I opened the scriptures and began to read and study them. It is through my faith that I exercised that he was able to help me see the light and comfort me in my time of darkness.

God Lives! He answers our prayers! Through our own actions we can exercise our faith and increase the light in our lives!

Love you all

Sallyann Smith

Hardships, Trials, and Challenges

In the Book of Mormon we find over and over again peace and harmony followed by great challenges. Have you ever wondered why the Lord would allow us to experience hardships, trials and challenges? Especially when we are doing all that he has asked us to do cheerfully and willingly?

God loves us and wants us to be happy and he blesses us with many things. We see the tender mercies abounding in our lives. And then one day you get a call and your mother is diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and given a very short time to live. What you do next will be life altering. Do we blame God or thank God? God is there to see us grow and learn! He loves us! When we become complacent in our life we may need a push to grow. I get to choose how I react to my mother having been diagnosed with cancer. I choose to love God and accept his will. When I did that it set the whole tone for the majority of my family. We as a family have grown from the loss of our mother. We miss her terribly but because we know that God has a plan we will see her again, we will rejoice with her in a coming day. God is on our side. Satan did not win this battle.

However I have two brothers that really took the death of my mother hard. There was pain and suffering, addiction and eventually one of my brothers lost his battle to addiction and mental health. This left my other brother in a difficult spot with choices to make seeing one consequence he did not want for him. In Helaman 12: 3 it says “And thus we see that except the Lord doth chasten his people with many afflictions, yea, except he doth visit them with death and with terror, and with famine and with all manner of pestilence, they will not remember him.” For my brother that was still living he choose to not look back but look forward. He went to jail and sat there for 5 months. When he walked out of jail he CHOOSE to walk straight to REHAB. He was ready to be made whole again. He chose into repentance. He chose into healing. He chose into seeing something and someone greater than he.

God wants us to remember Him. It is through God that we are made whole even when we are in the mist of trial and challenge. It is through God that be learn to become like God!

Wild ride of parenting!

When you first have that infant placed in your arms as a brand new baby you feel humbled that God would trust you with one of his precious children. I felt that away about each one of my children. I took each child as a blessing from God and promised God that I would do every thing I could with his help to return his children back to him.

As a young mom I was naive and thought that this task would involve teaching them the scriptures, sing primary songs with them and taking them to church with me.

Well as I have been at this parenting thing for 20 years now I see the error of my thinking. What I did not realize was each one of these babies was in fact a very unique individual with the desire to be different! What I did not realize that these sweet babies would grow up with the same agency that had been gifted. To be a parent is to learn to watch agency be used. This for me has been the hardest thing I have yet to be asked to do.

Yesterday my 18 year old daughter took my 14 year old daughter to buy hair dye so she could have purple hair. In my home I have made it clear to my children that we will not dye our hair until we are 18 and especially hair that is bold and stands out like purple hair. Yet both of my daughters blatantly broke the rules and behind my back dyed the 14 year old’s hair purple. They came in to show me what they had done and I had the choice to act or react. I chose to act. I said “wow, do you like your hair?” My girls were expecting a reaction. One that would show my disgust, but there was none. I expressed my disappointment by not being excited by the sudden and drastic hair style change. It was not the hair that I was disappointed about as much of the deceitfulness they were willing to use to get what they wanted. Later that evening my 14 year old daughter came to me and told me that she really did not like her hair and asked if I would cut it for her. During this time we were able to talk about what happened and then she expressed remorse for her deceitful manner in which she used to get what she wanted.

I am learning that parenting is not just about teaching children how to take care of them selves and feed them and play with them. It is about listening to them and getting to know who they are and learning to love them as the Savior loves them. Let them make choices and then help them to learn the lessons from those choices. Sometimes they will need things pointed out to them and other times they will learn it on their own. But if we are always jumping in to try and solve their problems we are not helping them only hindering them. Grateful for the lessons I have learned as I have parented each one of my children!

The Prophet of the Restoration and Our Prophet today.

This year I have reflected on the Life of Joseph Smith. From a very young age he faced opposition like a warrior. He had all the odds stacked against him and yet he faithfully endured well his trials. My heart swells as I think of him and all that he sacrificed so that I could learn of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and draw near to God!

This year as we have faced many challenges we have a Prophet that has stood firm and strong and boldly lead us.

I see many parallels between Joseph Smith and Russell M. Nelson. I am humbled. Joseph suffered many physical challenges as a young boy and yet he always relied on God to guide him. When he was 5 he became very sick and had an infection that spread to his leg. The Dr. wanted to amputate but his mother fought for him and the Dr. did a very risky surgery. He was offered Alcohol but refused it. He healed and walked with a slight limp the rest of his days on earth. Physical pain can be a challenge. But Young Joseph endured it well and was strong and believed in God and would do anything to become close to God. He turned to the scriptures often increasing his connection with God every time he opened them.

President Nelson as a young boy grew up in a lovely home with loving parents but church was not a big part of his childhood life. Yet he felt drawn to learning about the church and so he sought it out on his own. He was at a young age faced with an independent study to things of spiritual matter. He learned everything he could and was exactly obedient to each and every truth he learned. His dedication to God at a young age was remarkable. His character was pure.

I love that both the Prophet Joseph and Prophet Russel M. Nelson have a true and sincere love for every human being ever to live. I can feel their love for me. As I have studied these two men and the way that they were raised and brought to know God I have know doubt that God needed them to be who they were when they were born in a day and age they had prepared for and were faithful to the end of their lives. God is good. He loves us, his children! He would never leave us alone to figure out how to make it on our own. He restored the Priesthood of God to Joseph Smith a humble young man who had showed to God that if he relied on God he would be led. Joseph Smith was not expecting to pray and have a vision. Joseph Smith had just gone to a quiet place where he would not be interrupted by anyone and in a pure and sincere voice he knelt down and poured out his soul to God. Every power of Hell tried to stop this boy from doing this. And then as if the sun rose to brighten a new day, A light rested upon him and God the Father and Jesus Christ came to the earth to begin the restoration process.

Fast forward to today and Satan is hard at work again trying to stop Gods work from progressing. He is trying to take those that follow God and cast fear upon them. He is trying to separate families. He is trying to lead people away by distraction after distraction. But remember God has again called prophets to lead and guide us upon this earth. He has called Russell M Nelson to be our Prophet today. President Nelson has blessed us with his faith in God. He has showed us time and time again what it looks and feels like to receive revelation from God. Boldly declaring that it is by plain and simple things that we can connect with God. In April he invited the whole world to pray for relief from the pandemic that has struck our country with a vengeance. Many people of all faiths answered the call to a prophet of God. Again last week he asked all to flood social media with giving thanks. And again millions of people answered the call again and the mood of the nation shifted yet again. Because our prophet is a great leader who heeds the voice of God and relies on God to lead him! God is God! He sees the bigger picture. He loves each of us and if we turn to him he will lead us too. Why because he sees the bigger picture and he loves each of us dearly!

I know that Joseph Smith in fact saw God the Father and Jesus Christ. Through Joseph Smith the Gospel of Jesus Christ was again restored to the earth in its fullness, including the priesthood of God and all the rights to that priesthood. i know that God called President Nelson to be the prophet in this day. Days of trial and tribulation lie ahead. President Nelson is prepared to lead us just as Moses led the children of Israel the promised, just as Joseph led the saints to Nauvoo, and just as Brigham led the pioneers to their promised land. President Nelson is leading us to yet another promised land. He is preparing us for the return of Savior Jesus Christ!

My heart is full of Thanks to God for both of these men who so valiantly serve God with all their heart, might, mind, and strength!

My Mother Dear You are close

I am grateful to each of my family members for living a life of love and sacrifice! Each of you have been a great example in my life! To our Mother that still lives on in each of us! Even my children who were very young when their Grandma passed quietly to the other side of this veil still talk about the love they felt for her and the excitement they received when she would play with them! I see her in each of my children. It hurts to know that she is not here with them, but she is not absent in their triumphs. She is cheering them on right beside them. She I know watches Maddie who loves to be on stage! She sits in awe at Michael’s ability to act while playing the piano and his talent for learning new songs with ease! With Allison’s determination for going after her dreams and her strong and deeply rooted testimony and love for the Savior! For Spencer, the gentle and kind spirit who fills the room with his wit and charm and humble heart. His growing love for the Savior and desire to good continually. Sammie’s love for cats. Her ability to learn a new language and her ability to put a smile on anyone’s face that is in the room she walks into! Joseph’s desire to serve God. His desire to learn new things each and every day! His desire to learn to bridle his emotions so he can become more like his Savior. Yes I believe and know that she is standing right next to each of us cheering us on as needed to succeed in our lives here so that when we meet her we can all go with her. I remember her always saying that not one seat in the Celestial kingdom would be empty. Ultimately it is our choice whether to fill those seats or leave them empty but if she has anything to do with it she will fight for each of us to fill those seats! So today I honor her strong faith and devotion to our family! May we continue to work together to strengthen our bonds and heal our hearts and meet her on the other side with open hearts and arms! Love you forever Mom!!

To Be At Ease

In 2 Nephi 28 it talks about the last day. There were be many false churches. The hearts of men will fail them. Society will become very lax with the teachings of God and Satan will have more power because we will give it to him. The great land of America will come under siege, not by others but by ourselves. And then in verse 24 it says “Therefore, wo be unto him that is at ease in Zion!” When I cross referenced this scripture it lead me to Amos 6:1 “Woe to them that are ate ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria, which are named chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel came!”

When I read this I thought of our country today. We are so divided between parties. We are not the Lamanites and Nephites but we are the republicans and democratics. I have seen an even greater division this year than any other year before.

So are we really at ease in Zion, have we reached that place that we have been warned about.

In 2 Nephi 28:26-27 it reads “Yea, wo be unto him that hearkeneth unto the precepts of men, and denieth the power of God, an the gift of the Holy Ghost! Yea, wo be unto him that saith: We have received, and we need no more!”

Are we willing to follow the example of our Prophets and Apostles? Are we willing to walk in the ways of God. Or is it easier to just and takes less effort on our part to follow and hear the precepts of man.

It is now that we must choose. We must walk in faith after the Prophet of God. President Nelson says talking about the days we are living presently, “I’ve learned that these emotions of fear, isolation, and danger are best handled by immersing one’s self in the care of other people,” he said. “The road ahead will always be bumpy, but the destination will be serene and secure. So, fasten your seat belt, hang on through the bumps, and do what’s right, and your rewards will be eternal.”

W can not be at ease anymore in Zion there are to many bumps ahead. We must be always on our guard, ready to hear the Holy Ghost direct us through the bumps. There are going to be many more ahead. God has saved us for these last days because he knows we have what it takes to navigate through the bumps!

To Be At Ease

In 2 Nephi 28 it talks about the last day. There were be many false churches. The hearts of men will fail them. Society will become very lax with the teachings of God and Satan will have more power because we will give it to him. The great land of America will come under siege, not by others but by ourselves. And then in verse 24 it says “Therefore, wo be unto him that is at ease in Zion!” When I cross referenced this scripture it lead me to Amos 6:1 “Woe to them that are ate ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria, which are named chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel came!”

When I read this I thought of our country today. We are so divided between parties. We are not the Lamanites and Nephites but we are the republicans and democratics. I have seen an even greater division this year than any other year before.

So are we really at ease in Zion, have we reached that place that we have been warned about.

In 2 Nephi 28:26-27 it reads “Yea, wo be unto him that hearkeneth unto the precepts of men, and denieth the power of God, an the gift of the Holy Ghost! Yea, wo be unto him that saith: We have received, and we need no more!”

Are we willing to follow the example of our Prophets and Apostles? Are we willing to walk in the ways of God. Or is it easier to just and takes less effort on our part to follow and hear the precepts of man.

It is now that we must choose. We must walk in faith after the Prophet of God. President Nelson says talking about the days we are living presently, “I’ve learned that these emotions of fear, isolation, and danger are best handled by immersing one’s self in the care of other people,” he said. “The road ahead will always be bumpy, but the destination will be serene and secure. So, fasten your seat belt, hang on through the bumps, and do what’s right, and your rewards will be eternal.”

W can not be at ease anymore in Zion there are to many bumps ahead. We must be always on our guard, ready to hear the Holy Ghost direct us through the bumps. There are going to be many more ahead. God has saved us for these last days because he knows we have what it takes to navigate through the bumps!

Change in my life’s Journey

A lot has changed in my life.  As a child and even a young adult I wa naive to think that my life would be this happy peaceful life full of peace and happiness.  You know the kind of peace that comes from being married, settling down and starting a family!  Well I did all of that, and I was very unhappy in my marriage.  I felt that I could not and would not measure up to the perfect mother.  I felt that I was no good at anything.  My mother was diagnosed with cancer and died 5 short months later after living 55 years of a happy healthy life.  My then husband was not much for emotional support and our marriage was very rocky.  We separated and I found myself contemplating divorce as the only option to escape my hurt and pain, the loneliness of losing my mother and best friend and still not having a husband that would help me through the hardest time in my 33 years of life thus far.

 

So what does one do when feeling so alone, like a failure, and not able to adequately live life to the fullest with peace and contentment in everyday living?

 

First watch this and lets talk about what I started to do?

 

I did everything.  I cooked from scratch.  I sewed clothes.  I quilted.  I ran a household, which can be more stressful when you own a home.  There were many things on my plate with 6 small children.  On top of that I practically lived at the school volunteering in my childrens classes and in PTO holding various different offices over the years.  I was also very involved in church with many areas where I gave of my time in service!  Don’t get me wrong, I loved doing all of these things, I was passionate about making the best choices for my family and children.  But I lacked 2 things, making the best choice for me, and learning to balance my time by saying no to things and delegating out responsibilities that could be delegated. I could no longer handle the pressures that were upon me and I cracked.  I was broken.  I was a mess.

 

I moved in with a family member.  I was taken care of along with my 6 children.  I began to really truly feel love for the first time in my life.  I was learning who I was and the importance of taking time for myself.  I learned that my house did not need to be picture perfect like out of a magazine.  I was dragged out of my comfort zone and lifted to a higher state of life.  For the first time I felt as if I had someone that truly cared about me.  Who really loved me for me and not for my body and what I had to give but simply just for “ME”.  Life is not meant to attain perfection overnight rather let us remember as quoted in Corinthians 13:9  ” For we are glad, when we are weak, and ye are strong:and this also we wish even your perfection.”  It is ok to to have a goal in becoming perfect as long as we know and can acknowledge our weaknesses.  We really need to look to Christ who is perfect.  Study his life and seek understanding in His teachings and then use those teaching to help us become perfect in Him!

 

Next time stay tuned for what strategies I used that worked to help me and what ones I used that I decided for me I could not use anylonger!