The Gift of Good Friends

It's the Christmas season and we're all running around in an excited frenzy making sure we have gifts for everyone on our list, as well as making our own list of gifts we want to receive. Gifts are a big part of Christmas! But we tend to overlook some of the most important and greatest gifts. A good Sabbath activity might be to sit down and take some time to make a list of YOUR greatest gifts. Here's some ideas to get you started:

Jesus Christ!
Your family
This beautiful world
The gospel
The Holy Ghost
Good friends

This last one is one of my greatest gifts! And in fact, it is really a gift to myself. I choose who my friends are (learn more about this while doing experiments in Choice and Accountability) and that choice makes a huge difference in my life and the paths I take. 

Several of my friends and I have a group chat in which we share uplifting quotes, talks, scriptures, and insights with each other. We discuss gospel principles and some things we might be struggling with. We help answer each other's questions and share ideas. I love having friends who are committed to living the gospel and gaining their own testimonies!

The friends I have now aren't just those I meet at church or work or other places. You can find great friends in your own family! Cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and most importantly, parents and siblings, make the best friends! Their testimonies strengthen mine and their examples help me choose the right, and I think that is a wonderful gift!!

For the Strength of Youth: Friends

Personal Progress: Choice and Accountability

How have good friends helped you make good choices or strengthen your testimony??
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Don't forget to #LightTheWorld and share Christ's love this Christmas season!!

The Family: A Proclamation to the World

Chances are, you've all read/heard the Family Proclamation (or at least part of it) in some lesson or talk. It's part of a Personal Progress experience. If you're 38 or older, you may have actually heard President Hinckley read it from the pulpit for the first time in 1995.

Here's the real question: Did you actually internalize it? Understand it? Ponder it? Know it?

Okay, yes. Some of you did! But if you didn't...

In 1998, Henry B. Eyring, now First Counselor in the First Presidency, wrote an article for the Ensign entitled "The Teachings of 'The Family: A Proclamation to the World'". It was reprinted in the September 2015 New Era, because that was the 20 year anniversary of the Family Proclamation. And that was the issue of the New Era I happened to pick up on Sunday morning to read before church.

(Okay, maybe not "happened", exactly. See, our family has recently started memorizing the Proclamation, and I saw that on the cover and thought it would be a good one to read. Boy, I was right on that!!)

So, please enjoy this neat article, and strengthen your testimony of each of the principles found in this awesome revelation through a prophet of God!

THE TEACHINGS OF "THE FAMILY: A PROCLAMATION TO THE WORLD"