sharing the gospel

    Today I am going to share with you some thoughts I have had on sharing the gospel and how vital it really is.  I was lead to do this, after I watched a video "by small and simple things." In it President Henry B. Eyring shared some insights about sharing the gospel with your friends.

                                                                

   "All of us who are under the baptismal covenant have promised to offer the gospel to others.  Sometimes, fear of rejection or of giving offense looms before us like an impassable obstacle. Yet some members clear that barrier with ease.  There is no single pattern in what they do. There is no common technique. Some always carry a Book of Mormon to give away. Others set a date to find someone for the missionaries to teach. Another has found questions which draw out feelings about what matters most in life to a person. Each has prayed to know what to do. They each seem to get a different answer, suited especially to them and to the people they meet." 

     "The Lord trusts His true disciples. He sends prepared people to His prepared servants. You have had the experience, as have I, of meeting people where you were sure the meeting could not have been by chance."

      President Eyring later said "Pray for the chance to encounter people who sense there could be something better in their lives. Pray to know what you should do to help them. Your prayers will be answered. You will meet people prepared by the Lord. You will find yourself feeling and saying things beyond your past experience. And then in time you will feel yourself drawing closer to your Heavenly Father, and you will feel the cleansing and the forgiveness the Savior promises His faithful witnesses. And you will feel His approval, knowing you have done what He asked of you, because He loves you and trusts you."

                                                       

   I know that we all can be a tool in sharing the Gospel, it doesn't matter how much we know, all that matters is that we have a testimony.  The lord never said that he commands his knowledgeable children to share the gospel, he commands all his children who have tasted of his love to share it. 

    The lord has blessed us with the great gift of the Internet and social networks which makes communicating and sharing the gospel fast and easy.  It is a non-threatening way to invite people to learn of the gospel and receive answers to their questions.  I invite each of you to share the gospel with one of your friends either in person or via the Internet and partake of the great joy our Father in Heaven has promised us.

Two prayers come together

     Today we saw a miracle of the Lord which came to us because someone prayed earnestly seeking to find truth in their life.

                                           

    It all started early this morning when me and my companion, Elder Harper, said a prayer before we set out for the day. We prayed and asked our Father in Heaven to "lead us this day to someone who is being prepared to receive the Gospel."  Then we set apart for our day.  We tried to visit some people, but we had no success.  Then we decided to visit someone quite a bit away from where we were.  Usually we would have driven to save time, because we had many people to see that afternoon, but being blessed with beautiful 70 degree weather in the middle of January, we decided to walk all the way to the house and talk to people along the way.  It took us about 40 minutes to walk to the home and when we got there no one was home.  So disappointed we started the long walk back. 

                                                      

      Between walking we talked to about 15 people I'd say.  Then just within about 30 seconds from our car up pulls this lady into a driveway in front of us.  When she got out of the car we started talking to her.  We told her we were missionaries from the LDS church and had a message of peace about the Savior Jesus Christ.  We then went on to testify of the Restoration of the Gospel.  When we told her a little about our message she said "you know it is weird that you are here."  we asked "why is that?" she said, "I am a spiritual person and I have been looking for a path in life, and this morning I prayed and asked god to send me a path and help me know what to do."  I then went on to tell her about our morning prayer.  We knew then it was no coincidence that we both met this day.  She invited us to come back and share more about the message.

     I know that there is no such thing as coincidence, just moments where god remains unrevealed.  He will lead the honest seeker to truth.  I know that God answers prayers, today he answered two of them!

Whatsoever ye shall seal on earth, shall be sealed in heaven

                                                                                                                              

      In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints we put alot of emphasis on the family.  It is my goal in this post to give the reasons why this is. 

    We believe that family life here is an extension of what life was like in the Pre-earth life.  We believe before we lived in this life we lived as spirits, as a part of our Heavenly Fathers family.  In Hebrews it talks about this relationship, it says "Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?" (Heb 12:9).  and also in Romans 8:16 is says "...We are the children of God." 

    Our Heavenly Father created a plan for us where we could come to the earth, and gain experience.  He sent us here in family units so we could experience joy. Our purpose in this life is to find lasting joy, peace and happiness in families and to prepare to return to live with God.  When Jesus Christ was on the earth he gave unto his apostle Peter the keys to seal families together for time and all eternity. "And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (Matt 16:19)

    Through the Restoration of the Gospel on the earth, we have these powers on the earth again to seal families together for time and all eternity.  In our Holy Temples this great power is manifested and families are eternally sealed. 

     This knowledge that family life is perpetuated far beyond this life is why we put such a great emphasis on family life here.  We are all striving to help eachother live the gospel and prepare to live together with our Father in Heaven forever.  We have recieved lots of guidance in these latter-days about how we can accomplish this.  Just 15 years ago, prophets and apostles announced "The Family: A proclamation to the world" This gives us alot of great counsel about the roles of family members, the importance of marriage, and the blessings of righteous family life.

      A couple of weeks ago, The Quinones family pictured below, made another step towards this great goal of theres to be sealed as a family.  Katy and Marina were baptized, and in a year from now they are going to go to the temple and be sealed as a family.  I am so excited for them to accomplish this goal.
                                                   

     I know that families truly can be together forever, I know that this knowledge can strenghten families and bring them peace and joy in this life.

swimming and our life on earth

          

 Many of you don't know, but I used to swim in High School.  It is something I wished I would have sticked with more, but I am grateful for the time that I did do it.   How I got started in swimming is the swim coach came up to me one day in a fast food restraunt and said "you are really tall, and that is a big foot you got.  What size do you wear?"  I told him a size 16, he said "wow, you got natural flippers, you should come and try out for the swim team."  It is something that I had never done before, but I loved sports so much that I just gave it a shot. I was inspired by the skill and success that Michael Phelps had in the olympics.  He was the best in the world and that made me want to be a swimmer.  At the tryouts my coach said "alright swim the 100 meter race for me."  I said "that is really far."  he said "that is the second shortest race there is."  I felt overwhelmed at the point considering the most I ever swam was maybe 1 lap.  I did as he said though and the result, I got dead last.  The coach though said, I see alot of potential in you and put me on the team anyways. 

       Over the course of the season, I went to practice everyday and did a vast variety of excersises and learned the techniques I needed to become a good swimmer.  At the beggining of the season I was always placing last in the last heat.  Over the course of the season though I progressed and learned.  I built up endurance and was able to accomplish alot more than I ever expected.   Do to my body build, I naturally raced the sprints, the short fast races where there was little room for error.  In swimming if you progress 1/10 of a second a month you are doing great.  It is gradual improvement that can get discouraging at times.   I learned to love it so much, and by the end of the season I finished 1st in my heat.  I was so proud of what I was able to become and the time I put in to accomplish it made it all the more rewarding. 

     So now to tie this all back to the gospel.  Before this life we all lived with our father in heaven as spirit children (Heb 12:9), we were all very comfortable there and each had our different talents.  Our father in heaven proposed a plan that we could come to earth and recieve a physical body.  We would go through testing and trial.  It was something that we didn't know anything about or how we would do here.  It was new territory that many of us were probably uneasy about.  But our father in heaven, Just like the swim coach, sees the great potential that we have even when we don't.   At first many of us might struggle to get comfortable, we fight make mistakes and it may seem as though we will never be good enough.  Our father in heaven never gives up on us though, he is always there to support us to the end.  

     When we go through this life we learn basic principles that enable us to improve the quality of our life.  We build endurance as we go through the trials of this life.  We have a great example to look up to in this life, a perfect example.  That is Jesus Christ, as we model our life after his, it gives us something to aspire to, our goal is to be just like him.  Just as the young swimmer desires to be like Michael phelps.  Hopefully by the end of the season, or life, we will be different.  It will be gradual, even unnoticable at times, we go through constant refining.  As it says in the scriptures "we learn line upon line, precept upon precept" (2 Nephi 28:30) But in the end we will be champions if you put in the effort, and do the things that the savior has asked.  We will look back at our life and realize the potential our father saw in us from the beginning. 

Defense wins championships!!

                                                   

        As many of you know, I love basketball.  I have played it ever since I can remember, it has always been a part of my life.  From Rec. basketball, to AAU, to highschool, to just watching my Lakers play on the T.V.  I have thought alot about the game of basketball and tried to see how it applies to the Gospel, so hear it goes. 

       In the sports world you hear the cliche alot that "defense wins championships"  and that good defense leads to good offense.  Many people say "well that is true but if you can't score a point you can't win"  that as well is true, you need to have a good balanced attack.  But like in the picture above, if you are able to get the other team to make turnovers it leads to easy lay-ups on the other end.  No matter how bad of an offense you have, lay-ups should be a guarantee.  It is all set up by the defense.  Too many times in basketball though, people get in the mind set of, we will save our energy on defense so that we will have more energy on offense, or we will just out shoot them.  Many times my highschool team just tried to get into a shoot out, and we played casual on defense.  While this worked sometimes, most of the time we were playing from behind, and it usually ended in defeat.  Another important thing to remember in the game of basketball is that it is a team sport and no one man can do it on his own.  He must rely on his teamates to help him out when he needs them.  All of this requires practice and development of different fundamentals, basketball is game of many elements, on defense you need to be able to develop good communication, court position, good defensive stance, hand placement, boxing out, and many other things.  Without all of these key elements you won't be effective.  Now to compare it to the gospel

     

An Introduction

     I thought for my first post that I would just introduce myself.  I am Elder Darion Bevan, currently I am serving a Mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Ukiah, CA, although that will be changing in a couple of days.  I am going to be serving in Santa Rosa, CA. 
    
       A little bit about my backround. I am from Sandy, UT,  I have lived there all my life.  I have two Brothers, and older and a younger.  My older brother served a mission in Manaus, Brazil.  My little brother is going to be going on a mission very shortly.  I grew up playing a number of sports, Basketball being my favorite.  In highschool I also played volleyball and was on the swim team.  I have to say that I love sports, I would watch them all the time.  It didn't matter what was on, football, tennis, track, badmitton, I loved them all.

     My mission has been the best experience of my life.  I have met so many great people and made friends that will carry on throughout the eternities,  nothing can replace the experiences I have had.  I have also grown a very strong testimony of my savior Jesus Christ, and the church.  I can't even imagine where my life would be right now if I had not served a mission. 

     I know this church is true, I know by the power of the Holy Ghost that the Book of Mormon is true, and that Joseph Smith was a prophet of god.  I may not know much but atleast I know these things.