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Theron Rose

Prioritize and Organize Your Life!

December 31, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Theron David Rose, December 31, 2021

 Prioritize and Organize Your Life!!

Theron David Rose, December 29, 2021

At the beginning of this NEW YEAR, 2022, here are a few thoughts you may find interesting–perhaps even useful–if you are goal oriented. Consider the following:

Ultimately, everything we do in our daily lives and with our time, is either pleasing to the Lord or it is not.  There isn’t really a lot of middle ground.  Ether we are on the strait and narrow, or we are not.  It all becomes a matter of focus and obedience.   There are absolutes.  There are celestial laws. There are eternal things we must know and must believe and must do in order to become.  It will take our consistent effort over this life-time and the next.  We cannot allow discouragement or the feeling of being overwhelmed to overtake us.  We can do it.  The Lord knows we can, and so do we, if we listen to and follow the Holy Spirit. Key Question: What are we focusing our thoughts, our minds on? That is important because our hearts will surely follow.   

Years ago, Elder Paul H. Dunn shared a “target” for CES educators to aim all classroom instruction toward.  The target consisted of three circles.  The most desirable “bull’s eye” in the center that every teacher was to aim for was entitled, MUST KNOW, “doctrines essential for salvation”. The next of the three circles surrounding the bulls eye was entitled SHOULD KNOW.  This included doctrinal teachings not essential to salvation, and events, people, etc. The final, outermost circle, was the NICE TO KNOW, informational things of the gospel including minor people, events, dates, geographical information, and trivia.  I do not know that Elder Dunn invented this “Must Know”; “Should Know”; “Nice-to-Know” target- chart, or if he was simply the first to graphically display this idea [of a target forming a visual of a concentric circular hierarchy of values]. However, this idea has been adapted and used to help teachers teach, and learners understand and remember, by many of us over the years.   

Sister Julie B. Beck LDS Relief Society General President, used a similar hierarchy of values to great advantage to help those she taught to grasp and remember the importance of prioritizing and creating balance in personal daily living.  I have made changes and added to her lists, but otherwise remained true to Sister Beck’s basic premise.  (Relief Society Auxiliary Training, February, 2011.)

Sister Beck used the following three categories: 

  • Things that are absolutely essential to achieve eternal life,
  • Things that are necessary, and,  
  • Things that are “nice” to do, and “nice” to know.
  • Consider the following scripture chain:

2 Nephi 9:51: So much of the time we spend our efforts on things that are of no worth and cannot satisfy.  

D&C 117:8  “…you covet the drop and neglect more weighty matters….”

Matt. 23:23 “…you have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith….”

  1. Essential things to do:  We know that there are some essential things that must be taken care of if we are to achieve eternal life.  We should begin every day focused on doing one or more of those essential things.  It is not a long list. However, it includes the things we must do or become in order to qualify for eternal life. By doing these things we become more Christ-like.  By doing these things we are showing the Lord that we’re aligned with him. 
  • Read scriptures (key words: immerse, ponder, personalize, meditate).
  • Fast and pray
  • Invite, receive, and follow the Spirit
  • Make and keep celestial covenants
  • Seek to serve–to help someone

      2. Necessary things to do:  The list of necessary things is long.  These are the things that help keep life moving.

  • Date with spouse
  • Daily/weekly To Do Lists: errands, shopping, meals, 
  • Eat right
  • Daily exercise
  • Becoming self-reliant financially, food storage, emotional stability, etc.
  • Work/profession

      3. Nice to do:  The nice things won’t save us.  But, they add fun and variety to an otherwise dull and boring life-style.  If we do not control this area, however,  we will spend all our waking hours doing these fun and entertaining things.  This list should be kept under control.  Some examples of “nice to do things” include:

  • Inordinate amount of time spent on Twitter, Facebook and other social media
  • Nonessential texting, internet searches, 
  • All forms of recreational activities
  • Hobbies
  • Sports
  • Eating out
  • TV, movies, DVD’s, etc.
  • Unnecessary vacations, sight-seeing trips, etc.

I present these thoughts to make you think and to give you ideas as to how you might want to organize your “new life” for this coming NEW YEAR! Good Luck! 

Fear, Flu, and a Piece of Fruit

December 28, 2021 / / 0 Comments

By Guenavere A. Sandberg (printed in the Deseret News, Dec. 22, 2004)

This is the Christmas my mother remembered best. She is gone now, and I retell the story in her memory.

The year was 1918.  It was winter.  Alice Wilson was barely 16 years old, and the Christmas season found her lying isolated in an upstairs bedroom, seriously ill with a combination of Spanish flu and pneumonia.  Weeks earlier, the dreaded flu epidemic had invaded Hillsdale, and throughout the town many were stricken. Several new graves had already been hacked out of the frozen hilltop.

The family watched Alice’s condition worsen, and they despaired.  Near the end of November, her father had ridden horseback 16 miles through the snow to Panguitch and back to summon Dr. Bigelow. But pneumonia in addition to flu?  Alas, all the doctor could do was shake his head and prescribe a sweat bath.  Pneumonia vaccine and flu shots were yet to be discovered.  For the most part, in Hillsdale 1918, prayer and home remedies were not supplemented with pills. 

In addition to Alice’s illness, another severe heartache beset the family. Alice’s older brother was serving in the Army in France and Belgium.  The family knew his assignment was driving a mule cart to string telephone wires along the front-line trenches.  Since early October they had heard nothing from him.  Although the armistice had been signed, no word came to Hillsdale from their son in Europe.

Many prayers were offered in Hillsdale that Christmas season, and much faith went into the meager preparations. For Alice’s family, Christmas Eve was a number on the calendar and perhaps a church program for the little ones.  Perhaps not. Many public gatherings were canceled that year.  There may have been modest gifts; Alice remembered nothing of Christmas Eve but phantoms on the bedroom wall that danced in her delirium, adding to the blur of fever and pain.

On the afternoon of Christmas Day, she was sleeping fitfully when the bedroom door opened. A very tall, husky man wearing the uniform of his country, with boots, leather leggings and a wide brimmed hat, stood in the doorway.  A broad smile crossed his face, and isolation or not, her brother took the sick young girl into his arms and hugged her heartily.  He was back from Belgium.  The family had not received a letter because their soldier son was on a troop ship headed home.  Home to Hillsdale.

After the smiles and tears and hugs, out of his uniform pocket big brother Alvin took a small piece of fresh fruit.  An apricot.  A fresh apricot in the winter in Hillsdale was a miracle to be marveled at and admired.  In  1918, cabbage and potatoes from the root cellar were the fresh foods of winter.  

Only one apricot came home with the war-weary soldier, and it became Alice’s Christmas gift.  She was given one half of the precious fruit to eat, and the other half was placed under a glass by her bedside “to look at”, she said.

And look at it she did, daily for several months until she was well.  One spring afternoon she sat out in the front yard, under a pine tree, and ate the dried-up second half of the miracle apricot while the warm sunshine nourished her returning strength.

_____________________________________

Alice was the daughter of George H. Wilson and Hillsdale is located by Highway 89, alongside the Sevier River between Panguitch and Hatch. Once nearly 300 people lived in HIllsdale. Most of them were Wilsons and Johnsons: my mother’s family and many assorted aunts, uncles, and cousins.  Then the people, the Wilsons and Johnsons and others, all moved away.

Today, the town site is marked by a few old houses, scattered ranches, a rejuvenation effort and a cemetery surrounded by a white wood fence. The rip-sawed log house where my mother grew up, with its interior walls of split river willows covered with homemade plaster, still stands. Water still runs in the ditch in front of the house where the George H. Wilson family drew wash water and dipped drinking water if the well went dry.

Jeanne’s Family History notes:  

Remember the “Miracle of the Great Hailstorm”, witnessed by my Grandpa Sixtus E. Johnson  (The Heritage They Left Us, pg 54).  In that story, George D. Wilson used the power of the Priesthood to stop a hailstorm from destroying his crops.  

George D. Wilson married Mary Julia Johnson, sister to Sixtus E. Johnson.  Guenevere, the author of the apricot story (above) was the great-granddaughter of George D. Wilson, making her my second cousin.     

MANNA WEED

It was a lifesaver, it was tasty, and it grew like, well, like a weed.

This is based on a true story from my ancestor, Walter Cox.

Herding sheep was not Walt Cox’s idea of fun. Every time he walked down this dusty road to help his father, it seemed to get longer. Daydreaming as he walked, Walt found himself wandering near temple hill, looking for something new.

He heard a low rumbling noise and looked around, but it wasn’t a thundercloud or an approaching wagon. Walt realized that it was his stomach. Again. Times were hard in Manti, Utah, because crops were not producing. Walt found himself talking aloud even though no one was around to hear.

“I’m sick of living on bread crumbs,” he said.

Walt tried to forget his hunger pains and began racing along the hill. He noticed a patch of green plants growing at the base of the temple hill. They looked different than anything he had seen before, so he carried an armful home to his mother.

Surprised to see Walt coming home so soon after she had sent him to help his father, Pamela arose to see what he had in his arms.

“What have you gotten into now, Walt?”

Without saying a word, Walt handed her the green plants.

Careful experimentation showed that the plants had a delicious flavor, and when eaten, produced no ill effects. They found the greens superior to any they had tasted before. Pamela kissed Walt on the cheek and then sent him off to spread the news to their neighbors about the amazing discovery Walt had made at the base of the temple hill.

Every day the greens were carefully cut to the ground. Each morning they had grown enough for another day’s cutting, and the people gave thanks to the Lord for the “manna weed.” Everyone was surprised to find that during the long season, the greens never made anyone sick, and no one really seemed to tire of their flavor.

The next spring, when the gardens produced abundantly, the greens stopped growing in their spot on temple hill.

(By Erin Christison, “Manna Weed,” New Era, April 1996, p.7)

*Jeanne’s notes: Walter Cox was the son of Orville Sutherland Cox, my great grandfather.

Hard Secrets of the Universe

December 24, 2021 /

Theron David Rose, Monday December 20, 2021

One hard secret of our loving Heavenly Father is that there has to be hard things for us, His children, to go through–hard things for us to do– in order to learn and in order to remember the mortal lessons we will need to apply in our next–post-mortal–life. Just as Christ, the greatest of all, learned from the things which he suffered,1 we cannot expect to win a place with Christ without proving ourselves in the furnace of affliction.2

Elder Neal A. Maxwell wrote: “Sometimes things are hard so as to be hard to forget.”3 That has been true for me and I am sure that hard things will continue to be a part of my life going forward. Am I going to forget the pain, the personal suffering I went through after prostrate surgery? I think not. Will it become a blessing for me to remember how I felt–how I suffered–later on, even on the other side of the veil?

If so, why–in the economy of God–must we not forget? Perhaps–among many other things–discomfort, suffering, feeling pain, may lead one to be more compassionate and more feeling for others who are suffering. It is a Christ-like virtue to feel compassion for the pain, suffering, and trials of others. Christ became our model and our example in these things, for as the Prophet Alma recorded, 

“And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.

“And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.”3

Ultimately, it will always be Christ who will be able to understand how we feel and what we feel and will be able to minister to us perfectly. Indeed, What a Friend we have in Jesus!4

It will be Jesus who rescues us from sin.

It will be Jesus who rescues us from sorrow.

It will be Jesus who rescues us from death.

It will be Jesus who will welcome His faith-filled and faithful saints into celestial glory.

May this be our blessed assurance, and may we let this blessed assurance control.5

Notes:

  1. D&C 19:18; D&C 122:7-8; Heb. 5:8
  2. Isa. 48:10 (1 Ne. 20:10).
  3. Alma 7:11-12.
  4. John 15:13.
  5. Hymn: “It is Well With My Soul”

Running Faster Than Our Strength

December 24, 2021 /

Theron David Rose, Tuesday December 21, 2021

Some of us are running breathless, red-faced and panting through life as if our lives were a race and the finish line is just around the corner and over the next hill. We think short, but hope that we will live long. Some of us are unaware of the admonition given by King Benjamin. Said he, after listing some of the must know’s and must do’s of life:

“And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength.  And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order.”1

If we take this verse apart we can apply at least three success principles to our lives:

  1. Do all things [worth doing] in wisdom and order.
  2. Do not run faster than you have strength
  3. Be diligent.

Let’s talk about each principle and apply that principle to our lives.

  1. Do all things [worth doing] in wisdom and order.
    Let’s face it! Some things are just plain not worth it, while other things are worth everything.  How do we evaluate? How do we tell the difference? This quote from President Ezra Taft Benson tells us the secret:

“We must put God in the forefront of everything else in our lives.  He must come first, just as He declares in the first of His Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3)

“When we put God first, all other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives. Our love of the Lord will govern the claims for our affection, the demands on our time, the interests we pursue, and the order of our priorities.

We should put God ahead of everyone else in our lives.”2

President Russell M. Nelson has taught us a very similar message:

“…I learned that one of the Hebraic meanings of the word Israel is “let God prevail.” 3 Thus the very name of Israel refers to a person who is willing to let God prevail in his or her life. That concept stirs my soul!”4

President Nelson then asks the following personal questions:

“Are you willing to let God prevail in your life? Are you willing to let God be the most important influence in your life? Will you allow His words, His commandments, and His covenants to influence what you do each day? Will you allow His voice to take priority over any other? Are you willing to let whatever He needs you to do take precedence over every other ambition? Are you willing to have your will swallowed up in His?”5

  1. Do not run faster than you have strength.
    Even doing everything you can to put God first in your life, does not guarantee that everything you try to do will now work perfectly. All your best goals and your highest dreams still have to be accomplished in wisdom and order. That means that you cannot do more than you can do. We have all experienced having bigger expectations of what we will be able to do in an hour or even in a day. We just cannot do more than we can do. We have to content ourselves to know that we are on the Lord’s errand, that our lives and our goals are approved by Him, and then chip away–like a professional sculpture–the rough stone of our project, of our personal lives, until we have the masterpiece we desire.

It is in the Lectures on Faith that we will find the secret we need here. Here we find the message, the basic underlying formulae for running the race of our lives here on earth and having the strength to finish it:

“…three things are necessary in order that any rational and intelligent being may exercise faith in God unto life and salvation,

  1. The idea that he [God] actually exists.
  2. A correct idea of his character, perfections, and attributes; and 3.
  3. An actual knowledge that the course of life which he [or she] is pursuing is according to his will.”6
    Please note how these three truths–in the Lectures On Faith– build upon each other. Number three, personally knowing that what you are doing with your life and in your [daily] life, is according to God’s will and His approval is the climax. It is based upon the foundation of the other two. Running the race of your personal mortal life without this knowledge can mean that you are going in the wrong direction. It can mean that you will reach the end of your life’s race and find that you have spent all your time in the weeds of life and never stopped to smell the flowers. It can mean that you hacked away at the leaves and never really got to the root of what is real in life.

It can mean–metaphorically–that you had the ladder of the life you led, against the wrong wall and were fighting a no-win battle against an illusory foe who claims that “…I am no devil, for there is none.”7

  1. Be diligent.
    Once a person has determined that he or she is pursuing personal goals and is living a life approved of by a loving Heavenly Father, what is left? What is left, is to be diligent and obedient. Diligently, and daily follow the approved course, while being obedient to the subtle Spirit corrections in effort and direction. What is the secret here? I believe it is found in the following profound truth:

“Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection. And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come.”8

Note the key to gaining knowledge and intelligence: the key to gaining knowledge and intelligence is through personal diligence and obedience! May I note here that it is a profitable exercise to go to the Topical Guide and scan through the many references given under the words, Diligence, Diligent, Diligently. As I study these references, I am drawn to Alma 32, because Alma’s invitation to the poor class of people who had learned to be humble, fits our formulae. He invites these humble–and now teachable people–to compare the word unto a seed, which, when planted in their hearts, will begin to enlarge and to enlighten and to become delicious to them. This wonderful analogy to our lives and our testimonies is likened unto planting in our hearts the gospel seed and then nourishing and caring for that seed until it brings forth delicious fruit and becomes the reward of personal diligence and patience and long-suffering.9 What a great parallel to what we are speaking of here today. It is all found in Alma 32! Plant the seed in your heart! Diligently and prayerfully care for it. Enjoy the delicious fruit the tree [of life] will produce. There it is! That’s it! Turning your life over to the Lord, not running faster than you have strength, daily and diligently striving to become like Him! That is the entire secret of our personal success in this life and our successful entrance into the life to come.

Notes:

  1. Mosiah 4:26-27.
  2. Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Ezra Taft Benson, 40.
  3. Bible Dictionary, 708
  4. President Russell M. Nelson, “Let God Prevail”, General Conference, Oct. 2020. 141
  5. Ibid. 144
  6. Lectures on Faith, Lecture Third.
  7. 2 Nephi 28:22.
  8. D&C 130:18-19.
  9. Alma 32, esp. 28-43.

Having His Image in Your Countenance

December 23, 2021 /

                                           Theron David Rose, 2021

I was once asked, “What is the most unique belief or truth you Latter-day Saints have to offer the world? What one thing do you know that defines you and makes you different from all other people on earth today”? 

That question has been asked in other ways to many of us who have lived in different places and in differing circumstances during our lives.  How do you answer such a question? Sometimes the question is simply, “Why are you so different? I have been watching you and you do not act like or talk like the people around you.” Or, “There is something about you that makes you different, what is it?”

A former student of mine graduated from Cyprus High School, married her sweetheart, and moved with him to his employment near Washington, D.C. They found a home in a small suburb where several other young married couples, like them, were just starting out. At that time, most of the husbands went to work each day leaving the wives free to form friendships and interact socially.  This former student of mine had been an impressive seminary student. She served on the Seminary Council during her senior year. I was the faculty member assigned to be the Council Advisor and got to know her well. I ran into her mother in a local grocery store approximately a year after her daughter and her husband had moved back east and she told me of an experience her daughter had related to her in a recent phone conversation that has to do with why some people ask these kinds of questions.

She said that her daughter had gotten to know several girls in her new neighborhood and that they get together as friends each week to socialize and to do crafty and decorative projects. They take turns hosting in a different home each week and have gotten to know each other quite well. One day, her daughter was accused of keeping something hidden from the group. They wanted to know what brand of make-up her daughter was using. Her daughter—who had never used make-up in her life—told her friends this, but they would not believe her. They told her that they had all noted that she looked so much different from other people, that they had decided among themselves to ask her about the ‘make-up’ she was using. When she told them that she did not use make-up and never had, they refused to believe her and accused her of trying to keep her ‘special make-up’ a secret from them.

Her mother laughed and winked at me as she said, “We know what that ‘special make-up glow’ is among latter-day saints, don’t we, Brother Rose?”

Later, as my wife and I were putting away the groceries I had purchased, I told her about the conversation I had with this mother and the ‘special make-up glow’ and my wife said, “Those girls will meet other Latter-day Saints during their lives who will not have that special glow about them. Then what?”

I have often thought about those two words, “Then what?” in the context of having or of not having that distinctive glow. As I pondered upon this question, I came to realize that it relates to one of the profound personal evaluative questions the Prophet Alma tells us we must ask ourselves: “And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances?  Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?”  And then, because Alma knew that a person could reach this level of spirituality  and then slip or fall away, he added this important follow-up question: “”If ye have felt [this spirit] can ye feel so now” (Alma 5:14, 26)?

I believe that if we have lost this Spirit-glow, this ”make-up’, then, like Alma suggests, this should become our ‘wake-up’ call. Do I, do we, have the image of Christ in our countenances?  If we know that we did so in the past. and that we have had this conviction and glow at one time, but have slipped and fallen below that standard, then it becomes our challenge to work to get it back. You can do it!  I can do it! I know we can. And, won’t it be worth it? Yes, it will.  I know it will. A good, simple beginning would be to faithfully read the General Conference talks given by our general authorities.  A second step would be to read the footnotes given in each selected talk and look for and read  those scriptural references given. The footnotes give additional depth and meaning to the words spoken in General Conference. May the Lord continue to bless you in your faithful efforts to be good and to do good, and to reclaim—if need be—your former spiritual strength. Acquire that special ‘glow’ that shows you have the ‘image’ of Christ in your ‘countenance’!

D&C 3 “I Had Seen A Vision”

November 26, 2021 /

Explain:  “Inspiration is always revelation, but revelation is not always inspiration.”

Revelation is the larger, all inclusive term, which includes inspiration, although many times the two terms are used interchangeably.

Let’s make a list of some of the many ways we can receive revelation:

1. Dreams (Many prophets, incl. Joseph, Mary’s husband)
2. Visions (many prophets)
3. Voice in one’s mind (Enos, 1st C. in Poc. Ida. bishopric)
4. Audible voice
5. Feelings (Elder Packer)
6. Edifying thoughts come 
7. When we sit in council and the Spirit counsels.
8. When thoughts are expressed by others and the Spirit gives it emphasis.
9. When reading the scriptures you receive new insights, new understanding or feel the Spirit (Elder McConkie)
10.While meditating during the Sacrament or in the temple. (Pres. McKay quote)
11.After sincere prayer, have a feeling of quiet peace envelope you (D&C 6, Gal. 5)

Explain:  To understand the scriptures one must receive the same spirit as did the prophet who wrote them.

Explain:  Since all scripture was written by “Saints”, only “Saints” can understand and correctly interpret it.” 

On the importance of revelation, Glenn L. Pearson and Reid E. Bankhead write:

“It takes individual revelation to be saved.  It takes revelation to understand revelation.  It takes revelation to know a revelation. It takes revelation to have priesthood authority.  It takes revelation to live the way Christ wants us to live.  It takes revelation to do missionary work.  It takes revelation to be converted.  It takes revelation to run the day-to-day affairs of the kingdom of God on earth.

“Every way and every time the Holy Ghost touches our lives it is revelation by definition because it is some form or other of  communication from God.  The Holy Ghost himself is a member of  the Godhead….If we are to be saved, the Holy Ghost must touch  our lives continually….” 
(Building Faith with the Book of Mormon, p. 139.) 

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