Talk - The Commandments

I was asked to speak about The Commandments.  A lot of the information from my talk comes from lesson 4 in the missionary book called “Preach My Gospel.”  Since I will be able to go on a mission soon, it was good for me to study from this book.

Since the beginning of time, parents have been giving rules to their children. Rules like not playing in the street or not playing with matches. Sometimes the rules seemed like a burden to kids, like their parents must have invented them to keep them from doing the things they really wanted to do—the things they thought would make them happy. As we grow up we learn how important these rules are, how we could have been seriously injured or even killed if we had not obeyed.

Like our earthly parents, God gives us commandments to help keep us focused on what is most important and how to stay safe. All of His guidance is meant to keep us safe, help us stay close to Him and, in the end, to give us more freedom and happiness.

Talk - The Gift of the Holy Ghost: What Every Member Should Know

From an address given by President Boyd K. Packer, on June 24, 2003, at a seminar for new mission presidents, Missionary Training Center, Provo, Utah.

This is one of the best talks I've read about the Gift of the Holy Ghost.  It clarifies that baptism and  confirmation should always be spoken of together.  They are two halves of a whole.  President Packer said, "Missionaries—and parents as well—are to teach both halves: “Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins [and the] Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Articles of Faith 1:4). Make it one sentence. Fix it in the front of your minds so that when you say one, you say the other, and when you think one, you think the other."

Click HERE to read the talk on www.lds.org or read the whole talk below.

My purpose is to teach you through doctrine and scripture why it is that we do things as we do. I will give some direction and suggestions as to how we can do things better in order that each member of the Church will be thoroughly converted and never will fall away.

Joseph Smith said: “You might as well baptize a bag of sand as a man, if not done in view of the remission of sins and getting of the Holy Ghost. Baptism by water is but half a baptism, and is good for nothing without the other half—that is, the baptism of the Holy Ghost” (History of the Church, 5:499).