Sun 11Jan09 – I taught 2 lessons today, 1 for Sunday school, and in Priesthood. Class participation certainly makes it easier to teach, but 14 yr. olds don’t seem to participate much. Thinking back 17 years, I thought I participated more than others, but I certainly wasn’t very confident about it. I remember when I came home from Argentina, Josh and Ryan Charles called me ‘the Human Answer’, because I would answer so much in church classes. I wonder if Josh answers more now that he is on his own and an RM... Alma 37.46 ‘O my son, let us not be slothful because of the easiness of the way; for so it was for our fathers; for so it was prepared for them, that if they would look they might live; even so it is with us. The way is prepared, and if we will look we may live forever.’ The way is easy for me, at least in theory. I have only to choose to do correct things, to give my will to the Father. Simple, but really, really hard in application. The other part that is easy is that I have had the gospel with me all the time. I can’t remember a time when I haven’t had true knowledge about spiritual things. As such, I tend to become complacent/slothful, because of the easiness of the way.

   ‘Avoidance is not deliverance.’ (workbook, p26)  It is not a permanent end to a conflict. It is not a resolution to a problem. It only means that we go out of our way to get past a problem temporarily. To be delivered from our problems/addictions/complaints is something that no mortal person had the capability of. I know that it’s useless for me to try and deliver myself. It hasn’t worked before, and it definitely won’t work in the future. I can’t rely on myself to get better.