How did the Greek factions form and what was the effect upon the war?

Before the Peloponnesian war, the Athenians held the law as their judge. The values of family, justice, and virtue prevailed. For the Lacedaemonians, strict obedience was strongest of all Spartan culture. They valued, religious ceremonies, family and military strength. Not long after the successful battles with Persia, Athens became more powerful due to its great laws and national character. They began to flourish and to gain more ground while gradually seeking new advantages and turning away from their laws and values. According to Thucydides, the real cause of the war, other than the Thirty-Year Peace, was the “increasing Athenian greatness and the resulting fear among the Lacedaemonians” that Athens and her people might adopt the Persian model in conquering other peoples. (1.23)

Factions arose and passions ignited. Thucydides recounts the change in disposition of the two rivals thus. Both Spartans and Athenians now sought strength in acquiring allies to reinforce the factions. Cruelty occurred. The casualties of war destroyed crops and made their necessities dearer which ignited more passion. They experienced a change in their thinking. In the case of the Athenians, rather than serving the good of the people and community, they sought power and retaliations. No longer did their actions match their words. Their passions dictated irrational recklessness where once they committed themselves to reason; fear and hesitation replaced courage and conviction; circumspection, senseless anger, deliberation for security, violent temper, intrigue and plot replaced the once esteemed Athenian and Spartan virtues. Where there was law and constitution, there was now party affiliation. Thucydides wrote that this civil war was the most savage because it was their first. (3.82) I might add that it was their worse because they had lost their guiding principles and sought to overpower their own people and the peoples around them. The loss of freedom principles made way for the loss of character and factious quarrelling.

The effect was destruction of peoples, of virtue, of principles, of freedom and of unity. I have not yet read to the end, but know that because of this great loss, Phillip of Macedon was able to easily take them with Alexander finishing the acquisition.

It was because of the lessons learned in Greece that James Madison and the other founders could convince us of the “dangerous vice” of factions. He wrote in Federalist #10 “that a well constructed union…has the tendency to break and control the violence of faction.”  He adds, “Instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils, have…been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished.” He uses a metaphor to explain the difficulty of finding a balance in governments. He says, “Liberty is to faction what air is to fire,” meaning that in order for a faction to form there must first exist liberty. In essence, liberty is the force that ignites faction and yet, liberty is also the force that ignites freedom. Liberty could be described as amoral since it depends upon the character of people, whether it will produce faction or freedom.

Conservative Media and Common Core Analysis

I just finished watching a clip sent to me from one of the popular conservative shows about the subject of Common Core. Several thoughts went through my mind and this blog post will address them. First, let me tell you where I am coming from: I know there are major problems with education today. I am a home educator for some of those reasons. Additionally, I decided to take my own education into my own hands several years ago and my focus was not to get training for a job like most colleges offer, but to get a real true blue education, one that Thomas Jefferson, Alexander the Great, Laura Ingalls Wilder and many of our ancestors had.  Simply speaking, a liberal arts education. An education in the liberal arts is not the art of becoming a modern liberal, but the study of the arts and sciences of an entire collection of the Great Minds from the Ancient to the Modern. Basically an education from Herodotus to Churchill and then some. These are the ideas that make us free. Liberty means free and comes from the word liberal. Liberal comes from the word liber, which in Latin means the bark of the tree. In ancient times, the great ideas were written on barks of trees to facilitate the spreading of the ideas that opened minds and caused good people to do great things. With that in mind, I express my passion and love for the liberal arts because of the sense of purpose it gives me and the understanding of the ideas that has shaped our world.

Now, about the clip. I watched it and several things I got from it were:

1. It contains dumbed-down standards

2. Less standards to shoot for than in the past (no cursive writing and other things)

3. Our private information is sold to manipulate the system

4. Liberal doctrine and dogma is taught and expected to infiltrate homes

Something that I was surprised with was the chemical reaction that happened to me. I haven't watched this popular TV show host-turned-internet-host for many months now and so I was prepared to quite literally feel my amygdala (fight or flight gland) turn on in my brain. I also felt the blood rush to my arms and legs and out of my center core. It was incredible. I began to remember the biology lessons that have taught me about the miraculous way our body prepares itself to attack a saber-toothed tiger, which is that all blood is distributed away from our core organs and into our appendages in order to give strength to our legs to flee and to our arms to attack. So this was now happening to me and it was incredibly real. It felt like I had taken in a drug. 

Upon recognizing this, I began to think back a few years ago at the time I listened to his show everyday and how I kept going back for more as if it was an addiction. Since I have "gotten off" him, I have been able to read thousands of pages of classic works, written 80% of a public school charter, read and studied the Idaho Education Laws, and read and studied the Common Core on my own (see below about what I learned from it). So much have I done that I considered how his show must have been a waste of my time. Now, with the extra time saved from getting off my addiction, a combination of all my studying has enlightened my understanding and given me peace to continue to find my way. 

I know that I am going somewhere blunt, plain and harsh…and I hope and feel that you can follow me here to the end. Here is what I am feeling. I feel strongly that these kinds of shows and the chemical reaction effect that they have on many are keeping people from doing things that really can make a difference. However, let me make a clear point that the information they bring to our attention is absolutely important, but the way that they present it and hold people to them like glue is what is mediocre. It might be a tool of the adversary to keep us in the doom and gloom mood and addicted to the issues, rather than doing the better things. 

Now, with that said, I feel that a good conservative show is an exciting treat every few months if I can stay away from the addiction. They have their place and have brought about much enlightenment, but I wonder if it can go the wrong direction if they are daily getting into the homes and tempting people to keep coming back for more. I also wonder if our cores will suffer more diseases with less blood nourishing them because it is so often nourishing our arms and legs. We live in good times and bad times, as the opening lines state in Charles Dickens', A Tale of Two Cities. But I feel that we were born at such a time as this to do good and "better" things and affect much change. Getting off our addiction will create more time to do better things and send more blood to our core and brains to feel better and think better. (Understanding more biology will help us too—heeheehee)

So as I stated above, I decided to tackle Common Core document and see for myself this past spring. Studying the CCdoc was quite a fun thing because it gave me a sense of accomplishment and a good direction of how I wanted to think about it, do about it and talk about it. I found:

1. Low standards of the English Grammar

2. Low standards of History 

3, Low standards of Math

4. Low standards of Science

5. No curriculum is mentioned. They expect each state to figure out the curriculum that "brings" the students to achieve the standard

6. The standards are measurable and include things like being able to analyze, discuss, find, think, write, understand, apply. Measurable standards mean you can check them off and test people on them. 

So, to summarize my list, I found that it was a list of standards that must be met, albeit, a list of standards well below the high standard of learning, even missing some of the important things like cursive writing and so forth, so a mediocre school would only "have to" teach to the standard and not feel they had to go higher or teach other things not on the doc, but a good education would go above and beyond the standards. 

Now, in the CC document it does not state "how" anyone "gets" to those standards except that it gives each state the choice on how they are going to get there. In the case of Harmony Educational Services, which is what we are using to provide the super curriculum of Williamsburg Academy and Intermediate for our children, they are allowing the parent to choose how they want their children to satisfy the low standard, but at the same time allowing the individual families go much higher (families have standards of their own that reach the stars, don't they?). CCdoc doesn't care about that…that's okay because I do, so I do something about it. 

Pondering the CC document, I came up with four things:

1. It was not complex to read

2. It was basically a list of standards each student ought to be able to do (not able to know--that is curriculum and there is none of that in the CCdoc)

3. There is no curriculum, only standards of ability, curriculum is only the medium to get to those standards and families can choose their curriculum if they use homeschool charters, such as Harmony Ed.

4. Conservatives (of which I am one) might (because of the walls they build up against them) think this: "Liberals are progressive, their ideas are bad for us, so therefore, CC must be bad for us"

5. I couldn't see anything bad in CC except that it requires a very mediocre brain to get to the standards, but that doesn't bother me because I am expecting more for my children and trying to persuade others to take the bull by the horn and not outsource their children's education any longer.

The deepest thing I pondered about was the wall that we build up toward the Liberals (and they might deserve it--). That wall is our prejudgement of their (we see it sometimes as evil) progressive ideas. So anything we hear about them on TV or Internet, especially when we dwell on them every day, we begin to feel fear, hate, emotions and all that comes with those things. We fear for our lives, our freedom and our privacy. We basically live in fear. Then all our blood rushes away from our brains and core organs and into our arms and legs. We lose most of our ability to think rationally and we act on our emotions. This is exactly what I don't want to do any longer and why I read the CCdoc in the first place. I wanted to find out about the "evil" ideas. 

I only found one "evil" idea: CCdoc is only expecting a certain standard: mediocrity. It said nothing about the Liberal Dogma. Liberal Dogma mostly comes from curriculum or classroom discussions, if it is important to the teacher. There is no curriculum in the CCdoc (See the 9th and 10th paragraphed section, including the lists). Liberal Dogma comes from being in the particular school systems that promote it and from (beginning with the desires in our heart) outsourcing our children's education. 

I deeply learned from "getting off my conservative-media addiction" and from reading and studying the CC document that because I don't put my trust in an educational system, but in God and my personal revelation from Him about how to educate my children, I have no need to fear it. And that trust expands to almost every other "evil" liberal idea. God will win and he is revealing to us daily, individually and collectively the things we ought to do. 

Going Through the Hoops with Common Core

I don't know if you have listened to much of the hype about Common Core. I did, but I wasn't satisfied with the hearsay, so I did my own research earlier this year. I read the entire document's contents and found it to be just a list of certain abilities and skills dealing with each subject. There is no curriculum involved, only standards to be met. These standards are the basic fundamentals of reading, writing and arithmetic. The following are all the examples from the 8th grade literature standards:

Key Ideas and Details

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.1 Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.3 Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or drama propel the action, reveal aspects of a character, or provoke a decision.

Craft and Structure

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including analogies or allusions to other texts.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.5 Compare and contrast the structure of two or more texts and analyze how the differing structure of each text contributes to its meaning and style.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.6 Analyze how differences in the points of view of the characters and the audience or reader (e.g., created through the use of dramatic irony) create such effects as suspense or humor.

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.7 Analyze the extent to which a filmed or live production of a story or drama stays faithful to or departs from the text or script, evaluating the choices made by the director or actors.
• (RL.8.8 not applicable to literature)
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.9 Analyze how a modern work of fiction draws on themes, patterns of events, or character types from myths, traditional stories, or religious works such as the Bible, including describing how the material is rendered new.

Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.10 By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at the high end of grades 6–8 text complexity band independently and proficiently.

See, these are only standards of skill. Now, these being the standards, there must be a way to practice and measure these standards in some way and that brings us to curriculum. Since CC lets the states choose any way they want to get to these standards, the state then chooses the particular curriculum as the medium to "get" or to achieve these standards. Let's say for instance, a public school in your area chooses to read one of the Twilight Series books to "get" to these standards, but in Williamsburg Academy Online, they choose to read The Scarlet Letter, or Jane Eyre to get to these standards. You can imagine on the one hand, you are submitting your child to the bent and corruptness of Twilight while getting to the standards, while another mom has chosen WA for her child, who is submersing herself in the richness of great literature, of ideas, of morals, of self-awareness and the invitation it sends to join the ranks of all the Jane Eyre's of the world who say "Yes" to God and "no" to sin. Curriculum is what the parents have most control over when it comes to CC and that's the beauty of the whole thing.

Common Core only states a standard of learning, but it has nothing to do with how any one school needs to get there. Now, with that in mind, CC does not have all the beautiful standards that once were thought of as being great, like learning cursive, or learning to show our math-work in the old fashioned way (now a new way) or even the standards of character and self-analysis that once were so beneficial to a nation. So, because of the lack of those beautiful standards a parent has a choice to make. They either consign the responsibility over to a public school system nearest their home and allow any curriculum that will achieve the standards or they can seek for the best education that will use higher standards and higher morals that go well above the mediocrity and instill in their child a love of freedom and all those things that are good and necessary. 

What about the hype? The only thing I see about it, is that it's hype…just hype over false conclusions. The conservatives are weary of the liberals and anything the liberals say is "probably furthest from the truth." As in the case with CC, the conservatives are mostly crying over the lack of good standards and the horrible possibility of bad curriculum. They are absolutely right about that, but the thing that most people don't realize when they listen to today's conservative media shows is that both those things are completely controlled by the parents. The parents have total agency to put their children in a school they believe will deliver the best material (and usually those schools don't care much about the standards of CC…they just get them over with, even sometimes without the student even knowing they are accomplishing them, for the sole reason that they want the focus to be on the best and greatest and not on the mediocre). The parents also have total agency on teaching their child cursive and other "lost standards" they want to instill in their progenitors. 

This is my take and probably a lot more than you want to know, but I am passionate about getting people to look through the media and get their noses in the real documents. And as they do so, they will realize what they have control over and it is usually most of the control. This is a harsh and corrupt world in which we live, but if we are seekers of truth we will ALWAYS find it and feel FREE.

Lessons from Backpacking in Yosemite

“Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; for the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves.”[1]

Often we set out to be anxiously engaged in a good cause without first building on a sure foundation. In the next 15 minutes I would like to lay out a plan to prepare us to be immersed in doing excellent things. First, we must build upon the Rock. Second, we must have a change of heart and third, we ought to engage in self-improvement by doing away with the Natural Man.  

The great leader and prophet, Helaman, stated boldly that Christ is the Rock on which we should build, “that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down…because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.”[2]

As we are learning to build upon the Rock, Moroni tells us how to look at each situation to discern what is the right action, “…for everything which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God.”[3]

As we stand on the firm foundation, which “is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God,”[4] we begin to see things as God sees them. We begin to have an “eye single to His glory”[5] and to experience a change of heart. Alma describes this change of heart as being born again.[6]

With a change of heart we begin to see the error of our ways and conclude that we must expel the Natural Man from us, who is “an enemy to God and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord.”[7]

Let us examine a few thoughts on the damaging affects of the Natural man.

The Prophet Joseph Smith declared, “Mankind [is] naturally selfish, ambitious and striving to excel one above another.”[8] Neal A Maxwell reminded us, “Jesus put every thing on the altar without fanfare or bargaining. Both before and after His astonishing atonement, He declared, ‘Glory be to the Father,’[9] Jesus, stunningly brilliant, nevertheless allowed His will to be ‘swallowed up in the will of the Father.’[10] Those with pride-hardened minds are simply unable to do this…the Natural man is truly God’s enemy, because the natural man will keep God’s precious children from true and everlasting happiness. Our full happiness requires our becoming the men and women of Christ.”[11]

Building upon the sure foundation with a mighty change of heart and banishing the evil ways of the natural man, we can then align our minds with Christ and fulfill the measure of our individual missions and purposes with an anxious heart and mind “bringing to pass much righteousness”[12]

I would like to illustrate a recent experience that taught me about the “natural man” in me and gave me a change of heart.

I was invited to a special backpacking trip for educators in the beautiful Yosemite Wilderness. We would hike an average of about 10 miles a day carrying our gear and food for 6 days. I felt that being raised in a “backpacking family” and continuing the tradition with our own family would lend great stamina to my experience and I felt that I had prepared adequately for the physical burden I would face this last May. I imagined in my mind that I would be a great strength to others needing help along the way and that I would lift the spirits of those who were struggling. I now cringe at that prideful thought. God had something else in store for me on this trip.

I quickly learned several things. First that my backpack, which belonged to Dave and which I insisted on using because it was an up-to-date “internal frame” and better than my 20-year old, old-fashioned “external frame”, was too big for me; it was made for a man. It tore at my hips and caused excruciating pain at almost every step.

Secondly, the traction on my 23-year-old boots had disappeared and I had not been careful enough to check before embarking on the journey. I slipped and fell many times. Thus, I went awfully slow causing the whole company of 9 to move at a snail’s pace.

Thirdly, I learned that it would not be me who would help others, but that I would be the recipient of help rendered to me. If I were humble, I would have graciously, at first, accepted the service given me. But instead I was humiliated, especially when one of the mentors asked to see my backpack and then hoisted it up in front of him and carried it the remaining 2 miles or so to our first camp site, while still carrying his own heavy pack on his back. This act was repeated more than once during the week.

I wanted to be strong and physically able. I felt embarrassed. On one of the days we hiked about 2000 feet up and then 2200 feet down steep switchbacks into a beautiful valley. I trudged painfully slow and I knew it and everyone knew it. I must say that I never heard or felt any mumbling or murmuring from the group, in fact, all were so kind and seemed genuinely involved in great conversations on inspiring subjects. But, I sadly concentrated on my own worth, or imagined my own lack of worth in their eyes and carried that heavy burden along with my pack. This was the more onerous burden: this humiliatingly slow pace that weighed me down into the profundity of desperation. It is important to note that I was dwelling upon this burden and because of it; I filtered everything through this perspective.

 On a particular cloudy day as I was pondering my struggles during solo time, my mentor sat down beside me for an interview. He asked me where I get my value. I thought some and then said, “from doing things.” He questioned back, “So, then, what about Joe down the road who doesn’t do much, does he have less value?” I was caught off guard. “No,” I hesitated, “he is still just as valuable…” I pondered for several minutes and he repeated the question. Where do each of us get our value? Suddenly a light turned on—I knew! I get my value from God!

From the time I could remember, I had allowed my service to others be as a pedestal for all to see and praise. I used this praise as a way to give myself a false sense of value, probably because I didn't fully understand where value came from. Now I knew that nothing I “do” can add or detract from my value.

My struggle with humiliation resulted from the wall I had built up to protect my ego, or what I thought was "my value". This was the single most important lesson of the trip and could be summed up in two parts. First, knowing that my value comes from God and that each and every other human being is equally valuable under God lets me know that I am "enough." Secondly, everything I do is linked to happiness or misery according to the law of God. My actions are not linked to my value, but are linked to the quality of my life.

This powerful turning point led me to glean and garner assiduously from the scriptures concerning “value”.  Nephi taught me that “all men are privileged the one like unto the other, and none are forbidden.”[13] Alma, that our “souls are precious.”[14] Christ reminded the prophet Joseph Smith to “Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God.”[15] And Bishop Edgely recently commented “Our commitment as members of Christ’s true Church stems from the fact that the Lord suffered for every single one of us—the nonmember, the less-active member, even the sinner, and every member in our own family.”[16]

Understanding this seemed to “put off the natural man” in me. I was no longer interested in holding fast to my ego. No action affects my value under God. I seemed to have been lifted to the very tops of the highest peak in Yosemite that day. I felt free from this part of the natural man.

This lesson on value stands alone as a turning point in my life that will affect the way I lead in my home and community. I will have more power against the negative voices that tell me, I am not enough or I am worthless. Also, I will be less judgmental towards those who don't "do" their part. I will understand their value is as mine is and that their lack of action can only affect their happiness and not mine. I can go on and do what I was created to do and do it, as Aristotle says, beautifully, without connecting my work with my value or other's acceptance of me to my value. Our value is steady and always will be. We have no control over our value. Our work and actions are connected only with our happiness and are the only things of which we have control. This is empowering!

Can you imagine the great good we could do collectively if we could continually chip away at our egos in order to slough off the natural man? I am envisioning all of us as brothers and sisters who can see who we are, where we get our value and what our purpose is in life. I am seeing all of us seeking those things we were created to do here upon this earth. I see repentant souls, forgiving souls; I see small and great service rendered to one another. I am imagining all of us anxiously engaged in a good cause to affect righteousness because we are firmly planted on Christ’s foundation.

I am eternally grateful for inspired leaders who have guided me to put off the natural man and make changes in my heart so that I can more effectively do good things. I am reminded of the summer before the Twin Falls temple was in operation. It was during that time that a mighty change was wrought upon my heart.

The story begins many years ago. During my mission, my mother brought into her home a person who had lost her way.  She had joined the church as a young adult, had gone on a mission and had become engaged to a nice active member.  When things did not work out as intended, this woman became sad and lost her way.  She turned to the vices that she had known before joining the church and was in this state when my mother took her in.  Over the years, I listened more to the adversary than to the Spirit and began letting judgments on her character build up inside me.  At times I would see and hear leaders teaching me the words of Paul, “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”[17] At other times I would hear the Savior say, “For, if ye forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will also forgive you; But if ye forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”[18] I let these teachings sink in, but only superficially and would offer only a token repentance.  Had I let them sink in more profoundly and begun to practice unconditional love I would have seen her as truly a child of God.  It wasn’t until my Stake President, Joseph Sagers asked us to clear up any poor relationships in order to be prepared to go to the Twin Falls Temple.  Through fasting and prayer I prayed diligently and with all the energy of my heart to have that pure love of Christ.  Slowly but gradually it came and it seemed that my whole being was transforming, that each cell was rebuilding on this new realm of love.  I felt a charity for her that I had never felt before and it continues today and she has responded to me kindly.  I testify that this love converts individuals to Christ; both the giver and the receiver. I testify that as we learn to more fully repent and forgive one another because we are building upon the Rock, we will be more prepared to serve anxiously as the Lord’s hands in our families, our callings, our community and in the world.

Joshua told the children of Israel, “Be strong and of a good courage.”[19] I imagine having dealt with the children of Israel for all those long years, Joshua knew that building upon the Rock, achieving a change of heart and putting off the natural man required strength and courage.

Our Heavenly Father pleads with us to “come unto Christ and be born again, yea, born of God, changed from [our] carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God becoming his sons and daughters.”[20] The only hang-up is that he wants us to choose it for ourselves. This principle is beautifully taught in one of my favorite hymns:

Know this, that ev’ry soul is free

To choose his life and what he’ll be;

For this eternal truth is giv’n”

That God will force no man to heav’n

He’ll call, persuade, direct aright,

And bless with wisdom, love, and light,

In nameless ways be good and kind,

But never force the human mind.

            …

May we no more our pow’rs abuse,

But ways of truth and goodness choose;

Our God is pleased when we improve

His grace and seek his perfect love.

President Uchtdorf in recent years spoke about the Statue of Christ in one of the European towns that was severely damaged in World War II. He says, “When the townspeople found the statue among the rubble, they mourned because it had been a beloved symbol of their faith and of God’s presence in their lives. Experts [repaired] most of the statue, but its hands…could not be restored. Some suggested [hiring] a sculptor to make new hands…[but] ultimately, the statue remained without hands…The people of the city added on the base of the statue…a sign with these words: ‘You are my hands’ President Uchtdorf continues, “As we emulate His perfect example, our hands can become His hands; our eyes, His eyes; our heart, His heart.”[21]

Brothers and sisters, I testify that we can become his hands if we so choose. I testify that as we prepare ourselves spiritually by building upon the Rock, Experiencing a change of heart and ridding ourselves of the debilitating affects of the natural man, we will have insatiable desires to be anxiously engaged in a good cause. We will know who we are and who our brothers and sisters truly are in the great realm of things and we will not want to cease our labors. This I know in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

---

[1] D&C 58:27-28

[2] Helaman 5:12

[3] Moroni 7:16

[4] Helaman 5:12

[5] D&C 82:19, Mormon 8:15

[6] Alma 5:14

[7] Mosiah 3:19

[8]The Words of Joseph Smith comp. Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, Religious Studies Center, 1980, p. 201.)

[9] D&C 19:19; Moses 4:2

[10] Mosiah 15:7; John 6:38

[11] General Conference, October 1990

[12] D&C 58:27-28

[13] 2 Nephi 26:24-25, 28

[14] Alma 31:34

[15] D&C 18:10

[16] General Conference, April 2013

[17] Ephesians 4:32 

[18] 3 Nephi 13:14-15

[19] Joshua 1:6

[20] Mosiah 27:25

[21] “You are my hands” Uchtdorf April 2010