Today I had the opportunity to talk a lot about faith as a missionary! As missionaries sometimes our faith can be a little low when it comes to finding people to teach. However if we are going to be teaching people that they need to have faith in what we are saying and what God can do for them in their lives through this gospel, we certainly need to practice what we preach right?! And not be hypocrites!... But it happens! In Preach My Gospel it says "doubt and fear are opposed to faith". So the opposite of faith is fear. Who wants us to be fearful? Satan! And he wants us to be fearful because when we are fearful it holds us back from reaching our full potential and reaching those things that Heavenly Father knows can bring happiness to us or to others.

"Fear thou not; for I am with thee; be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness." -Isaiah 41:10

That is one of my favorite comforting scriptures to read! I love that He said "I will" not I will try, or I can possibly be they God and strengthen thee. He is direct in his promise to us that he is our God here to help and strengthen us. All we need to do is "Look unto me in every thought" and to "doubt not, fear not" D&C 6:36

Another one of my favorite scriptures to go along with this is 

"Now, as I said concerning faith--that it was not a perfect knowledge--even so it is with my words. Ye cannot know of their surety at first, unto perfection, any more than faith is a perfect knowledge. But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give a place for a portion of my words"

Alma 32:26-27

The last thing to go along with faith! I "accidentally" turned to a page in Preach My Gospel that I had never seen before. Its a Christlike Attribute Activity. And it has you rate yourself on how you are with that Christlike attribute. Take the survey! Read the scriptures that go along with where your lacking, and ponder in your hearts how it can apply to your improvement, and build your faith foundation stronger!

1= never         2= sometimes         3= often           4= almost always          5= always

____1. I believe in Christ and accept Him as my Savior. (2 Nephi 25:29)
____2. I feel confident that God loves me. (1 Nephi 11:17)
____3. I trust the Savior enough to accept His will and do whatever He asks. (1 Nephi 3:7)
____4. I firmly believe that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ I can be forgiven of all my sins. (Enos 1:5–8)
____5. I have enough faith in Christ to obtain answers to my prayers. (Mosiah 27:14)
____6. I think about the Savior during the day and remember what He has done for me. (D&C 20:77, 79)
____7. I have the faith necessary to help make good things happen in my life or the lives of others. (Ether 12:12)
____8. I know by the power of the Holy Ghost that the Book of Mormon is true. (Moroni 10:3–5)
____9. I have enough faith in Christ to accomplish anything He wants me to do—even miracles, if necessary. (Moroni 7:33)

To end I'd like to come back to the comment of how we shouldn't be hypocrites and quote. President Dieter F. Uchtdorf from this last General Conference in his talk titled "Come Join With Us".

"If you define hypocrite as someone who fails to live up perfectly to what he or she believes, then we are all hypocrites. None of us is quite as Christlike as we know we should be. But we earnestly desire to overcome our faults and the tendency to sin. With our heart and soul we yearn to become better with the help of the Atonement of Jesus Christ."

To read the full talk here is the link!
http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/come-join-with-us?lang=eng&query=come+join+with+us

Hello first EVER blog post! As I have been reading the Book of Mormon more and more out here in the great land of Oregon! I have been shown immensely how I can 'liken' the scriptures to my everyday life! Sometimes it definitely seems like when it comes to reading the Book of Mormon we may in the distant part of our minds, that part we don't want to admit too ;), we think something along the lines of  "How in the world are some ancient writings going to help me with my problems with Jessica being a jerk to me?!" BUT I'm here to testify that they indeed do! A big part to making that work is prayer! Before I read my scriptures I pray to Heavenly Father and ask him to help me to learn what he needs me to learn, and also to help me to know how I can use what I learn to help people I come in contact with. It hath never to fail me! When I first started to take this challenge upon myself, I was a bit skeptical. However, each day when I was able to say "Oh my gosh! I totally just read about this! Let me tell you!" I would get so excited and especially thankful to the Lord for guiding me to it and for the 'likening' I was able to get from the scriptures! It has grown my testimony of how Heavenly Father IS aware of each of us, and what we need. So that is what my blog is about! A testimony of just how true it is that we can ALWAYS 'liken' the scriptures to ourselves!  

"And I did read many things unto them which were written in the books 

of Moses; but 

that I might more fully persuade them to believe in the Lord their Redeemer 

I did read unto them that which was written by the prophet Isaiah; 

for I did liken all scriptures unto us, that I might be for our profit and learning."

1 Nephi 19:23