Time Experience Thoughts

How Priesthood Leaders Have Blessed Me and My Family And Helped Us Come Closer to Christ Talk by Scott Vanatter at Oakton Stake Priesthood Leadership Meeting, June 11, 2011 INTRO Melchizedek priesthood leaders are taught that “…this greater priesthood administereth the gospel and holdeth . . . the key of the knowledge of God.” That “…in the ordinances thereof, the power of godliness is manifest.”(DC 84: 19-20) Good morning brethren. My topic is, “How Priesthood Leaders have Blessed Me and My Family -- and Helped Us Come Closer to Christ.” My family and I have been blessed by inspired words of ward and stake priesthood leaders. We’ve also been blessed by their dedicated lives – by what they do, by who they are. Their eternal perspective, and their connection with us, has created within us a lively, real world hope. This ‘hope in Christ’ provides us calm assurance that we can do it -- we can live the gospel, repent and progress and come unto Christ…. [1] ORDINANCES As impor...

By Dorothy Vanatter, my Mom (Poem written in 1954 about me, their new son) He coos and he talks. He laughs and he grins. He’s loved from his sox To both of his chins. His baby blue eyes – How they twinkle and glow. And, oh, when he sighs, Such contentment they show. He brings us such love As none else can do. From heaven above He was sent us, it’s true. He smiles so to say That he loves everyone. That’s our baby boy. That’s our baby son. With a little chubby hand And his tiny baby feet He’ll play in the sand With the kids ‘cross the street. What he’ll need is a pup To tag at his heels, And as he grows up, Share the love that he feels. He’ll grow up like Dad – Be big and be strong. He’ll know what is bad, He’ll know right from wrong. We’ll teach him in love The best that we can. And too soon he’ll grow up And he’ll be a man. And when he is grown In the life that before him, He’ll surely have known How much we adore him. ~ MY COMMENT: This poem by my angel Mother offers beautiful insight...

Rol Allen, 1919 ~ 2005 Eternal Nature * About one hundred fifty years ago, the poet William Wordsworth began writing one of his most inspiring and insightful pieces on what he deemed a crucial idea: that of man’s eternal nature; not only that we all would continue to live on after death, but that we, each of us, came from somewhere before we were born. AND that knowing where we came from, and who we were then and who we really are now, at our very core, makes a big difference. He got the poem to a certain point, setting the stage for illustrating his main idea, but then laid it aside for a year and a half while he continued pondering the subject. He came back to it and penned these words: Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us (our life's Star) Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home: Character John Roland Allen - “...