- INTRODUCTION:
- Consider what ties all the trainings together we have done so far this semester.
- Trainings: Culture, Ministering, Holiness, Receiving the HG, Preparation
- Tie together: AGENCY - ponder why this is the case
- STUDY:
- 2 Nephi 2
- D&C 58:26-28, 93:31, 101:78
- Moses 4:3, 7:32
- Others?
- While studying focus on these questions:
- What does this have to do with your life today? Your life at the MTC?
- Define what Agency means in your life currently. What should it mean according to your growth this semester?
- PRACTICE:
- You are going to take time to acquire spiritual guidance so that the truth you are gaining will not be lost. Elder Scott states, " I believe that you can leave the most precious, personal direction of the Spirit unheard because you do not respond to, record, and apply the first promptings that come to you.
Have patience as you are perfecting your ability to be led by the Spirit. By careful practice, through the application of correct principles, and by being sensitive to the feelings that come, you will gain spiritual guidance. I bear witness that the Lord, through the Holy Ghost, can speak to your mind and heart. Sometimes the impressions are just general feelings. Sometimes the direction comes so clearly and so unmistakably that it can be written down like spiritual dictation."
- In Elder Scott's talk "Acquiring Spiritual Guidance", he lays out a pattern to receive that guidance. Take 30-40 min to receive it.
- I handed a sheet out in class to guide the teachers through this activity. I will paste it below. The beginning is designed to give you direction on what to receive spiritual guidance for and how to be an agent.
- CONCLUSION:
- Share with someone what you learned, felt, received.
- What will your agency look like in your life? How will it impact those around you.
- INVITATION:
- Live this pattern! Respond to, record, and apply your promptings.
- Write me a 1 page summary of what you experienced during this training.
ACTIVITY for practice:
To
Act For Ourselves: The Gift and Blessing of Agency – Elder Hales
agency is the ability and privilege
God gives us to choose and “to act for [ourselves] and not to be acted upon.”
1 Agency is to act with accountability and responsibility for
our actions. Our agency is essential to the plan of salvation. With it we are
“free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all
men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of
the devil.” 2
May I suggest a few basic choices that
you can begin to make now—this very day.
Choose to
accept—truly accept—that you are a child of God, that He loves you, and that He
has the power to help you.
Choose to
put everything—literally everything—on the altar before Him. Believing that you
are His child, decide that your life belongs to Him and that you will use your
agency to do His will. You may do this multiple times in your life, but never,
never give up.
Choose
to put yourself in a position to have experiences with the Spirit of God
through prayer, in scripture study, at Church meetings, in your home, and
through wholesome interactions with others. When you feel the influence of the
Spirit, you are beginning to be cleansed and strengthened. The light is being
turned on, and where that light shines, the darkness of evil cannot remain.
Choose to
obey and keep your covenants, beginning with your baptismal covenant. Renew
these covenants weekly by worthily partaking of the sacrament.
Choose to
prepare to worthily attend the temple, make and renew sacred covenants, and
receive all of the saving ordinances and blessings of the gospel.
Finally, and most importantly, choose
to believe in the Atonement of Jesus
Christ. Accept the Savior’s forgiveness,
and then forgive yourself. Because of His sacrifice for you, He has the power
to “remember [your sins] no more.” 24
You must do likewise.
After you are on the path and are “free
to choose” again, choose to reject feelings of shame for sins you have already
repented of, refuse to be discouraged about the past, and rejoice in hope for
the future. Remember, it is Satan who desires that we be “miserable like unto
himself.” 25
Let your desires be stronger than his. Be happy and
confident about your life and about the opportunities and blessings that await
you here and throughout eternity.
Finally, remember our agency is not
only for us. We have the responsibility to use it in behalf of others, to lift
and strengthen others in their trials and tribulations. Some of our brothers and
sisters have lost the full use of their agency through unrighteous choices.
Without exposing ourselves to temptation, we can and should invite others to
receive the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Through friendship and love,
we may lead them along the path of obedience and encourage them to use their
agency to make the right choices once again.
Agency was manifested in the Council in
Heaven as we chose to follow our Heavenly Father’s plan and come to mortality
for this probationary period. Agency allows us to be tested and tried to see
whether or not we will endure to the end and return to our Heavenly Father with
honor. Agency is the catalyst that leads us to express our inward spiritual
desires in outward Christlike behavior. Agency permits us to make faithful,
obedient choices that strengthen us so that we can lift and strengthen others.
Agency used righteously allows light to dispel the darkness and enables us to
live with joy and happiness in the present, look with faith to the future, even
into the eternities, and not dwell on the things of the past. Our use of agency
determines who we are and what we will be.
To all who desire to enjoy the supernal
blessings of agency, I testify that agency is strengthened by our faith and
obedience. Agency leads us to act: to seek that we may find, to ask that we may
receive guidance from the Spirit, to knock on that door that leads to spiritual
light and ultimately salvation. I bear special witness that our Savior Jesus
Christ is the source of that light, even the Light and Life of the World. As we
use our agency to follow Him, His light will grow within us brighter and
brighter until that perfect day 26
when we are welcomed into the presence of our Father in
Heaven for all eternity. That we will use our agency to that sacred and
glorious end, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
“To Acquire Spiritual
Guidance” Elder Scott
· Pray to be open and
receptive to the guidance of the Holy Ghost
· Write down the personal
impressions you receive
· Ponder to check to make
sure you have captured the thought – Make changes if necessary
· Study the application
and meaning in your life
· Pray to review with the
Lord what has been taught, give thanks for what was received.
· Humbly ask if there is
more that needs to be communicated
· Continue the pattern to:
Write, Ponder, and Pray
"I
believe that you can leave the most precious, personal direction of the Spirit
unheard because you do not respond to, record, and apply the first promptings
that come to you.
Have
patience as you are perfecting your ability to be led by the Spirit. By careful
practice, through the application of correct principles, and by being sensitive
to the feelings that come, you will gain spiritual guidance. I bear witness
that the Lord, through the Holy Ghost, can speak to your mind and heart.
Sometimes the impressions are just general feelings. Sometimes the direction
comes so clearly and so unmistakably that it can be written down like spiritual
dictation." “To Acquire Spiritual Guidance” – Scott
