Prayer

I know not by what methods rare,

But this I know, God answers prayer.

I know that He has given His Word,

Which tells me prayer is always heard,

And will be answered, soon or late.

And so I pray and calmly wait.

I know not if the blessing sought

Will come in just the way I thought;

But leave my prayers with Him alone,

Whose will is wiser than my own,

Assured that He will grant my quest,

Or send some answer far more blest.1

This is a great little poem. 

I really like how it says, "I know not by methods rare,/ But this I know, God answers prayer." We don't have to know the science of how our prayers get to heaven (that's pretty much impossible anyway), we just have faith that He hears and answers them.

There's a hymn called Did You Think To Pray? and the lyrics go like this:

1. Ere you left your room this morning,

Did you think to pray?

In the name of Christ, our Savior,

Did you sue for loving favor

As a shield today?

(Chorus)

Oh, how praying rests the weary!

Prayer will change the night to day.

So, when life gets dark and dreary,

Don't forget to pray.

2. When your heart was filled with anger,

Did you think to pray?

Did you plead for grace, my brother,

That you might forgive another

Who had crossed your way?

3. When sore trials came upon you,

Did you think to pray?

When your soul was full of sorrow,

Balm of Gilead did you borrow

At the gates of day?

This is a great song! It's asking if we remember to pray doing our lives, not just meal prayers and morning and night prayers. All those might seem like a lot of prayers already but there's no such thing as "too prayer."
I don't know how accurate my source is but I heard that St. Patrick (before he was St. Patrick) prayed 100 times a day! (Let me repeat, I don't know how accurate that is.)

One thing I've learned can be a helpful way to use prayer is to pray for comfort and reassurance. At times when I feel stressed and I'm pretty sure I'm going to die from the strain of life and homework, I can pray and find peace.

Prayer isn't just important because it can help and comfort us; it's our connection to our Creator, our Heavenly Father.
We can ask Him any thing and He'll answer us, it just might not be right away and maybe not in the way we expect - or want - it to.

So, no matter where we are or what the question is, we can pray and receive guidance.

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1 This poem was shared by Ezra Taft Benson in his talk "Prayer" which can be found on lds.org 

Light

Isn't interesting that evil is always depicted as dark and black and cold while good is represented with light?
Light is an important element in our lives; without it we are lost.

Suzanne Collins is famous for writing The Hunger Games trilogy. But before Hunger Games she wrote another series, The Underland Chronicles. This series follows a boy from New York City named Gregor who falls down hundreds of feet below the surface to Regalia.
It's interesting that in this series, the Underlanders interchange the words 'light' and 'life.' I like that.

Light. Flashlights. Fire. Lamp. Spotlight. Lightening. Light bulb. Match. Bonfire. Lantern. Headlights. These are just some examples of the lights we use in life.


This is the first part of a three part video series about light:

Light is powerful. Light can always overcome darkness but darkness can never overcome light.No matter what. Light always wins in the end.

This is the second video on light:

And here is the third and final light video:

I love these videos!

Anyway, light is seriously really powerful and really important!! Like i mentioned before, light is essential to our lives; we're blind without it.

There's a light at the end of the tunnel.
Interesting phrase. It means that when you're going through tough times, there's hope and if you just endure then you can make it to the end.

This is one of my favorite poems; for one thing, it's all about the light inside of us. Like that first video talked about, the light of Christ, which is in all of us.

Our Greatest Fear —Marianne Williamson

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?



Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other

people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of
God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.

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These videos can be found on lds.org and YouTube.
Our Greatest Fear can be found by searching for it on google.

Embark!!

This is great!!
(You may not get the first part and that's okay!)

 
For youth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, this is our theme for 2015. (The video is the theme song1.) And isn't it wonderful?
This has to be my favorite theme.

em·bark

verb \im-ˈbärk\

: to begin a journey especially on a ship or airplane

intransitive verb

1

:  to go on board a vehicle for transportation <the troops embarked at noon>

2

:  to make a start <embarked on a new career>

transitive verb

1

:  to cause to go on board (as a boat or airplane)

2

:  to engage, enlist, or invest in an enterprise2

Embark. What a cool word.
I love how there are so many different things that embark can mean but still mean something closely related! I don't know if that really made any sense but I think it's just wonderful.

 In the video it was just amazing how many different ways youth were serving. They were embarking.
It's so awesome!! Not to mention, embark also means "to make a start." Embarking is doing something new, trying something out. In other words, beginning a journey.

So, what are you going to do to embark this year?

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1 This video can be found on lds.org/youth and YouTube
2 Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

Pioneer Trek

The following really happened.
I just finished participating in a Pioneer Trek. A pioneer trek is when we (youth) dress as the pioneers did and we push a handcart for as many miles as our leaders set for us.
It's hard but it's so worth it. Not to mention it was totally fun. We each had a family including kids, a Ma and Pa, a baby (a baby doll full of rice) and you might even have an aunt and/or uncle.
We had five families and five handcarts. We started on a Wednesday and ended on Saturday. I think we hiked somewhere around 15-20 miles. 10-12 on the first day, 3-4 on the second, 0 on the third (it was the "Sabbath") and 3-4 on the fourth and final day.
First day:
We got together at the meeting place, met our families, designed our flag, checked our stuff, had lunch, put together the handcarts and headed out.
Unfortunately and not unfortunately, we were rained on. Luckily it didn't last for long but it left everyone wet and cold. And our shoes were soaked.
It was a tough first day. We had a lot of uphill and a lot of puddles. My socks that I was wearing were white. They are now purple and brown. (Don't ask me were the purple came from, I don't know and I'm not sure that I want to.)
We arrived at the place designated for our first night and set up plastic tarps to sleep under. We unfolded all the plastic, put the sleeping bags on one half and then folded the other half over.
For dinner we had bread and broth. It tasted amazing.
Day two:

We woke up damp and a lot of people, if not everyone, had partly or fully wet sleeping bags. We had oatmeal with raisins for breakfast and were visited by a member of the US army. The men were asked to join. They agreed because we didn't have anymore food and the army would pay us in it. So the men (excluding the fathers) went and joined the Mormon Battalion. So began what we call The Women's Pull. Us girls pull and pushed our handcarts 1 1/2 miles mostly uphill where we met the boys. We hiked another mile or so to the top, stopped for an apple lunch and went the mile or so downhill. The men stood in front of the bar and us girls held a rope tied to the back of the handcart. (We pretty much got pulled along.)
Below is a handcart so you can get the idea of what I was talking about.

Before we could get to our campsite we had to cross a stream. The water was cold but felt good. The rocks on the other hand were a different story. Then we all unloaded, set up camp and participated in some activities. We each had a different campsite. And this time instead of sleeping in between the tarp we took ours and made a lean-to. Sort of. We tied a rope to two trees and put the plastic over it. Then we pulled out one side, folded part of it underneath. You know what that's just confusing.
Our lean-to looked kind of like the one below but the back was pulled down and duct-taped to the bottom.

We ate chicken and rice with homemade bread and sweet potatoes for dinner. We had a fireside and then we went to bed. And we dried our sleeping bags out next to the fire..
Day three:
It being the "Sabbath," we changed into our second set of clothes and had some of our church meetings, Relief Society/Priesthood and Sunday School. In between lunch and dinner we had solo time. Solo time was where we went into the woods be ourselves for three hours and we were to pray, think, ponder, write in our journals and read our scriptures. After that we dinner and then we had Sacrament meeting. It was also a testimony meeting. After that we had Family Home Evening at our campsites. Then we all just hung out for a while until we were called tot he bigger campfire for popcorn. We ended up singing late into the night. It was awesome.
Final leg of the journey:
After cleaning up the campsites we headed out. We arrived at the last spot in the afternoon and were greeted by our parents.

There are many things that I have not put in; it would take a lot of time to write it all. I can't really make you understand because unless you've been on a pioneer trek, you don't know what it's like. It's like a roller coaster, you can tell your friend all about it but they won't really understand until they ride it themselves. Or a better example might be this: if you went on a camp out and then came home and told your friend all about it they would enjoy listening but they really won't know what it was like and what it felt like because they weren't there.
I'd like to finish by saying that the Trek was hard. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done. But it was also one of the most meaningful things I've ever done.


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I would like to note that a Pioneer Trek is a tradition for the youth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Different things for Trek are done in different places.

They are watching and they will help

The following is a true story.
I recently went on a 27 mile backpacking hike on the Appalachian Trail with a bunch of other young women my age. We started at Angel's Rest and ended at Dismal Falls. I wish I had a map but I don't. Anyway, what I'd like to share with you today took place on the second day of travel.
So, everybody was tired and sore but we were all pretty happy. During the afternoon, I had to keep telling my self to just put one foot in front of the other. You just get so tired that you have to keep walking because 1) if you don't you might never get started again and 2) sometimes your feet hurt more when you stop.
Helpful advice if you ever go on a backpacking trip: it's worth it at the end so just keep walking.
Anyhow, I'm just trying to keep my feet going and then I was reminded of three things. 1) Before the hike, the person in charge had said that "the Lord won't give you more then you can endure." 2) I'd recently watched 17 Miracles, a movie about the Mormon pioneers. In the movie it shows/talks about how sometimes the pioneers felt like there were angels pushing their wagons. 3) Before watching 17 Miracles, we had two missionaries there and one of them said something that is both inspirational and creepy. She said, "Your future children are watching you right now."
Remembering these things I prayed and, only for about five seconds, it felt like somebody had lifted the bottom of my backpack. Like I said, it wasn't for very long but it gave me the boost I needed to keep going. And it happened more then once.
I know that I had help from angels that day and I feel certain that it was my future children helping me. I know that our future children or any relative whether they've passed on or haven't been born yet. I know they can help us with our righteous desires if we just ask.
Asking seems simple but simple things are the essence of big things. Like L. Tom Perry said, "While some very intelligent and insightful people might believe our more complex time demands ever more complex solutions, I am far from convinced they are right. Rather, I am of the frame of mind that today’s complexity demands greater simplicity."
So remember "keep it simple."1
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1 The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan pg, 225