Some Thoughts

So...I have been lousy this term at updating the blog. When I don't do it for a while, then I think I will just continue not to do it, because why do it anyway? Well, here I go, trying to recover from a lack of posting for some time.

Here is what it on my mind as I write this: Man did I enjoy spring break with my family! As much as I enjoy my job, I sure didn't want to come back yet. My wife, children and I headed to eastern Utah. This year we rented a pop-up trailer and man, was it nice! We started by staying the night in Green River State Park, then headed down to Goblin Valley State Park for the day. My family and I love Goblin! My children can run, climb, hike and chase lizards all day long there! The pictures are all generic because I already moved mine from my iPhone, sorry!

Goblin Valley State Park

After our visit to Goblin, we camped in a primitive camping area near Goblin. The place was amazing! I could have stayed there for the entire time and been totally content! There were rocks to jump on, cliffs to ascend, and absolute quietness. The whole world could have come undone and we would not have known about it because of the seclusion of the site. After we had set up camp, Amie and I were relaxing while the kids were down the valley playing, and I turned to Amie and said, "Do you hear that?" and she said, "Yes, I don't hear anything, it is nice." I agreed.

The next day we started out by hiking the lower portion of Little Wild Horse Slot Canyon, talk about awesome! (Again, so sorry for the generic picture, I will put some of my own up later). The wind picked up by noon, and we headed back down the canyon rather than up and around where the canyon turns into high ground. We were afraid we'd be blown away had we gone to the top!

Little Wild Horse Slot Canyon

After our hike of Little Wild Horse, we headed to Green River State Park again and were able to take showers and relax. Our neighbors in the campground that night were a group of Geology students from a Lutheran university in the pacific northwest. They were fun to have as neighbors because we had collected a curious looking rock along the way we wanted to know more about. One of their professors told us all about it. Very nice group of students and people!

The next day we traveled to Canyonlands National Park, holy cow is that place awesome! Amie was freaked out the whole time because most of the drive takes you to vantage points with sheer cliffs below and no safety structures in place to keep our wild children from going over the edge! If you have not been there, I highly recommend you add it to your bucket list! Wow!

Canyonlands National Park

That night we stayed in Gooseneck BLM campground, just outside of Moab, near Arches and Canyonlands National parks. It was nice, right next to the river, surrounded by beautiful red rock bluffs. Although not our camping site, the picture below shows how beautiful the spot was!

Gooseneck Campground

Our final morning, before driving back to good'ol Colorado, was spent in Arches National Park. We hiked what is called Park Avenue. Wow, wow and wow! The red walls of stone stand high above you as you hike to the bottom of this gentle hike and then back up. My thoughts ascended towards the heavens as I observed this beautiful creation. I couldn't help but think about how the Lord created everything for our salvation. What a beautiful place! Then we drove through the rest of the park and headed out through the north road up to I-70 and home. 

Park Avenue, Arches National Park

What is the connection between all this and institute? I don't want to stretch it, so I won't, but how do we help our students have meaningful personal experiences with the scriptures and the words of the living prophets and apostles like I enjoyed my vacation in Utah? How do we help our students have experiences so memorable and loved, they change them for the better and they want to go back again and again so they can refresh the old experiences and create new ones? 

I had been to many of these places in Utah, but not all. Thanks to my good friend Rusty Woodruff, who recommended some of these locations, we had a great family trip! But yesterday, when I told him of our great time, he told me there were many more places in Utah he would recommend for our future trips! So now, looking back, I have fond memories, but looking forward I am looking forward to enjoying more. How do we help our students enjoy the scriptures in the same way? How do we help them enjoy institute in the same way?

I am grateful to the Lord for the beauties of the earth, and equally, if not more grateful for the beauties the scriptures and words of the living prophets and apostles. When I discover something I love, as you can tell, I want to share it, hoping others will love it as much as I do! I want all of our students to love and enjoy the scriptures and words of the living prophets the way I do. What can we do to help them?

Here are some thoughts. 

1. Help your students learn to share and express their positive experiences with the scriptures and words of the living prophets and apostles. Sometimes I think they are not even sure they have had a sacred experience until they they have shared it. The Savior said, "Open your mouths and they shall be filled" (D&C 33:8), President Packer said, "...A testimony is to be found in the bearing of it!" (The Candle of the Lord, 1988). 
2. Encourage them to take scriptural trips in their minds to walk with Jesus, Paul, Lehi, Joshua, and Joseph Smith. To see the things they saw, and most importantly, to see what it is these stories teach them about the Savior. Consider Nephi's vision where the Spirit of the Lord showed him the interpretation of 1 Nephi 8 and more. Without this interpretation of Lehi's vision, what would we have? A curious dream left open to speculation about it's different meanings. Here are Nephi's words: "I desired to know the things that my father had seen, and believing that the Lord was able to make them known unto me, as I sat pondering in mine heart I was caught away in the Spirit of the Lord..." (1 Nephi 11:1). Because of Nephi's desires, the Lord showed him a vision which brings all who read it an understanding of Lehi's dream and each of us, if humble, closer to Christ. 
3. Our students need a guide, a friend. They need you, their peers and the Spirit to guide them, to help them, to love them, and to help them "see." Philip met an Ethiopian struggling to understand the words of Isaiah. Philip asked him, Understandest thou what thou readest?" The Ethiopian responded, "How can I, except some man should guide me?" (Acts 8:30-31). We have students who come to us humbly with the same feeling in their hearts about the scriptures and the words of the prophets and apostles, "how can I, except some man should guide me?" They need you, they need your experiences, they need your worthiness, they need the Spirit of the Lord through you. 

Well, that is all for now. But I invite you to help your students learn to love the trips the scriptures and the words of the living prophets and apostles can bring into their lives. I bear testimony we are members of the true Church of Jesus Christ. I know it is true. I bear testimony we are led by a living prophet, President Monson. I bear testimony of the Prophet, Joseph Smith, that he saw the Father and the Son. I bear testimony of Jesus Christ, He lives! I bear testimony that God our Eternal Father lives! I bear testimony of these things by the power of the third member of the Godhead, the Holy Ghost. I share these thoughts in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.