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Posts Tagged ‘apostle’

When the Twin Falls Temple was scheduled to be built and dedicated, the youth and the leaders of the Mormon Church in our area were notified that they would be called upon to create a youth celebration where the youth of the temple district would come together and put on a cultural even for the visiting Prophet.  This event was called the Youth Cultural Celebration, or YCC.

At the time, I was the Young Men’s President in our ward, I was the spearhead in our organization to get the youth ready and prepared to participate in this event.  All of our Wednesday night activities were canceled and the YCC practices were put in their place.  Each week we would gather the youth of the stake and practice singing and dancing.  This went on for 6 months.  There were times, I must admit, that the practices seemed to drag on and on.  Finally, the event was upon us and we went to the Twin Falls County Rodeo to put the final touches together.  As we practiced the week before the dedication, it seemed like the groups would never come together and get it right.

The day finally came and the youth of each stake went and performed with excitement and will energy.  The Youth Cultural Celebration was a huge success.  How lucky I was to even be a part of the event.  Now, when I see other YCC’s occur around the world, my eyes tear up with fond memories of how special this time was for me in the dedication of the Twin Falls Temple.

Below is a video I just watched of a YCC put on for the Prophet in Kyiv Ukraine.

I started a little project with my little girls a couple of Sundays ago. I wanted to try some stop motion video editing so I decided to do a little movie about “The Family, a Proclamation to the World“. This was a document written and signed by the leaders of the LDS Church, namely the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. The document is quite long. I thought we could get through most of it in an afternoon on Sunday, however, it turned out to be a little bit bigger project. Below is that I have so far. After watching the videos over and over to edit them and get them right, I still found it fun to watch and hear my girls talking about the importance of the family. They have such cute voices that I would watch them over and over again. Enjoy.

Our small family has reached a milestone in our lives. We were blessed to have baptized our last child. Kate turned 8 in January and was prepared and excited to be baptized. In our family home evening lessons leading up to her 8th birthday, we took time to teach the basic principles of the gospel and the organization of the church. We had a great time going through these very rudimentary teachings because the things that she didn’t know, we could ask the older kids to help explain.

The lesson about the apostacy and the re-establishment of the church on the earth came with 4 bullet points. The church was organized in Christ‘s day with Apostles, Prophets, Priesthood and Revelation. These 4 items, I taught, were the foundation of the church. After discussing the restoration of the church by Joseph Smith, we talked about how these 4 pillars were again established on the earth. Katie was very excited to memorize these 4 building blocks of the church but had a had time remembering all four that night. The cool think about this lessons is that several times over the next few weeks and months, Katie would come up to me with her 4 fingers in the air and recite back those four founding pieces of the Church of Jesus Christ. I could tell that she was really trying to remember them and be ready for her interview with the Bishop.

Another Family Home Evening we talked about the covenant of baptism. In the lesson we reviewed the sacrement prayers which detail out the parts of the covenant that we agree to keep, and the parts of the covenant that the Lord promises to keep. The promises that we make are that we take upon ourselves His (the Lord Jesus Christ) name, we will always remember Him, and we will keep His commandments. The Lord, in turn will keep his promise which is, that he will always have His spirit (the Holy Ghost) to be with us. Again, after this lesson Katie was very serious about trying to remember these parts of the covenant she was going to make at baptism. Just days before her baptism, she stopped me and repeated back the parts of the covenant of baptism.

Even though she was being very intent on remembering these basic principles of the gospel, she was still very nervous about the interview with the Bishop. It took me back to the day when I was getting ready to be baptized. I remember being nervous too because I wasn’t sure what would be asked of me. I remember being very worried that the Bishop would ask me to recite all of the articles of faith or something. I remember the Bishop being very nice and reassuring.

Kate’s baptism was wonderful. We had many family members in attendance and many friends that joined us for this special event. Kate soaked in the attention and was very happy. Happy enough that she bounced around many times while we were trying to take pictures.

What a blessing it is to have been able baptize all of my children. I have wonderful children that understand the gospel and continue to live their lives by the teachings of Jesus Christ. They have all kept their covenants at baptism and are finding joy in living the gospel.