Preparatory state

Hello dear friends and family! 

This past week in our reading, there were a couple of verses that really stood out to me in Alma chapter 42. Verses 10 and 30 hit me kind of hard with principles that I haven't thought about for awhile. Verse 10 is kind of fuerte (I am not sure what a good word for that in English is... but I guess it means kind of blunt or strong?) It says, "this probationary state became a state for them to prepare; it became a preparatory state". It made me think about how important it is to be striving to prepare to meet our Heavenly Father and Savior one day. This is the time right now that we have to prepare and we aren't going to get this time back! In my mind I related it to finals week (right now) because everyone here at BYU is so stressed and frantically running around trying to get all the assignments and extra credit and tests done. And not to mention studying for the actual finals! AHH! But everyone is so focused and is preparing everyday a little bit more for finals. I thought about what that might be like if we took that same motivation and energy that we have to prepare for finals and used it to prepare for the day that we will meet our maker. Wouldn't that be wonderful?? It's hard because that day seems so far away! But we need to strive to have an eternal perspective and try each day to prepare a little bit more and a little bit better to become like our Savior, Jesus Christ. And to do this we can follow the counsel in verse 30 where it says, "have full sway in your heart". if we can let our Savior, Jesus Christ, and the Gospel have full sway in our hearts that we might almost even burst, then we will want to become better each day and share that conviction with our people! In Relief Society this past week, our teacher taught about how neat it is to relate this to wildfires... when a wildfire is SUPER hot it just can't contain itself and starts spitting out chunks of fire around it. That's what we should be doing too... we should be on fire with the love and light of Christ and the Gospel that we just can't even contain it and we start spreading it all around us! 

I am so grateful for this Easter season when everyone is so focused on our Savior, Jesus Christ! Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could strive to focus on Him THIS MUCH throughout the entire year?! I think that would be a pretty amazing gift to give Him. And not only would it be neat, but we would truly be living covenants that we have made at Baptism to take His name upon us. I know that I can do a better job at striving to be more like Him and think about Him throughout my everyday life and do as He would.