joseph smith and his reliance on the lord

i have to give a talk today and i thought i would share it on here as well

I was asked to speak today about Joseph Smith and how he relied on the Lord. As I started contemplating this talk, I wondered, “Which times in Joseph Smith’s life did he rely on the Lord?” I quickly realized that the question is not so much when did he rely on the Lord, but when didn’t he rely on the Lord? Joseph Smith is truly a wonderful example of complete devotion to and dependence on the Lord. I began wondering how I can follow Joseph’s example and rely on the Lord so faithfully. I thought of many aspects in life that Joseph Smith relied on the Lord and three in particular that I would like to speak of today.
The first aspect of life that Joseph relied on the Lord was when he had questions. The most typical example of this is obviously the first vision, when young Joseph had a question pertaining to which church to join. By kneeling in the sacred grove, asking earnestly and then following through on the answer he was given, he relied on the Lord. When we have questions about which direction our lives should take, or a question about some doctrine or principle of the gospel, we should kneel down in earnest prayer, taking our question to the Lord and then follow through on our answer and use that answer to help us become a better person.
Another time that Joseph had a question and relied on the Lord’s answer was as he was translating the Book of Mormon and came across the subject of baptism. JSH 1:68-71.
Joseph relied on the Lord in times when he had questions, and because of that, the gospel was restored, the priesthood keys are again on the earth, and we are here in this building. As we also rely on the Lord when we have questions, great things have the potential to happen.
The second aspect of Joseph’s life in which he relied on our Heavenly Father was in times of trial. D&C 121:1-6.
This prayer was given at a time of great trial for Joseph. He was languishing in Liberty jail and the saints were suffering without their leader. This was not the only time in Joseph’s life that he had trials. We have all heard the stories of his times in jail, stories of being beaten, mocked, tarred and feathered. He suffered financially; he had to be away from his family, many of his children died.
Even as Joseph suffered through many trials in his life, we all do as well. Each suffer in their own ways; languish in their own liberty jails. Some are separated from loved ones; some have children die. Some are mocked, beaten, betrayed. We all go through these times when the only thing we can do is fall to our knees and cry out to our Heavenly Father. “Oh God, where art thou?” And after we cry out to our loving Father in Heaven, we can receive comfort in the words he spoke to Joseph in Liberty Jail. D&C 121:7-8.
As we, like Joseph, rely on the Lord in our times of trial, we will receive his comfort and be lifted up.
I believe that it is important to rely on the Lord in times of trial, doubt, sorry, questions etc. but we should rely on Him in times of joy as well. Joseph did this by expressing gratitude to Heavenly Father for all the blessings He bestowed. He did it by living life to its fullest, rejoicing in the beauties and wonder of life, and bringing joy to others. This may not seem like relying on the Lord, for why would we need the Lord when times are good and we are happy? I believe that relying on the Lord is as much sharing our joys with Him as it is sharing our sorrows. When we look at Joseph Smith, we can see that he always did this. He truly relied on the Lord all the time, good and bad, sorrow and joy. I’m so grateful for the example he set for me of a life dependent on the Lord.
Testimony

merry christmas!

i had a great christmas yesterday. our day started very early, 6:00am. it seems like since we don't have any little kids anymore we would get to sleep in! but jeffrey and janna won't hear of it. after we opened presents we got to spend some time at grandma and grandpa hursts where a aunt and uncle and cousins from colorado were. it was so good to be able to see them and to see my cousin morgan adorable newborn ethan.
i'm so glad that we get to celebrate christmas and remember Jesus and why He was .born. sometimes i get sort of distracted from the real meaning of christmas but i hope i can always remember Him and His sacrifice for me

plaid tidings

on sunday night i looked at my phone and saw that i had missed a call. i listened to a very cute, and semi-nervous sounding message from levi, a boy in my chamber choir asking me on a date! of course i said i would love to go with him! we went to a scrumptious dinner at outback and then went to see plaid tidings at the scera. it was probably one of the most fun dates i have ever been on. mainly thanks to the boy! he's a very cute kid who made me feel so special and made the whole night so great. i wish i'd taken some pictures with him! i also wish that i could put into words just exactly how great the date was and how much fun i had. that's the stinky thing about words i guess.

the weather outside is frightful

it really is beautiful

choir videos

i am finally getting around to posting these choir videos. choir really has taken over my life this past week and even the past few weeks. we had random run-out performances all the time for ward parties, family parties, MATC parties etc etc. then we had our two crazy stressful choir concerts. plus we had to go early to "carol in the halls". random. it really was SO MUCH CHOIR! but i loved every minute of it. however, i am so glad that christmas break has started so that i can have a break from choir. to kick off christmas break, some of my friends and i went and saw twilight again. i'm not going to lie, it didn't really hold my interest very well the second time. i actually fell asleep a couple of times. my plans for the rest of this break are to do my chemistry science fair project, go to work, learn and memorize all of my crazy hard honor choir songs for january, and then play as hard as i can!
ok just one video because it took forever and i don't have enough time left online. enjoy!

alot has been happening

i have been trying to post on here for a couple of days, but i haven't taken any pictures so i've wanted to use the pictures my mom took with her camera. but, she lost the cord to get them on the computer for a bit so i am only now posting. last weekend i got to spend with family. it was so fun! saturday morning we had our horsley family breakfast. it was delicious and so fun to see family! i missed you janice, greg, morgan, taylor, ruth and jer!


that night i got to spend some time with my hurst cousins which is always fun. jessie, rachel and i slept over at grandma's and had a great time. on sunday we had the hurst family christmas party. i really have such great great family!
grandpa leon and i

rachel, me and jessie

monday night and tuesday night i had my choir concerts! thank you lydia and arrie for coming! and for those who didn't or couldn't (janice) i am uploading some videos that my mom took. thank you so much mom for videoing! (although i wish it wasn't just of MY FACE all the time. :)) i think that i look SUPER weird when i sing but whatever. nothing i can do about that. that boy that i'm always with is my chamber partner, his name is josh. we are required to be all flirty with each other. i loved this concert but i'm SO glad its over! it was very stressful and exhausting!



ok these videos are so not working. i will get those on here when i can.

choir concert

i have my christmas choir concert on monday december 15 and tuesday december 16. it does cost a little bit of money this time because it is used as our fund raiser. any money that i raise preselling tickets will go toward my choir tour. so if you could come i would really appreciate it! a family pass is 10 dollars, students are 3 dollars, adults are 4 dollars and seniors and children under 12 are 2 dollars. its going to be a great concert! so if you want to buy tickets from me, let me know by thursday december 11 so i can get you your tickets. it is at 7:00 at the PGHS auditorium. if you are considering coming to one of my concerts this year, this is definetly the one you want to come to. its going to be a good one!

preference

yesterday was the big day. we started our preference date at 2:30 for an ice blocking excursion. out of all 10 couples, 20 people, no one got hurt which is a huge accomplishment in my opinion. between the hours of 4:30 and 7:00 was a massive chaotic flustering of getting myself ready along with my friends brittany and tiffany. then more chaos ensued as i got in the car and realized that i forgot where my date darren lives. not good. after many frantic phone calls and a completely lucky guess, i picked him up--late. we rushed back to brittany and tiffany's for pictures and drove up to mckenzie's for a pasta buffet. then we headed off for the dance. that was hands down the best part of the whole experience. it was SO FUN! we stayed for over 2 hours. oh man. darren is such a fun kid and it was such a blast to be there with him!

ya my eyes are closed and look at matt's face!

this picture is totally blurry and not so flattering but whatever.

i had a hard time keeping my eyes open apparently

here's the good picture

this was half of the group. it was so fun having such a big group!
now for the embarassing part of the story, in trying to get darren home before his curfew, i ran a stop sign and was speeding a bit, and--you guessed it--i got pulled over. i got a ticket and traffic school. so then darren was really late for his curfew, and so was i. bad news. but it could have been worse, and he didn't get in trouble, and my parents weren't mad either.
other than that little mishap, it was seriously the most fun dance i've ever been to!

shout out!

i want to shout out to my best friend Jared who just went into the MTC today! he is going to be serving in the harrisburg pennsylvania mission. i'm so proud of him! i'll miss him alot because he's my best friend (nothing more glen)and it will take a while to adjust to not having him around. i'm excited to see the changes that take place in him while he is serving the Lord, and to hear about his amazing experiences in the mission field! way to go Jared! you rock!



pretty much none of these pictures are good ones but oh well.

when pigs fly...

once upon a time, i decided to go to preference with a kid named darren. to ask him, i bought 5 pink balloons and made them look like pigs. then i put them in a box. on top of the box was a paper that said "the day that pigs fly would be the day that i would ask you to preference" then when he opened the box, theoretically, the balloons would float up, making pigs fly. on the bottom of the box it said "so how about it?" on the lid of the box it said my name.
that was approximatly a week and a half ago. the dance is on saturday. i hadn't been answered. but i knew he was going with me so it didn't really matter anyway. tonight, me and my siblings were watching the singles 2ND ward when the doorbell rang. janna rushed to answer it, and came down with this...


yes, the "yes" is made out of real cooked and re-refridgerated bacon strips and yes they smelled oober nasty. so saturday is the big day and its going to be a blast!

happy thanksgiving!

i love thanksgiving. this year we spent the day with the horsely side of the family. it was a great day full of wonderful food and great times associating with each other. i am so thankful for my family--immediate and extended.

warmth

i love the sun.
today for lunch we came back to the neighborhood for macaroni and cheese. i went out and jumped on the tramp and then just laid and enjoyed the warmth of the sun on my face. some other things i love about the sun:
1. the very life giving nature of it. without the suns rays, we would not be here.
2. the fact that its a star. i'm not sure why that makes me so happy.
3. the light it gives. i am a huge fan of light.
some other things i love in general
1. sweatshirts
2. people
3. indoor plumbing
4. being 17 and old enough to drive and date
speaking of dating, i am going to preference with my friend darren on december 6th! i'll be sure to post pictures.
back to my list
5. THE FACT THAT I DON'T HAVE TO GO BACK TO SCHOOL FOR A WHOLE WEEK!!!
6. honestly, there are oodles and oodles of things that i love that are probably not of any intrest. :P so i'm going to end this post here.

leaves

there are many people in the world who say that fall is their favorite season.
i disagree.
sure the leaves are beautiful when they are in the trees;
but they don't stay on the trees forever.
eventually they find their way to the ground
at which point they have to be cleaned up by someone.
so today i woke up and started cleaning leaves
we all did.
i only did a little bit of grumbling
i really don't mind doing stuff like that,
but there are things i'd rather do i guess.
like eat.
it could be peaceful and serene when you think about it;
with just the sound of your rake against the ground, the rustle of the leaves.
but its not because the lawn mower is going as well as the leaf blower.
and then as we are almost done, mom wants to stop and take many pictures.
that's cool i guess.
it really wasn't all that bad, but still,
i just don't understand when people say
that fall is the best season.

the craziest day of my life.

it all began with an early alarm at 6:00am so that i could get to school for an early morning choir rehearsal. school was its regular busy self, and then after school i did my piano lessons for the day. cammie and i then went to macey's and stocked up on junk food to take to twilight. yes, we saw twilight at midnight. it was so so so fun and i'm so glad that we went even though i was very tired all day today. i thought it was a great movie. as much fun as seeing this movie was, the highlight of my day was undoubtably at 6:00pm in a little house a couple blocks away as i recieved my patriarchal blessing. it was so amazing. i feel so humbled by this wonderful opportunity and i want to live my life in a way so that the blessing i was given will be able to come to pass.
here is a picture of me and my parents with our stake patriarch president keetch. what an INCREDIBLE person he is! he truly is a receptical of Heavenly Father's voice.

aida

yesterday afternoon my grandma sue and i went and saw Aida at the Hale Center Theater Orem. it was really fun. i love both of my grandma's soooo much and i'm glad i got to see this play with my grandma sue. fun fun!

christmas in november

tonight was my first christmas performance for chamber choir. yes i know, very weird that it is NOVEMBER 14 and we are doing a random christmas performance. it was for one of those 30 and older singles wards. it was scary because we were so not ready to perform and there were quite alot of people missing but it ended up being fine. here are some of the pictures. you will be able to see firsthand how nasty nasty butt ugly the dresses are.
funny story: so my friend whitney is in chamber choir with me and she is probably like 5 or 6 inches taller than me. we were taking some pictures at this thing tonight and she was like "i hate that i have to scrunch down to your height in pictures." so we took one with she and i both standing normal. i'm a shorty, what can i say. this is my choir director Mr. Wilcock. he told me that he would kill me if he saw a picture of him on my blog so i have no idea how this picture found itself on here.... this video. i'm not even going to try to explain it. mr wilcock is a silly goose.

oh my i just watched that video and shaunzi! you suck at videoing!!! it was not me who actually did the recording.

my ACT scores

so i just found out my ACT scores.

Composite Score : 28

English 30
Usage/Mechanics 15
Rhetorical Skills 16

Mathematics 25
Pre-Algebra/Elem. Algebra 15
Algebra/Coord. Geometry 12
Plane Geometry/Trig. 13

Reading 30
Social Studies/Sciences 15
Arts/Literature 16

Science 28

i'm SO HAPPY!

random picture

this is in response to janice's tag. this was the 4th picture in my 4th folder.
this picture was taken by aunt lydia the day after my birthday while we were all up in idaho at uncle john and aunt sherri's house. this was the day my cute cousin and birthday buddy nathan got baptized! arrie, aunt ruthie and me. in arrie's mouth is a 7 layer jello that sherri's mom made.

halted

i have a very busy life. i wake up fairly early, spend 7 hours at school, come home and have a little down time, then i am either off to piano lessons, tutoring, or work. i come home for dinner and most nights i am gone yet again. so these past 2 days have been so weird for me. yesterday my piano lessons cancelled so i spent a marvelous afternoon at my friend glen's house playing the wii and the game called curses (i want to play this at our next family gathering horsely's because it is HILAROUS!). i was there for 3 1/2 hours just hanging out with my friends! as of last thursday, reading roundup is over, so that means that my piano lessonless tuesdays are open. i decided that i would go to work this afternoon but my dad said they had nothing for me to do! i don't know what to do with myself honestly and truly. my life is ruled by its schedule and for these two days that schedule has come to a screeching halt, leaving me free. i love it!
in other news, grandma horsely, remember how you taught me how to crochet those squares when we went to california? i totally still remember and i am making a SWEET blanket!


its coming along! i'm super excited about it!
also, happy veterens day!

i felt like taking fallish pictures:


i'm not a huge fan of fall because it means winter is around the corner. but it is a really pretty season--for the most part. i had to scrape my windows this morning though. grrr. that is not something that makes my mood one of joy especially when i am late for early morning sectionals.

bowling and state volleyball

this was a great weekend! on friday i went on a group date with my friend glen to the bowling alley. it was very very fun! i left my camera there on accident so i had to stop by and pick it up yesterday that was scary! so thankfully i do have pictures:

jared on the left and my date glen on the right.

summer, her date bronson and tiffany

the twins; tiffany on the left and brittany on the right.

i look all weird because i was spinning. we played one game just normal bowling, and i bowled a 32. then the next game we did a bunch of random stuff like backwards, opposite hand, spin and get dizzy and then bowl etc. that time i bowled a 64. what does that tell you? it was so hilarous when after i spun around a bunch of times i got a strike, and doing it with my opposite hand i got a spare. ok so i stink at bowling!

in other news, yesterday was the state championship for my school's volleyball team at UVU so we went to that game. it was hearbreaking! after losing the first game we came back and won the next 2 but lost the 4th and 5th. :( we lost to lone peak which is especially devastating because they are our ultamie rivals. next year the prospects look great because we only have 2 seniors losing this year so next year we will dominate! GO VIKINGS!!

some things you may not have known about me

FOUR JOBS THAT I HAVE HAD:
1. piano teacher
2. reading tutor
3. shrink wrapper at wavetronix
4. babysitter
FOUR MOVIES I'VE WATCHED MORE THAN ONCE:
1. she's the man
2. phantom of the opera
3. evita
4. mulan
FOUR PLACES I HAVE LIVED:
1. provo ut,
2.pleasant grove ut!
3. no where
4.else
FOUR SHOWS THAT I WATCH:
1. The office
2. King of Queensl
3. American Idol
4. lost

FOUR OF MY FAVORITE FOODS:
1. burgers
2. crispy chicken sandwhich
3. pizza
4. italian
FOUR PLACES I WOULD RATHER BE RIGHT NOW:
1.somewhere warm
2. with friends
3. not at school!
4. uhhhh
FOUR OF MY GREATEST BLESSINGS:
1. family
2. friends
3. gospel
4. personal revelation
FOUR GREATEST FEARS:
1. Death of a family member or friend
2. disappointing someone i love
3. blood and needles
4. having surgery
FOUR GREATEST WISHES:
1. get married in the temple to the man of my dreams. :)
2. that my kids will gain their own testimony's
3. something with music
4. go to college
FOUR THINGS I LOVE MORE THAN ANYTHING!
1. music
2. the gospel of jesus christ
3. family
4. friends

happy halloween!

Yesterday was a great Halloween. I went to a super fun party at my friend sara's house. I dressed up as a fairy. :) it was a great night.



me and amanda


sara, lisa and mckenzie--not sure what they were


me and whitney


amanda--the hawaiin, brittany--the mexican, and whitney--the african. so many different enthnicities!


jared and davis


my new boyfriend!


the powerrangers--anthony, todd and elissa


shalisa and i


todd, lisa and elissa