Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Saying See You Later
In true Wagner fashion, we went to the Spaghetti factory to say our goodbys to Matt before dropping him off (literally at the curb) at the MTC. Mom borrowed a van so we could all drop him off. He was so excited to go. There were a few guys from his district there to meet him. That isn't normal, but it just happened to work out that way. It was good to know someone who knew where he was really going, would be the one showing him around. 
Saturday, March 13, 2010
The Farewell
Matt was scheduled to leave to the MTC on November 18, 2009. Below is his farewell talk. He did an awesome job.
I was asked to talk on baptismal covenants: keeping, making, and living them.
So, first let’s go over what the baptismal covenants that we make are when we are baptized. A covenant is a two way promise with the Lord. And, in order for us to get the blessings we have to keep our end of the bargain, we have to do certain things. So, I am going to go over some of those things that we promise to do when we are baptized.
The first thing that we promise to do is to take Christ’s name upon us. We have to put Him and His works first. We seek what He wants rather than what we wants, or what the world teaches us to want. We must separate ourselves from the world. In Mosiah Chapter 5 verses 8-10 it says “And under this head ye are made free, and there is no other head whereby ye can be made free. There is no other name given whereby salvation cometh; therefore, I would that ye should take upon you the name of Christ, all you that have entered into the covenant with God that ye should be obedient onto the end of your lives.” So we are told to take Christ’s name upon us. We are supposed to act like him everywhere we go. So this is not the easiest thing to do. One example with people it is as close as getting in your car and start driving. You start driving and someone cuts you off. The immediate reaction for some people is to start yelling, start honking, to drive up right behind them. But, this isn’t what Christ wants us to do. We should be forgiving and we should realize that what we are doing isn’t what Christ would like us to do. So one of the things is we are supposed to act like Christ and to take His name upon us.
The next thing we have to do is to keep His commandments. Robert D. Hales, in the November 2009 issue of the Ensign said “At baptism we make a covenant with our Heavenly Father that we are willing to come into His kingdom and keep His commandments from that time forward even though we still live in the world. We are reminded from the Book of Mormon that our baptism is a covenant to stand as a witness of God and His kingdom at all times and in all things and in all places even until death. That ye may be redeemed of God and be numbered of those of first resurrection, and that ye may have eternal life”.
President Brigham Young also said something similar. He said “All Latter Day Saints enter the new and everlasting covenant when they enter this church. They covenant to cease sustaining and upholding and cherishing the kingdom of the devil, and the kingdom of this world. They enter the new and everlasting covenant which is sustaining the kingdom of God. They take a most solemn covenant before the heavens and earth that they will sustain truth and righteousness instead of wickedness and falsehood, and build up the kingdoms of God instead of the kingdoms of this world.” In John 14:13 it says “If ye love me keep my commandments”. So this tells us that if we follow the commandments, we are not only showing our faith we are also showing our love. We must keep our thoughts and our actions pure. One thing is when we seek entertainment through, movies, books and music. We need to find uplifting music and in these times it is hard. It used to be rated R movie, don’t go there. But, now there are even some PG-13 movies that are inappropriate and not worth going to. We need to keep ourselves worthy so that we can enter the temple. When I was younger I always thought it was a good goal to make sure I go to the temple, but now I realize it was an awesome goal. The spirit and blessings that you get by going to the temple are too good for us to just lose sight of those and just do what we want to do. We really need to keep the commandments of the Lord.
Finally we promise to serve the Lord. We are told to separate ourselves from the world. It doesn’t mean that we have to isolate ourselves from the world. We learn in the second chapter in Mosiah that the best way to serve the Lord is to serve each other. In Mosiah Chapter 18 we learn the ways that we can do that. We are told to bear one another’s burdens that they may be light. Mourn with those that mourn. Comfort those that stand in need of comfort. We need to go out and we need to serve our fellow beings so that we can serve the Lord.
So if we take Christ name, keep the commandments and serve the Lord, we are promised many blessings in this life and in the life to come.
So now, I am going to talk about some of the blessings we will receive if we hold our end of the bargain. One of them is we will be numbered with those in the first resurrection. And in D&C Section 132 verse 19 it says “and shall inherit thrones, kingdoms, principalities and power”. And in Revelations Chapter 20 verse 6 it says “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection.” The first resurrection is where we want to be. It is people that are going to live with God and people who are going to have eternal life. This is something that we really want.
Another blessing is that we will be spiritually reborn. And so, lets look at baptism. When we are baptized, we are baptized by emersion, meaning we go all the way under the water. And this represents death. When we come back out we are reborn. And, when we are reborn we are able to grow spiritually and start basically a new life. In John 3:5 it states “Jesus answered, verily, verily I say unto thee except a man be born of water and of the spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” So we need to be baptized so we can be reborn and go live with God.
In True to the Faith it states “Just as an infant enters a new existence at birth, you begin a new life when you enter into the baptismal covenant. You can grow in spirituality, and you can become more like the Savior in keeping the baptismal covenants“. So, just like I said before, we’re reborn and we will be able to grow spiritually stronger. Another thing is we receive remission of our sins. All of us, at one time or another we are going to sin. No one is perfect except for Christ. In Alma Chapter 40 it states “and No unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of God.” Because we sin, we are unable to inherit Gods kingdom. The Lord has prepared a way for us to this is through the remission of our sins. When we are baptized we are able to have those sins completely wiped from us. The atonement is applied to us because we are baptized, and because of our baptismal covenants. In Moses 1:39 it says “This is my work and my glory – to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” It only makes sense that if God wants us to return and live with him, and have eternal life, he will make a way for that to happen. And we can by renewing our baptismal covenants.
And one of the final blessings that we get is we are able to have the Holy Ghost as a constant companion in our lives. Before you are baptized you can feel the influence of the Holy Ghost, it can be there but it isn’t always there. When you are baptized and you receive the Holy Ghost with you, it can be there. You permanently have a member of the godhead with you. And, the Holy Ghost can help us in so many ways. He can direct you. He can protect you spiritually and physically.
I have a story about being protected physically. One day my family me and my family were taking a hike in the mountains. Me and my brother decided, “Let’s just run ahead of the group, just for fun”. And as we were doing that, we probably ran a minute or two minutes. We were not too far ahead of them but far enough ahead that we couldn’t see them. Not really paying attention. I heard someone say stop. I thought my sister said stop. So I stopped. I turned around and my sister wasn’t there. And so when I turned and looked forward there was this big old Bull Moose, literally, probably two feet in front of me. My initial reaction was to scream like a little girl and run as far as I could in the opposite direction. It turns out my sister didn’t yell, it was the spirit protecting me physically. And that is just one story. It doesn’t always going to happen that way. You aren’t always going to hear a voice. Sometimes if you are deciding “Should I do this”, between two decisions, if you will just pray about it one will feel peaceful and the other won’t feel peaceful. You will feel tense. And that is one of the ways the spirit answers. Sometimes you will just feel a warm feeling. And so that is some of the things that the Holy Ghost can do. The Holy Ghost is also a comforter
John Chapter 14 verse 26 “but the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” It is interesting that they say he is a comforter but in that same verse they also say that he teaches you. And so the way that the Holy Ghost comforts you is by teaching you truths. Because we all know we feel more confident, even if the outcome is bad, if you know what really happened you just feel better about the situation.
Dallin H Oaks said in the New Era 1999 “To have the continuous companionship of the Holy Ghost, is the most precious possession you can have in mortality.” I totally agree with this statement. I don’t know where I would be without the Holy Ghost. I would probably be dead because I would have run into that moose. The Holy Ghost protects me and guides me every day.
One day we were mowing lawns, and it is summer, and some lawns aren’t always the greenest so as we are mowing, a lot of dirt, and the dirt was flying everywhere. Not really noticing, when we were done I went and looked in the mirror and I was just caked with dirt and sweat all over. It wasn’t very pretty. I wasn’t comfortable being around other people because of how dirty I was. But after that I was able to cleanup and I felt comfortable with others. Likewise when we sin, we are spiritually unclean and we won’t feel comfortable being around the Lord. No unclean thing can dwell in the Lords presence. So, we have learned that through baptism those sins can be washed away and we can feel comfortable. But unfortunately Satan doesn’t want us to have things go well so he tests us and inevitably we will all fall and we will sin. After we baptize we cannot be baptized again. If there was no way for us to repent of our sins, we would all be lost forever, but the Lord has provided a way. The remission of sins is received by partaking of the sacrament. The sacrament is essential to our returning to our Heavenly Father. During the sacrament prayer we promise to remember Him always. We witness that we are willing to take upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ, and that we will keep his commandments. These commitments that we make in the sacrament prayer are the same we make when we are baptized. Partaking of the sacrament is just like being baptized again. This is the way that we can renewal our baptismal covenants.
It is not simply enough that we just take the sacrament once. We have to keep going. We have to strive to be proactive. We have to strive to always do right, and when we slip up and sin we have to repent quickly. It says in Second Nephi Chapter 31 verse 20 “Wherefore if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father, Ye shall have eternal life.” For us to have eternal life we have to endure to the end. We can’t just take the sacrament once, we have to do it every week. We have to try and do it all the time. At first it sounds easy. When you first get baptized, and you just want to renew your baptismal covenants, it sounds easy. You think, “It won’t be too hard. I will just go to church and take the sacrament, it will be easy.” But it isn’t always easy. It is just like a new year’s resolution. You will start doing it for a week or so and then after a week or two you lose sight of what you are doing and you stop doing it. And so we need to make sure and try and do that. Luckily the Lord hasn’t asked us to live perfectly from the moment we are baptized. The way I see it we just have to live as good as we can week to week, so that we can go to church and we can partake of the sacrament. And we don’t want to skip a week of partaking of the sacrament, because it is the same if we didn’t shower for a week, we would start to smell. If we don’t take the sacrament we have the same problem, but spiritually, and so we need to always make sure that we are taking the sacrament.
So in short, what does all that mean? It just makes me want to live more righteously. If I slip and I sin, I know that I need to repent quickly. I will be able to receive a remission of my sins.
Just want to bear my testimony that I know this church is true. And, I know that I am going to do what is right when I go on a mission I will be helping a lot of people. I love my family. I am thankful for all that they do, and for supporting me. And I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
I was asked to talk on baptismal covenants: keeping, making, and living them.
So, first let’s go over what the baptismal covenants that we make are when we are baptized. A covenant is a two way promise with the Lord. And, in order for us to get the blessings we have to keep our end of the bargain, we have to do certain things. So, I am going to go over some of those things that we promise to do when we are baptized.
The first thing that we promise to do is to take Christ’s name upon us. We have to put Him and His works first. We seek what He wants rather than what we wants, or what the world teaches us to want. We must separate ourselves from the world. In Mosiah Chapter 5 verses 8-10 it says “And under this head ye are made free, and there is no other head whereby ye can be made free. There is no other name given whereby salvation cometh; therefore, I would that ye should take upon you the name of Christ, all you that have entered into the covenant with God that ye should be obedient onto the end of your lives.” So we are told to take Christ’s name upon us. We are supposed to act like him everywhere we go. So this is not the easiest thing to do. One example with people it is as close as getting in your car and start driving. You start driving and someone cuts you off. The immediate reaction for some people is to start yelling, start honking, to drive up right behind them. But, this isn’t what Christ wants us to do. We should be forgiving and we should realize that what we are doing isn’t what Christ would like us to do. So one of the things is we are supposed to act like Christ and to take His name upon us.
The next thing we have to do is to keep His commandments. Robert D. Hales, in the November 2009 issue of the Ensign said “At baptism we make a covenant with our Heavenly Father that we are willing to come into His kingdom and keep His commandments from that time forward even though we still live in the world. We are reminded from the Book of Mormon that our baptism is a covenant to stand as a witness of God and His kingdom at all times and in all things and in all places even until death. That ye may be redeemed of God and be numbered of those of first resurrection, and that ye may have eternal life”.
President Brigham Young also said something similar. He said “All Latter Day Saints enter the new and everlasting covenant when they enter this church. They covenant to cease sustaining and upholding and cherishing the kingdom of the devil, and the kingdom of this world. They enter the new and everlasting covenant which is sustaining the kingdom of God. They take a most solemn covenant before the heavens and earth that they will sustain truth and righteousness instead of wickedness and falsehood, and build up the kingdoms of God instead of the kingdoms of this world.” In John 14:13 it says “If ye love me keep my commandments”. So this tells us that if we follow the commandments, we are not only showing our faith we are also showing our love. We must keep our thoughts and our actions pure. One thing is when we seek entertainment through, movies, books and music. We need to find uplifting music and in these times it is hard. It used to be rated R movie, don’t go there. But, now there are even some PG-13 movies that are inappropriate and not worth going to. We need to keep ourselves worthy so that we can enter the temple. When I was younger I always thought it was a good goal to make sure I go to the temple, but now I realize it was an awesome goal. The spirit and blessings that you get by going to the temple are too good for us to just lose sight of those and just do what we want to do. We really need to keep the commandments of the Lord.
Finally we promise to serve the Lord. We are told to separate ourselves from the world. It doesn’t mean that we have to isolate ourselves from the world. We learn in the second chapter in Mosiah that the best way to serve the Lord is to serve each other. In Mosiah Chapter 18 we learn the ways that we can do that. We are told to bear one another’s burdens that they may be light. Mourn with those that mourn. Comfort those that stand in need of comfort. We need to go out and we need to serve our fellow beings so that we can serve the Lord.
So if we take Christ name, keep the commandments and serve the Lord, we are promised many blessings in this life and in the life to come.
So now, I am going to talk about some of the blessings we will receive if we hold our end of the bargain. One of them is we will be numbered with those in the first resurrection. And in D&C Section 132 verse 19 it says “and shall inherit thrones, kingdoms, principalities and power”. And in Revelations Chapter 20 verse 6 it says “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection.” The first resurrection is where we want to be. It is people that are going to live with God and people who are going to have eternal life. This is something that we really want.
Another blessing is that we will be spiritually reborn. And so, lets look at baptism. When we are baptized, we are baptized by emersion, meaning we go all the way under the water. And this represents death. When we come back out we are reborn. And, when we are reborn we are able to grow spiritually and start basically a new life. In John 3:5 it states “Jesus answered, verily, verily I say unto thee except a man be born of water and of the spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” So we need to be baptized so we can be reborn and go live with God.
In True to the Faith it states “Just as an infant enters a new existence at birth, you begin a new life when you enter into the baptismal covenant. You can grow in spirituality, and you can become more like the Savior in keeping the baptismal covenants“. So, just like I said before, we’re reborn and we will be able to grow spiritually stronger. Another thing is we receive remission of our sins. All of us, at one time or another we are going to sin. No one is perfect except for Christ. In Alma Chapter 40 it states “and No unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of God.” Because we sin, we are unable to inherit Gods kingdom. The Lord has prepared a way for us to this is through the remission of our sins. When we are baptized we are able to have those sins completely wiped from us. The atonement is applied to us because we are baptized, and because of our baptismal covenants. In Moses 1:39 it says “This is my work and my glory – to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” It only makes sense that if God wants us to return and live with him, and have eternal life, he will make a way for that to happen. And we can by renewing our baptismal covenants.
And one of the final blessings that we get is we are able to have the Holy Ghost as a constant companion in our lives. Before you are baptized you can feel the influence of the Holy Ghost, it can be there but it isn’t always there. When you are baptized and you receive the Holy Ghost with you, it can be there. You permanently have a member of the godhead with you. And, the Holy Ghost can help us in so many ways. He can direct you. He can protect you spiritually and physically.
I have a story about being protected physically. One day my family me and my family were taking a hike in the mountains. Me and my brother decided, “Let’s just run ahead of the group, just for fun”. And as we were doing that, we probably ran a minute or two minutes. We were not too far ahead of them but far enough ahead that we couldn’t see them. Not really paying attention. I heard someone say stop. I thought my sister said stop. So I stopped. I turned around and my sister wasn’t there. And so when I turned and looked forward there was this big old Bull Moose, literally, probably two feet in front of me. My initial reaction was to scream like a little girl and run as far as I could in the opposite direction. It turns out my sister didn’t yell, it was the spirit protecting me physically. And that is just one story. It doesn’t always going to happen that way. You aren’t always going to hear a voice. Sometimes if you are deciding “Should I do this”, between two decisions, if you will just pray about it one will feel peaceful and the other won’t feel peaceful. You will feel tense. And that is one of the ways the spirit answers. Sometimes you will just feel a warm feeling. And so that is some of the things that the Holy Ghost can do. The Holy Ghost is also a comforter
John Chapter 14 verse 26 “but the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” It is interesting that they say he is a comforter but in that same verse they also say that he teaches you. And so the way that the Holy Ghost comforts you is by teaching you truths. Because we all know we feel more confident, even if the outcome is bad, if you know what really happened you just feel better about the situation.
Dallin H Oaks said in the New Era 1999 “To have the continuous companionship of the Holy Ghost, is the most precious possession you can have in mortality.” I totally agree with this statement. I don’t know where I would be without the Holy Ghost. I would probably be dead because I would have run into that moose. The Holy Ghost protects me and guides me every day.
One day we were mowing lawns, and it is summer, and some lawns aren’t always the greenest so as we are mowing, a lot of dirt, and the dirt was flying everywhere. Not really noticing, when we were done I went and looked in the mirror and I was just caked with dirt and sweat all over. It wasn’t very pretty. I wasn’t comfortable being around other people because of how dirty I was. But after that I was able to cleanup and I felt comfortable with others. Likewise when we sin, we are spiritually unclean and we won’t feel comfortable being around the Lord. No unclean thing can dwell in the Lords presence. So, we have learned that through baptism those sins can be washed away and we can feel comfortable. But unfortunately Satan doesn’t want us to have things go well so he tests us and inevitably we will all fall and we will sin. After we baptize we cannot be baptized again. If there was no way for us to repent of our sins, we would all be lost forever, but the Lord has provided a way. The remission of sins is received by partaking of the sacrament. The sacrament is essential to our returning to our Heavenly Father. During the sacrament prayer we promise to remember Him always. We witness that we are willing to take upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ, and that we will keep his commandments. These commitments that we make in the sacrament prayer are the same we make when we are baptized. Partaking of the sacrament is just like being baptized again. This is the way that we can renewal our baptismal covenants.
It is not simply enough that we just take the sacrament once. We have to keep going. We have to strive to be proactive. We have to strive to always do right, and when we slip up and sin we have to repent quickly. It says in Second Nephi Chapter 31 verse 20 “Wherefore if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father, Ye shall have eternal life.” For us to have eternal life we have to endure to the end. We can’t just take the sacrament once, we have to do it every week. We have to try and do it all the time. At first it sounds easy. When you first get baptized, and you just want to renew your baptismal covenants, it sounds easy. You think, “It won’t be too hard. I will just go to church and take the sacrament, it will be easy.” But it isn’t always easy. It is just like a new year’s resolution. You will start doing it for a week or so and then after a week or two you lose sight of what you are doing and you stop doing it. And so we need to make sure and try and do that. Luckily the Lord hasn’t asked us to live perfectly from the moment we are baptized. The way I see it we just have to live as good as we can week to week, so that we can go to church and we can partake of the sacrament. And we don’t want to skip a week of partaking of the sacrament, because it is the same if we didn’t shower for a week, we would start to smell. If we don’t take the sacrament we have the same problem, but spiritually, and so we need to always make sure that we are taking the sacrament.
So in short, what does all that mean? It just makes me want to live more righteously. If I slip and I sin, I know that I need to repent quickly. I will be able to receive a remission of my sins.
Just want to bear my testimony that I know this church is true. And, I know that I am going to do what is right when I go on a mission I will be helping a lot of people. I love my family. I am thankful for all that they do, and for supporting me. And I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
The Call
Sorry if my screaming hurts your ears. Mom is on the phone with Michael who is at Debate Camp in Southern Utah.
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