Increase In Learning

After refusing to update my blog perhaps ever again (in my mind), I've succumbed to the feeling that sometimes I learn better if I express myself to others (in person, writing, etc).  Since I am currently without a roommate and alone in my room, I felt I should attempt to express myself in writing once again!  So bear with me as I begin the occasional blogging once again after my 2 year absence :)

I'm a person that loves to be with people.  I don't know why but I have a need of sharing things with others and having them do the same.  It's something I thrive on and I LOVE creating deep, lasting, eternal relationships with many people.  Anyway, one of the things I miss the most about my mission is having a person constantly at my side to do that with!  If I learned something amazing, guess what?  I can tell my companion and chances are we will launch into an inspiring spiritual conversation that will totally add to what I had just learned.  If I was feeling something and needed to share, I could tell my companion!  Happy, sad, emotional, inspired, knowledge-based, person-based, what have you, I could share with my companion and while doing so, strengthen our relationship!  It's like a win, win, win situation :)
Anyway, I think the last semesters at BYU since being back from my mission have been some of the hardest.  Not academically but because I have felt very alone.  I know that I always have Heavenly Father and my Savior Jesus Christ with me, family and friends that support me and care about me!  For that I am very grateful.  However, there is something to be said in my life for the physical presence of friends or family members that does my soul and life good!  The Lord knows what we need, though, and knew that I need certain situations to learn and grow.  Luckily, these situations have helped strengthen my relationship with Him!  This need I have was fulfilled in many ways by my work at the MTC as a Spanish teacher (the BEST thing that's happened to me since my mission and I'll have to talk about it another time!) and when I would be in His presence at the temple.  other than that, though, roommates have their own schedules, my friends are married and gone (ya---that's real when they tell you that'll happen when you're on your mission haha!), and my brother wasn't back from his mission yet.
While soon a new semester will be here and my brother and I will be living in the same apartment complex with some other amazing people and that need will be fulfilled, I have for this past week continued to feel that abrupt change and loneliness from being on vacation and with family whom I share with everyday feelings of my heart to nobody and only having my own mind to share things with.
 
That was probably the longest introduction EVER to what I'm about to write about haha!  Anyway, here I am on a Sunday afternoon alone in my apartment and with no plans, no ward activities because school is over and they are in transition mode, etc.  What do I do?  Sleep--nah, try to visit others?--thinking and thinking of who I can visit or who I know........blanking.  I decided to watch a CES devotional that I hadn't seen because I was on a mission.  Wonderful!  What now?  Then the thought comes to me, "You are always complaining about how you wish there was more time in a day so you could read everything you want to read and study, etc."  I only asked for books for my birthday!  The thought had been coming to me these past few days to pull out my new book, "Increase in Learning" by David Bednar but I hadn't because it was tucked away somewhere in one of my suitcases as I am in the process of moving.  With so many hours at my hands today, however, I felt that today I needed to heed that prompting and dig it out of my suitcase to begin studying/learning.

WOW.  Does the Lord ever inspire and guide my life.  I noticed that right away in the book, Elder Bednar mentions a scripture that was the guiding scripture of one of the sacrament meeting talks today! (D&C 19:23) The scripture touched me and made me think a lot so I wrote it down and some corresponding thoughts.  Then the book goes on to mention it as a process to learning and I knew the Lord was guiding my learning because two times in one day is not coincidence for the many scriptures there are!  On the next page or so, Elder Bednar cites a scripture in D&C and a corresponding quote from Joseph Smith that talk about "the unspeakable gift of the Holy Ghost".  What was the one CES devotional I chose to watch just 10 minutes earlier entitled??  "The Unspeakable Gift of the Holy Ghost"!  Sometimes I think the Lord loves showing us how much He loves us and how aware He is of our lives!  His "divine signatures" as Elder Lund likes to call them or tender mercies are always around us and today were especially present!

Then one of the first things I began reading answered one of the gospel questions I've been pondering for months now as I go to the temple and read the scriptures!!  For months now I've pondered why Heavenly Father when He goes down to visit Adam and Eve in the garden right after they had partaken of the fruit asks, "Adam where art thou?" when He perfectly knows where he is!  The only thing I have been able to think of all these months is the accountability factor.  However, Elder Bendar went on to explain that "The Father didn't ask Adam because He didn't know where he was.  The Father asks Adam because ADAM didn't know where he was!"  Their conversation and questions that followed helped Adam to realize for himself and learn as an agent.  Instead of telling him what had happened and the consequences, He helps Adam learn.
That's what I want to do as a teacher!  Instead of telling my students the answers I want to help them learn for themselves and become "agents unto themselves".

Then as I watched some video clips that go along with the movie, something that was mentioned today in church made more sense to me and was expounded upon!  Today in church, one of the speakers mentioned how truly incredible the story of Abraham and Isaac is and that we usually don't recognize the key points.  Everyone talks about how willing Abraham was to sacrifice Isaac but the fact of the matter is that Abraham knew that Isaac had to live.  All of his promises and promised blessings had to do with the seed he would have through Isaac.  So the real test of faith and marvelous point to this history is that when confronted with something that seemingly contradicted those promised blessings, Abraham had the faith that in the end, God would do something so they eventually were fulfilled. (Hebrews 11:19--Abraham thought well if Isaac dies, God will raise him from the dead, etc).  What an eternal perspective Abraham had!  He didn't get caught up in the "roadblock" but continued to exercise faith in God's promised blessings.  So, in the video clips, Elder Bednar expounds.  He said, "we have to have the faith that God CAN heal me, not that He will."  Also, "We have to know that He can and be trusting in His will and timing."  THAT, my friends = faith.  Awesome :)

I love learning!  I'm SO grateful to my Heavenly Father for directing my day in the way He would have had me learn and study and the exact things/topics He wants me to learn about!

There are many more things I learned and hope to continue to learn as I ponder and meditate and continue to read the things I have written from today.  ALSO, if you haven't read "Increase in Learning" yet by Elder Bednar, GO BUY IT ASAP.  It's incredible and filled with applicable ways to learn from our Father in Heaven the exact things we personally need in our lives to become who we need to become and fulfill our heavenly potential (which is a process of a lifetime!)  I love Elder Bednar's way of learning and teaching.  It's personally applicable.  I'm so grateful for a living prophet and apostles on this earth that lead and guide us on our earthly journey.  And grateful for a Father in Heaven that knows me, loves me, and will be my needed company as He helps me "increase in learning" to better fulfill my potential as His daughter.