Building A Testimony

This week was Testimony meeting at church. I didn't go up and bear my testimony at all, but I did ponder a few things. I have been pondering these things for the last couple of months during testimony meeting, but have never felt the need to go up and share them. Not even today. For some reason I feel the need to put it out there now. Not sure why.

So here goes...

First and foremost, I asked myself what is (or what should be) the basis for a testimony. As I thought about it, I went back to the time that I was in my mission in Finland. That was back in the time before "Preach My Gospel" and we had the six discussions and "The Missionary Guide."

Well... In Finland, I gave A LOT of first discussions. Not many sixth discussions... (Actually... One sixth discussion). So, that information came flooding back to my mind and I determined that the principles in that discussion were a good starting point in building a testimony of the Gospel. Good thing they were the first things that we taught anyone, right?

Here they are..

1) God is our perfect Heavenly Father and He has a plan for us.

2) Jesus Christ is the Son of God and gave us a perfect example to follow.

3) Heavenly Father calls Prophets to reveal His plan to us.

4) Joseph Smith saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and was called as a prophet for our time.

5) The Book of Mormon is a second testament of Jesus Christ along side the Bible

6) The Holy Ghost will testify of the truth when we sincerely ask.

There is some pretty AWESOME stuff here and I honestly believe that if a person can accept these six principles fully, then they have a good basis to build the rest of their testimony on. The rest of the Gospel just flows from this and can change lives. It's amazing...

I can testify to you that I know that these things are true. All of them...I didn't realize it until today that my own testimony has developed from these things. I really didn't understand the Gospel until I was in that frozen northern country serving the people and teaching these things over and over again. Apparently I learned a few things for myself. Go me...

Have an AWESOME week...