Enhancing Your Sabbath

I love getting the Church News! Not only do we know what's happening with the church around the globe, we get brief glimpses of talks the Brethren give as well. Or we get a glimpse into BYU Education Week. In the five years I lived there I never went, and now I feel like I missed a giant opportunity. At least, CN is there to help.

One of the highlighted presenters in the CN was good ol' John Bytheway entitled, "The Best Three Hours of the Week: Getting the Most from Your Sunday Meetings." I have a pretty energetic 16 month old and I have a hard time paying attention on Sunday, so it was nice to have a repremand and ways to improve.

He said the first thing we need to examine is our attitude toward the Sabbath. Then, he used the acronym of CHURCH to offer improvements:

C: Choose

• The choice to get more out of Sunday meetings actually begins with Saturday night. Don't stay out (or up) too late.
• Pray for the speakers/teachers, and give yourself a smaller sermon in your mind about whatever topic they are addressing.

H: Holy Sabbath

• Ezekiel 20: 20: "And hallow my Sabbaths..."
• Not participating in activities that run over into the Sabbath

U: Unity

• D&C 38:27: "I say unto you, be one. And if ye are not one, ye are not mine."

R: Respect

• When you disrespect your called-and-sustained teacher, leaders or advisers, you disrespect the One who called them. In other words, you disrespect the Lord.

C: Covenant

• The most important thing we do on Sundays is partaking of the Sacrament
• Elder Holland has suggested Aaronic Priesthood holders wear white shirts when passing
• Ponder on the Savior during the actual passing of the sacrament---Brother Bytheway thinks about the video "Lamb of God" and when it shows the empty tomb.

H: Holy Ghost

• It's your job as a listener and my job as the listener as well as the teacher's job (to be in tune with the Spirit) so that we get something out of our meetings

He concludes by saying by reminding that it is our choice to make it (church meetings) exciting and interesting; but, in the end, we are there to worship the Lord. I hope this list can help us all improve our Sabbath worship.

The Sabbath is Holy

Happy Birthday Tricia!!!!! I heart you!!!!!

My new husband, Nate, moved to Salt Lake from Logan after we got married since my job has better pay, benefits, and free tuition at Salt Lake Community College. But since that time he has been diligently applying and interviewing for jobs, with no success. My dad works for some hotels in the Salt Lake area and has been referring Nate for any open positions and finally Nate was contacted on Tuesday to come train as a shuttle driver for one of these hotels. We were both extremely excited since we discovered our budget for the rest of the month is....well...insufficient.

Well, when Nate went to fill out paperwork for the position, he was informed that he would be working EVERY Sunday until he got enough seniority to be able to pick his schedule. We had talked about this before when he began to get disappointed about not finding a job and I expressed to Nate that I believed very strongly that working Sundays would disqualify us for a lot of the blessings we were currently receiving, but it would be his decision. When he called to tell me that he turned down the job, I knew he was depressed, but I have never, ever been more proud of him for exercising his faith in something I knew to be true.

The only reason I have such a strong testimony in the Sabbath was because I once had a job where I volunteered to work some Sundays in order to be a "team player" in a department where I was the only member of the LDS church, and I got punished for it. I ended up working every Sunday, getting the worst duties, and I never had time during the week to do my homework and had the worst grades I have ever gotten in a semester.

I understand there are jobs where Sunday work is necessary, as my mother is a nurse and has often had to take that shift, but the Sabbath is more than just the Lord's Day. Back in the time of Jesus Christ, the Sabbath was on Saturday, but after His death, the apostles moved the Sabbath to Sunday to emphasize the Resurrection. The Sabbath is more than just a day of rest, it is a day of reverence in remembrance of that victory over all that is temporal. It is a day in which we rise from the troubles and turmoils of the rest of week and feel the presence of something eternal.

"Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays.

But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come.

No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, Sunday will come. In this life or the next, Sunday will come.

I testify to you that the Resurrection is not a fable. We have the personal testimonies of those who saw Him. Thousands in the Old and New Worlds witnessed the risen Savior. They felt the wounds in His hands, feet, and side. They shed tears of unrestrained joy as they embraced Him.

After the Resurrection, the disciples became renewed. They traveled throughout the world proclaiming the glorious news of the gospel.

Had they chosen, they could have disappeared and returned to their former lives and occupations. In time, their association with Him would have been forgotten.

They could have denied the divinity of Christ. Yet they did not. In the face of danger, ridicule, and threat of death, they entered palaces, temples, and synagogues boldly proclaiming Jesus the Christ, the resurrected Son of the living God.

Many of them offered as a final testimony their own precious lives. They died as martyrs, the testimony of the risen Christ on their lips as they perished.

The Resurrection transformed the lives of those who witnessed it. Should it not transform ours?" --Joseph B. Wirthlin, “Sunday Will Come,” Ensign, Nov 2006