Choose Joy

With all the busyness of the past couple weeks we were told today that this is our last slow week coming up before things get busy! Wow! I can only imagine what its going to be like doing more in a day than we already do, but I know it will all be wonderful and I'm very excited.  We've been implementing a few changes to our shows recently which has been fun because we get to see the show get even better and I can't wait to someday see what the impacts of this work will be.  I know from stories about Nauvoo and missionary work in general that the impacts will be so much farther reaching than we can imagine which only makes it all the more important that we "serve with all our heart, might, mind, and strength, that [we] may stand blameless before God at the last day."

The BYU Folk Dancers have been here and they did a fireside for us last week about the scripture "Man is that they might have joy" and a few people gave talks and they sang some songs all centered around that theme.  This is one of my favorite scriptures personally because it tells us so much about our purpose which is to find Joy.  I think there is a difference between the Joy talked about in this verse and just simply being happy which important to note.  Joy to me has more of a lasting, or abiding sense to it as opposed to just momentary happiness. That is why even though there are times in our lives where we certainly aren't happy we can still feel of the joy that comes from our knowledge and hope that we receive from the gospel, our families, and our covenants with the Lord.  With that definition in mind our purpose is to be able to have that joy.  The talks in sacrament meeting today talked about the commandments and how the commandments are a sign of the Lord's love for us and that they are intended to bring us joy.  Some look at the commandments as restrictive, limiting the experiences, and our choices in this life.  That is a false statement because each of us has agency and the choice is forever ours to make, however eternal laws have eternal consequences that are unchanging, much like the law of gravity doesn't change just because we don't want to believe in it, if we then jump off a cliff, we will still fall.  So getting to a point now, our Heavenly Father understands what these eternal consequences are so He warns us and gives commandments so we can safely avoid those cliffs we could fall off of physically, emotionally, or spiritually, and he never takes away our agency, we always have the choice to do as we please, but if we choose to go contrary to the commandments of God, we are not free to avoid the consequences. So choose to keep the commandments, choose joy, and choose that path that leads home to Heaven where we can live with our Heavenly Father and receive a fullness of joy.