Brightening My Light

With summer trips coming, it's important we prepare for the Sabbath while on vacation. Just because we rest from our worldly cares does not mean we should forget about Sunday! It is very easy to keep the Sabbath Day holy while on vacation: If possible, try not to travel on Sunday so you can attend church and not have to buy food or gas. Find a church building and meeting times on lds.org . If you must travel on Sunday, try to arrange your travel plans so that you can still attend an early sacrament meeting if possible. If you cannot attend church because you have to travel or there are no meetinghouses nearby, hold your own devotional services at your hotel. Sing songs, pray, and read the scriptures or General Conference talks. Then spend time together playing games or watching LDS movies. Listen to the scriptures, LDS music, or General Conference talks in the car or on the plane. If you are visiting family, go to church with them--even if they are of a different faith. ...

My favorite day of the week is Sunday. It is the one day I get to forget about worldly cares and just enjoy being with my family, focus on my spirituality, and participate in uplifting activities. I love how different the Sabbath Day feels from the rest of the week. On the Sabbath I dress up and put on makeup and stay that way all day. On the Sabbath I learn about the gospel of Jesus Christ. On the Sabbath I relax and rest. On the Sabbath I play with my husband and baby. On the Sabbath I read the scriptures and the Ensign . On the Sabbath I listen to beautiful music and feel the Spirit. I feel deep sorrow whenever I hear people say they dislike Sunday. I think their negative attitudes come from their misunderstanding of the purpose of the Sabbath. The Lord did not give us the commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy to punish us or to benefit Himself. Jesus said, "The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath" ( Mark 2:27 ). This scripture means, as one of my BY...

 ldsclipart.com  Sacrament meeting is the most important hour of the week. It is the reason we attend church. And yet, it seems to be when we are the most irreverent. During sacrament meeting, people are talking, texting, sleeping, eating, preparing lessons, reading scriptures, and playing with babies. What's worse is when these things go on during the actual passing of the sacrament, the time we should be thinking of Christ, His Atonement, and the covenants we made. It is the time to reflect on our week, repent of our mistakes, and promise to improve. We should also be reverent during the talks. You all know how daunting it is to go up there. We should give the speakers our respect and attention, no matter how boring or "bad" the talk is. As John Bytheway notes in his talk "The Best Three Hours of the Week," we decide what we get out of church. There is no such thing as a bad talk; we can always come away with something if we are listening with the Spir...

The fourth commandment is to keep the Sabbath day holy. In order to do so, we must first examine our motivation for doing certain activities. Are we reading our biology textbook because we love to study about God's creations or because we procrastinated our homework all weekend? We must be sure that the reason we do something we normally wouldn't do on Sunday is that it is necessary or unavoidable. President Kimball wrote in an Ensign article , "The Savior knew that the ox falls in the mire, and one must pull the ox from the mire when necessary. But no one deliberately puts the ox in the mire every week, or lets him get in the mire with no effort to keep him out." This may seem hard when we want to play all weekend. President Kimball noted, "Sometimes Sabbath observance is characterized as a matter of sacrifice and self-denial, but it is not so. It is merely a matter of scheduling and choosing seasons. There is time enough, particularly in our era of the world’s ...