Firts comes trial by faith, then comes your reward

      "There was no rain when Noah began to build the ark. There was no ram when Abraham got the sticks to sacrifice Isaac. There were not two personages when Joseph knelt to pray. First comes trial by faith, then your reward" (Thomas S. Monson). Just as these three prophets were all tried to see if they are faithfull, we are tried to see how faithfull we are. Just like Preident Monson said we are tried by faith, then comes our reward. We all have things that we have to deal with in our lives. This is our time for us to see how faithfull we are to our Father in Heaven.
        He places us in these situations for our benefit. Our job is to learn from them and in the proccess of learning from them we are drawing ourself closer to our Heavenly Father. We are to look to him for help. He has created this test for us, so he knows the right answeres to it. We are able to study for it through the scriptures. This is an open book test and we can even ask te teacher for help. But first we have to show him that we are willing to learn. We show him by exercising our faith. Because once we do that we can recieve our reward.



        There was a man who was about to retire from his job. He was the Chief Executive of his company. He still had a year until he was going to retire. He was debating on who he should apoint to the new Chief Executive of his company. After pondering on this he called in ten of his top employees. He explained his delema and then gave them all a small envelope with a seed in it. He told them that they are to take care of this seed and write down everything that they do to it, for one year. At the end of the year he will chose who is the new Chief Executive of the company according to how well they took care of the seed.
        As the time went on some of the employees were bragging about how big their plant is getting. But one of the employees wasn't saying anything. His seed has not even sprouted yet. Over the next year this man watered the seed and took great care of it. But still it never grew. When the year was up it was time for them to bring in their plants and their record books of what they did to help it grow. This man's friend told him to just go buy a plant and show that to his boss. But the man said that that would be dishonest.
        The day finally came and still the man's seed hasn't grew. When he arrived at his job he saw everyone else had great beautiful plants. He felt really bad for not being able to have it seed grow. When his boss came in he looked at everyone's record of what they did to take care of their seed. When he got to the one man, he asked what happen to his seed. The man staited that he did all he could , but the seed wouldn't grow. The boss asked him when the last time he watered it was. The man said he watered it this morning. Then the boss anounced to everyone that this man is the new Chief Executive of the company.
        All the other employees were so mad because his plant didn't even grow and theirs did. The boss then said that the seeds that he gave to all of them were unfertilized seeds. They were all bad. This man was the only one who had enough respect and dignity to say after all he did the seed never grew. This man stook with this one seed even though it never grew. He was there to help it and care for it. Then he had the respect and dignity to tell his boss that the seed didn't grow.
         When we set goals for ourselves we need to stick with them. Even if we don't accomplish them, there is a bigger picture that we can't see. Just like this man getting the job even though his seed never grew, we will get our reward later on if we hold true to ourselves and our fellow man. As long as we set our goals and keep true to them to the end, we  will have accomplished them.

What doesn't kill you will only make you stronger

     We all go through hard times in our life. Whether it be in school, at work, at home, around our friends, or anywhere. We all face difficult situations throughout our lives. My dad always told me "What doesn't kill you will only make you stronger." I never really understood what that meant. I now realize that that was his way of saying everything will work out. Some of us have problems that we have to deal with in our families. This is one of the hardest things to deal with, watching a family member fall and you can't help them. As much as we try they still just don't want to listen to our advice, even if we went through the same thing they are going through.
     What we can do is to be there for them when they do decide to come back. We can show our love to them by being there when they need us. We show them that we are here to help by talking to them and listening when they have something to say. I love this picture of this little girl and the quote that comes with it. That quote says it all. "The hard times [I] go through will lead to the good times [I will] have" (Henry).
     Even though it's not us going through the hard time. We still do suffer by watching a loved one go through it. But we both can learn from it. Our job is to see how we can better our lives and also our loved ones' as well. Don't ever give up on someone you love. Because hopefully you will be the one to bring them back.