Oh, church. You're so great.

Can I just say, I love going to church. (Okay, maybe not so much when I wake up with only a half an hour to get ready, and I'm running around trying to get ready. Mental note: set alarm.) Our meetings were especially great today. Here's a little recap:

In relief society, we talked about 1) The Inconvenient Messiah (Elder Holland). True, living the Gospel is not always easy, or convenient, but it is, however, the only way to return to live with our Heavenly Father, and therefore very worth it. "Sacrifice is about giving up something for something better." Amen. 2) We also talked about having good friends, or being around good people and things that make it easier to live the Gospel. I am so blessed to have a wonderful family who believes what I do, and wonderful friends who help me to be better. I read a quote told to me by my beloved trainer, Soeur Carter, when I asked her if it was bad to like TV shows or movies that aren't necessarily good, but not terrible either. I actually came home and found the complete quote, so what I read in relief society is in bold. But here's the whole thing,

In a letter to John Wesley in June 1735, his mother Susanna Wesley wrote these words:

The beauty, pleasures, and ease of the body strangely charm us; the wealth and honours of the world allure us; and all, under the management of a subtle malicious adversary, give a prodigious force to present things; and if the animal life once get the ascendant of our reason, it is the greatest folly imaginable, because he seeks it where has not designed he shall ever find it. But this is the case of the generality of men; they live as mere animals, wholly given up to the interests and pleasures of the body; and all the use of their understanding is to make provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof, without the least regard to future happiness or misery.

I take à Kempis to have been an honest weak man, with more zeal than knowledge, by his condemning all mirth or pleasure as sinful or useless, in opposition to so many plain and direct texts of Scripture. Would you judge of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of pleasure; of the innocence or malignity of actions? Take this rule: whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself.

Bam. I remember saying to my companion, "well, you just slapped that like (of that TV show I was thinking of) right out of me." So, if you have that same question that I had, take this rule. It's a good one.

Okay, on to Sunday School. I am so dang lucky to be the Temple Prep teacher in my ward. I'm obsessed with it. Today the lesson was about ancient temples, and also the blessings that we can receive when we go to the temple worthily. Most of it was taken out of D&C 109, and we just talked about all the amazing blessings listed there. I LOVE verse 76, where it says,

"That our garments may be pure,
that we may be clothed upon with robes of righteousness,
with palms in our hands,
and crowns of glory upon our heads,
and reap eternal joy for all our sufferings."

This kid talked about how the "palms in our hands" can signify those who welcomed the Savior as He rode triumphantly into Jerusalem, and how it must've been a feeling of joy and celebration. But wow, those are some pretty amazing blessings, and I know that the Lord wants us to have those blessings, which is exactly why He has promised them! When we go to the temple, we are blessed. It's as simple as that. Which leads me into one of the themes of the testimonies in Sacrament Meeting, the fact that the Lord wants us to be happy. He asks us to keep His commandments and live the Gospel so that He may bless us. And there are no greater blessings than those that come from the temple. Listen to a prophet of the Lord if you don't believe me!

Go to the temple, and be blessed. :)