Sister Beck's BYU Hawaii Commencement Speech

I just read this in the Church News (week ending January 16, 2010), and I wanted to record my favorite parts:

Sister Beck listed four things she thought the graduates ought to take with them as they leave college:

(1) The Lord has a plan for you.
(2) You have responsibilities which you have already been taught.
(3) The Atonement of Christ will help you overcome.
(4) The Spirit will guide you.

"As you seek, receive, and act on personal promptings of the Holy Ghost, you will be guided and directed, and you don't ever need to feel alone or make any decision alone. You can have a member of the Godhead as your companion, your senior companion, every day."

Sister Beck also tells about her life--how her parents wanted her to graduate from college, but her scores weren't very high (she'd moved around a lot and had been ill a lot as a child). It took her a long time to get through school (she worked to help her husband finish and then became a mother), but she did it. About the experience, she said,

"I learned many things. I learned how to discipline myself, how to set goals and achieve them, how to study and think better, how to manage my time better, how to set priorities, and how to take tests. I also learned the importance of receiving help when I needed it, working on a goal with others, not giving up, and celebrating small achievements. My husband and I learned to work together in amazing ways. We learned to counsel together better and pray together better. We improved our ability to seek the Lord's help and listen to what He was telling us to do. We knew this was a goal the Lord approved of so we kept going.

"I learned many things that helped prepare me for my current responsibilities. The Lord was preparing me. It didn't really matter what I chose to study. It was the process that taught us so much."


I just loved this. I have felt this in my life--the Lord teaching me through processes. He is wonderful, and I love Him.

Things as They Really Are

My husband forwarded me this article from CNN about people feeling depressed after seeing the movie Avatar. Here are a couple of quotations:

"That's all I have been doing as of late, searching the Internet for more info about Avatar. I guess that helps. It's so hard I can't force myself to think that it's just a movie, and to get over it."

"Ever since I went to see Avatar I have been depressed. Watching the wonderful world of Pandora and all the Na'vi made me want to be one of them. I can't stop thinking about all the things that happened in the film...I even contemplate suicide thinking that if I do it, I will be rebirthed in a world similar to Pandora..."

It's not as though the audience didn't love the movie...its just that they didn't want to leave. According to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held last week in Las Vegas, the new push is for everything to be 3-D, so it feels more and more real to the viewer. I'm guessing once people can create a very realistic world within their own homes, they'll spend all day just plugged in, pretending they're somewhere else. What kinds of marriages and families will result from THAT?

Interestingly enough, the therapy for this is to create real relationships in THIS world, so you won't feel compelled to live in a non-existent one.

I was speaking about this problem with my children and said, "It's like you saying you want to live your whole life in Build-a-Bearville."

Ethan got a very distressed look on his face and said, "But that IS how I feel! The animals are so cute! I want to live there!"

So...we had a long, long talk (and I'm limiting our computer time to about 15 minutes a day).

Our talk centered around Elder David A. Bednar's CES Fireside "Things as They Really Are."

This is an excellent, excellent talk. He teaches that one way the adversary tries to get us to misuse our bodies is simply not to use them--to get so consumed with a virtual world that we ignore real relationships (loving our spouses, children, friends, etc.).

These images from his talk have impressed me so much--I included them below.

The top one is a computer-generated rendering of a sealing room in the Newport Beach Temple. The bottom one is an actual photo. Amazing, right?

This image above is a computer-generated rendering of the foyer of the Copenhagen, Denmark Temple. Below is an actual photo.

It's almost frightening how similar they can look. I mean, it's great that they can really know how the temple will look before it is actually built, but it's shocking that the two images can be almost identical. Even uploading these to Blogger, I had to be careful not to get them confused. The only difference I could find in the foyer images was the reflection of the lamp light on the wall. In the real photos, it's a "v-shape" and in the rendering, it's more of an oval.

I'm speaking at BYU Women's Conference this April about avoiding emotional infidelity, and I think I'm going to include some of these ideas in my presentation.

As wives, it's easy to get sidetracked by the unrealistic idea of the "perfect" husband. We see movies like Twilight and wonder why our husband can't be Edward. Why does OUR man have to eat, sleep, use the restroom, and spend time on hobbies?

We might see a Facebook profile of someone we used to date and imagine that he is never grumpy or impatient.

Or we could just go ga-ga over the stars featured in the magazines, TV shows, and YouTube videos, and imagine that there is this better world waiting for us out there.

Well, the best world is RIGHT HERE. In our homes. These other images and ideas proliferated by the media simply don't exist. It is pretend. It is imagined. These pretend husbands won't earn an income for you, won't take your children to the park, won't stand by you while you're hormonal or grumpy, and won't be with you through the thick and thin of it all. The secret is to learn how to see the beauty and love and romance that's right within your home, and then do everything you can to capitalize on it--to support it--enrich it--magnify it--appreciate it--and create it.

We need to be able to see things as they really are.

Jacob 4: 13 Behold, my brethren, he that prophesieth, let him prophesy to the understanding of men; for the ^aSpirit speaketh the ^btruth and lieth not. Wherefore, it speaketh of things asthey really ^care, and of things as they really will be; wherefore, these things are manifested unto us ^dplainly, for the salvation of our souls. But behold, we are not witnesses alone in these things; for God also ^espake them unto prophets of old.

I have lots of specific ideas for how to do this with your own marriage (like listening to your favorite love songs right before your husband gets home from work or creating a collection of photos/memories of your most romantic times together and focusing on that when you're in the middle of a busy week). I'll keep brainstorming/compiling these ideas, but to close this post, I want to emphasize two questions Elder Bednar asked about technology in our lives.

1. Does the use of various technologies and media invite or impede the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost in your life?

2. Does the time you spend using various technologies and media enlarge or restrict your capacity to live, to love, and to serve in meaningful ways?

I love technology--there are great opportunities to blog, to publish ideas, to connect with friends, to encourage others, and to make a difference in the world when you aren't able to leave your home very often. However, our time online needs to invite the Holy Ghost to be with us. It needs to give us a greater capacity to fulfill our personal mission, and it needs to enable us to be strong, loyal, loving members of our family. That's my goal.

Quotations About God

Any fool can count the seeds in an apple. Only God can count all the apples in one seed. ~Robert H. Schuller

God loves each of us as if there were only one of us. ~St. Augustine

What we are is God's gift to us. What we become is our gift to God. ~Eleanor Powell

A man with God is always in the majority. ~John Knox

Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees. ~Victor Hugo

I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much. ~Mother Teresa

I cannot imagine how the clockwork of the universe can exist without a clockmaker. ~Voltaire

I would rather walk with God in the dark than go alone in the light. ~Mary Gardiner Brainard

Every morning I spend fifteen minutes filling my mind full of God; and so there's no room left for worry thoughts. ~Howard Chandler Christy

A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell. ~C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Personal Mission

I've noticed a lot of focus on pursuing one's personal mission lately. I know that's something extremely important to me--we all want to know we're doing what we were intended to do. We are reading Moses 1 for our Sunday School today, and I was impressed that this chapter also teaches principles about one's personal mission.

Verse 6 says, "And I have a work for thee, Moses, my son; and thou art in the similitude of mine Only Begotten; and mine Only Begotten is and shall be the Savior, for he is full of grace and truth; but there is no God beside me, and all things are present with me, for I know them all."

I imagine the Lord saying to me, "And I have a work for thee, April." My work is clearly different that Moses' work, but it is still important to God. My work is centered on my husband and children, my neighborhood, the Church, and various ways in which I can have influence for good in the world. The beautiful thing is that even though I don't know my complete purpose right now, the Lord has "all things present" with Him, and I can simply learn to listen to and follow His voice--He will lead me where I need to be.

In verse 9, we learn "...the presence of God withdrew from Moses, that his glory was not upon Moses; and Moses was left unto himself. And as he was left unto himself, he fell unto the earth."

This is a GREAT reminder--something we need to remember each and every day. When the glory of the Lord is with us, we can do anything He would have us do, but when He withdraws from us (when His Spirit withdraws because we have made a poor choice(s)), we will fall. Alone we are nothing.

I love the quotation by John Knox that says, "A man with God is always in the majority."

In Moses 1, we also see how the adversary tried to tempt Moses to worship him, but Moses called upon God for strength. We, like Moses, have the ability to discern between the Lord and Satan. The Light of Christ, which is in each one of us, will help us to know what will bring us true purpose and happiness in this life.

From verses 25 and 27, think of these phrases as they pertain to you: "I have chosen thee." "I am with thee." This applies to each of us, if we simply accept the Lord's role in our lives.

I'll close with verse 37 "And the Lord God spake unto Moses, saying: The heavens, they are many, and they cannot be numbered unto man; but they are numbered unto me, for they are mine."

Even though there are SO many of us, God knows each of us because we are His.

Building a Great Marriage

As Eric and I have been talking about our goals for 2010 and about strengthening marriage in general, I thought it would be good to study the topic of marriage today. The Topical Guide has several different categories under marriage, so first I'm going to go through them and pick out the principles that I want to focus on today.

Marriage, Celestial:

Genesis 2:24 "...cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh."

The first book of scripture in the Old Testament lays the foundation for the rest of my study. When you marry, you become one with your spouse. You "leave" your parents and "cleave" to your eternal companion.

The next three scriptures are from the Old and New Testments, and they describe what we, as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, believe about marriage for time and all eternity. In holy temples, couples can be sealed for eternity by men who hold the sealing power. They are given this power from the prophet or one of the apostles, and this power allows them to "bind on earth" and "bind in heaven."

Eccl. 3: 14
whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever.

Matt. 16: 19
(Matt. 18: 18) whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.

Mark 10: 9
What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

Our goal is to marry a companion we want to be with for eternity, and then to have complete fidelity in that marriage. Clearly, there are times when divorce is necessary, but we do all we can to strengthen our marriages and build strong families.


One of my very favorite topics in the Topical Guide is "Marriage, Continuing Courtship In." We believe that marriages need to be nurtured in order to remain strong. Once we're married, we continue to date, to show love and affection for each other, and to "court" each other. Eric and I do our best not to take each other for granted. We go on dates and getaways as much as we can (which hasn't been as often as we would like this past year), we flirt with each other, we speak kindly to one another, and we try to make the other person happy.


Matt. 7: 12 sums it up very well: "whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye. "

I love the sentiments in these scriptures, as well:

(Col. 3: 19) Husbands, love your wives. 1 Pet. 3: 7 giving honour unto the wife. Jacob 3: 7 their husbands love their wives. D&C 25: 14 Let thy soul delight in thy husband. D&C 42: 22 Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart. D&C 42: 45 Thou shalt live together in love.

The one I want to focus on this morning is "Let thy soul delight in thy husband." In the world today, is it typical for wives to say, "My soul delights in my huband!"? That's not what I see. On TV shows, husbands and wives are usually being sarcastic with each other, fighting, or simply tolerating one another. VERY few movies or TV series feature happy, functional marriages. It's also very common to hear wives complain about or degrade their husbands in front of other people.

Instead, you see married women fawning over Edward and Jacob, Hollywood stars, Heroes from Romance Novels, etc.

Ethan (age 6) just came over and sat by me, and I showed him the scriptures I was reading. I told him about how husbands and wives need to love each other, and I told him that some married couples aren't nice to each other. He looked totally shocked. Then we talked about things he could do to be a good husband and things his wife could do to be a good wife. He wants her to buy some Playmobil sets so they can play together. He said he would make angel food cake for her, and maybe she would buy him candy. So, so cute.

The family needs me, so I'll close with this scripture:

D&C 130: 2 And that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy.

We can't think that we can be unkind to our families here on earth and then have a great, strong marriage in heaven. We need to create eternal families now. That's so hard to do (especially on days when you didn't get enough sleep the night before, and you're feeling grumpy...uh hem...).