Our Gifts of the Spirit Come from Within--

This morning Hank called me to help with a lesson he would give to the Young Men in his ward priesthood lesson today. He said the subject was "Gifts of the Spirit." He asked each of the boys/men leaders to have their mothers or wife tell them what theirs were.

So being true to himself and them, he asked me for my perception of what his are. I was very willing to tell him what I saw in him. I pointed out his gifts: of discernment, his wisdom, his sense of humor, his ability to articulate and communicate with others. He also has the gift of kindness, and great love for the Gospel and a strong testimony of it.

While we talked I mentioned that we have just to observe our characteristics and traits to know what some of our gifts might be. I know God sees us and knows our abilities and capabilities. We don't always know those from the beginning. Right?

I also observed that when we come to know God, and find Him, we in return get to know and find ourselves and who we ARE! That is the lowest common denominator. The more we love God and his Son, Jesus Christ, the more we come to love ourselves. It almost sounds too simple. But it IS!

I also had it occur to me:

1)perhaps we all received a "patriarchal blessing" from Heavenly Father before we left Him to come down here to earth.

2) We are given our mission calls to earth so to speak.

3) We had to have had some kind of direction from him to have the opportunity to be agents for ourselves in making making our path to connect with our bodies from the spirit world to mortality.

4) We had to have had some kind of plan to know what direction we should go.

5)We just are not aware of them with the veil drawn when we come to earth

It is all a mystery I know, but I can imagine being close to that concept.

I also bear testimony that we have all the gifts given to us and promised to us before mortality.

Years ago in Chicago when I was about five or six years old, I went to the movies with my two older brothers. We went to see the "Wizard of Oz." We lived behind a busy street like State Street in Salt Lake City. So it was busy, busy, busier than State Street in Orem. You get the idea.

Tin Man, a gift from Jacob to Grandma.


Well, the part of the movie where Dorothy and the Scarecrow, Tin Man and the Lion are visiting with the Wizard, which was the whole objective of the movie. They wanted to ask the Wizard for the things they thought they lacked. Anyway, I saw the large image of the Wizard on that movie screen when he is really behind a curtain and his face is like a monster talking to them. I ran home in terror of it and never saw the end of that movie for several decades later, as an adult!

The point is of all this is that each one of US, like Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion already have everything we need inside of us. We don't have to look outside of ourselves for knowing that there is no place like home, have a brain, a heart, and to have courage. They were all seeking something that they didn't know was already there. We don't always have to go Kansas to find God, nor to know who we are.

We just need to go within ourselves to find ourselves and there we are, and so is our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ.

Thank you Hank for asking and allowing me to ponder these thoughts today.

Hurray! I Finally found out (Lori helped me) how to download a picture of the Wizard of Oz cast to post here.