We had the most wonderful surprise yesterday. Yesterday, a dear man chose to come worship with us.

I watched as this brother was embraced and welcomed. One by one, people came over and spoke with him. From where I was sitting, it looked as if expressions of brotherly love were given and received on both sides. The miracle of this event is that this brother had withdrawn from our fellowship a few years ago. He had taken offense over some small matter and would not forgive even when apologies were extended his way. Yesterday, all that appeared forgotten and forgiven. There was only joy!

I'm sure that most of us have taken offense at one point or another in our lives. Justified or not, taking offense can sometimes lead to decisions that hurt us far more than the original words or actions that caused us to be offended in the first place. Often times, when we don't or can't forgive these offenses, we end up with years of sorrow and regret.

One of my dearest friends shared her story with me. She was the oldest daughter so she felt like a second mother to her younger siblings. As can happen with siblings, disagreements over trivial and unimportant things are sometimes blown out of proportion. This is exactly what happened between my friend and a younger sister. Things came to a head, bitter words were exchanged, and the sisters walked away angry and unforgiving.

For over a year, my friend and her sister didn't speak. They avoided family gatherings altogether if the other sister was going to be there. My friend was deeply offended at the apparent disrespect her younger sister had shown her. She expected her younger sister to be the first to apologize. She felt that she was due this much since she was the oldest.

Apparently, the younger sister had a similar reaction. She felt that her older sister had offended her and that she needed an apology. She felt that the older sister should be the one to make the first move since she was the oldest.

My friend remembers this time as the longest and saddest year of her life. They were normally very close and shared a special bond even though they each had their own families by then. It was around Christmas time that year when my friend finally had the courage and humility to go to her sister and ask her for her forgiveness. She recalls that she had barely started apologizing when her sister broke down and embraced her and begged her forgiveness as well.

Both sisters could barely even remember what was so important about the original argument. They had missed out on so much over that year. In that one year, one sister had a son that got married, and the other sister had a daughter that graduated from high school. Choosing to take offense over an insignificant matter consumed their lives for one year, and they paid for it dearly.

Leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (informally known as the Mormon religion) have counseled us time and again about taking offense. President Thomas S. Monson, 16th President of the Church, cautioned:
Sometimes we can take offense so easily. On other occasions we are too stubborn to accept a sincere apology. Who will subordinate ego, pride, and hurt — then step forward with “I am truly sorry! Let’s be as we once were: friends. Let’s not pass to future generations the grievances, the anger of our time”?

Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles asked us to choose not to take offense:

When we believe or say we have been offended, we usually mean we feel insulted, mistreated, snubbed, or disrespected. And certainly clumsy, embarrassing, unprincipled, and mean-spirited things do occur in our interactions with other people that would allow us to take offense. However, it ultimately is impossible for another person to offend you or to offend me. Indeed, believing that another person offended us is fundamentally false. To be offended is a choice we make; it is not a condition inflicted or imposed upon us by someone or something else.

In the grand division of all of God’s creations, there are things to act and things to be acted upon (see 2 Nephi 2:13–14). As sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father, we have been blessed with the gift of moral agency, the capacity for independent action and choice. Endowed with agency, you and I are agents, and we primarily are to act and not just be acted upon. To believe that someone or something can make us feel offended, angry, hurt, or bitter diminishes our moral agency and transforms us into objects to be acted upon. As agents, however, you and I have the power to act and to choose how we will respond to an offensive or hurtful situation.

You and I cannot control the intentions or behavior of other people. However, we do determine how we will act. Please remember that you and I are agents endowed with moral agency, and we can choose not to be offended.

My friend was lucky. She and her sister had time to reconcile and be friends and true sisters again. Others have not been so lucky. Some have passed on before taking advantage of the opportunity to forgive and be forgiven. For every happy ending, there is a sad one. For every sister or brother that chooses to forgive the offense, there is one that refuses to accept an apology.

I know what it feels like to be offended. There were even times when I've felt justified in my indignation. I've felt the burden of this weight on my shoulders when I've chosen to hang on to such feelings. On the other hand, I've also felt the blessed peace that comes when I chose to forgive the offense. Without fail, the load of anger and bitterness I've carried around is immediately lifted and taken away from me.

I hope that the next time I'm confronted with a potentially offensive situation I will remember two things: 1) I can choose not to be offended, and 2) I can choose to forgive and ask for forgiveness.

As a new member, people who don’t understand your new religion may ask if you’ve been born again. For some, that means no more than saying you’ve accepted Christ as your Savior, which you most certainly have. It’s one of the questions you’re asked when you are interviewed for baptism. However, there is more to being born again than making a statement.

President David O. McKay, said, “No man can sincerely resolve to apply in his daily life the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth without sensing a change in his own nature. The phrase ‘born again’ has a deeper significance than many people attach to it. This changed feeling may be indescribable, but it is real.” (In Conference Report, Apr. 1962, p. 7.)

How can you be truly born again, from an LDS perspective? This is a process that takes time. It’s not a single moment’s action, but a lifetime of hard work and faith-growing. David R. Bednar, a general authority, compared the process to that of making pickles. He says that when his mother made pickles, the process could not be hurried and steps couldn’t be skipped. As 2 Corinthians 5:17 states: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” To become a completely new person, with all old things passed away suggests an intense and sometimes challenging, lifelong process.
Elder Bednar offers these steps to becoming born again:

The process begins with immersing and saturating.

A mere sampling of the gospel simply won’t do. It won’t work to go to church on Sunday and forget all about your religion until the next Sunday. It won’t work to go through the motions without any real commitment or change of heart. You must begin with the first principles and ordinances of the gospel: faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism by immersion (again an all-the-way process, not a mere sprinkling) and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Elder Bednar explains:

“And after we come out of the waters of baptism, our souls need to be continuously immersed in and saturated with the truth and the light of the Savior’s gospel. Sporadic and shallow dipping in the doctrine of Christ and partial participation in His restored Church cannot produce the spiritual transformation that enables us to walk in a newness of life. Rather, fidelity to covenants, constancy of commitment, and offering our whole soul unto God are required if we are to receive the blessings of eternity.”

Only when the gospel is so completely a part of our lives, only when the Savior is so important to us that we can feel His presence with us every moment, are we really immersed in the gospel. Make the commitment and start building a life with the Savior in the center, not on the fringes.

The waters of baptism purify us so we start out our new journey free of whatever sins we committed in the past. Now that we have been given a fresh start, we can use the Holy Ghost to guide us and to help us avoid future sin. This is a daily process, and one that takes our full concentration and commitment. How hard we work at this depends on how great our faith and commitment to the Lord are. Our actions are one way we show Heavenly Father and the Savior how much we love them and want to return to them. Elder Bednar explains:

“The Holy Spirit of Promise is the ratifying power of the Holy Ghost. When sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise, an ordinance, vow, or covenant is binding on earth and in heaven. (See D&C 132:7.) Receiving this “stamp of approval” from the Holy Ghost is the result of faithfulness, integrity, and steadfastness in honoring gospel covenants “in [the] process of time” (Moses 7:21). However, this sealing can be forfeited through unrighteousness and transgression.”

When we complete the first principles and ordinances of the gospel, and covenant to devote our lives to the service of God, we are on the path to being born again. Our life of service is our gift to the Father who gave us everything. Being born again is a lifelong gift, one that is offered through work, sacrifice, faith, and ultimately, joy.
To read the complete talk, visit LDS.org:

Ye Must be Born Again by David A. Bednar, Ensign, May 2007, 19–22

I am an avid reader. When left uninterrupted I can consume a 500+ page book in less than a day. Of course that’s when I’m reading for entertainment. When it comes to reading for knowledge, the process is considerably slower. This doesn’t stop me from reading for knowledge, however, as I’m passionate when it comes to learning new things. Whether it has to do with recent discoveries about allergy elimination, the latest research in where the Book of Mormon (another Testament of Jesus Christ) may have taken place, or what colors help me look my best, I try to find as many books or articles as I can lay my hands on.

Needless to say, the written word is invaluable to me, as well as millions of others out there in the world. We are not the only ones who treasure a written record.

From the time of Adam and Eve a record has been kept, according to the laws and dictates of the Lord. Many men over the years have been commanded to keep a record. Why?

There are two distinct stories in the Book of Mormon that work to explain just one of the reasons.

At the time of the prophet Jeremiah, a righteous man by the name of Lehi was prompted to take his family out of the land of Jerusalem and journey to a place where the Lord would lead them. After traveling for a few days Lehi was instructed to have his four grown sons return to Jerusalem to retrieve something they would need: the Brass Plates. These plates were the most current record available of the Lord’s Church (think Genesis and go on from there).

This commandment was not to be taken lightly. Going back to Jerusalem was perilous enough, as Lehi had made a lot of enemies by preaching to them of their wickedness and the need to repent. Add to that the man who held the plates and you had a dangerous mixture. This man was called Laban. He was greedy and unscrupulous, and cared more for the wealth and prestige the plates accorded him than the words written upon them. It was only with his death that the plates were retrieved.

Why did the Lord ask Lehi to risk his four sons for what may seem like a trivial thing? We are given the answer by Nephi, one of those sons.

“And behold, it is wisdom in God that we should obtain these records, that we may preserve unto our children the language of our fathers; And also that we may preserve unto them the words which have been spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets, which have been delivered unto them by the Spirit and power of God, since the world began, even down unto this present time” (1 Nephi 3:19-20).

Neither Lehi nor his family knew the Lord had a great journey for them, one that would require a large boat to take them across the ocean to a “promised land” (1 Nephi 2:20). Because they were being taken away from their native land, they needed the pure and undefiled language of the Lord and His prophets.

In stark contrast we have an accounting of a group of people called the Mulekites. At the time Zedekiah, king of Judah, was taken captive into Babylon, a group was guided to the promised land as well, only they had no written record of the Lord’s Church and laws. What sort of a difference could this have made?

“They had had many wars and serious contentions, and had fallen by the sword from time to time; and their language had become corrupted; and they had brought no records with them; and they denied the being of their Creator” (Omni 1:17).

Eventually the paths of these two people crossed. Do you know what the Mulekites did when they discovered the Nephites (righteous descendants of Lehi) had the brass plates? They rejoiced! They were open to being taught the language of the Nephites in an effort to begin living righteously. As this happened the Mulekites found themselves being blessed abundantly, and living in peace.

The written word is precious beyond measure, but the record we have beginning in Genesis on down through the present day is the greatest treasure in this world. The New Testament of the Bible fulfills the laws set up in the Old Testament. The Book of Mormon, a record of those brought by the Lord here to the Americas, complements what is written in the Holy Bible.

We must count ourselves blessed to have a record of the Lord’s ways: of why they work and what happens when we turn away from them. It is vitally important to study the scriptures so that we might learn from the experiences of those who have come before us in the hopes that we can avoid the same danger.

As a young teenager I use to hate driving any where with my mother. The reason? She followed the rules of the road to a “T” and this annoyed me. As I sat and watched everyone pass us by I’d tell her that we needed to go faster. She would point to her speedometer (usually about 5 miles under the speed limit) and begin quoting the Twelfth Article of Faith to me.

“We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers and magistrates in obeying, honoring and sustaining the law”.

It was very frustrating to me for two reasons. First, she was quoting scripture to me. Second, because she was right. I wanted nothing more than to fit in and she wanted nothing more than to obey God and that included obeying the laws of the land as well.

It’s really very small and simple, but how many of us are actually thinking about being a disciple of Christ when we are late for an appointment? Often we think of the large and dramatic things we give up of ourselves as we work to become His disciples. There are also some very small things that many of us overlook either because they don’t stand out in the crowd or because they don’t fit with the daily care of the world we so often get caught up in. Still, learning to be obedient in little things makes it easier to be obedient in larger things.

I was thinking of this while I sat in Sacrament meeting yesterday. I was pondering how my life was conforming to Christ’s example and what I needed to improve when my eyes landed on the hymnal in front of me. It was resting in the wooden pocket designed for it on the back of the pew in front of me. The problem was it was sitting in the pocket the wrong way. It was a very little thing that I hadn’t even thought of when I’d deposited the book there. I wasn’t thinking, I was following a previously established habit. But when I had a moment to think of ways I could improve my obedience for the coming week, I suddenly remembered. I remembered the bishop had recently asked us to place our hymnals on their spine to preserve them for a little longer. Doing this would reduce the pulling and stress on the cover and spine and keep it from tearing when we needed many more years of use from them. I had completely forgotten to obey a very small and simple request from one of the Lord’s servants.

My resolve for that Sacrament meeting was to notice more of the little things I can be more obedient in. It’s the way of the disciple.