An e-mail?

I've decided to blog for my religion assignments because I can be a little more candid about what I think and the approach I took to fulfill the assignments.

Earlier this week my professor wrote my a personal e-mail in response to my last post, and honestly I was a little bit stunned as I know how much work professors have to do. The e-mail he wrote caused me to think (actually, he asked me to think about some pretty specific things and get back to him... yet again, a little bit of a shocker for me). Interestingly enough, I thought more about his e-mail than I did about the class. But then, as I started to tackle the Goliath amount of work for this week I was able to articulate some of the things I had been mulling over. It was honestly the first time I had felt something genuinely fulfilling come from a religion class at BYU-I or BYU. Sad, but true.

One of the things I've thought about has been how are we to do it all? How are we to maintain faith, a balanced life, worship properly, attend church, magnify our callings, support those around us, get good grades, have spiritual experience, earn a living, participate in church activities, maintain a house, and maintain a relationship with the Lord?

Some of the best advice I was given, and was reminded of last night while praying was found in Heleman 5:12. Anchor ourselves to Christ, and everything else will be okay. I guess that everything will be okay, even if others don't tend to think so. An Indian quote I heard recently really stood out to me "Things always turn out alright in the end. So if things are not alright, it's not yet the end."

And I guess that I could translate that to many aspects of my life. One, it's not the end of my religious education. Two, it's not the end of the world if I fail one religion class. Three, it's not the end of my life if I don't understand the New Testament in 6 weeks.

I guess what I found from this week of reflection was that God will always show you a way to do what you need to do. And if we're willing, he will give us a desire to do the things we need to do. I learned a little more about learning, a little more about faith, and a little more about endurance and hard work this week. And I guess that is essentially what the gospel is.