Peter was the first apostle Jesus chose. He had so many people to choose from, but he chose Peter first. Right away, that tells you something about Peter. Peter was the first to offer some important testimonies that Jesus was the Christ, even at the times when other people didn’t seem to understand who He was. Peter tried to defend Jesus against the people who came to arrest Him by cutting off the ear of one of them. Jesus made him stop and told him not to interfere because this had to be done, but either way, we could see how much Peter loved him and how prepared he was to risk his life for the Savior. It’s pretty risky to attack someone when you’re surrounded by soldiers.

When Jesus was gone, Peter was in charge. He’d only been a member of the Church for three years, and he was in charge of the whole thing. That must have been scary. Jesus had been different—not just an ordinary church president. There wasn’t an exact model for Peter to follow. Most people still didn’t understand the gospel very well and all the procedures weren’t in place—things changed from time to time. It was up to Peter to keep the little church running, spread it around the world, and settle all the arguments and try to fix the apostasies. He performed miracles and raised Tabitha from the dead.

That is a great bio for any leader. Still, too many articles about Peter don’t focus on those things. They focus on the mistakes: Peter lost faith while trying to walk on water and fell in. Peter denied Jesus three times. A lot of times we forget to notice what Peter did after he made a mistake–and what Jesus did.

We don’t know exactly what Peter thought about each of those times; we do know Jesus forgave him and told him that he, Peter, would be in charge of the church when Jesus died. Even though Jesus knew Peter would make mistakes, even knew the denials would happen, he didn’t take away Peter’s chosen destiny.

Peter repented. We read that after the denials, he went off and cried. We can be sure he repented during that time and did whatever he had to do to get back on track. And then what? Did he sit around feeling sorry for himself, deciding God would never love Him again, feeling he could never change? No, after he repented, he started over. When Jesus was gone, he called a meeting and got a new apostle called to replace Judas. He went out and did missionary work. He made executive decisions concerning how the church would run. He opened himself to revelation from God.

He moved on. God forgives us completely when we repent. We have a responsibility to forgive ourselves too. Otherwise, we’ll never be able to get God’s work done. The next time you make a mistake, repent and move on.

Lately I have been hyper-aware of the fact that the world has nothing to offer us for eternity. Let me describe what I mean by “the world” and by “eternity.” If you are not a Latter-day Saint, a little background might help you understand what I am trying to illustrate.

“The world” is a term that I like to use for pretty much everything we see in our world. It includes the fashion magazines showing me which hairstyles and types of clothing I should be wearing this season. It includes the latest and greatest entertainment technology. It includes the many commercials and ads that bombard me at every turn, trying to interest me in buying the newest car or getting plastic surgery to enhance my appearance.  The world is basically the realm of everything that is offered by the world and available for purchase with money.

We have all heard the old saying that when you die you can’t take anything with you. This is an appropriate segway into my description of what is eternal. Eternally we can only take a few things.

We can take all the knowledge that we have gained in this lifetime. We will also have the same personality and attitude when we cross over into the after-life. If we have addictions here, we will still have them there, but it will be embarrassing and frustrating, since we will not be able to actually fulfill those addictions and, with futility, we will try anyway.  We will also have all of our relationships that we have here on the earth. That is why it is crucial to make sure our relationships are wholesome and respectful.  Since everyone we meet on this earth will live for eternity, it would do us well to take care of our relationships.

Being here in this world gives all of us an opportunity to sift through what is good and what is pointless, what is helpful and what is wicked. We have different situations we must endure and a plethora of decisions to make all along the way. Bad things do happen to good people, and what we do with those things is our test. It is also our opportunity to grow and become someone better than we were before that happened. If we mess up the first time around, Jesus Christ, our advocate with God Almighty, our Father in Heaven, has provided a way for us to change our ways and to get it right the next time.

If we live only in “the world,” we miss out on some of the greatest epiphanies that would have been ours if we had given some time and thought to our spiritual self and our spiritual well-being.   An “epiphany” is a sudden realization that changes the way we look at things, and many such moments of enlightenment come directly from God.

It does seem a little overwhelming that the God of heaven and earth is aware of me as an individual. Sometimes I just want to ignore that fact and bury myself in my work or in playing video games. I mean, for me to think that the same eternal and omnipotent God who created Cleopatra and Socrates and the dinosaurs and an unlimited amount of great leaders in history, also created me and knows me by name is just a bit over the top. He knew me before I was born. He knows me now. He knows all the stupid mistakes I have made. He knows what I am going to do next. He knows I am writing this article. He knows how and when I am going to die. He knows if I have love in my heart for my fellow man. When I kneel to pray to this God, the father of Jesus, my Heavenly Father, who knows everything about me (and you), I sometimes don’t know what to say. I figure I am wasting His time and mine because He already knows what I am going to say.

Am I going to ask for a new car or a good plastic surgeon? Should I ask for a lot of money to fall into my lap so I can buy a big house or a boat?  Do those things really matter when I am talking to the most illustrious of all beings in the Universe as we know it?

And here’s what I know to be true: I know that He hears my prayers. A reverent awe comes over me, as I recollect the many prayers which He has answered.  I have had many prayers answered that could not have been coincidence. I also know that when seemingly bad things have happened in my life, there was a reason for them. I know, in retrospect, that I grew from those experiences, even though at the time they were very hard to endure. The other day my sister said to me, “You seem very peaceful.” I think it is because I am realizing that most of what I normally worry about in this world is insignificant when I consider eternity and my eternal existence. I am learning to live with me and what I will take with me, when it is my time to meet God face to face.  I don’t think it will be very soon. I am just starting to get it.

So, when I say that the world has nothing to offer us for eternity, I mean that there is a bigger picture, if only we can let ourselves recognize God in our lives. He does love us. He does know us. And I saw a billboard by the side of the road last week that said “When we die, we will see God.” That’s all it said. What a great reminder that He is there for us and we will see Him again! How much it will make our lives more robust and full, if we can start to “see” that God is there for us and that the things of this world have little value in the long run, eternally.

Mormons turn to God for comfort and hope.

One comment made in most reviews is that the missionaries arrive and see all the poverty and hardship the people face. They “realize” all their knowledge and training are useless against this situation. Any person who believes in God and Jesus Christ knows this is not true.

There are several problems with the attitude that faith in God can’t solve the serious problems of the world, or that a church can’t make a huge difference in the world. The first is that faith brings hope and can also bring about important changes in a person’s life that help them overcome their trials. The second is that churches themselves—not just the Mormons, but many churches—spend a great deal of time and money helping people in struggling nations to improve their lives. They also spend time and money improving conditions for the villages as a whole.

Let’s start with the first problem. As a teenager, you have to make a lot of tough decisions and handle some serious problems. If you believe in God and/or Jesus Christ, you know how much that faith helps you. It can comfort you when you’re scared, give you the courage to do something hard, and get you through the really bad days. When you have a decision to make you can ask God to help you make it so you have advice from the only source of complete truth. If you need someone to talk to, you know God is always right there, ready to listen.

If you don’t believe in God yet, this may be harder for you to understand. A teenager who believes in God sees Him as her loving Father in Heaven, someone who loves her unconditionally and is always there for her. Unconditional love doesn’t mean God gives her permission to do anything she wants to do. Any parent knows that is the worst thing you can do for your children. Good parents—and God is the best parent—set high standards for their children and then put rewards and consequences in place to help the child learn to keep those standards. God is like that.

At the same time, though, He understands that people will make mistakes in their lives. He put into place ways to move past all them by sincerely repenting—not just going through the motions but being truly heartbroken that we have let God and ourselves down and trying to undo the damage as best we can.

It’s comforting to have guidelines and standards. Teens who don’t often feel overwhelmed. While a lot of freedom sounds good in theory, in reality it is exhausting. Not only do you constantly have to stop and figure out what is right or wrong in every single situation, you end up suffering the consequences of bad choices much more often than necessary. While we do learn from our mistakes, who wants to make thousands of mistakes a day and deal with all those consequences? God knows how to create a balance between structure and freedom and how to keep us safe while still letting us learn and grow. We just have to pay attention to what He is teaching us.

So, how can that help a person who lives in a really difficult situation, who maybe doesn’t’ quite have enough to eat or who lives in a dangerous or minimal home—or no home at all? First, they can know God has a plan for every one of us—a general plan that covers everyone and a personal plan just for us. Our plan is designed to let us learn exactly what we need to learn. Everyone has trials and it might seem like some have more than others, but every trial, even though not caused by God, is allowed because it helps us—if we use it correctly—to become everything God knows we can be. Our trials are personalized to our needs, which is why we don’t all have the same trials. God loves us the same, but He knows we are not clones. We are individuals with different needs.

So, believing in God gives us a reason to get through our trials with faith, courage, and hope. It can tell us we matter, even if the world doesn’t, and can motivate us to improve our situations.

Mormons offer a lot of help to their members who choose to take advantage of them. This help can even make it possible to escape poverty. For instance, they have a free literacy program so people can learn to read and write. We all know how important that is for getting out of poverty. There are classes on managing your money, no matter how little you have, preparing for times when you don’t have enough food or money, parenting classes, gardening classes…if you need to learn it, someone at church will be happy to teach it to you. In developing countries, older retired people, called Senior Missionaries, are often sent in to help teach people the skills they want so they can improve their lives.

Jesus talked a great deal about poverty and hope. He took his gospel to the poor and the suffering–shouldn’t we?

There is one other way Mormons, like many other faith groups, help in places like Uganda. We’ll learn about that next time.

Ammon, a missionary, was serving the king for a while as a shepherd. At the same time, Abish worked at the castle as well. She had converted to Christianity after her father had a vision, but no one else in her community or in that castle (or whatever the king lived in) was Christian. It wasn’t like it is today, so she had to keep quiet about her beliefs.

It can be pretty hard to live a good Christian life when you have friends and family around you who share your beliefs. It is even harder when you’re doing it all alone, privately and without anyone to encourage you. She couldn’t even go to church to get a dose of strength each week. She wouldn’t have had scriptures to read either. Her religion was whatever was in her head. In spite of all of that, she held on to her testimony and kept growing it stronger and stronger.

Ammon saved the king’s flocks from enemy attackers and the king was so impressed he asked to see Ammon. Ammon, being the good missionary he was, managed to work things so the king let him teach the gospel. The Holy Ghost became so strong in the room during this unexpected missionary lesson that the king passed out. He stayed unconscious for several days and in fact, most people thought he was dead. Only his wife, who knew him best, believed he was still alive. She called Ammon to come see her and she told him she was sure he was still alive because he didn’t stink yet. She asked Ammon to check it out.

Ammon went to the king and he agreed. The king was not dead. He prophesied that the king would, in fact, wake up the next day and then he asked the queen if she believed him. She said she did. She hadn’t been a Christian (or what would be known as a Christian someday), but at that moment she gained a testimony of prophets and of God. Ammon praised her for this. Again, the Holy Spirit became really, really strong. This time the queen and even Ammon passed out. (Passing out is not a normal reaction to feeling the Holy Spirit. These were unusual circumstances.)

Now we get to Abish and her moment of fame—the decision that put her in the history book. Remember, Abish already believed in God. She knew the reason people were passing out was because of the power of the Holy Ghost, which she, as a believer, could feel. She sensed that miracles were about to happen. Because she had so much faith, she wanted other people to see the miracles. This was a great moment. It might convert other people!

She ran and spread the word to everyone she could find. But things didn’t go quite the way she planned. People did gather but they started yelling nasty things about Ammon, calling him a Nephite monster. Calling people names is a popular way to get people to ignore truth or to think about an issue and it was as common then as it is now.

Abish was heartbroken. She cried, hating that they were calling this good man of God names and that they were there to do it because of her. She went to the queen and took her hand, hoping the queen would wake up. This worked. The queen, filled with her new testimony, called on Jesus Christ to have mercy on her wicked people. Then she took her husband’s hand and woke him up also. The king, a brand new convert, began to teach his people what Ammon had taught him.

Now Abish was getting her miracle. Some of the people—not all, but some—stopped yelling and actually listened. Of course, some people didn’t want to be converted and they left, but the others stayed and some were converted. The newly converted people also began to teach the gospel. Those who were converted asked to be baptized.

Many people were converted that day, all because a young servant girl had kept her testimony all those years when it wasn’t easy and because she had enough faith to bring people to witness the miracles and hear the preaching. Not many people pay attention to Abish. She’s a quiet hero, not quite as noticeable as Ammon, but none of the people would have been converted if it hadn’t been for Abish, a quiet hero.

In what ways are you a quiet hero for Jesus Christ?

Read the story of Abish in the Book of Mormon.

David killed Goliath armed only with a slingshot and faith.

Next in our series of articles on teens who changed the world, we’re talking about David and Goliath. Saul was the king of God’s people and he had a huge problem—literally. His giant problem was a huge Philistine named Goliath. Everyone was terrified of him. Goliath, according to the Bible, was six cubits and a span, which equals about 9 feet nine inches. That is one scary opponent! In those days, there was a race of people called Anakims who were very tall. Most of them got destroyed when Joshua and his people conquered Cannan, but there were still some left in Goliath’s town and Saul was the unlucky king who had those Philistines mad at him.

One way battles were fought in those days was for each army to choose a champion. The champions would fight each other, one-on-one, to decide which side won the battle. Of course, the Philistines chose Goliath, and no one in Saul’s army wanted to go up against him.

While this big brave army was busy being scared and trying to get out of defending the Lord’s army, a teenager named David showed up to bring lunch to his brothers. He was the king’s armor bearer, but he was allowed to go home sometimes, something the soldiers couldn’t do. When he arrived, he found the army all in an uproar over having to fight Goliath. Goliath had been taunting them for forty days, daring them to choose a champion, promising his people would be their servants if they won (but of course, he was sure they wouldn’t win.) Most likely, seeing how long it was taking the army to find someone willing to take on Goliath just built his confidence even more. Goliath was an arrogant giant and getting more so.

Saul was getting a little desperate. He promised that whoever went up against Goliath would be given great riches, could marry his daughter, and even cause his family to be free in Israel. Even with all those promises, no one was interested.

David was talking to his brothers when Goliath showed up and issued his challenge one more time. Now David got mad. He asked just who Goliath thought he was, trying to take on God’s army.

David’s older brother got mad at David, suggesting his younger brother ought to go back home and tend his sheep instead of running around wanting to watch the armies. But David had bigger plans than just watching the army. If no one else would fight Goliath, he, a teenager and a shepherd, would just have to do it himself.

Of course, David’s brother was pretty upset by that, reminding David he was just a kid and Goliath was an experienced solder. But David argued that he had at least a little experience. Once, while taking care of his sheep, a lion and a bear came and nabbed a sheep. David rescued the lamb and when the lion and bear attacked, he killed them. David announced he would do to the Philistine exactly what he’d done to the lion and bear, because Goliath was defying God’s army (and therefore God.) He said God would protect him now in the same way God had protected David against the bear and lion.

Saul told David to go ahead and give it a try. What choice did he have, really? No one else was willing to do it. The king gave David his own armor to use and also provided him with a brass helmet and a coat of mail. But David protested he’d never used those things before. He preferred weapons he had experience with, so  he took off the armor and put down the sword. Instead, he found five smooth stones and put them in his bag. He picked up his sling and was ready to go. As a shepherd, he understood slings, which shepherds used to keep animals away from the sheep. Still, to most people, it seemed like a crazy idea to go after a giant soldier with a shepherd’s sling and a few rocks.

When Goliath saw a young boy had been sent to fight him, he laughed. He started making fun of David and even David’s God. David didn’t let the mocking get to him. He knew who he was. He trusted his skills and he trusted God. He responded:

“45 Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.

46 This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.

47 And all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hands (1 Samuel 17).

David wasn’t afraid because he knew God was on his side and Goliath, who had defied God, could not call on God for help. So David confidently approached Goliath and killed him with the very first stone, which frightened the Philistines so badly they ran away.

What made David so brave? He was confident because he had prepared for this moment—even though he hadn’t known it was coming—by learning to use his slingshot well. He had also prepared by developing a powerful faith in God. He had taken the time to learn for sure that he was a member of God’s church and to develop his testimony to the point that he had no doubt he would be helped and protected. Finally, he didn’t go into battle for his own glory and honor. He was defending God against the mocking of someone who hated God’s people.

Both his temporal and his spiritual preparation came together to help David change the world when he was only a teenager. This moment would make him famous, but he was going to learn that being famous wasn’t everything he might have thought it would be. The next post will talk about one of the greatest friendship stories in the history of the world—and more danger for David.

The first of the four items the author, Kenda Creasy Dean says is that teenagers need to know exactly what their religion expects from them and they need to be taught this by their parents and by their church community.

Teenagers in the survey mostly believed the purpose of life was to feel good about yourself and to be happy. The author suggests this feel-good doctrine isn’t what the Bible teaches and it isn’t enough to make teens committed to their religions.

In the last article, I mentioned Mormon teens attend a religion class every day. This class is one thing the author thinks the Mormons are doing right. By the time a teenager spends three hours in church on Sunday, forty minutes or so in a weekday religion class, and a few hours on weekends and one weeknight a month, they have a pretty good idea of what their religion teaches them

But the church meetings are only meant to help the parents out. It’s the parents, in a Mormon family, that have the main responsibility for teaching religion to their children. How do they do this?

Mormon families get together one night a week for Family Home Evening. They don’t generally invite friends or anyone else—it’s just a special time for the family. If you live in a busy family with parents who are always in a hurry, you might be able to appreciate how special it makes kids and teens feel when their parents put aside everything else one night a week, just for them. The evening is a combination of fun and learning. They usually have a prayer, a song, and family business. Then they have a lesson followed by games and treats. Everyone helps plan and carry out the evening, with each family member having a job. The jobs are usually rotated, so one week you might be teaching the lesson (yes, you’d get to teach your parents things and they’d have to listen as long as you followed the rules) and the next you might be baking the cookies for refreshments. Other weeks you might lead the music, conduct the meeting, or say the prayer.

The lesson is on some part of the family’s religious beliefs. Since even kids are teaching these lessons, everyone gets a chance to learn from everyone else. Parents get a chance at every lesson to explain what they believe and how they feel—but so do the kids. This way the parents understand what the kids believe and can help them correct or strengthen their beliefs as needed. There are a lot of opinions you could collect about almost anything, but as you grow up, you’ll find your parents’ opinions matter the most.

Mormon parents also pray with their children. Mormon teens were 79 percent more likely to pray with their parents more often than just meal time. Mormons do pray at meals, but they also have both family and personal prayers every morning and every evening. They pray before family home evening, before leaving on vacation, when people are sick or worried, or any other time they feel a prayer is needed.

So, what all this shows is that the Mormons give their teenagers a lot of chances to find out what their religion believes. They give them the same information they give adults. The teens aren’t treated like they aren’t smart enough to understand the hard stuff. They’re taught the hard stuff.

Now that we know how Mormon teens learn what is expected from them, let’s find out what Mormons actually expect their teens to know and do.

You have to see this!