Lesson Summary: February 10, 2013

Chapter 3: Lifelong Conversion: Continuing to Advance in the Principles of Truth
Taught by Aimee Roylance

“Our religion should be incorporated within ourselves, a part of our being that cannot be laid off.”

President Lorenzo snow joined the church as "a matter of reason. I was perfectly satisfied that I had done what was wisdom for me to do under the circumstances." He later yearned for a manifestation of the Holy Ghost and relates the following. " I had been accustomed, at the close of the day, to retire for secret prayer to a grove, a short distance from my lodgings, but at this time I felt no inclination to do so." He decide to anyways and received a powerful manifestation "O, the joy and happiness I felt! No language can describe the instantaneous transition from a dense cloud of mental and spiritual darkness into a refulgence of light and knowledge, as it was at that time imparted to my understanding. I then received a perfect knowledge that God lives, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and of the restoration of the Holy Priesthood, and the fulness of the gospel."

"Every man has got to learn to stand upon his own knowledge; he cannot depend upon his neighbor; every man must be independent; he must depend upon his God for himself entirely. It depends upon himself to see if he will stem the tide of trouble and overcome the impediments that are strewn in the pathway of life to prevent his progress. A man can get information by the operations of the Holy Spirit, and he approaches to God and increases in his faith in proportion as he is diligent.11"

When we are young sometimes we lean on our parents testimony. Their faith and goodness and our faith in them can be a great starting point, but we must eventually stand alone in our testimony.

"There is a danger of our being satisfied with a superficial advancement,with merely advancing on the surface. We talk of walking in the light of the Spirit and of feeling it upon us, but do we do these things? We ought to dig deep into the things of God, lay our foundation upon the rock, until we come to that water which shall be in us an everlasting fountain of eternal life.14"
Sometimes we really need to dig deep, in those times of trial and struggle, are we sufficiently anchored. When the storm comes it's too late to pour the foundation it needs to hold fast.
Each of us needs a unique foundation for our circumstances, but we each need to be anchored securely to the Savior and his teachings.

It takes time to be converted to the Lord, just as it takes time to pickle a cucumber.
"I will [present a] figure in regard to bringing about and getting this spirit in us, and digging deep that we in the time of storm, may not be driven off. Place a cucumber in a barrel of vinegar and there is but little effect produced upon it the first hour, nor in the first 12 hours. Examine it and you will find that the effect produced is merely upon the rind, for it requires a longer time to pickle it. A person’s being baptized into this church has an effect upon him, but not the effect to pickle him immediately. It does not establish the law of right and of duty in him during the first 12 or 24 hours; he must remain in the church, like the cucumber in the vinegar, until he becomes saturated with the right spirit,until he becomes pickled in ‘Mormonism,’ in the law of God; we have got to have those things incorporated in our systems."