December 4th

https://www.mormon.org/christmas/in-25-ways-over-25-days/jesus-worshipped-his-father

"Jesus worshiped his father and so can you."

To show my gratitude for my Father in Heaven and to worship him, I did what I do every Sunday and I attended Church. Today was the first Sunday of the month which for Latter Day Saints means that the first hour of church is dedicated to sharing testimonies. Anyone can share and so to increase my worship of the Father I decided to share my testimony of the Gospel and the greatest gift he ever gave us, His son Jesus Christ.  

However, I wanted to do something more than my weekly worship routine.  My decision to go above and beyond began on Friday. I know that my church does not have a monopoly on good and so I decided to try and find the good in other faiths. I attended an event called "Meet the Muslims" at the Utah Islamic Center in Sandy, Utah.  It was an amazing event and I learned so much about their faith, but what struck me most was their dedication to their personal relationship with God. They pray five times a day and truly believe that they can have direct communication with Allah and that is something that I would like to apply in my life.

I also reflected on my experiences with the Seventh Day Adventist faith which I learned a lot about during the spring of 2015.  What I love most about that faith is their focus on music. I think hymns are a powerful way to worship God and they have a hymn book that consists of nearly 1000 hymns. It was an amazing example to me of worship through song and I hope that I can be more thoughtful during the hymns I sing at church.

I also had the amazing opportunity to call my dear friend Lizya. We talked about a lot of things but I wanted to hear her ways of worshiping God and I loved her answers. First she said that she finds time to spend with people with whom she can discuss matters of God, for example her mother. Then she said that to remember the creator, she likes to create. She worships God through her painting and art. I thought that was an amazingly profound answer and I hope to apply that principle in my life.

Lastly I opened it up to the Facebook community. I asked my friends to share with me how they worship God and I got a lot of amazing responses. Some include:

-Pray

-Study the scriptures

-Serve others

-Adopt a positive loving view towards God and not a feeling of fear

-Respect and admire our Heavenly Mother

-Share our testimony of Him and of the Gospel

-Count our blessings

-Make Him a priority in how we spend our time

Thank you so much to all those who helped me grow today. It was an awesome experience to try and go above and beyond my usual Sabbath worship and I hope to apply the things I learned today in my future worship practices.

I know that God has given me more than I can ever comprehend. It's impossible to repay Him, but just like a Christmas present for our parents, or a phone call expressing our love will never pay for all the food they bought us and all the money they spent on us, those things are appreciated by our parents and our efforts to worship God are appreciated by the perfect parent. We CAN serve Him, even if it will never come close to what He does and has done for us.

I hope we all seek to grow closer to our Father in Heaven.

#LIGHTtheWORLD

https://www.mormon.org/christmas/in-25-ways-over-25-days/jesus-worshipped-his-father