1. Building Christ Centered Relationships

2. Today’s Purpose To help establish/increase our awareness and need of involving Christ in our different relationships To start creating a personal/individual vision of who we are now, the kind of person we want to become, and how involving Christ will help us to achieve that vision. (Proverbs 29:18)

3. Journals Why keep one in this class?

4. Knowledge carefully recorded is knowledge available in a time of need. Spiritually sensitive information should be kept in a sacred place that communicates to the Lord how you treasure it. This practice enhances the likelihood of your receiving further light. Elder Richard G. Scott Quorum of the Twelve Apostles “Acquiring Spiritual Knowledge” Ensign, November 1993

5. Why Plants?

6. Relationships Self God, our Savior, and the Holy Ghost Friends Romantic/Dating Family (Now and Future)

7. Our Mission

8. But when we speak of those who are instruments in the hand of God, we are reminded that not all angels are from the other side of the veil. Some of them we walk with and talk with—here, now, every day. Some of them reside in our own neighborhoods. Some of them gave birth to us, and in my case, one of them consented to marry me. Indeed heaven never seems closer than when we see the love of God manifested in the kindness and devotion of people so good and so pure that angelic is the only word that comes to mind “The Ministry of Angels” Elder Jeffrey R. Holland Quorum of the Twelve Apostles Ensign, November 2008

9. Our mission on earth is designed to change us. It is designed to transform us. Happily we are not expected to endure or experience this mission alone. From the top of the heavens, our Heavenly Father and His Son have sent and continue to send their love and their blessing, not to mention their guidance when we seek it. Surely the ancients who foresaw our day, and the heavenly hosts, countless numbers of them, cheer us on, pray for us, empathize with our anguish, and find joy in all we accomplish, overcome, and endure. Clearly our Father and His Son have faith in our abilities-or They wouldn’t have sent us now. Thus, it is for us to keep ourselves clean, meaning pure and holy before Them, and to demonstrate by our actions and choices that we want to be part of the kingdom of God more than we want anything else. That is our charge and our quest. -From God Wants a Powerful People Sheri Dew

10. During the years of my life, I have gone to my knees with a humble spirit to the only place I could for help. I often went in agony of spirit, earnestly pleading with God to sustain me in the work I have come to appreciate more than life itself. I have, on occasion, felt the terrible aloneness of the wounds of the heart, of the sweet agony, the buffetings of Satan, and the encircling warm comfort of the Spirit of the Master. I have also felt the crushing burden, the self-doubts of inadequacy and unworthiness, the fleeting feeling of being forsaken, then of being reinforced an hundredfold. James E. Faust 1920-2007

11. I have climbed a spiritual Mount Sinai dozens of times seeking to communicate and to receive instructions. It has been as though I have struggled up an almost real Mount of Transfiguration and upon occasion felt great strength and power in the presence of the Divine. A special, sacred feeling has been a sustaining influence and often a close companion. Having such a relationship can unchain the divinity within us, and nothing can make a greater difference in our lives as we come to know and understand our divine relationship with God and His Beloved Son, our Master. “That We Might Know Thee” Ensign, Jan 1999 James E. Faust 1920-2007

12. Some Questions to Ponder What role do I personally have in my different relationships? What Covenants have I made with the Lord? Am I keeping all of those covenants? In what ways do our relationships change when Christ is centered in them? How firm is my grasp on the Iron Rod?

13. Our Father in Heaven&Jesus Christ our Savior

14. Oh, it is wonderful to know that our Heavenly Father loves us—even with all our flaws! His love is such that even should we give up on ourselves, He never will. We see ourselves in terms of yesterday and today. Our Heavenly Father sees us in terms of forever. Although we might settle for less, Heavenly Father won’t, for He sees us as the glorious beings we are capable of becoming. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of transformation. It takes us as men and women of the earth and refines us into men and women for the eternities. The means of this refinement is our Christ-like love. There is no pain it cannot soften, no bitterness it cannot remove, no hatred it cannot alter. Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin Quorum of the Twelve Apostles “The Ministry of Angels” Ensign, November 2008

15. Doctrine and Covenants 45:3-5 1 Nephi 21:15-16 Alma 34:14-18 Romans 8:35, 38-39 A Loving Savior

16. Who is it that whispers so subtly in our ear that a gift given to another somehow diminishes the blessings we have received? Who makes us feel that if God is smiling on another, then He surely must somehow be frowning on us? You and I both know who does this—it is the father of all lies. It is Lucifer, our common enemy, whose cry down through the corridors of time is always and to everyone, “Give me thine honor.” How can we overcome such a tendency so common in almost everyone? …start making our way back to the Father. We should do so with as much haste and humility as we can summon. Jeffrey R. Holland Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

17. Along the way we can count our many blessings and we can applaud the accomplishments of others. Best of all, we can serve others, the finest exercise for the heart ever prescribed. But finally these will not be enough. When we are lost, we can “come to ourselves,” but we may not always be able to “find ourselves,” and, worlds without end, we cannot “save ourselves.” Only the Father and His Only Begotten Son can do that. Salvation is in Them only. So we pray that They will help us, that They will “come out” to meet and embrace us and bring us into the feast They have prepared. “The Other Prodigal” Ensign May 2002 Jeffrey R. Holland Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

18. This Week’s Invitation Start bringing a notebook/journal to this class to record personal insights and inspirations (both in class and during the week) Think about the different relationships you are involved in. Start envisioning what those relationships would/could be like if Christ was more centered in them.