Divine Inheritance

This past week in my Doctrine and Covenants class we talked a lot about exaltation and what it means to receive it. Exaltation is different than salvation and eternal life. While everyone can receive salvation from their sins and be resurrected to an eternal being, exaltation takes you even further. Everyone in this life makes mistakes--with the exception of Jesus Christ--and with those mistakes we lost our divine inheritance. Jesus, being the firstborn and only begotten son of our Heavenly Father, is really the only one who ever had full rights to exaltation. When we become members of the church and remain faithful and persevere, striving to become perfect, we can become like adopted sons and daughters of Christ and enter into the "Church of the Firstborn" where we become "partakers of the glory of the same that I have" and essentially are the firstborn. Through Christ's atonement we can actually receive a higher degree of glory than we would have before the fall of Adam. Without the atonement Christ alone would hold the role of the firstborn and we would be excluded from the blessings of exaltation. God the Father couldn't die for us and give us this gift on his own because he is an immortal exalted being already. Christ took on the role of our savior and for that His father says of him, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." A Greek translation of this sentiment is "This is my Son, my Son whom I lovest." He loves His son and is so well pleased in Him because of the love He shows for us in doing what His father couldn't--of course, on top of the great love He already had for His Son. With this divine action, we can all receive exaltation and our divine inheritance.

Another Blog Assignment

I am taking another religion class this semester from the professor I took New Testament from last semester. This time it's Doctrine and Covenants but we still have the blogging assignment so I will once again be writing blogs for a religion class. I gained a lot from this experience last semester and, while I do not like writing in general, am looking forward to writing them again.

But other than that piece of information, here's a few updates on my boring life: This past week we celebrated four family birthdays--Kami, Shayla, David, and Alexis' birthdays. It was great! For Kami's birthday we did a little bit of pampering and I got my first pedicure!! It was wonderful!!!! It comes highly recommended. We finalized our dates for our annual St. George parade of homes trip! We are going on Febuary 12th-16th and I am sooo excited!!! The only problem we didn't realize was going to be a problem is that it's the same weekend as our Stake Conference. Hopefully my mom can find someone to take notes for her so she doesn't miss the messages! Me and Kami also found out that we have some major kid-proofing to do in our bedroom. We had one of the kids she nannies take a nap in our room and he ripped the covers of some of my favorite books and threw the contents of my jewelery box all over the room--along with some other things that got messed up. Anyone who knows me knows that my books are some of my favorite things. My brothers David and McKay especially know this because they have returned books to me with the covers worn out a little or with some of the pages a little dirty and they know how mad I got at them. I was so mad I almost cried when I walked in and saw the ruined books. I began the task yesterday of taping them back together as seamlessly as possible since I can't replace them but they still are not looking too great. (You can tell I have a strong opinion on something if I keep going on and on about it--especially if it's something that most people wouldn't consider that big of deal.)

On a happier note I love my new job!!! Given my love of books it's not surprising. I work at the circulation desk and the LRC desk. The circulation desk is where people check out books and the LRC desk is where people go if they need to check out a movie or CD or something--they're kept behind the desk so we have to get them for the people who need them. I love it!!! I just finished the library new employee training so I've already got a 10 cent raise!! The pay wasn't that great to begin with and it still is less than I was getting doing early-morning custodial last year but the other benefits of the job definitely make up for that in my opinion!! At least this job has something to do with what I want to do for my future career.