Category: Your Friends in the Gospel

Since I have been asking my guests to share their story, I figured that I tell mine.

I tell my story from my eternal perspective. The eternal influences that I have participated in my obtaining the preparatory priesthood called after Aaron, went on a mission to Jamaica, became a temple ordinance worker, and preaching the gospel through teaching primary lessons and the “Your Friends in the Gospel” podcast.

I finally recorded my Wisdom talk about how to have a balanced life. I shared how the prophet Joseph Smith is an example of a balanced life. I encourage the practice of self-awareness to not neglect one’s eternal spiritual.

Today I am finally going to tell the speech that I have been saying that I intend to do. It is a perspective on balancing ones life.
About six month ago, I felt the affects of negligence on my family. It is interesting how one can’t just expect life to be stable because individual’s lives are consistent. A consistent life doesn’t mean that the person’s life is stable or balanced. Negligence is destructive, and it will be discovered or be revealed eventually. When the destruction becomes apparent and one’s life appears to be falling, recovery therefrom requires a miracle.
My message is to balance your life by practicing self-awareness. If you are neglecting something or someone in your life, you need to change your daily decisions to make your life more balanced.
I am not saying that I am an example of a perfectly balanced life, but I would like to say that Heavenly Father will bless you and your family. If you seek his help by prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, he can help you recover from the destruction or possible destruction of your life and family. My life has become more stable in the past few months due to the miracle and changing my life to not neglect the individual that keeps my life whole.
I would like to review the life of the prophet Joseph Smith, who restored the Gospel of Jesus Christ in its fullness in the Latter-days and established the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as an example of self-awareness and a balanced life. When he was a young teenager, he lives in the early 1800s. He could not settle with man’s interpretation of the word of God. He knew that only by practicing the complete truth of the word of God, living them to his best effort, he would not be neglecting his eternal soul. He researched diligently among the sects of religion to determine where he could find the true interpretation of the word of God in the scriptures, for it is revealed by the Holy Ghost unto man. He was inspired to pray to Heavenly Father to know what church to join, and the one of the most miraculous events happened. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith in person, telling him the following as recorded in Joseph Smith – History in verse nineteen:

“I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: “they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof. He again forbade me to join with any of them; and many other things did he say unto me, which I cannot write at this time.”

He was eventually called to be prophet to restore the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Priesthood Authority of God, and the truth by the Gift and Power of the Holy Ghost.
Joseph Smith knew his salvation was not guaranteed, if he just worked to the best of his knowledge. A possible destruction of eternal soul was immanent. He would be negligent if he did not to live the truth in its fullness to have an assurance that his life is right with God.
We all need to practice self-awareness of our spirits. Do you have an assurance from God that your life is right with Him? Everyone is blessed with the light of Christ to know right and wrong. If you live the Gospel of Jesus Christ, you can resolve these feelings neglect of our eternal souls and obtain a hope of salvation. A verse comes to mind. It is Third Nephi chapter twelve verse six: “And blessed are all they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled with the Holy Ghost.”

It was so awesome to talk to and finally meet Tanner. He has actively followed my content and effort for about six years. He did not contribute to the Mormon YSA Blog Spot, but I am sure that I shared his content on the Single Adults’ Blogs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints media outlets. He blogs at uscore.blogspot.com.

I am so excited to engage the world, teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I hope that the communities of the Single Adults’ Blogs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Your Friends in the Gospel, which I established, will join me in sharing their examples and testimonies of Jesus Christ on the Wisdom, an Audio Community app. Find me there at joinwisdom.audio/alexander if you want me to share your Wisdom talk to our community.

I discuss the Book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price. I invite you read it, if you want to read the true translation of the first eight chapters of Genesis.

Your Friends in the Gospel reboot

Hi I am Alex Hicken. I would like to thank Brock Jon, a Talent Team member of the Wisdom Audio Community, for inviting me to bring the ‘Your Friends in the Gospel’ podcast to the Wisdom Audio Community. As with other hobbies, I actually quit podcasting at the beginning of this year because my life was not balanced. I was running a technology podcast, when I truly wanted to focus on the ‘Your Friends in the Gospel’ podcast. I have been planning to discuss how to establish balance in one’s life as a talk on the Wisdom App for a while now, but I am rebooting the ‘Your Friends in the Gospel’ podcast. The plan for this podcast episode is to discuss the following things: Rebooting the ‘Your Friends in the Gospel’ Podcast, re-engage the community that I have established, and conclude with a spiritual thought about “Come, Follow Me,” a home centered church supported curriculum of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The original purpose of the Your Friends in the Gospel community was to established a platform for Young Single Adults to share their example and testimony of Jesus Christ in a blog or vlog format about eight years ago. It was initially called the Mormon YSA Blog Spot. I was inspired to establish this blog because I listened to a program on the Latter-day Saints Channel, when they interviewed the founder of the Mormon Mommy Bloggers website.

I am no way saying that I have established a thriving community because within the eight years, we have less than 1900 followers, and the Facebook Group called Your Friends in the Gospel has less than 180 members. My networking and recruiting practices did not follow the policies of Facebook, and I was nearly banned; therefore, I shifted my focus from recruiting to sharing content of the Young Single Adults. The community is not thriving mainly because I got married; however, I am re-engaging these communities. 

When President Russel M. Nelson, the prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, announced a refocusing of the church’s marketing to being the Church of Jesus Christ rather than Mormon, I renamed the social media pages. It is now called Single Adults’ Blogs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Facebook, where the community is largest. 

I think that the Wisdom, an Audio Community App, has established itself to be a wonderful platform to re-invigorate the community of “Your Friends in the Gospel” because the app is a safe place to share your thoughts, example, and testimony of Jesus Christ in a public manner without persecution. I am no longer asking the community members to face the daunting task of composing an article. With the Wisdom app people can just ask to join the conversation with one click, and I can allow them to join. I invite you to join this conversation after I share my spiritual thought or start your own Wisdom Talk. You can share with me or the community after. The app is new, and it does not a direct message feature. My Twitter and LinkedIn pages are displayed on my Wisdom account page.

Now to my spiritual thought for the first episode of season two of ‘Your Friends in the Gospel’ podcast comes from the “Come, Follow me” curriculum because we are concluding reading the Book of Moses. The Book of Moses for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is peculiar because it is not the entire Book of Moses. All versions of the Bible have been translated by man, so they are imperfect and incomplete. I mentioned that Russel M. Nelson is the current prophet of the church today. Prophets, Seers, and Revelators from the beginning of time have been given a tool called the Urim and Thummin by God to translate unknown languages or see visions to help them in their purpose to be special witnesses of Jesus Christ. Joseph Smith Junior, the founding prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, translated the lost language of reformed Egyptian and the Book of Mormon by faith in Jesus Christ to reveal to him in English the meaning of the symbols of the language. The Book of Mormon is an abridgment of books of prophets in the ancients Americas by a prophet historian named Mormon. 

Joseph was directed by God to re-translate the Bible, and he found that the first eight chapters of Genesis was composed much differently than what is found now; therefore, it was written and published separately in a book called the Pearl of Great Price. We do not have a official Joseph Smith Translation version of the Bible, but there are footnotes of the King James Version of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ publication of the Bible that reveal the true translation. I was discouraged from reading the some chapters of Genesis because it did not represent the writings of Moses how he intended it to be understood. Moses is a great writer. 

I want to express my gratitude for Heavenly Father for calling prophets again on Earth and revealing the truth of his word again. It is not only that we are learning the truth of word of God, but we are learning the true nature of God through his word because these ancient prophets truly communed with God. I intended to share some excerpts comparing the differences, and I could not find a good one, but I will share this verse of from the Book of Moses. It is the sixth verse of chapter one. It is a segment of Heavenly Father’s word to Moses in a vision. Heavenly Father said the following:

“And I have a work for thee, Moses, my son; and thou art in the ^asimilitude of mine ^bOnly ^cBegotten; and mine Only Begotten is and shall be the ^dSavior, for he is full of ^egrace and ^ftruth; but there is ^gno God beside me, and all things are present with me, for I ^hknow them all.”

In this verse Heavenly Father reveals his relationship to man as all mankind are his children. He also testifies that Jesus Christ is and shall be the Savior, who is full of grace and truth. 

The most used verse of the Book of Moses is the thirty-ninth verse of chapter one: “For behold, this is my work and my glory – to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” Jesus Christ has overcome death, and every human will be resurrected and immortal. Eternal life is Heavenly Father’s true goal of humanity. It is not a given, where everyone will be resurrected. The literature of Pearl of Great Price reveals that our first estate of immortality is granted because we chose to follow the plan of salvation when we lived with God as spirits. Our second estate is eternal life, and we are still working today to prove our choice in mortality. Eternal life is life with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ in their Kingdom of Glory. They want to share their kingdom and glory with us because they love us and want us to enjoy their fulness of joy and happiness. Our purpose on earth is to prepare to meet God. The Gospel is Jesus Christ is the way to return to live with our Heavenly Father. This is what we will be discussing on the ‘Your Friends in the Gospel’ podcast.