Hello, friends! It is good to be back here on Primarily Scripture. I am Cindy Young, and I'm going to start out with an apology today. I know that last week I didn't do a video, and this week's is late, and if you've been tracking the worksheets, I've been a little bit late in updating those as well. My apologies, I had surgery the recovery has taken a little bit longer than I expected. Everything's good, I'm feeling better every day. And, hopefully now I can keep up! So, anyway, because I missed last week, today's going to be a combination for two different weeks. And, because things have been crazy, I wasn't able to get a guest. So that being said, if you know a big kid who would like to be a guest on Primarily Scripture, shoot me an email PrimarilyScripture@gmail.com -I'd love to chat and see if it's a good fit. Okay. Worksheets. Let's talk about this. Last week we went over Helaman chapters 1 through 6, and then this week it's Helaman chapters 7 through 12. And there is so much pride in these chapters. So much. Do you know what pride is? We talk about it a lot in the church, and if you don't have a good understanding of it, then these chapters can feel a little bit confusing when we talk about the pride cycle. The world is going to define pride as thinking the best of yourself. The church defines it as thinking more of yourself than you do of God. So anything that is not perfectly righteous, can be considered prideful, which means I'm prideful and you are prideful. Not all the time, of course, but each of us occasionally, probably a tiny bit every day are going to be a little bit prideful. And so as we study these scriptures, I want you to be careful and to not think too much of, "well, those are the bad guys. And I'm like the good guys. And so this doesn't apply to me," because there's a lot that we can learn from the bad guys because we all are trying to repent and be like Jesus. So in this week's worksheet, there's an activity specifically for identifying the pride cycle. And it is in Helaman chapter 11, and it is this big, huge, long story of what happened, so I just picked out some of the pieces so that we could get the full story to fit on one worksheet. But real quick, let's look at what the pride cycle is. And it's on the worksheet for you to look at. Pride cycle is what we call it when people are humble. and blessed and then they get prideful and have many trials over and over again. So it's this round and round thing and probably talked about this before but it's always good to be reminded. So a person or a group of people will have all this prosperity, lots of blessings, they're comfortable and then they start to forget where their blessings come from. And then they start thinking, Oh, I'm so great. I'm awesome. They stop saying their prayers, little things like that creep in, and all of those are ways that we can be prideful. And because they're prideful, then they stop getting blessings. So then they move into the trials and suffering and hard times. And then because things are so hard, then they remember, and they start repenting, and being good again, and then they get blessed, and they're back into the prosperous part. So the key to remember, the part that makes them move from being blessed and we're way up here. down to their suffering is that they forget Heavenly Father. They forget Jesus Christ and they forget all those things that they're supposed to do. And then they move back to the top by remembering and repenting. And the whole title of this week's lesson is remember the Lord, that that is so important. I don't have time to get into much of it here, but I hope you'll go get this worksheet or with your family, talk about the pride cycle and talk about how important it is to remember Heavenly Father and how remembering makes the difference in that shift from whether you are blessed and happy or suffering and sad. That's super important. Okay. I want to show you a study tip that is probably the thing that I do the most often when I sit down to study my scriptures. And you'll find it on page three of the worksheet packet from last week. And this is Helaman chapter 5, verses 40 through 47. Nephi and Lehi had been preaching and then they were arrested and thrown in prison. And when the bad guys came to kill them, it looked like fire all around Nephi and Lehi. And then a big shadow of darkness covered everybody and everyone in the prison was scared. There was one person there who used to be a Nephite, and the Lamanites realized this, and they're like, what should we do? And Aminadab helps them to know what to do. And when they pray and exercise faith, then the shadow is dispersed. And not only the shadow is gone, but then there's this glorious, it looks like fire, but it's not burning things up because it's just the glory of God surrounding them. Oh, I love this story! Besides reading the story and understanding the really awesome things that happen in the scriptures. One of the things that I love to do when I study is to go back and read it again. And this time as I read, I am looking for tiny little phrases that by themselves can teach me something. And on the worksheet, I actually show you all the phrases that I found. Actually, not all of them because they wouldn't all fit. I showed you many of the phrases that I found. But for those of you who haven't looked at the worksheets yet, let's go through them right now. Let's go back to verse 40 and I'll show you right now exactly how I'll do it. I always have a pen or some sort of coloring pencil or some sort of marker in my hand so that I can mark my scriptures. Okay, always ready to mark. Be ready because if you're ready, then the Spirit will send something to you for you to mark. Okay, let's look at verse 40 again."And it came to pass, that the Lamanites said unto him, What shall we do?" Oh, what shall we do? I think that what shall we do can be turned into a lesson. What do you think? So I'm going to underline it."What shall we do?" And now I'm going to ponder it. I'm going to think about it. And I'm going to ask a question about how it can be about me. I want to turn this from a story about the Nephites and Lamanites into a story about me. Do you know you can do that? Put yourself right in the scriptures. I can change that by putting my name there. What shall I, what should Cindy do? Hmm, what can I do? Now, let's read a little bit more. What shall we do that this cloud of darkness may be removed from overshadowing us? Here's what I wrote on the worksheet. I wrote, what kind of darkness is in my life right now? And what should I do to get rid of it? Is there darkness in your life? Is there something that's not perfect? Probably there's something that's not perfect in your life. And what can I do to make my life better? That is a question that I can ask myself. So I mark it, and then the question or the thought that I have, I write it in the margin. What shall we do? I'm going to cross out we, and I'm going to write an I right there. What shall I do that the darkness may be And then I'm going to write in the margin, How can darkness be removed from my life? So do you see how I did that? That I looked and I tried to change the story to be about me. Now, here's the best part, ready? The best part is to not just ask this, How can darkness be removed from my life? But I take that pondering question and I turn it into a prayer right here on the spot. Now I don't have to stop and kneel down and close my eyes. I can do that if I want. You can do that. It's always good to pray that way. Always. But you don't have to. I could just sit here and with a prayer in my heart think, Heavenly Father, what can I do? What can I do? And just take a minute, to listen to the spirit. And maybe the spirit will whisper to you something that you can actually do. And that's how you receive inspiration right there. We searched and pondered and prayed all in one verse. Do you see that? Oh, I love it! It's my favorite. And then I change to a different color. I'll put down my red pen and pick up my blue pen and do it all over again. Let's do it again. Aminadab said unto them, You must repent. Oh, I'm going to change you to I. Cross that out and write an I. I must repent. And I can sit and think, Is there something I need to repent of? Now I ponder it, turn it into a prayer, and think. And then when I'm ready, I'll keep going, and I'll switch to a different color. Let's keep going. You must repent and cry unto the voice, even until ye shall have faith in Christ, who was taught unto you by Alma and Amulek and Zeezrom, who was taught unto you stood out to me. I know Christ was taught unto me, Christ was taught unto you. And then I can stop and think, who taught me about Jesus Christ? My parents, my friends, my leaders at church, my seminary teachers. So many people have taught me about Jesus Christ over the years. The scriptures teach me about Jesus Christ. And most importantly, the Holy Ghost teaches my heart about Jesus Christ. Oh, I love that. And the other thing you can pray for is just gratitude. And I can say Heavenly Father, thank you for all the people who taught me. And I just remember them for a minute and feel the spirit and then switch to a different color and we move on. This is one of my favorite things to do but I want you to be aware of this. This is one of the things that takes the most time for me as I study though because I'm going so slow and I'm trying to think of something. as much as I can. I make it almost like a contest. How many lessons can I learn in each verse? And some days I find a lot of things in the scriptures and other days I don't find very many. I have some pages in my scriptures where the whole margin is totally full. And other pages where I have one or two things written down. There's no right or wrong way to do it. But I love combining search, ponder, and pray with every single phrase that I find. Can this be about me? Put yourself into the scriptures and you'll be amazed at all of the lessons that you find and all of the different ways that Heavenly Father can teach you. Here's a picture of what the worksheet looks like, and this is what I like to do to my scriptures. Lots of colors, lots of little things, put in hearts and smiles and arrows and underlines and circles, and get as much as you can out of one little verse. There is so much to find in the scriptures. And if you don't read them for yourself, then you won't find the messages that are there for you. I can tell you all about what I found for me, and the ways Heavenly Father has helped me in my scripture study. But it's going to be so much more powerful for you to do it yourself. You go look in the scriptures, you put yourself in the scriptures, make it apply to you, and then you can feel the spirit and you will build your testimony and you will have inspiration and revelation. No matter how old or young you are, this is one way that you can receive inspiration and revelation directly from the Lord. So, in all the different ways you study, go to church, listen to people talk about it, watch videos, listen to podcasts, all good things. But, you should make sure that your study is primarily scripture. I'm Cindy Young. Thank you for being here. See you next time. Thanks for tuning in to Primarily Scripture with Cindy Young. Don't forget you can subscribe to the newsletter and download free worksheets on the website PrimarilyScripture. com. And if you like the channel, be sure to subscribe, like, share, and leave a review. See you next time!