April 5th Discussion Topics?

Hiya GDG! I'm glad you've found your way to our new blog. Hooray for technology that makes communication + exchange of ideas so convenient and easy, right?

As you know, a week from today we'll be holding our next meet-up on Tuesday, April 5th. Our discussion topic has yet to be decided. A couple of ideas I wanted to put out there for your feedback include the following:

Discussion idea A) continue our conversation on HOPE and personal experiences/methods for fostering and improving Hope in our lives (I don't know about you gals, but it just felt like there was so much more to discuss...)

OR

Discussion idea B) have a post-General Conference discussion on our favorite talks/insights from this session of Conference and the biggest messages our church leaders shared/themes we recognized (if any), and if the sessions sparked any ideas for further study and discussion for future GDGs...

Please feel free to COMMENT and share your thoughts/opinions/ideas/vote so we can solidify our topic for April 5th's meeting.

Thanks mucho!

Hope: Recap

Last meeting we discussed the topic of hope. We discussed a lot about the difference between faith and hope, as we learn from the scriptures in Moroni 10:20 they are closely intertwined, "Wherefore, there must be faith; and if there must be faith there must also be hope; and if there must be hope there must also be charity." I think our conclusion was that faith is believing in the true doctrine of Jesus Christ. For example, believing that Christ lives, and the Atonement is real. Hope is expecting or aspiring that because the Atonement is real, we will achieve eternal happiness, or because of our faith in God's love for us, we can hope for rich blessings in our life. In the talk Stephanie Walton provided from President Uchtdorf, "The Infinite Power of Hope," he also talks about faith, hope, and charity and how they work together:

Faith, hope, and charity complement each other, and as one increases, the others grow as well. Hope comes of faith, for without faith, there is no hope. In like manner faith comes of hope, for faith is “the substance of things hoped for.”

Hope is critical to both faith and charity. When disobedience, disappointment, and procrastination erode faith, hope is there to uphold our faith. When frustration and impatience challenge charity, hope braces our resolve and urges us to care for our fellowmen even without expectation of reward. The brighter our hope, the greater our faith. The stronger our hope, the purer our charity.

The things we hope for lead us to faith, while the things we hope in lead us to charity. The three qualities—faith, hope, and charity—working together, grounded on the truth and light of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, lead us to abound in good works.

We also started discussing about having hope in hard times. I like what Elder Holland says at the end of this video, which I couldn't remember at the time, but here it is now:

"Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven. But for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come. It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come." -Elder Holland

New GDG Blog

So some of us that have been involved in the Gospel Discussion Group decided it might be a cool idea to start a blog for the group. We can all create posts relating to a specific topic that someone wants to start a discussion on or share a thought on, or it may be a recap of one of our group meetings, or a request for ideas of what to discuss in future meetings (basically anything relating to the gospel or the GDG itself). People can then leave comments on those posts to add insight, answer questions, etc. to the topic of the post. This way, we hope that things discussed in our group meetings can be further discussed and recapped on our blog, and that things discussed on our blog can be further discussed in our group meetings.

Also, we hope the blog is a group effort in that everyone can be an author of the group by either logging in using our sfysa.gdg@gmail.com account to create a new post, or by requesting to be an author with your personal gmail/blogger account by sending an email to sfysa.gdg@gmail.com, and I will add you as an author.

And for those of you that don't know about the Gospel Discussion Group, it is basically a great way to get together with some of your fellow Relief Society sisters and discuss varying topics of the gospel. We meet every 1st and 3rd Tuesday of the month at the Dollhouse at 7:45pm, so if you can make it, you should definitely come an join us! If not, this blog will hopefully be a great way for you to participate, even if you can't make it on Tuesday nights!