Seeking and Receiving Personal Revelation
Visiting Teaching Message – April 2010

This LDS visit teaching message is composed of brief quotes from four leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We even more briefly summarize their thoughts below, then created a Mormon Wordle to visually express their discussion of Seeking and Receiving Personal Revelation.

Elder Robert D. Hales of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
Individuals prepare to receive revelation just like the prophets do. Study the scriptures, fast, pray and build your faith if you are seeking revelation. Elder Hales says Faith is the key, just as it was for Joseph Smith when he asked in faith.

President Boyd K. Packer of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
We need to unlock the veil and the key is on our side, it is prayer. But it is not only prayer. We have to work for it by studying the matter out in our mind, then asking if we are right and receiving a burning in our bosom.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
Revelation normally comes by words or thoughts communicated to our minds, by sudden enlightenment, by positive or negative feelings about courses of action under study, or even by inspiring performances , such as the performing arts.

Silvia H. Allred, First Counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency
The temple is a house of learning. Our understanding of the temple increases as we return with an attitude of learning and contemplation. “Let us enjoy the spiritual strength and the revelation we receive as we attend the temple regularly.”

We hope the Mormon Wordle below will further inspire more discussion of this message on Personal Revelation.

Seeking and Receiving Personal Revelation wordle

We took one liberty with the text of this visiting teaching message before we wordled it. We removed the phrase “Quorum of the Twelve Apostles”. It was used several times to identify the position in the Church held by President Boyd K. Packer, Elder Robert D. Hales, and Elder Dallin H. Oaks. These three great men are wonderful sources to learn about personal revelation from, and their position in the Church both signifies and requires that they are well versed on this topic. We only removed the phrase because it was very long, and being used several times, it overpowered and dominated this Mormon Wordle. We left in the names of the apostles, we just removed the phrase, “Quorum of the Twelve Apostles”. When studying the message provided in the Ensign, please note that it is based upon comments by at least three members of the “Quorum of the Twelve Apostles”.

We created this particular wordle solely using the tool at wordle.net. The colors were selected using the custom color palette feature provided there. It came out very nice, so we elected to not further modify it.

Receiving Personal Revelation is often misspelled as Recieving Personal Revelation.

Personal Scripture Study
Visiting Teaching Lesson
March 2010

Sister Julie Beck

This visiting teaching lesson on personal scripture study is composed of three short collections of quotes from our Church Leaders.

First, Sister Julie B. Beck, General Relief Society President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints tells of how she was invited to a Relief Society luncheon many years ago for all the sisters in her ward that had read the Book of Mormon or a short Church history book. She had elected to read a short Church history book, but while at the meeting she felt the Holy Ghost prompting her to change her scripture reading habits. Although the book she had chosen was a good one, she felt she should have read the Book of Mormon. As a result of that experience, she began reading the Book of Mormon that day and a lifelong habit of daily scripture study. She encourages all sisters to develop similar habits to better prepare them for their responsibilities in this life and in the eternities.

Second, President Thomas S. Monson tells us the scriptures will help strengthen our testimonies and the testimonies of our family members. Our children are susceptible to the influences of the world. The scriptures can help us fortify and protect them.

Thirdly, President Spence W. Kimball said, “We want our sisters to be scholars of the scriptures…” Studying the scriptures will acquaint sisters with eternal truths that will strengthen them, and can be taught to their children and other within their influence.

My wife aided me in the creation of  this Mormon Wordle on Scripture Study.

Scripture Study Visiting Teaching Lesson wordle

We tried to accent the word “scriptures” by selecting a wordle with “scriptures” near the center, then later accented the color of “scriptures” to make it the center piece of this wordle. It is interesting the way “Book of Mormon”, “scripture reading”, “Jesus Christ”, “gospel”, “Relief Society” and several other key phrases clustered in the middle of this wordle around the “scriptures”. My wife was at first a bit surprised to see the word “lunch”, then noted how we need to feast on the scriptures.

As always, we appreciate any comments you may have about the wordle and especially those from anyone who used it in preparation for giving this lesson or as a part of presenting the Visiting Teaching lesson itself.