Use it or Lose it

I've always been a big music person.  Ever since I can remember, I've been playing music.  Playing the guitar is my most recently acquired musical talent.  After I left on my mission, I didn't have as easy access to guitar as I did back home.  But when I was in my first area, I had a couple opportunities to play guitar again.  I was real excited, then once I started picking and strumming, I realized that I had lost a lot of what I knew.  Many songs that I used to play had vanished from my memory.  I was devastated!

Our knowledge and testimony will dwindle if we stop nourishing it as well.  We need to continually improve our talents and skills.  Alma, a Book of Mormon prophet said, "...Let us nourish it with great care, that it may get root, that it may grow up, and bring forth fruit unto us...but if ye neglect [it], and take no thought for its nourishment, behold it will not get any root..." (Alma 32: 37-38).  We must nourish the skills and talents that we have so that when we need to be an instrument in the Lords hand, we will be fine tuned and ready to play. 

We need to continue to exercise those things in our life.  If we slack off on them, then our knowledge and ability will diminish.  And when that day comes, you will feel as I did when I picked up the guitar after a couple of months...devastated!  So do the little things every day, practice what you preach, apply what you learn, and you will never lose it.

Floater

I learned something about eggs the other day.  Float them.  When eggs start to go bad, they develop some kind of gas inside of them.  So if you put them in water and they float, then you know that they're bad; but if they sink, then they are good.

I compared the egg to us, and the water to our baptism.  When we are baptized, we make a covenant, or promise, with God that we will walk in a new light.  We promise to keep His commandments, take upon the name of Christ, and always remember Him.  When we are baptized, we are put under the water as a symbol of the death of our old life, and a birth of a new life.

We have to make sure every ounce of our soul is committed.  We can't go forward if one leg wants to go one way, and the other wants to go the opposite.  We have to make sure we're 100% committed.  The eggs that float are still in the water, but they won't go all the way under.  They aren't fully committed.  There is something that is holding them back.  The eggs that go all the way under the water are the ones that have their heart and soul into it.  They are all the way committed and will do whatever they need to in order to reach their goal.

As we evaluate our lives and try to be better each day, think about how we can be more committed to following our Savior Jesus Christ.  When we do, we will be engulfed in the "living waters" of life.  We will recognize that it is much more satisfying to be a good egg, than a bad egg.