A New Year is Here - 2013

The New Year and resolution making naturally go together. I love how the Lord has allowed so many examples of the importance of 'new beginnings' in this life and the opportunities they afford us.

Every sunrise is the mark of a new day. A new opportunity to improve on all the yesterdays, all the mistakes, all the follies, all the successes and all the shortcomings.

Every Sunday is the mark of a new week. A perfect time to evaluate our lives of the previous week. A perfect time to pause and thank God for all of our blessings. A perfect time to thank the Savior for His love and sacrifice and example. A perfect time to set new ideals for the week to come. A perfect time to renew covenants.

Every encounter with someone is a new occasion to encourage, to make a new friend or strengthen an existing friendship, to compliment, to share with, to forgive, to comfort and console.

Every new moment is a new chance to make someone smile, to lift a burden, to be better, to improve some aspect of our lives, to learn something new, to make the world a better place to live for ourselves and those around us.

With every new hour there’s a prospect of deepening our relationship with God, with His Son our Savior, and with the Holy Ghost – and in so doing, the windows of heaven will open a little wider, pouring out more of Their grace and love and blessings upon us.

Life is more about improving – here a little and there a little – than it is about being perfect in all things. If we are firmly planted on the path of improvement, we are on the path that will eventually lead us to the kind of perfection that the Lord desires of us, and will help us achieve – someday.

A New Year’s resolution for consideration – ‘I want to deepen my conversion to Jesus Christ.’ Elder Bednar said this about true conversion: “Knowing that the gospel is true is the essence of a testimony. Consistently being true to the gospel is the essence of conversion. True conversion brings a change in one's beliefs, heart and life to accept and conform to the will of God and includes a conscious commitment to become a disciple of Christ. Conversion is an enlarging, a deepening, and a broadening of the undergirding base of testimony. It is the result of revelation from God, accompanied by individual repentance, obedience and diligence. Any honest seeker of truth can become converted by experiencing the mighty change of heart and being spiritually born of God. Conversion is an offering of self, of love and of loyalty we give to God in gratitude for the gift of testimony” (Converted Unto the Lord, Oct. 2012).

May the loving Lake Elsinore Ward have a prosperous and thriving 2013, grateful for all of the blessings and challenges the Lord sees fit to bestow upon us. May we find ways to deepen our conversion as we serve our families, our neighbors, and each other.

Happy New Year, bishop Calvin Hughes