Perfect... Imperfection...Seeking A Balance...: Holy Ghost, Scriptures & Revelations

September 16, 2024

Holy Ghost, Scriptures & Revelations

Dear Elder Yu,

It has been some time since I wrote to you. I hope I can keep up with my words to you in replying to every letter you email. Guess what? Now I am sitting in the newly opened Burger King at the Caltex petrol station near our Puchong Permai roundabout there! It is quite a nice and chill place to hang out aside from McDonald’s at the Shell petrol station just behind! So this Burger King would be my new hangout place for the next 2 years, hope Annabelle will bear with me! Haha :p!

Today is a national holiday as today is Malaysia Day and Prophet Muhammad’s Birthday, 2 public holidays coincidentally fall into 1 day. Some private sector companies declared Monday, 16/9/2024, and Tuesday, 17/9/2024 public holidays, but not in my case. Mommy is going to work tomorrow because my company follows the government as our Prime Minister had declared for the government sectors.

Today also is the first day of the BYU-Idaho Fall Semester. Well, as usual, I registered 2 subjects and I just dropped 1 subject yesterday after considering my work, calling, study, and some other kinds of stuff that I would like to do. I am taking a Maths subject, Social Science Statistics this semester. Let’s see how bad and difficult this subject is for me.

After talking about my desire to go to the temple for some time, I finally paid for the flight tickets and booked the temple patron house at Bangkok Temple at the end of November with the assistance of sister E Chin. We will go together on this trip. I will be going from 28^th – 30^th November 2024. I am going on a Thursday when the flight will be around noon time, so at least I am still able to fetch Annabelle to go to school first, she will come back home alone. Then she might need to skip school the next day, Friday 29^th November 2024. I will be back on Saturday, 30^th November 2024 night. So, that’s the plan.

I think you and Annabelle can know the purpose of this temple trip. Besides doing the initiatory and endowment session for my great-grandmother, I want to seek the Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ’s strength, courage, and wisdom I need to end this marriage relationship. Your daddy’s request for divorce has kept hovering in my mind for the past few months. These are the things that are hard for me to accept. I tried very hard to clear and free my mind to think carefully about our relationship. This is not to say I do not believe in the Savior’s power to do the impossible, but as you know He would not interfere with an individual’s agency to choose.

Elder Yu, I must confess to you that I did not have any idea at all when I read your letter as I was eagerly searching between the lines to find the answers to my questions posted a few weeks back. Eventually, I only knew I was looking for the comfort and peace I needed for my current situation.

The first question I asked was:

How can I know what Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ want me to do now, as it seems as if everything I see is either pointing me to let go and keep on continuing to work on my marriage? It seems to me the message hinted me to just let go, somedays hinted me to work on it. I am confused by the things and thoughts that came into my mind. And, that is the reason why I have the urge to go to the temple.

Now, as I reflect on my question to you back then, I only came to realize your insights into this question in your email. So, I need the Holy Ghost or Spirit’s guidance to do the Lord’s will. Yesterday, I was teaching the younger children in the Primary Sunday School about Samuel the Lamanite story in Helaman 13:2-5 that, God can speak to me in my heart. How can I know that God can speak to our hearts, as He did for Samuel? God communicates with us in different ways. If it is I was the one who revised all the homework that I should have known a long time ago when I taught the children about how God speaks to us.

Earlier last week, I came to read an article on the LDS Living website about how sister Sheri Dew shared her experiences seeking divine help in learning the language of the Holy Ghost. A friend asked her:

“Have you asked the Lord to teach you how He communicates with you?” She replied that she hadn’t.

Her friend said,

“That’s a great prayer to offer, … and you are probably going to have to offer it for the rest of your life,”

Sister Sheri explained,

“So, I started asking that question, … and then I started noticing things in the scriptures.” Each time sister Sheri found an instance of the Lord communicating directly with His children here on earth, she added a little red X to the margin of her scriptures. Many years later, she can tell more often, more clearly what the Spirit is trying to teach her. She shared that some of the clearest promptings she has ever received have come while being immersed in the scriptures. Sister Sheri testified, “The scriptures are a conduit for revelation. They teach us the language of the Spirit.”

And, these are the things that are exactly what you shared in your email the other day on Seek for My Word. Allow me to list the scriptures you shared at below:

1. Doctrine and Covenants 10: 5

5 Pray always, that you may come off conqueror; yea, that you may conquer Satan, and that you may escape the hands of the servants of Satan that do uphold his work.

2. Doctrine and Covenants 88: 62 - 64

62 And again, verily I say unto you, my friends, I leave these sayings with you to ponder in your hearts, with this commandment which I give unto you, that ye shall call upon me while I am near—

63 Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you; seek me diligently and ye shall find me; ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

64 Whatsoever ye ask the Father in my name it shall be given unto you, that is expedient for you;

3. Alma 37: 36 – 37

36 Yea, and cry unto God for all thy support; yea, let all thy doings be unto the Lord, and whithersoever thou goest let it be in the Lord; yea, let all thy thoughts be directed unto the Lord; yea, let the affections of thy heart be placed upon the Lord forever.

37 Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day.

4. 2 Nephi 32: 8 – 9

8 And now, my beloved brethren, I perceive that ye ponder still in your hearts; and it grieveth me that I must speak concerning this thing. For if ye would hearken unto the Spirit which teacheth a man to pray, ye would know that ye must pray; for the evil spirit teacheth not a man to pray, but teacheth him that he must not pray.

9 But behold, I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul.

Sister Sheri Dew shared,

“I think the scriptures are in part designed to say, ‘You actually can communicate with heaven,’” Sheri says. “The Lord wants to talk to us. … And we let so much stuff get in the way. … But when we ask and are sincerely prayerful and listening and trying to figure it out, I think we get helped.”

“Line upon line, precept upon precept, we receive not immediate illumination, but gradual and subtle illumination by the power of the Holy Ghost,” Elder Bednar has taught. “As we study, as we ponder, as we wrestle, … into our mind and into our heart comes, through the power of the Holy Ghost, increased understanding.”

After giving myself some time to think about that, it has become clearer that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ want me to know all these truths – All these additional promptings will help me to look back and see the Lord’s pattern of revelation—not only in the scriptures but also throughout our personal lives.

I will spare the second part of my question about forgiveness later – if I can find something that resonates with Elder Yu’s teaching throughout my week. It is a challenging task to do, and I know it is all about my grudges to your daddy after being with him for about 22 years, end up with this outcome or results! I am not harvesting a sweet fruit in my marriage, and still have a lot to learn and work on my relationship with people.

Hmmm.. and there was an embarrassing moment that happened yesterday! Annabelle and I were deciding that we would have our lunch at AEON Supermarket after church. Well, to be honest, it is always your mummy who wants to eat there on the Sabbath. I only came to realize that I did not bring my purse out after I ordered a Rojak and Asam Laksa, in the end, Annabelle had to pay first with her only twenty-plus ringgits in her purse. You can imagine how your sister looked at me! And, we ate our lunch joyfully and sparingly! (Haha) That was the fastest shopping we ever had on a Sabbath!

To chill you up, here are some photos taken at the Burger King at the Caltex petrol station where we had our dinner last Friday night, 13^th September 2024. As usual, we had our going-out dinner on every Friday night.