Young adult conference in Diverlanhoso. We met E/S Foote

This week we attended the annual Portugal young adult conference held this year at the Diverlanhoso Adventure Park. There were about 200 young adults in attendance including 3 from Braganca! The park is located 1hr.30min from our apartment. We stayed in a beautiful stone hotel about 10 minutes from the park. There is bungee jumping, zip lining & water sports.

Here are some photos of the adventure park.

Kim and I were able to do the zip line and a suspended obstacle course.

It was great to see the Braganca 3! Nuria, Edwardo & Delton dressed up for the dance.

The boys slept in a room full of bunk beds.

Nuria, Edwardo & Delton.

No surprise that Delton was selected to be a leader!

We met E/S Dave and Christina Foote, who serve as the YA leaders for all of Europe.

Elder Saulo G. Franco (2nd from the left) is an Area Seventy born in Brazil but moved to Spain 20 years ago for work. He conducted a question and answer activity.

Elder Franco speaking at a fireside

We stayed at a beautiful hotel built with rock-Hotel Rural Maria da Fonte located 10 minutes from the camp.

This is the front entrance

Reception desk.

                                                      SCRIPTURE POWER

 Changing our evil nature through the Atonement.

 

The brother of Jared: "because of the fall our natures have become evil continually" (Ether 3:2) In describing the Lamanites, Enos says: "they were led by their evil nature that they became wild, and ferocious, and a blood-thirsty people, full of idolatry and filthiness..." (Enos 1:20) 

 

What are our favorite sins and what are we becoming?

King Benjamin states: "..the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord.." (Mosiah 3:19)

 

 

We can change our nature through the atonement. Whatever aspect of our nature that is not Christlike we can change, if we want to.  We are blessed with a conscience.

 

C.S. Lewis said: "The more you obey your conscience, the more your conscience will demand of you. And your natural self, which is thus being starved and hampered and worried at every turn, will get angrier and angrier...The Christian way is different: harder and easier. Christ says, "Give me All. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down...Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked--the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours." (Mere Christianity, page 196-197).

 

Elder Tad R. Callister said: “Rationalization is the intellectual drug that anesthetizes the sting of conscience.” (The Infinite Atonement, Page 181).

 

Lehi encourages us to: “..not choose eternal death, according to the will of the flesh and the evil which is therein, which giveth the spirit of the devil power to captivate, to bring you down to hell, that he may reign over you in his own kingdom.” (2 Ne. 2:29)

 

Satan can captivate us when we make wrong choices with our physical bodies. For example: “..whose God is their belly” (Phil. 3:19)

 

Interestingly, Jacob taught that if we are not resurrected Satan would eventually overcome our spirit and we would become like him. “O the wisdom of God, his mercy and grace! For behold, if the flesh should rise no more our spirits must become subject to that angel who fell from before the presence of the Eternal God, and became the devil, to rise no more. And our spirits must have become like unto him, and we become devils” (2 Ne. 9:8-9)

 

 

The Prophet Joseph Smith said: “We came to this earth that we might have a body and present it pure before God in the celestial kingdom. The great principle of happiness consists in having a body. The devil has no body, and herein is his punishment. He is pleased when he can obtain the tabernacle of man. … All beings who have bodies have power over those who have not” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, by Joseph Fielding Smith [1976], 181).

 

 

President Boyd K. Packer said: “The adversary is jealous toward all who have power to beget life. Satan cannot beget life; he is impotent. “He seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.”(2 Ne. 2:27) He seeks to degrade the righteous use of the life-giving powers by tempting you into immoral relationships.” (General Conference, October, 2010 ‘Cleansing the Inner Vessel’)

Elder David A. Bednar said: “One of the ultimate ironies of eternity is that the adversary, who is miserable precisely because he has no physical body, invites and entices us to share in his misery through the improper use of our bodies. The very tool he does not have and cannot use is thus the primary target of his attempts to lure us to physical and spiritual destruction.” (Ensign, Nov. 2019, “Watchful Unto Prayer Continually”

 

Nephi’s psalm “And why should I yield to sin, because of my flesh? Yea, why should I give way to temptations, that the evil one have place in my heart to destroy my peace and afflict my soul?” (2 Ne. 4:27) 

No matter what our natural predispositions are we can change.

 

The apostle Paul taught: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” (1 Cor. 10:13)

 

We can overcome whatever temptation we encounter and put off the natural man. Elder Neal A. Maxwell reminds us: “It is the putting off of the putting off that is our real problem, however” (Neal A. Maxwell, Notwithstanding My Weakness, 71-74)