Repentance and Charity

In Alma 34:31-36 Amulek teaches us what we should be concerned about in this life.  He teaches us that this life is a time for us to perform our labors.  What does he mean by our labors?  I believe that this means the good works that we do in the name of Christ.  He also tells us in verse 32 that it is a time for us to prepare to meet God.  For us to prepare to meet God we must be humble and repent.  In verse 33 Amulek pleads with us saying, “…I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end.”  As we work in our lives to come to know the Father and the Son we must repent. If we are repenting of our sin and working to become more obedient the Lord will be able to send blessings to our lives. 

Amulek also challenges us to be charitable and to harden not our hearts.  There are so many voices in the world that would have us believe that we need to do for ourselves and that we need not worry about others but the example of Alma and Amulek teaches us differently.  We must come to love the Lord and desire to serve him and his children. This is where we will find happiness.  There have been many times in my life that I have found peace in the charitable service of others.  When I am having problems, either physical, temporal or spiritual I have found that when I turn to serving others I can find peace and resolution to my problems.  One of the ways that I have found peace in service is in doing family history. 

There was a time when my son was a teenager that we were experiencing a lot of tension in our family and in our relationship with him.  I was eager to find some way for us to bond and grow closer.  After much prayer and study, I was inspired to ask my son to join me in doing family history work.  He was very hesitant at first and I had to do lots of arm twisting.  Once we got started I found that we were spending time together working to find names on our family line that needed their temple work done.  The more time we spent in this charitable work the closer we became and the tension in our home became less and less.  It was wonderful when after receiving his endowment we were able to return many times and do the temple work for those names that we had worked to find together.  Now as my son is gone serving a full time mission I am able to continue to attend the temple and often as I look at the name that I am doing proxy work for it is one of those names that we found together.   

I am thankful for the lessons that we learn in the scriptures, and the teaching of those ancient prophets.  As we are striving to become more like Christ and to learn how we can return to him I am grateful for the words of Amulek.