We should seek the direction of the spirit to guide us in our own life and to inspire us in our education efforts. Once darkened, a society loses its capacity to distinguish between right and wrong and the will to declare that somethings are incorrect intrinsically. The United States of America is ultra-religious, 78 percent of people believe in God and 68 percent are Christians. However, a number of people are unaffiliated, and many of those people do feel that they are also looking for some deeper meaning in life. A sense of belonging is larger than ourselves, the feeling of the presence of God is what we want. When we commune with God, we are able to foster an environment of equality and equal opportunity; a combination community center and a place of non-judgmental worship. After prayer, we go home feeling just a little bit less lonely. The idea is that one can be who they want, do what they want, and the only rule is that you have to take personal responsibility for one’s actions. Each person should know how much he or she is needed. Everyone has something important to contribute and has unique talents and abilities that help move the important work of God along. We must stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places. A society which permits anything, even when they know it is wrong or unlawful, will eventually lose everything. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7

Therefore, recognize or not, the public has an enormous stake in private morality! Yet today there is so much hedonism and shouted justification with so little quiet shame. Bad deeds are viewed as nobody’s fault and everything as excusable on one basis or another. Amid such inversion, no wonder victims are often neglected and the guilty sometimes glorified. Gross sins arise ominously and steadily out of the swamp of self-indulgence and self-pity. However, the smaller sins breed there, too, like insects in the mud, including coarsening of language. Life must be expansive and expressive. One is not happy unless one has a purpose in living. Too frequently, people become frustrated because there is no longer anything to engage their attention. They must find something to take up their time, whether it be gardening or reading a book. Any activity that engages the attention and produces gratification of outward self-expression is not only good, but necessary. There is no monotony in nature. The individual life must avoid monotony and self-centeredness through self-expression. Consequently, after we have come to self-awareness we must start expressing again, no matter what our age. Engaged in the joy of living, and do it with others. The well-integrated person gets along with other people, not by tolerance but through cooperation. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7

These are momentous times in which we are living as Saints of the Most High. Let us go on rearing our children in righteousness and truth. Let us be good neighbors and good friends. Of course, self-restraint is better than censorship, but urging self-restraint on some is like discouraging Dracula from hanging around the blood bank! Biblical morality tends to rank the themes of divine authority and human duty in conjunction with the essential goodness of human nature. The power of human choice and the possibility of self-acceptance are the result. The unfolding of the Universe reassures us of our freedom to choose our own God, our own labors, and our own ultimate ends, whatever they may be. The tendency to strike back whenever we are offended makes us brusque and rude, as if others were functions, not as brothers and sisters. Thus, excess of ego is like a spreading, toxic spill from which flow all the deadly sins. Young parents know how a mere half cup of spilled milk seems to cover half a kitchen floor. Small sins spread like that, too. God is the way to the truth, and the way to eternal life. The Lord can ease the burdens, and also our psychological and physical capacity can be made strong enough that we are able to endure our trials. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7

Walking uprightly before the Lord includes becoming a responsible individual in all aspects of life. When one is mindful, one takes no situation for granted, not even routines. Mindfulness means being vigilant, looking at what is happening from multiple angles, being open to new information and willing to revise one’s understanding of the way the World works. Paying attention to the eternal perspective and to the details of one’s experience allows us to seek diligently and teach one another words of wisdom. As important as human physical needs are, the spiritual ones also. Being mindful in our daily life choices can increase self-knowledge while decreasing the likelihood of depression. Reflect on the consequences of each option. What impact did your choices have on you? Your healthy? Your happiness? Your relationships? Your productivity? We do not know why the Lord commands us to do certain things. God’s ways are not the same as human ways. However, this much we do know—God’s paths are righteous. If we have been disobedient in the past, let us commit today to repent and to put our house in order. When people are comfortable with making all life choices as conscious once, we will acquire a surprising mental sharpness. Any of us can use this gift to pursue wisdom. All we have to do to become wiser is to listen to our own internal rhythms and use them in our daily loves. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7

Wisdom is not a goal, but a process. It is important that we commit to actions that will help us capitalize on the ways which we learn best. We must take steps to put ourselves in situations where we tend to learn best. Before we can become an expert in anything, we have to have the opportunity to learn how to be an expert.  It requires that we use our imaginations and take our minds in as many different directions as possible. Our ability to learn new information, solve problems, and remember things depends on the connection between our brain cells, not the number of brain cells we have. Although we do lose some brain cells over time, the cells that remain amply compensate for this by growing more interconnections, or neurons. We actually grow more brain tissues and increase the number of neural connections as we age. The average adult is blessed with a hundred billion neurons that produce more interconnections than the number of stars in the Universe. A typical neuron can make ten thousand interconnections with other cells, yielding over ten trillion synapses (the gap between one nerve fiber and another). From birth to our senior years, we are biologically equipped to take in one thousand independent units of information per second, but most people use only a minuscule percentage of their capacity. It is not our brainpower that fails us as we age, it is our expectation of declining intellectual performance that lets us down. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7Crystallized intelligence refers to how well we solve practical problems in everyday life and how well we reason through interpersonal dilemmas involving strong emotional content. To use crystallized intelligence, we depend on our storehouse of facts, as well as our verbal comprehension, word fluency, and numerical abilities. This practical yet complex aspect of human intelligence either remains stable through life or continues to grow as we age. Making it grow involves nothing more than staying mentally challenged. A person acquires pragmatic intelligence by living; thus, your crystallized intelligence is programmed by your experience. “And as all have not faith, seek diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; seek out the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith,” reports Doctrines and Covenants 88.118. Nearly fifteen years of cognitive research investigating the effects of aging on intelligence shows that without specialized training, the mechanical operations of IQ do begin to decline at about age thirty. Nonetheless, we now have substantial evidence that if you are willing to put forth the effort, you can improve the functioning of your intellectual hardware by engaging in relatively brief training. The gains one will reap in IQ intelligence after training are roughly equal to what one would lose between the age of sixty and eighty if one did not practice. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7

Our time, our talents, our property, are responsibilities we are blessed with and give us the opportunity to respond by participating in the divine plan of saving human’s souls. The way to stimulate crystallized intelligence and sustain IQ is through learning. We can rise our crystallized intelligence quotient by tackling ever more complex problems in our profession, or by becoming an avid bridge or chess players. Challenges such as these requires us to reconcile contradictory evidence, deal with uncertainty, revise earlier decision, and simplify complexity without becoming too rigid. Continuous improvement in this aspect of our intelligence typically results in strong emotional and interpersonal mastery. If we wish to prevent declines in IQ, we need to stay in shape by practicing memory-enhancement techniques and information-processing strategies. For example, memorizing lines of poetry or the names of flora and fauna give us powers of inputting and recalling information as a good workout. Learning more about subjects that interest us, with an emphasis on absorbing greater quantities of information at a growing pace, is a sure way to strengthen our IQ. Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God. If you commit, prepare, and with a willing heart go forth to serve God, great will be your blessing and reward. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7