Ether 12 and 13

I am sorry to all of my avid blog readers out there for not posting yesterday. Before you work yourselves up into a frenzy, I want you to know that I did read yesterday, but I completely forgot to write a blog post. So, in my feeble attempt to repent, here is what I learned yesterday from Ether 12:

In verse 11, Moroni writes, "But in the gift of his Son hath God prepared a more excellent way." I don't know why this hit me while reading, but it did. How many times to we think of Christ as a "gift" from our Heavenly Father? I have to admit that I don't think about Christ in those terms as often as I should. I love Christ. I try to follow His teachings, but I don't think of His life as a gift, but in all actuality, it is the greatest gift we could ever receive. Sure, receiving a body is an amazing gift, but without the Atonement, out bodies would be useless because none of use would be able to return to Heavenly Father on our own. Same thing can be said about the gift of families, the gift of the gospel, or the gift of repentance. Without the gift of Christ, our lives would be for not. Today, let us remember that Christ is the greatest gift we could ever receive.

Today I read Ether 13, and this is what I learned:

In this chapter, Ether is commanded to preach unto Coriantumr and call him to repentance. Ether promises Coriantumr that if he repents, the Lord will "give him his kingdom and spare the people." (v. 20) As we know from reading this chapter, Coriantumr rejects the teachings of the prophet and does not repent. From my point-of-view, thousands of years after the fact, it is easy for me to judge Coriantumr and say that he was dumb for not following teachings of Ether. Honestly, Coriantumr was fighting because he wanted to retain his kingdom and Ether promised him that he could retain his kingdom if he just repented, but Coriantumr did not repent. Like I said, it is easy to judge him when he are sitting in the comfort of our own home, reading about decisions that happened thousands of years ago. On the other hand, how many times do we reject the teachings of the prophets because we feel we know how to "retain our kingdom." This is exactly what Coriantumr did. He rejected the teachings of the prophets and thought he knew a better way to achieve his ultimate goal. How wrong was he? How wrong are we every time we choose to disregard the teachings of the prophet? With General Conference approaching, my plea is that I, and I hope you will as well, will listen to the teachings of the prophets and try to implement those teachings into my life.