Day 234

• Principle: The service you give and the acts you do in private is the surest way to overcome hypocrisy.  
• Book of Mormon Reading: Alma 55:4 - 55:27
  • Think of yourself like the Lamanites and the guards.  What would cause you to loose sight of your primary goal?  (In this case it was drunkenness.)  What can you do to remind yourself of your primary goals when you are alone or in a moment of weakness?
• An oft refreced story in the scriptures is that of the Widow’s Mite.  Consider what James E. Talmage said about this story:
  • “In the accounts kept by the recording angels, figured out according to the arithmetic of heaven, entries are made in terms of quality rather than of quantity, and values are determined on the basis of capability and intent. The rich gave much yet kept back more; the widow’s gift was her all. It was not the smallness of her offering that made it especially acceptable, but the spirit of sacrifice and devout intent with which she gave. On the books of the heavenly accountants that widow’s contribution was entered as a munificent gift, surpassing in worth the largess of kings. ‘For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not.’” (Talmage, Jesus the Christ, pp. 561–62.)
• Ezra Taft Benson shared:

  • “On one occasion when I was a teenager, I overheard Father and Mother talking about their finances in preparation for tithing settlement the following day. Father [owed] twenty-five dollars at the bank, which was due during the week. In figuring their tithing, he owed twenty-five dollars more. He also had a hay derrick [something used to lift hay onto a haystack] which he had built. He … was trying to sell it, but had met with no success.

    “What were they to do—[pay] the bank, pay their tithing later, or pay their tithing and hope that they could [pay the bank] in just a few days? After discussing the matter, and I am sure praying together before they retired, Father decided next day to go to tithing settlement and pay the twenty-five dollars, which would make him a full-tithe payer. As he rode home by horseback, one of his neighbors stopped him and said, ‘George, I understand you have a derrick for sale. How much are you asking for it?’

    “Father said, ‘Twenty-five dollars.’ The neighbor said, ‘I haven’t seen it, but knowing the way you build, I am sure it is worth twenty-five dollars. Just a minute and I will go in the house and make out a check for it. I need it.’ This is a lesson I have not forgotten” (The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, pp. 471–72).

• Consider the gift given by the Widow as you read
  • Mark 12: 41-44
  • Luke 21: 1-4
• Lastly, watch the following
  • https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2016-05-004-the-widows-mite?lang=eng
• Additional Study:
  • Joseph B. Wirthlin, “Without Guile”, April 1988
  • Teach Me to Walk in the Light, Hymns No. 304
  • The Things I Do, Hymns No. 170