“The more I followed this feeling to pursue something bigger, I felt this closeness to my Heavenly Father that I hadn’t before.”

Here are just a few of the things I enjoyed as a child more than riding the bus.

If you expect your patriarchal blessing to make wild or unusual promises and predictions, you may be misunderstanding what a patriarchal blessing is. Your patriarchal blessing isn’t a fortune cookie, and the patriarch isn’t a fortuneteller.[1] The patriarch is a prophet, called to convey God’s words and will to you. He is only authorized to pronounce the promises he is prompted by the Holy Ghost to give. Patriarchs are counseled by their leaders to avoid making sensational or extravagant promises in the blessings they pronounce, even if the Spirit shows them rather remarkable things about the blessing’s recipient. President Joseph Fielding Smith (1876–1972), tenth President of the Church, explained, “I know of one or two cases … where a brother has been blessed by the patriarch and told that he would become a member of the Council of the Twelve [Apostles]. Usually [the patriarchs] don’t say that … even if the patriarch felt that the chances are [very good] that a man will be called to the leading councils of the Church.” President Smith added, “Patriarchs should be very careful in giving their blessings not to make extravagant expressions and to be conservative in what they say.”[2] Thus, you should not expect extravagant things to be mentioned in your blessing. Patriarchs generally avoid, for example, talking about things like the timing of the Second Coming when they give a blessing. While the young man or young woman being blessed may live to see the second coming of Christ, most patriarchs simply wouldn’t mention that in the blessing. President Smith further explained:

Compared with a once-soulful experience of prayer and scripture study, many of us know what it’s like to find spiritual practices becoming impoverished, superficial, and thin. Although it’s easy to conclude that prayer or scriptures themselves are somehow limited, it would be shortsighted not to also consider ways in which larger tendencies toward distractedness, stressful busyness, and an accelerating pace of life might be playing a role.

This story originally ran on LDS Living in December 2017.

Rena Elmer is no stranger to trials—those of the painful, gut-wrenching variety and also those of Olympic size.

Learn more about these Latter-day Saint culinary masters.

In 1980 I walked through Hezekiah’s tunnel. It was an astonishing stroll. We made our way through the darkness with the uncertain aid of flashlights and sang hymns about light: “Lead Kindly Light,” “The Lord Is my Light,” “There Is Sunshine in my Soul Today,” and so on. The tunnel is not straight. It bends and angles many times through nearly 1,800 feet. The Jews built the tunnel to bring water into the city as a hedge against an Assyrian siege.

When Korihor had his first-hand experience with the power of God he tried to explain to Alma why he had attacked the truth. According to his statement in Alma 30:53, this is the path he followed:

“I don’t want to go to school!” 5-year-old Usha shouted at her older brother, pulling his hair. Later she would become one of the first Nepali women with advanced degrees in both medicine and public administration, but as a little girl, she didn’t yet realize what a privilege education was.