The Power to Forget

When I was in the MTC I wrote a talk to give on Sunday, who would have known it would be EXTREMELY relevant to me?? Because of my accident I had slight memory loss, but no worries it is all coming back! This is what I had to say in June... Here it is!

The Power to Forget

The greatest power of the humankind is not to remember everything we see or hear, it is the power to FORGET everything we have seen, heard, tasted, touched, smelt. One of our greatest pet peeves-forgetting- is the greatest miracle on the planet.

Who loses their cell phone? Yes, I did all the time. What did I do? I remembered the last place I had it, who I was texting, or I just called it. Car keys! Those sneaky things love to hide whenever we need them, right? My family had a nifty car key holder right by the door, there's no need to lose them any more, just hang them up when you are done driving. What is man kinds most lost object? Any guesses? The remote control for the T.V.? Oh yes. Those are so easy to forget.  Okay, pause.  Are these things life altering because we forget them? I don't think so.

But, imagine if you remembered EVERYTHING. Every book you ever read, every math problem you ever saw. Life would be so easy, right? Everything your professor said-the tests would be so easy. Every talent to skill we have would be simple. We would never make a mistake because we would remember how to do it perfectly. Life would be perfect.
Imagine if you remembered every mean thing someone said. You remembered every nightmare;every worry; everything you did wrong. Everything in your life. You didn't have the power to forget.

That would be a sad life.

But we can forget, and that is a blessing.

From the very beginning, even before our Earth was created we lived with God. We learned, we grew, and we worked side by side in a perfect place. But we still needed more. God created the Earth for us,  and along with that the grand plan for our life. The plan each person here accepted. One of the greatest parts of the plan was forgetting every single thing. We had to find and relearn the gospel and all the other things that are prepared for us.

The greatest part of our life is the ability to choose, and to choose wrong. Look at Adam and Eve, they fell. They chose. We have the ability to eat the figurative fruit of our lives - to fall, to be imperfect. To need a Savior.

Along with the plan we all accepted Christ to be our savior. Our Father is just. Because he is just there needs to be a punishment for disobedience. BUT He is also merciful. He knows no imperfect thing can be in his presence. He loves us. He wants us to live with him again. That is why He gave us the way back home when we forget. He gave us the ability to repent because our Brother gave his perfect life for each and everyone of us.  We can't forget him. That is our most precious gift. We have a Father and Brother who love us enough to help us return.