I gave a talk (sermon) in Church yesterday. My assigned topic was “How I live the For the Strength of Youth Standards, especially regarding Entertainment and Media.” I spent a lot of time preparing an outline (ever since my mission I never actually write out a talk/lesson plan anymore) which ended up being really good because you never know exactly how much time you will have and then it’s alot easier to use less of what I had prepared/studied including only the most important points.

In fact, our Bishopric was reorganizeed (same Bishop but new counselors) so I ended up only speaking for about 7 minutes.

Anyway, one thing that I learned and wanted to share is that there are 4 specific things mentioned in the FTSOY pamphlet that the Spirit of God cannot be entertained by. In contrast, the 13th Article of our Faith includes 4 types of things that DO entertain the Spirit of God in our lives.

The bottom line when it comes to Media and Entertainment is: that God wants us to enjoy good entertainment in medias of all kinds. But more than to enJOY he wants us to have JOY.

We can only have true, lasting joy if we always entertain the Spirit of God by replacing things that are: 1) immoral with that which is virtuous 2) pornographic with that which is lovely 3) violent with that which is of good report and 4) vulgar with that which is praiseworthy.