Why are we here to learn?

For class we were instructed this week to read D&C 86-88. I love reading the Doctrine and Covenants and getting to talk with my roommate about it most nights. She is a recent convert to the church and has read through the Book of Mormon but not the D&C yet. From me talking to her about it and telling her how much I love it, I got her started reading it as well! Even though she is starting at the beginning we still both talk about the sections we read and what we got out of it. I particularly picked these questions to answer because I know how important it is to learn and to teach others. I love how the Lord reveals it to Joseph Smith to include why learning is so important, and not just spiritual things but secular as well.

Carefully review verses 77-80 and 118-119 and answer at least three of the following questions:

• What do these verses teach us about education; what are we commanded to learn?

We are to learn in heaven, earth, under the earth, things that have been, things which must come, things at home and abroad, wars, and knowledge of countries and kingdoms. In the student manual it gave interpretations of all of these things, astronomy, mineralogy, geology, history, prophecies, domestic and foreign policies, physical and political geography and languages. This is a very wide variety of things that we are to learn. If we learn and even become experts in one or several of these things it will then be up to us to teach others about what we know.

• Why do you think learning and education is important to the Lord; isn't faith enough?

I don’t believe that faith is enough. We need to learn all we can in all areas both of heaven and of earth. He says in verse 80 “that we may be prepared in all things when I shall send you again to magnify the calling whereunto I have called you.” I don’t think the just means our callings in the church but our callings in life. We must always be prepared to accept the callings we receive in the church and know that Heavenly Father is giving us those callings for a reason, even if we don’t know it yet. Also the lives we lead and the people we become are what I think is our callings in life. Heavenly Father knows who we are going to choose to become. We need more than faith to become who we are. We need to study and learn each and every day, not always in a classroom setting as most people picture, but in our daily

• Once we have learned something, what is our obligation to others? Why do you think the Lord feels that way?

It is our obligation to pass on our knowledge and teach it to others. While we are here on this earth we are expected to gain as much knowledge as we can because that is what we will be able to take with us when we move on into the next life. It has been my plan for a long time to become a teacher. For the last 4 years of college I have been gaining a variety of knowledge so that I can teach any child from birth to eighth grade in regular education or special education. My classes and teachers have been pounding the knowledge into my head so that when I need it someday I will be able to say that I learned that already and will be able to pull from prior knowledge and teach those things. Even though I don’t plan on going on a mission and spreading the truthfulness, I feel it is my obligation to become the best teacher I can and help those who are disabled and so many don’t want to try and teach them, but I really do.