Project for My PhD by Alex

Just joking! However,this post will hopefully get me a good grade in the institute class I am taking. I have recently enrolled into an institute class that is part of BYU-Idaho, that will give me college credits, and start a course to eventually get a college degree. When I made up my mind to go back to college I wasn't 100% bought in. With my wife's advice I reluctantly signed up. Then when I heard I had to take a religion class, I said great! (sarcasm) As it turns out,  this has turned out to be a life changing spiritual event. In this class it is required to read scriptures everyday, study them using several different study skills,and start personal goals to become a better disciple of Christ. It has brought me closer to the spirit than I have been in a long time.
My assignment this week in to share something I am learning. There was a video presented called "We Can Be Together Again" that has really made an impact on me. There are three families who talk about losses they have had in their lives: a girl who's mom and sister that were killed in a car crash when she was young, a Polynesian couple who lost a son and later converted to the Gospel, and a couple who lost their baby girl. They all spoke of the importance of understanding that there is so much more out there besides this life, namely, the love the savior has for us and his infinite atonement,the Resurrection, and how we can all be together again. The experiences are so heart wrenching it gets harder and harder to watch them each time. Their testimonies will be etched in mind forever and I am grateful I have heard their stories.
In 2 Nephi 9:4-6 it talks about death and how important it is in the welfare of man. Joseph Fielding Smith stated "But who would like to live forever in this mundane world,filled with pain, decay, sorrow, and tribulation,and grow old and infirm and yet have to remain with all the vicissitudes of mortality? I think all of us would come to the conclusion,if the proposition were placed before us, that we would not like to have it. We would reject it. We would not want a life of that nature. Life here in this world is short of necessity, and yet all that is required may be accomplished, but death is just as important in the plan of salvation as birth is. We have to die-it is essential-and death comes into the world 'to fulfil the merciful plan of the great Creator.' "
 I am thankful for this lesson and the perspective it has given me regarding our post mortal existence.  I am also thankful for the Book of Mormon and what I am learning this semester, I am gaining insights, understanding, and a stronger testimony than I have ever had.