How Joseph Smith's Example Teaches Us About Learning the Gospel

This is an old post I am getting caught up on from two Sundays ago. I just wanted to put on here what we came up with as a class for this topic, looking at the life of Joseph Smith, and how he taught us to study/seek/learn truths about the gospel.

We broke into groups and each group looked up scriptures from Joseph Smith History, in the Pearl of Great Price. These first several entries are from various verses within JSH Chapter 1:

• v. 11: "while I was laboring"... [looked up scripture James 1:5]. When you're having extreme difficulties, you should look to the scriptures for answers.
• v. 15: Offer up the desires of our hearts despite the challenges from the adversary telling us not to.
• v. 68-75: [The priesthood was restored, John the Baptist gave the priesthood to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery.] Receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost through the priesthood helps us learn the gospel.
• v. 24: Joseph Smith likened scriptures to himself (comparing himself to Paul), as should we.
• v. 25: He had conviction in what he saw. We should try to model that firm testimony.
• v. 41: After the angel Moroni left Joseph Smith, Joseph marveled at the message. We should also marvel, ponder, or muse after hearing or reading gospel truths. Moroni's message was delivered three times, repeating verbatim various scriptures and instructions. There is importance in repetition when learning the gospel. We may learn or hear something new even if the content is the same, the second or third time we are exposed to it.
• v. 34: [talks about a book deposited in the ground, and also about the ancient inhabitants of the land.] It blows my mind to think about all the other people who have lived before us, and the lessons we can learn from reading about their lives. We should learn from the past, through the scriptures.
• v. 28: "I frequently fell into many foolish errors"... "displayed weakness" ... "led me into divers temptations." Prayers will be answered, but we still need to deal with consequences. Even Joseph Smith admitted humbly his faults. Humility is a precursor to curiosity. We must be humble, realizing we don't know everything, then seek for the things we don't know.
• D&C 76:19: "We meditated upon these things"... Meditation/pondering opens our hearts to receive spiritual knowledge and revelation.

Lastly, we chose to repeat Derek's challenge from last week since the blog post was accidentally posted to the wrong blog that prior week.