New Testament Homework...again

Please excuse any confusion that may come from posting this. I'm simply doing this blog post to fulfill the requirement of sharing my student choice assignment in my New Testament class. Basically, my assignment was on parables. The first part is a definition of a parable in my own words. The second part is different parables and questions that they answer (I did not make the questions that they answer up by the way, that was from the assignment). The third part answers a couple questions about sacrifice for maintaining membership in the church and the meaning of the parable talked about in Matthew 13:47-50. So here's the copy/past version!

Jenifer Wagner
FDREL 211: Section 21
Bro. Hall
14 May 2011

Student Choice Activity #2

1. A parable is a story told to teach a lesson. A lesson would be taught this way by Christ because some people were not ready to hear the fullness of the gospel and so they could still learn something from the parable and not be held as accountable for what they heard. At the same time, those who were ready to know the mysteries of the gospel would find deep meaning in the parables taught by Christ. A parable relates an eternal truth to something in the temporal world that the general population would understand. It's a complex and extended analogy.

2. Parable of the Tares (Matthew 13:24-30): Why does the Church send out so many missionaries?
Parable of the Mustard Seed and Leaven (Matthew 13:31-33): How do you explain the remarkable growth of the Church, considering it is fairly new compared to most world religions and started small in the American frontier?
Parables of the treasure and the pearl of great price (Matthew 13:44-46): Why are some members of the church willing to sacrifice so much worldly wealth and recognition in order to maintain membership in the church?
Parable of the Gospel Net (Matthew 13:47-50): What describes the future growth of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints?

3. At one point, when I first decided I wanted to be baptized, I was willing to risk my parents not being happy with me joining the church. That was the case at first; when I told them I wanted to be baptized, they did not like it and tried to push me to go to Catholic youth group and decided to start attending mass regularly. Fortunately for me and them, I was too stubborn to listen. I decided that the truth was more important than making things easier for myself at home. I'm glad that things happened the way that they did because my parents got baptized 2 months after I did. When we are willing to make sacrifices for the truth, God will bless us.
I'm not sure if I'm correct on this or not so here it goes. The net represents being a member of the church. Being gathered in the net is becoming baptized. Those who are cast out are those who have denied the truth after accepting it. Those who were good and were gathered into vessels endured to the end. The significance of this is that those who are bad are cast out and those who are good are gathered to the celestial kingdom.

I hate...

I hate that I put myself under so much pressure. I hate that I feel that I can't at all control the pressure I put myself under. I hate that other people can do everything I want to do like take an insane amount of credits and hold a job and still get good grades and get by on little to no sleep. I hate that some people seem to have it so easy. I hate that I have things so easy and yet everything seems so difficult. I hate that it seems like my whole life is going to be me chugging along through everything stopping to have a quasi-mental breakdown every once in awhile. Why do they tell us in church to strive so much for perfection when we can't obtain it? It's too much pressure, I can't be anywhere near perfect. I've been trying for so long but I just feel so inadequate. I keep asking myself if everything I'm doing is worth it, if I'm actually going to succeed in life. Am I going to get good grades the rest of my undergrad career? Am I going to succeed in grad school? Will I have the career that I dream of? Will I actually meet that guy I'm supposed to marry someday? Will I have children of my own? Will I be happy one day? I like to think that I'm happy, but I can't stop the inadequacy. Other people do it all flawlessly, why can't I? I hate feeling so stupid all the time, I just wish it would go away...