Lilia Vargas

Humanities 11am

Civic Engagement

For my Civic Engagement, I decided to visit a religious service that I was not an

active member of so I went to the Church of Latter Day Saints with my friend. I went on

a Sunday morning to a ward in Kearns and I had my friend Tavan be my guide. I had

certain pre deceived notion that it would be a lecture and lots of reading of the

scriptures I did not know what to expect. I made sure that I asked my friend the night

before to give me a heads up on the attire. Tavan said I should dress nicely and

formally, my Sundays best. Sunday morning came and I woke up at 8am to be at the

ward by 9am. I was excited to see whether or not I was going to be right or completely

wrong, but I was ready to find out.

Once we arrived and I met with my friend Tavan, we walked inside this building

that I had seen many times before. We walked in and we were immediately greeted by

several members and several smiles. We walked into a room that my friend said was

called the Chapel, then the ward bishop began to speak. They began to speak and

read from their book. What I found extremely different was the bread and water they

severed. I had been to a Catholic church and I was use to drinking wine and the

Sacrament, which was a very thin layer of bread so it was different for me. They prayed

and sang hymns throughout the hour long meeting. As they finished speaking, we were

then separated by age groups, as well as age.

 There was separation of age beginning with primary, then youth, then followed by

adults. And another hour dedicated to specifically target young men and young women.

I was redirected to the young woman where we talked about things in our life and how

we handle difficult obstacles in our lives. We had a speaker talk about her marriage and

how she overcame a rough patch in her life. We also read from the Book of Mormon

and reflected on what we read with one another. When we finished we went to the

primary area where we spent time with them and then went back to the room we first

met.

As everyone was settling back in and we all sat down. There were two

congressmen who then came in and spoke for about 30 min about a topic that had to do

with the sacrifice of Jesus. Once the service was over, Tavan and I spoke and he asked

me what I came to understand from their teachings. I told him that Jesus died for us but

he rose from the dead and because of that we can live with our families forever, if we

live according to Gods law.

When I was home and reflected on how it made me be civically engaged, I

immediately thought of the lady who spoke in our class about how she started to

change the way she looked at life in such a negative way. She started to think more

positively and pray and her energy then transferred to her family and then to work. I

define civic engagement to be a way to be involved with a community outside of what

immediate to us. It was acquiring new knowledge and using it in our lives.

I was very grateful for this opportunity to do this and give a chance to the

doctrines of other people and why they find their ideas a way of life right. I do not

believe I would have done this on my own and I was given an opportunity to see from a
different perspective. I find it challenging for me to really commit myself to a religion

because it was a set of rules that I felt that if you did not abide by that you would never

be allowed to reach heaven or a higher place. In reality, it was more complex than

that.

Religion is such a major thing for many people around the world. It is a set of

ideas that people allow into their life and let it consume them. May people become

martyrs as a result of their dedication to this lifestyle because they believe it so strongly.

This kind of passion is the reason I find religion so interesting. Many people find solace

and purpose in their lives which as a result emanates from them. Religion can change

the way you look at certain situations, good or bad, and as result ultimately lead them

down their destined path. There are also those who do not believe in any form of

religion or higher being, that we are strictly meant to live our lives and then die. I do not

believe there is a correct religion, who am I to say, but every individual has a different

way of looking at life and its meaning and that is the most fascinating part of it all.

We had read Supreme Happiness by Chuang Tzu and in this passage, it

explains that each life and person perceives happiness on certain ideologies whether

some find happiness in tangible things, food, and even sounds, we all define it

differently. I found the correlation between the two because many people find the most

supreme kind of happiness when they feel they have lived their life like God had

intended them too. There was a particular line that I found rather important was the

inaction of Heaven is its purity, the inaction of earth of its peace. So the two inactions

combine and all things are transformed and brought to birth. It continues to say that

everything is meant to follow its course and us as humans cannot do anything but let it
simply, happen. As humans, we always try to control the outcome of our lives and we

never will. Religion allows us to accomplish our goals in life as they come and if we take

certain actions there will be results. We all find a way to cope with the events in our lives

and we feel comfort in knowing that if we live the way God has told us too, we will have

served a greater purpose and have had lived with meaning. This was a great

opportunity for me to realize that.