Don't Forget

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the General Relief Society session of the October 2011 conference.

It seems appropriate at this Christmas season to quote from President Uchtdorf's talk:

If you will only allow His divine love into your life, it can dress any wound, heal any hurt, and soften any sorrow.

The gift of Jesus Christ is the best, most precious gift of all eternity. 

 

The Songs They Could Not Sing

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday afternoon session of the October 2011 conference.

Elder Quentin L. Cook's talk in this session touched my heart and brought tears to my eyes. About a year ago I was pouring out my heart to God and pleading for understanding about what I should do, why I felt like such a failure in life, and just generally wanted some relief from the sorrows I felt. Into my mind came a thought, "Give yourself some grace, you've had a hard life."  That had never occurred to me before. That I'd been given a hard life. I knew that moments have been difficult, but I chalked it up mostly to my own choices. I never thought that Heavenly Father was giving me challenges, but it makes sense overall.

Elder Cook says, "While we do not know all the answers, we do know important principles that allow us to face tragedies with faith and confidence that there is a bright future planned for each of us."

That is so comforting! 

Elder Cook outlines three of the important principles that can help us navigate life.

First, we have a Father in Heaven who knows and loves us personally and understands our suffering perfectly.

Second, His Son, Jesus Christ, is our Savior and Redeemer, whose Atonement not only provides for salvation and exaltation but also will compensate for all the unfairness of life.

Third, the Father's plan of happiness for His children includes not only a premortal and mortal life, but also an eternal life as well, including a great and glorious reunion with those we have lost. All wrongs will be righted, and we will see with perfect clarity and faultless perspective and understanding.

At the final interview with my mission president I expressed that I felt somewhat of a failure because all of the people I taught who chose to be baptized were in the first half of my mission. What happened to my success? Why no baptisms in the second half? He lovingly explained that there are more ways to measure success than just the number of baptisms. He told me that he had given me companions who wanted to go home, but I helped them stay and be successful. (I thought I was the one who wanted to go home!) It was rather eye-opening to me. Perhaps that is what it will be like when we are with Our Father in Heaven and we finally understand all that we went through.

Elder Cook said, We are unaware of hosts of blessings that we receive from day to day. It is extremely important that we have a spirit of gratitude in our hearts. 

The challenges we face in life give us a chance to prove to ourselves and God that we will be faithful no matter what. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, "In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." (1 Thes. 5:18) EVERYTHING! Not just the good times, the obvious blessings, but when we are being buffeted and challenged, when we can't see clearly the outcome, or when there is no end in sight. That's not easy to do. But Paul also wrote to the Corinthians "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." (1 Cor. 2:9)

I await the day when I'll be reunited with our son who left too soon, and didn't finish his songs. Yep, life is hard, but that's the nature of learning and being tested. I want to pass this test!

Elder Cook ended with, "The Savior said, 'Therefore, let your hearts be comforted. . . . Be still and know that I am God.' We have His promise that we with our children will sing 'songs of everlasting joy.'"

The Book of Mormon

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday morning session of the October 2011 conference.

My grandpa, Joseph Smith Wilson*, was a Book of Mormon scholar. Not formally trained, but had studied the book since he was young, been taught by the Spirit and by the time I knew him could answer any gospel question from the pages of the Book of Mormon; in fact, he would say, "Well, the answer to that is on page __ ." (He was a bit lost when the new edition came out in 1980.)

My dad knew the Book of Mormon quite well too, although he knew it by chapter and verse, not page number. We read the Book of Mormon many times through while I was growing up. I don't remember a time when I didn't know it was true. I've never questioned it at all, ever.

Elder Tad R. Callister's talk The Book of Mormon--a Book from God resonated with me because of my deep love of that book.

I know the Book of Mormon is exactly what Joseph Smith claimed it to be. I know it is a true record of the ancient inhabitants of America including the visit of the resurrected Jesus Christ. Every prophet in it testifies of Jesus as our Savior and Redeemer. We are taught His Gospel and about His Atonement for us in wonderfully clear language.

I can't imagine my life without it. Joseph Smith was right when he said that a man [or woman] could get nearer to God reading this book than any other. It has certainly been true in my life.

 *He was named for the Prophet Joseph Smith because he was born one day before the prophet's birthday and his mother had asked God for a son promising to name him for the prophet and send him to Zion, from Scotland, when he was of age.

Testimony

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Priesthood session of the October 2011 conference.

Elder Kevin G. Brown's talk from the most recent General Conference has been an internet sensation for his fervent, fiery delivery. Last week in Relief Society we studied that talk and the teacher said that she had met Elder Brown some years ago when her family went to Jamaica to pick up a brother from his mission. She said that Elder Brown was just as intense and passionate in real life as he was in conference.

Two things that President Monson said in his talk "Dare to Stand Alone" brought to my mind Elder Brown's talk.

In order for us to be strong and to withstand all the forces pulling us in the wrong direction or all the voices encouraging us to take the wrong path, we must have our own testimony.

 May each of us who holds the priesthood of God [or is a disciple of Jesus Christ] know what he believes.

We can't be strong enough to make it through life leaning on someone else's knowledge and testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We have to put in the work ourselves to grow our own knowledge and testimony.

Watching YouTube fitness videos and listening to my son talk about the benefits of nutrition and exercise is wonderful, but it doesn't help me. I need to do the work myself of choosing the right foods in the right amounts, and getting in the right amounts and kinds of movements to change my body. He can't do it for me. (Darn!)

Sister Julie B. Beck said, "Insight found in the scripture accumulates over time, so it is important to spend some time in the scriptures every day." And General Conference talks qualify as scripture. My study doesn't really help anyone else's knowledge and testimony either. We each have to fill our lamps and oil vessels drop by drop over time. There's no way to "download" knowledge and testimony in a few minutes. Or to think of it another way, we don't get through life starving our bodies all week and gorging on Sunday. We eat every day to maintain health and strength. We need to be "eating" our spiritual food daily too. 

Another little tidbit I notice in each and every conference is that the speakers says things like "in these trying times", "in these perilous times", or similar phrases. And I think to myself, when has life ever not been trying or perilous, or economically hard, or morally easy. This life is a test of our obedience and commitment to following the Savior. Satan wants us to fail and works tirelessly to do so. Of course life is hard! But we can be strong and pass the test by taking our spiritual vitamins daily, exercising our faith in Jesus Christ daily, and enduring faithfully to the end.

 

 

 

The Divine Gift of Repentance

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Saturday afternoon session of the October 2011 conference.

Have you ever felt personal stagnation? As if you're not moving forward. I have. My current, and most recent situation has been one of going through the motions, simply doing what I know I should because my mission president (Elder LeGrand R. Curtis Sr.) taught us that if our body is where it should be, doing what it should do, then our spirit will catch up to where our body is. I think he was expanding on what President Brigham Young said about getting on your knees and praying until you felt like praying.

As I listened to and read Elder (now President) D. Todd Christofferson's talk I knew that I need to repent. His talk touched me deeply (I've always liked his talks) and I felt the Spirit prompting me to act on what he was teaching.

His five fundamental aspects of this fundamental gospel principle were, as he hoped, extremely helpful to me.

First, the invitation to repent is an expression of love. This resonated with me from the perspective of a mother. I wanted my children to repent of their deliberate wrong doings because I loved them and wanted our home to be calm, peaceful and filled with love. No doubt Father feels similarly. He is not a tyrannical dictator demanding compliance to abstract laws. He loves us and wants His home and family to be calm, orderly, peaceful and filled with love for each other.

Second, repentance means striving to change. Feeling sorry, even saying I'm sorry is not enough. That's the beginning. I have to act and be different the next time, and continuing into the future. Elder Christofferson's words were so instructive and encouraging: ". . . we seek His grace to complement and reward our most diligent efforts." And, ". . .We should pray for time and opportunity to work and strive and overcome." When I was a teen wondering what the purpose of life was, an answer came as our family read The Book of Mormon, in Alma 42:4, "And thus we see, that there was a time granted unto man to repent, yea, a probationary time, a time to repent and serve God." But I'd never thought about praying for more time and opportunity. Perhaps it's just because I'm getting older (68 in December) that I hope I'm not going to run out of time.

Third, repentance means not only abandoning sin but also committing to obedience. Nature abhors a vacuum so one thing, the sin, must be replaced with another, or we fall right back into the sin. Of course I'd like to ask Father why good habits are so hard to establish and easy to break, while bad habits are so easy to establish and so difficult to break. Is this simply part of our mortal testing? Opposition in all things? A strengthening process, sort of like weight lifting? All of the above? I long for a face to face conversation with my Father in Heaven. This I do know, that sinful habits and behaviors have to be replaced with obedience to the commandments and righteous habits. And it's often just hard work, like lifting weights. But it gets easier and more automatic the longer it's done. Which is why, even when feeling stagnant, I've continued to read the scriptures and General Conference talks daily. It's a habit (thank goodness, finally) and I hoped at some point for my spirit to catch up.

Fourth, repentance requires a seriousness of purpose and a willingness to persevere, even through pain. I'll continue the weight lifting analogy a bit. One of our sons is a serious weight lifter. He's been doing it for about a decade now. He says that he is always sore somewhere, but that is how muscle growth occurs, lifting to failure, and then resting for growth; rotating which area of the body gets worked daily. Repentance and obedience will cause discomfort, even pain as I change from a natural man/woman to a saint through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It is comforting, though, to realize that the pain of repentance is minimal compared to the pain of suffering for our own sins. The price has been paid, we have been redeemed, if we willingly repent and accept the gift.

Fifth, whatever the cost of repentance, it is swallowed up in the joy of forgiveness. This brings us full circle to the love of God the Father and Jesus Christ. They want us to repent, and readily forgive when we do so because They love us!! When we feel their love in the form of forgiveness we experience a joyful relief and a loving connection restored or deepened. 

I doubt that anyone reading this blog is guilty of any great big malignant sin, but we are all guilty of little faults and failings, shortcomings and transgressions. I realized that by letting mine accumulate, I let the stagnation set in, which is why this talk touched my heart. I've needed a direct call to repentance and reminder of the fact that it isn't punishment, but a divine gift to restore me to and deepen my connection to my Father in Heaven, and my Savior Jesus Christ.

I was pleased when Elder Christofferson was called to the First Presidency. His talks are so wonderful, clear and direct and loving.