Timely Reminder from the Past

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the General Young Women meeting of the April 2002 conference.

With Satan and his minions promoting sin so blatantly today Sister Sharon G. Larsen's counsel is appropriate: There are places where the Spirit would never be. You know where those places are. Stay away from them. Do not encourage a curiosity that ought to be stopped. Pay attention to what you are feeling so you will know when you are feeling unsure or uneasy. . . . Standing in holy places helps us to become holy, but that is an acquired virtue that takes practice. Practice listening to the Spirit and being obedient. Practice being morally pure. Practice being reverent about sacred things. . . . It is difficult to train your desires to want goodness and beauty when the opposite confronts you constantly and appears to be so much more enticing and fun and popular. . . . Identifying what is holy and educating our desires for that is vital to our happiness.

Too often we think of "talents" as simply the performing or athletic variety. Sister Larsen reminds us that being holy is a "talent" or skill that takes practice. 

This past Sunday there were some visiting families whose children were not quiet during the entire meeting. (Unfortunately the parents never took them out either.) I presumed that those children had never been taught at home to be still and quiet. It is a skill that is best taught and practiced at home, before the occasion arises to need that skill. And it takes years of practice to perfect that skill. The sad thing is, is that the parents of these young families were raised in the church by good parents and should have known better. But apparently not.

How will children, teenagers, and even adults know what spiritual feelings are unless they have experienced them regularly? How can parents help their children experience spiritual feelings without time to be still, reverent and listening? How will any of us be able to stand in holy places unless we have holiness within ourselves? 

It reminds me of what Viktor Frankl said: Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. He knew about standing in holy places.

Sister Larsen ended with this counsel: Once you understand what holy places are, then you know where to be. It may take sacrifice of our worldly tastes or popularity. It may require humility and forgiveness or complete repentance. It does require "clean hands and a pure heart" (Ps. 24:4). Do whatever you have to do to be able to stand in holy places and be not moved, to stand for truth and righteousness, regardless of shallow enticements and evils and designs of conspiring people (see D&C 89:4) and media.

As evil's darkness deepens across the world we will need the strength of the Spirit and a rich reservoir of holiness to stand firm and immoveable in righteousness.

 

Threads Woven Together

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday afternoon session of the April 2002 conference.

Then Elder Russell M. Nelson: A firm foundation is necessary for any building, institution, or individual to endure. . . .Even firm foundations cannot prevent life's problems. Wayward children cause parents to grieve. Some broken families don't get fixed. Gender disorientation is poorly understood. Married couples, for whatever reason, may not be blessed with children. Even in our day, 'the guilty and the wicked go unpunished because of their money.' Some things just don't seem fair.

Elder John H. Madsen: Simply stated, eternal life is to live forever as families in the presence of God.

Elder Gene R. Cook: Repent. Remove any worldliness from your life, including anger. Receive a continual remission of your sins, and you will bridle all your passions, and be filled with love.

Elder Gerald N. Lund: As Elder Maxwell said yesterday, only when we truly yield our hearts to God can He begin to accelerate the purification and the sanctification and the perfecting process.

Elder M. Russell Ballard: We sometimes fail to understand that the everlasting peace Jesus promises is an inner peace, born in faith, anchored by testimony, nurtured with love, and expressed through continual obedience and repentance. . . . One cannot be at peace if one is living a life out of harmony with revealed truth. 

President Gordon B. Hinckley: I know that it is the work of the Almighty 'to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man'. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet, the great Prophet of this dispensation through whom these truths have come.

It is my testimony that the ills of the world could be cured by living according to the Gospel and teachings of Jesus Christ, and His latter-day prophets.

Just a little reminder that the heat of the summer isn't permanent; and neither is the cold of the winter.

 

The Lifeline of Prayer

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday morning session of the April 2002 conference.

Each of us has problems that we cannot solve and weaknesses that we cannot conquer without reaching out through prayer to a higher source of strength. That source is the God of heaven to whom we pray in the name of Jesus Christ. As we pray we should think of our Father in Heaven as possessing all knowledge, understanding, love and compassion.

President James E. Faust began this session with just the right message for me this week.

I don't know why I struggle with prayer so much, but I do. One of the rules I had for our children was "No whining, or begging." When I pray for the same things over and over I feel like I'm whining and begging to my Heavenly Father, and that makes me feel uncomfortable. I've already asked Him; He knows what I need; He'll answer when He deems it right, or not. I don't need to keep asking. Do I? 

President Faust says, "God knows our needs better than we can state them, but He wants us to approach Him in faith to ask for blessings, safety, and comfort."

I love listening to the prayers given in General Conference and in the temple. I have learned a lot from listening carefully. Once, in the temple I heard a most profound way of asking for blessings. After stating the desired blessings the brother said, "Bless us according to our needs, according to our faith, and according to thy will." I have used that phrasing ever since, which helps me feel that no matter what happens it will be according to God's will and for the best.

President Faust said, "An important element of all our prayers might well be to follow the pattern of that prayer in Gethsemane: 'not my will, but thine, be done.' By this, then, we acknowledge our devotion and submission to the overriding purposes of the Lord in our lives."

I know prayer works. The most recent and profound example is just after our son took his life. The first night was horrible: sleepless and tearful. Then word spread, and family and friends, as well as strangers, began praying for us. The second night we enjoyed deep and restful sleep. It was as if we were shielded for a time from all the pain by the prayers for comfort offered.

What a glorious day it will be for each of us when we pray with confidence that 'if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us.'

My mother had a special gift, a virtual direct line to heaven. When she prayed for something, it happened! I wish I had that "super power". (Or do I sin in my wish?)

I'll keep trying. If I don't give up, eventually I'll get it right.

 

Daily Manna

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Priesthood session of the April 2002 conference.

I listened to all of the talks and thought how much this instruction is still needed. Because we are not perfect we need continuous encouragement and reminders to keep plugging along on our journey through mortality. It is helpful to hear of others successes and failures. It is good to hear fervent testimonies of truth. 

Listening to one General Conference talk each day is helpful to me to keep the spirit I want to feel throughout the week. I encourage you to do the same. It doesn't matter which conference, just choose one and listen to all of the talks, one per day; see what a difference it makes in your life.

Faith Obedience and Being Teachable

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Saturday afternoon session of the April 2002 conference.

Two members of the Quorum of the Seventy spoke in this session whom I have no recollection of. However, I thought their talks were instructive.

Elder R. Conrad Schultz said, "Faith obedience is a matter of trust. The question is simple: Do we trust our Heavenly Father? Do we trust our prophets?" That is what I tried to get across to our children, that obedience is trust in me as their mother, that I have their safety and best interests in mind; and that we can trust Heavenly Father in the same way. He went on to explain, "Sometimes it is necessary to be obedient even when we do not understand the reason for the law. It takes faith to be obedient."

When our children were young, I think the oldest was about 12, they wanted to watch the movie Sixth Sense. We advised them that it would be better if they waited until they were older because it was a scary movie. No, they insisted they wouldn't be scared! My husband and I talked it over and decided that this would be a good teaching moment, so we let them watch it. Afterward, they were so nervous they couldn't go to sleep without priesthood blessings to calm them down. The next day we talked about how in the future they could trust us to know what we were talking about. For years it worked. Whenever they wanted to do something and we wouldn't let them we would remind them of the movie and that we knew what was best for them. 

At the beginning of the talk, Elder Schultz told a story of their family vacation fishing when a large "sneaker wave" swamped their boat and a cousin was washed overboard. Fortunately, they were all wearing life-jackets and no one was lost. He ended his talk with this poignant prayer, ". . . that we will continue to wear our life jackets of obedience in order to avoid the tragedy that will surely come if we are deceived and follow the enticings of the adversary." I thought of our beloved James, mired in bad choices, who succumbed to the whisperings of Satan that there was no hope for him. Obedience in his teens and early twenties would have changed the course of his life.

Elder Robert R. Steuer gave a great talk on being teachable. "When our desire to receive instructions is a greater force than our comfort in remaining as we are, we become teachable." He gave three conditions to being teachable. "First, we need to start with a willingness to be instructed." I used to call our children 'recalcitrant' when they were refusing to receive instruction. It's such a good, old-fashioned word. A child, student, or adult really does need to be humble and willing to be instructed before any learning can take place.

"Second, we need to put ourselves into a proper frame of mind and heart." I think this includes clearing our minds and hearts of preconceived notions, past experiences, excuses, and such, so we can be open to correction and new knowledge.

"Third, we must be obedient to the instruction we receive." It doesn't do us any good to ask for instruction if we aren't going to follow it. "Becoming teachable is a process of learning line upon line. In this process we convert thoughts and feelings into actions." I love that! And finally, ". . . we shall discover that the things we value and appreciate most are those that we personally learned from the Lord." Amen to that. What I've remembered the longest is what I learned while studying the scriptures myself.

"Follow Me"

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Saturday morning session of the April 2002 conference.

I've often thought about what my reaction would have been to Jesus, or Joseph Smith. Would I have been looking for the Messiah and recognized Him? Would I have been looking for the true church and recognized it when I found it? I think I would have, I hope I would have. But I don't know. My patriarchal blessing has the odd phrase that ". . . as soon as you heard the Gospel, it rang true to you and you accepted it readily." I was born in the covenant and raised in a faithful LDS home. I've never not known the gospel of Jesus Christ. Which is why I wonder if I would have searched for it. 

Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin asked, "Perhaps a more realistic question might be, 'If the Savior were to call you today, would you be just as willing to leave your nets and follow Him?'"

He talks about leaving our nets, as the early apostles were asked to, some of which are tools to make a living, that we may be required to sacrifice, and some are snares that entangle us in worldliness. "In short, a net can be anything that pulls us away from our relationship with our Heavenly Father or His restored Church." 

He said so many wise things in this talk. 

Sometimes, we feel that the busier we are, the more important we are--as though our busyness defines our worth. Brothers and sisters, we can spend a lifetime whirling about at a feverish pace, checking off list after list of things that in the end really don't matter.

That we do a lot may not be so important. That we focus the energy of our minds, our hearts, and our souls on those things of eternal significance--that is essential.

Elder Wirthlin also had such a great sense of humor. He tells of having too much to do in the available time so he decided to get up earlier. He says, "It wasn't easy. There were mornings when the alarm clock went off that I cracked open an eyelid and glared at it, daring it to keep ringing." I can totally relate!

But then he asks, "What should we be willing to give up for eternal life?" And, "How do we follow the Savior?" He answers, "By exercising faith. . . . by repenting of our sins--by experiencing sorrow because of them and forsaking them. . . . by obeying Him. He and our Heavenly Father have given us commandments--not to punish or torment us, but to help us come to a fulness of joy, both in this life and for the eternities to come, worlds without end."

Elder Wirthlin cautions that even though we choose to follow the Savior our lives will not be free from worry, pain, and fear. 

Yes, I do not suggest that the road will be easy. But I will give you my witness that those who, in faith, leave their nets and follow the Savior will experience happiness beyond their ability to comprehend. . . .

We have nets that must be tended and nets that must be mended. But when the Master of ocean, earth, and sky calls to us, 'Follow me,' we should leave the entangling, worldly nets behind and follow His footsteps. 

I testify to you this day that the time will come when every man, woman, and child will look into the Savior's loving eyes. On that day, we will know with a surety the worth of our decision to straightway follow Him. 

What a wonderful day that will be, when we will have a sure knowledge, and we can be at rest from the challenges of this mortal life. I look forward to that day!

Rozy and son, James in 2018