General Conference October 2011

It's General Conference time again!   A semi-annual event in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, when for two days we receive spiritual and temporal counsel from the prophet, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and other leaders of the Church.

Here are some of the things that stood out for me during the first two Saturday sessions:

• We are entitled to personal revelation (i.e. guidance for ourselves as individuals), but we need to desire to receive it.  Don't harden your heart and refuse to believe that the Lord wants you to learn about who He is, who you are and who you can become with His help.  Ask with the faith that He will respond and seek Him diligently.
• Helping others does not require costly or time consuming programmes.  Just do the right thing at the right time - without delay.  The Lord expects our thoughts, action, labour and testimony.
• Be careful about how you use your time.  The poor use of time is a close cousin to idleness.  Let us be as quick to kneel [in prayer] as to text.  Don't become a slave to things that rob your precious time.
• Most of what we worry about is not of eternal consequence.  And if it is, the Lord will help us handle it.

Boyd K. Packer spoke to the youth and recognising that they may wonder how someone of his age might have words of use for them, he quoted the following poem:

~~~
About Crows (by John Ciardi)

The old crow is getting slow;
the young crow is not.
Of what the young crow does not know,
the old crow knows a lot.

At knowing thins, the old crow is still
the young crow's master.
What does the old crow not know?
How to go faster.

The young crow flies above, below and rings
around the slow old crow.
What does the fast young crow not know?
WHERE TO GO.
~~~

How can you not like a poem like that?!!

Mormon Helping Hands

Recently a friend needed help packing her house for an upcoming move.  Six of us went over and boxed up all the small stuff in the house - including pictures, kitchenware and annoying must-have items that lurk in cabinets throughout the land.  Particularly bathroom cabinets.  Everyone has them and no-one likes packing and unpacking their own.  Doing it for someone else, though, is fun.

It's interesting how easy it is to do chores at someone else's house.  For that matter, it's much more fun doing your own housework when someone's there helping you. Besides, what's not to like about those happy-yellow Mormon Helping Hands t-shirts?

"... when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God."
-- Mosiah 2 vs 17

What's with all the Temples?

Yesterday Mr. F and I went to the Birmingham, AL Temple.  I can't begin to tell you how much of a needed break that was.  We performed proxy sealing ordinances so that those who have died without receiving these ordinances in their mortal life have the option of receiving them after they have passed on.

It's an unbelievably good feeling to know that you're giving someone the ability to choose how they will live out their eternal life after they have "shuffled off this mortal coil".  For me, sealing sessions always have a feeling of quiet joy and everyone in the room feels they are a part of something magnificent.

Sitting in the Celestial Room afterwards I felt the peace and calm that I've only ever experienced in LDS (Mormon) temples.  Like bathing in sunshine on a cold day, the atmosphere inside a temple soaks through your whole being.  We sat quietly, absorbing the feeling of closeness to the Lord and gaining strength from it.

While the six hour round trip drive from Atlanta to Birmingham is well worth it (and far less than some must travel), I'm excited for the reopening of the Atlanta, GA Temple this year.  There will be a public open house from 9-23 April and a cultural celebration on 30 April.  The rededication of the temple will be held on Sunday, 1 May 2011.  For more information, please click HERE.

180th General Conference Part IV

Just realised that I hadn't posted anything on the last session of General Conference...  Better late than never, I suppose.  At least I beat the May issue of the Ensign magazine, which has all the conference talks.  Or rather, it hasn't made it to my letter box yet... 

So here we go, with a few of the things that caught my attention during the final session:

• It is not why we face trials, it's how we face them.
• It's easy to look back and see what we learned from an trial.  The trick is to learn from the trial while we are experiencing it.
• Learn to serve and think of others, even in the midst of trial.  Jesus Christ is the supreme example of this attitude.
• Those who live only for themselves shrivel up.  Those who serve others grow.
• A peaceful environment is not just external, it is internal.
• The world seems to have slipped from the moorings of morality and the piers of peace.  Look to the Lighthouse of the Lord.

So there you have it.  Two great days full of inspired teachings from men of God.  And now I'm waiting with foot-tapping impatience for this month's Ensign... not to mention the 180th Semi-Annual General Conference, coming up in October.  Good times.

180th General Conference Part III

I watched Sunday's conference sessions with some friends from my first ward - and had my first Easter egg hunt between sessions.  It's tough when you're competing with seasoned professionals aged 7 - 15!!  Not to mention their parents...

Some thoughts from the Sunday morning session:

• We are all walking our own personal difficult path through life and we need each other to succeed.
• The teachings of the Saviour Jesus Christ must be more than just principles you memorise.
• Don't allow a perceived wrong to distance you from the Lord.
• Never let an earthly sacrifice disable you spiritually.
• The Saviour taught us to love even our enemies.
• We live in a noisy, contentious world.  We must find time to slow down, pray and ponder.
• No-one is exempt from the storms of life.

That's it for tonight - I'll finish up with the Sunday afternoon session tomorrow, 'cause I'm tired *yawn*.  Yay for the hot Southern summer which finally made its grand entrance this past weekend.

An Apostle's Easter Thoughts on Christ

On Easter morning we turn our thoughts to the miracle that is the resurrection of Jesus the Christ.  His perfect life, His ultimate sacrifice, His eternal love - this is why we celebrate Easter.

Jeffrey R Holland, Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, speaks of the path that Jesus took.



"One of the great consolations of this Easter season is that because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so."

The full text of Elder Holland's talk can be found here: None Were With Him

A Perfect Brightness of Hope

In Sacrament Meeting yesterday, my bishop spoke about hope and the way in which many of us feel or express hope in Christ, as being without real hope.  A hopeless hope.  Not a faithful hope which trusts that all the trials we may face are ultimately for our benefit (see Doctrine & Covenants 122:7).  Too often our hope is similar to a wish for something we're not certain we'll receive, such as when we say, "I hope we'll have good weather tomorrow."  There's nothing you can do about the outcome of such a wish and so we fall short of true hope.  Our hope is vain (see Moroni 7:40-44) when it should be strong - we are counselled to "ask in faith, nothing wavering" (see James 1:5-6).

So how do we learn to hope with a trusting heart?  For me, I'm learning that there are two ways - and that they go hand-in-hand.  First and foremost is to do your best to keep the commandments of God and follow the example of Jesus Christ.  Which leads naturally to the second: to serve others.  These two actions were nicely summed up on a bumper sticker I saw the other day: "Love God, Love Others."

When we begin to look at the world around us and do what we can to make it a better place and ourselves more caring people, when we have faith that Jesus Christ will make up the difference between His perfection and our shortcomings - and we all have them - that is when we will begin to understand what it means to have "a perfect brightness of hope" (see 2 Nephi 31:20).

The Gap

In Sacrament Meeting yesterday, one of the speakers discussed the difference between what we say we'll do and what we actually do. Calling this difference "The Gap," the sister giving the talk explained that it is something we experience in many ways in our daily lives.

This sister pointed out that if there is "a measurable need and a measurable outcome," we find it easier to rise to the task, no matter how difficult or even life-threatening it may be. With the natural disasters of the past few years in mind, think about how many people have sacrificed time, money and their own needs to attend to the needs of total strangers. These men and women have been angels to those unto whom they ministered.

The flip side to this is when there is little or no measurable need or outcome. This is when we often fail to perform – even if the task is easy. When we are rushed, overworked and tired, do we take time to sit down with the neighbour who just needs friendship? Do we listen to the child who wants to tell us yet another "knock-knock" joke? One of my friends has a sign in her house that says "Please forgive the mess and noise; my children are making happy memories."

Our Father in Heaven knows each of us personally and it is He who calls us to carry out this, His work. And as the scripture says; "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God" (see Mosiah 2:17). When we finally realise these truths and act on them, this is when we fill The Gap.