Apologies and a Link

Due to circumstances of life and health beyond my control, I haven't had a chance to post here lately. (I don't know how many of you actually read this blog, but, for those who do, I apologize for the silence!) I will do my best to get a summary of yesterday's lesson up as soon as possible. In the meantime, I wanted to post a link to the talk I referred to yesterday by Bonnie D. Parkin. It was originally given as a BYU Devotional address entitled "Personal Ministry: Sacred and Precious", the text of which can be found here. It was later adapted as an article in BYU Magazine called simply "Personal Ministry", which you can read here. Well worth reading and applying!

Lesson 42: "Continuing Revelation to Latter-day Prophets"

I'm coming to terms with the fact that, on the weeks when I don't teach, I will be spending Sunday School time in the hall with my infant daughter. (I am grateful that my husband takes his turn on the weeks when I do teach!) Unfortunately, this means I won't be able to provide a summary of or any reactions to the actual lesson. If you had the chance to attend class, what did you learn or think about?

The focus of the lesson in the manual was on continuing modern revelation. Specifically, it addressed revelations involving materials correlation in the Church, extending the blessings of the Priesthood to all worthy males in the Church, publishing new editions of the scriptures, and the organization of additional quorums of the Seventy. I liked, though, how it pointed out that not all revelations are so far-reaching or the effects so widely-known. Instead, the leaders of the Church are constantly receiving revelations on various aspects of "running" the Church that most of us may never know about. This story told by President Harold B. Lee illustrates this truth:

"Elder John A. Widtsoe of the Council of the Twelve once told of a discussion he had with a group of stake officers. In the course of the discussion someone said to him, 'Brother Widtsoe, how long has it been since the Church received a revelation?' Brother Widtsoe rubbed his chin thoughtfully and said in reply, 'Oh, probably since last Thursday'" (Stand Ye in Holy Places, 1974, pp. 132-33).

Most recently, I was impressed by the evidence of continuing revelation in this address by Julie B. Beck, the Relief Society General President. She relates how, in counsel with the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve, the name and focus of Relief Society meetings has been changed. Basically, the responsibility for determining the purpose, content, and frequency of meetings outside of the Sunday Relief Society class now rests more fully on local leaders. The purpose of this decision is to "help meet the needs of individuals and families in the [local] ward". I love this example of how, although the Gospel remains constant, the Church is always changing to better meet the needs of its members. This is done through continuing revelation.

More Food for Thought

I want to thank Brian for posting the link to this talk by Henry B. Eyring. If you haven't had a chance to read it, I highly recommend it. It dovetails perfectly with the lesson topic from this week, and presents some powerful insights into sharing the Gospel.

I was especially touched by two points from this talk. The first was this insight into what makes a person successful at sharing the Gospel:

There is no single pattern in what they do. There is no common technique. Some always carry a Book of Mormon to give away. Others set a date to find someone for the missionaries to teach. Another has found questions which draw out feelings about what matters most in life to a person. Each has prayed to know what to do. They each seem to get a different answer, suited especially to them and to the the people they meet. (Henry B. Eyring, "A Child and a Disciple," Ensign, May 2003, p. 29)

I love this, because it takes into account the truth that we are all different, with different strengths and weaknesses, and different styles. The Lord wants to and will work through us in different ways to touch individuals. The key is to seek the Lord's guidance. We can ask Him, "How can I lift someone up today?" and then be willing to act on the answers we receive.

The second point that struck me was this:

You must not wait until you feel closer to Heavenly Father or until you are sure that you have been purified through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Pray for the chance to encounter people who sense there could be something better in their lives. Pray to know what you should do to help them. Your prayers will be answered. You will meet people prepared by the Lord. You will find yourself feeling and saying things beyond your past experience. And then in time you will feel yourself drawing closer to your Heavenly Father, and you will feel the cleansing and the forgiveness the Savior promises His faithful witnesses. And you will feel His approval, knowing you have done what He asked of you, because He loves you and trusts you.

What an amazing promise! We just need to keep trying and doing the best we can. If we are truly humble in our weakness, the Lord will be able to use us as instruments in his hands. Then, as a result, we will experience the feelings of love and acceptance that we long for.

Thanks again, Brian, for pointing out this talk!

Chapter 41: "Every Member a Missionary" (Part 2)

So, sharing the Gospel is part of our responsibility to lift others up toward Christ. Why, then, are we sometimes hesitant to do it? I asked the class what kinds of things kept them from talking to others about the Gospel, and I got a variety of answers: fear of seeming pushy, fear of seeming weird, fear of awkwardness, fear of losing a friendship, fear of not knowing what to say, and fear of not knowing how to explain difficult doctrines. I think we have all experienced these fears.

One thing that has helped me overcome some of these fears is to think of all of Heavenly Father's children on a big ladder. At the top is Eternal Life (being with God and like God), and at the bottom is Eternal Death (being eternally separated from God). Somewhere on the ladder, one of the rungs is baptism, and somewhere above that is a rung for temple ordinances. Somewhere below those is gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon, somewhere else is knowing that God exists, and another is feeling his love. There are an infinite number of rungs with different steps toward Eternal Life, and all of us are on a rung somewhere.

This model gives me a better perspective on sharing the Gospel, because the point is to always be lifting each other up a rung. Instead of being intimidated by the pressure to invite our non-member neighbors to be baptized, we can focus on finding out where they are on the "ladder" and how we can help them move "up". Perhaps even more importantly, this idea helps me see that it is not only non-members that need our love and encouragement! We should always be concentrating on lifting everyone up a rung--our children, our spouses, our parents, our friends and neighbors, members of our ward, ancestors who have passed away . . . everyone! If we just make it the habit of our lives to get to know people well enough to find out where they are on the ladder and help them up a rung, will it be so difficult to share the Gospel?

When I was serving as a missionary, the Primary children from my home ward wrote letters to the missionaries. The Primary presidency photocopied the letters and sent them to all the missionaries serving from our ward. What a joy it was to read those letters! One of them stood out to me above the others, though, and I will never forget it. At the end of one line, a young boy wrote, "How many people have you . . . ". In the instant before my eyes moved to the beginning of the next line, my mind had already filled in the word "baptized". I was surprised, however, to find out what he had really written: "How many people have you served?" This is, I believe, the essence of what the Lord would have us do. If we are loving and serving everyone around us, lifting each other up toward Christ--including sharing the Gospel--will naturally follow. In fact, if we had to express the Plan of Salvation in just one word, I believe that word would be "love".

President Henry B. Eyring shared a beautiful example of the effects of this kind of love and service toward others. He told the story of participating with other ward members to help a new neighbor put in a lawn and landscaping. The man expressed appreciation, but assured them that he was satisfied with his own beliefs. Over the years, they continued to extend friendship and love toward this family. Later, President Eyring had this experience:

In all that time, the acts of kindness extended to him and his family never ceased, because the neighbors really came to love them. One evening I came home to see a truck in their driveway. I had been told they were moving to another state. I approached to see if I could help. I didn’t recognize the man I saw loading household things into the truck. He said quietly as I drew near, “Hello, Brother Eyring.” I hadn’t recognized him because he was the son, now grown older, who had lived there, married, and moved away. And because of the love of many for him, he was now a baptized member of the Church. I don’t know the end of that story because it will have no end. But I know that it began with love (“Let Us Raise Our Voice of Warning,” Ensign, Jan 2009, 4–9).

It always begins with love, doesn't it?

Chapter 41: "Every Member a Missionary" (Part 1)

A couple of years ago, Elder M. Russell Ballard gave a General Conference address in which he suggested a tool Church members could use in sharing the Gospel:

“You may want to prepare your own list of talking points that will assist you in explaining what we believe to your friends and acquaintances of other faiths. It may be helpful for you, as it is for me, to have on one page a few facts about the Church as it is today to give to them along with a copy of the Articles of Faith” (M. Russell Ballard, “Faith, Family, Facts, and Fruits,” Ensign, Nov 2007, 25–27.)

Did you try this? (If so, I'd love to hear about your experience!) When I heard this talk, I thought, "That's a great idea!" I wrote it down, and then I never seemed to get around to doing it. A few months later, I was assigned to teach a Relief Society lesson on Elder Ballard's talk, so I decided it was time to make my own one-page summary of beliefs.

Now, I have not yet had the opportunity to use the summary I created, but I did learn something very important from the experience--that it is amazingly difficult to summarize my beliefs in one page! When you stop and think about it, we as Latter-day Saints believe so many things. We believe in prophets. We believe in tithing. We believe in food storage, family history, and the pre-mortal existence. And the list goes on and on. How do you choose what to put on that one-page summary and what to leave off?

The answer, I believe, is that we need to understand how those doctrines all fit together. In the Church, we most often study the Gospel topically--focusing on one doctrine at a time, but seldom stepping back to see how everything connects in the "big picture". The key is to "boil down" the Gospel to its most basic level and work out from there.

So, what is the Gospel in its most basic form? Doctrine & Covenants 76:40-42 teaches that the Gospel is

"That he came into the world, even Jesus, to be crucified for the world, and to bear the sins of the world, and to sanctify the world, and to cleanse it from all unrighteousness; That through him all might be saved."

In other words, the core of the Gospel is the Plan of Salvation. Every doctrine, if it is true, must somehow connect to this core.

Because the Plan of Salvation is very simple and, at the same time, very profound, people have come up with various models that can help us visualize the Plan. (See this Ensign article in text or pdf format for a great discussion of several such models.) The most commonly used model is one we could call "circles and lines" or "circles and arrows". (Click here for a visual.) The strength of this model is that it answers the questions, "Where did we come from?", "Why are we here?", and "Where do we go after we die?" One major weakness of this model, though, is that it leaves out what Bruce R. McConkie called "The Three Pillars of Eternity": the Creation, the Fall, and the Atonement.

Another way to look at the Plan of Salvation is represented by the words found in Moses 1:39: "For behold, this is my work and my glory--to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." This is truly the Gospel in a nutshell! For all of you Star Trek fans, this reminds me a lot of the concept of the Prime Directive--a basic principle that we can refer to when we have a question about something or a difficult decision to make. Moses 1:39 really should be our "Prime Directive"! Everything we do--especially in our families and in the Church--should be referred to it by asking: Is this helping to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man?

So the next question is, what is our role as Church members in the Plan? As President Ezra Taft Benson taught, "We have a sacred responsibility to fulfill the threefold mission of the Church--first, to teach the gospel to the world; second, to strengthen the membership of the Church wherever they may be; third, to move forward the work of salvation for the dead" ("A Sacred Responsibility," Ensign, May 1986, p. 77). So, basically, the purpose of the Church is "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life" of three groups of people: Church members, non-members, and those who have passed away. In other words, all of God's children.

How do we do that? By bringing others to Christ, so that He can bring them to the Father. I love the imagery found in 3 Nephi 27:13-15 of Christ on the cross--lifted up with arms outstretched, inviting us to come to Him: "that as I have been lifted up by men even so should men be lifted up by the Father" (v. 14). Our responsibility, then, is to lift each other up toward Christ.

Lesson 40: "Finding Joy in Temple and Family History Work"

I missed class today because of family illness, so I would love it if someone could give a recap of the Gospel Doctrine lesson for those who weren't able to attend. I would also appreciate any comments on what you thought about and learned on this topic.

Personally, I've always felt a little guilty about not getting into family history research like my mom, aunt, brother, and husband do (or have done at different points in their lives). I tried to make myself feel good about tediously searching through records, reminding myself that this was IMPORTANT, that people were WAITING for this. It wasn't working, though.

One day, I had a breakthrough. I decided IT WAS GOING TO BE OKAY for me to feel that this aspect of family history research was tedious. I realized that different people have different strengths and interests. Some people enjoy the thrill of the hunt, the aspect of mystery, the exultant feeling of victory when information is found and another name can be submitted. Me? I find more satisfaction in the personal aspects of family history--journals, memoirs, oral histories, photos, and the like. Although searching for names is a very important part of family history, it is not the only part.

Today I began a new project in this vein--recording my parents' oral histories, then transcribing and editing them into a book. I have the equipment, skills, and motivation to work on this project (though time is another issue!), so I'm going to do it. Not everyone finds this aspect of family history interesting. Many might find the transcription and editing processes tedious, but I love it! Just another example of different gifts working together to make a complete whole.

So, how do you find joy in temple and family history work?