It was a wonderful weekend of counsel from our Church Leaders. Nearly 10 hours of inspiring talks and music.
I just want to share with you some of my insights and thoughts of what stood out to me.
There were lots of warnings and reminders about Satan. Satan is stepping up his efforts exponentially to deceive and trap us into being miserable like unto himself. Satan knows that time is short. The Second Coming of our Savior is nigh at hand. Satan is pulling out all the stops -- and it is apparent. Several warnings about Isaiah's prophecy of good being called evil and evil being called good. I really liked Elder Bednar's analogy of the cheetahs and antelopes. A cheetah is always a predator. When the antelope got spooked and ran away, the cheetahs never missed a beat but continued on their pursuit of the antelope. The cheetahs didn't rest or give up. Neither does Satan. He is relentless in his pursuit to make us miserable. We need to step up our efforts to combat him.
The way that we do that is by building a firm foundation on the rock of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ. If we are built on a firm foundation, we will not fall to Satan's pursuits.
If you are currently on the covenant path -- keep striving hard every day to stay there. If you have left the covenant path -- come back! Heavenly Father loves all of his children unconditionally and wants us all back home with Him. He is patient. But we have to choose to go back and do what's necessary -- repent -- to get back on the covenant path. If you are not and never have been on the covenant path -- get on it. The covenant path back to Heavenly Father is the only place where true joy and happiness are found. Despite our circumstances we can be happy if we are on the covenant path. We must keep striving to stay on the covenant path towards Heavenly Father.
Interestingly, there were several talks about death. Dad's favorite apostle, President Henry B. Eyring, mentioned that he gave a blessing to a man who was on his deathbed. In that blessing he was prompted to tell him that he would soon be seeing his Savior, Jesus Christ, in person. This touched my heart because I immediately thought about Dad and his experience pointing to the picture of Jesus.
President Oaks' talk was about the spirit world. And President Ballard talked about his wife who died a year ago and how he missed her and still weeps for her. I found this quote from Elder Ballard's talk on the Deseret News.
“I encourage you to slow down a bit and think about where you are now in subjugating your carnal nature and empowering your divine, spiritual nature,” he said, “so when the time comes, you may pass into the spirit world to a joyful reunion with your loved ones.”
He said all people are first and foremost spiritual beings.
“This is who you really are and who you have always been: a son or daughter of God, with spiritual roots in eternity and a future overflowing with infinite possibilities,” he said.
“So,” he added, “when one chooses to put our carnal nature ahead of our spiritual nature, we are choosing something that is contrary to our real, true, authentic, spiritual selves.”
I love that! It's so true. When we put our carnal nature ahead of our spiritual nature we are choosing that which is contrary to our true, authentic selves. When people pretend like they are happy living a life contrary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they are only fooling themselves. Wickedness never was happiness. Ye cannot do that which is wrong and feel right, it is impossible.
Pure happiness and joy are found in greater holiness. I think it's apropos that President Henry B. Eyring reminded us of God's guarantee for lasting happiness. A quote from President Eyring's talk I found in the
Deseret News:
President Henry B. Eyring, second counselor in the First Presidency, said God has issued a guaranteed offer of lasting happiness available through faith in Jesus Christ, continuing repentance and keeping covenants. He, too, asked church members to act.
“Greater holiness will not come simply by asking for it. It will come by doing what is needed for God to change us,” he said.
He suggested actions seekers could take.
“The scriptures teach us that among other things, we can be sanctified or become more holy when we exercise faith in Christ, demonstrate our obedience, repent, sacrifice for him, receive sacred ordinances and keep our covenants with him,” he said. “Qualifying for the gift of holiness requires humility, meekness and patience.”
There were several policy changes regarding youth organizations. Aimed at helping youth to gain and keep their testimonies. There have been many policy changes in The Church recently all aimed at helping people get and stay on the covenant path during these difficult times we are facing.
I love President Nelson's Women's Session talk. It was very powerful. One of the many things he said that stood out to me is: "If the world loses the moral rectitude of its women, it will never recover." You can watch his talk
here. It's about 18 minutes and I highly recommend watching it.
Anyway, there's lots more I could say about conference but that kind of sums up my take on it. Looking forward to April conference and the bicentennial of The First Vision.
That's my two cents.
