The following is the text that I used in a talk that I gave in our church services. If you are unfamiliar with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, one of the things that make us unique is that we don’t have a paid preacher to give the sermon each week. Our sermons are given by members of the congregation who are assigned by our local leaders – who are also unpaid members of the congregation. While it can be stressful when you’re the one who is giving the talk (what we call these assigned sermons), it is also a really great way to get fresh perspectives on gospel principles each week.
I also want to make sure that I say up front that I hold faithful followers of other religions in the highest regard. While this post focuses on some of the unique things that I love about the gospel that I cherish, it is not meant in any way to put down anyone else’s beliefs. I believe that all faithful people, regardless of religious tradition, are given inspiration and light from God and that all are beloved children of Heavenly Parents. I don’t think I’ve said anything in here that those who believe differently would find antagonistic, but if I’m wrong and any of this feels attacking to your own beliefs, please know that was not my intention and I apologize if that is the case. This message was written in the context of being shared with those who share my beliefs, but it might feel different to those who don’t.
A few years back I considered converting to Catholicism when I discovered that my Catholic friends can decide to go to mass at 7pm on Saturday nights and then they can sleep in on Sunday mornings. I am not a morning person and that option was really appealing! My Catholic friends are some of the most Christlike people I know and I’ve drawn closer to my Savior through my association with them, so I would still have a good faith community and I could sleep in on Sundays – it was sounding like a pretty good plan!
Unfortunately, I really like having the Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine & Covenants, and living prophets, and temples, and continuing revelation, and eternal families, and the Plan of Salvation, and degrees of glory, and eternal progression, and a Heavenly Mother, and ordinances for the dead, and Relief Society, and the priesthood in my home, and ministering, and callings, and missionaries, and self-reliance, and General Conference, and Come Follow Me, and the word of Wisdom, and patriarchal blessings, and personal revelation, and physical resurrection, and our understanding of the Godhead.
So… I decided against Catholic conversion. But, if you want to know whether or not I have a testimony of the church just remember this – it’s the first day of daylight saving time, my 1 year old is a lousy sleeper, we have 9am church… and I’m here. That should tell you pretty much all you need to know about my testimony of the gospel.
When I was asked to speak I was given a couple of scriptures to speak on. However the bishopric also offered me an out that I could speak on whatever was in my heart right now. I tried at first to stick with the scriptures that had been given me, but there was a challenge that had been something that I wanted to write out, and the further I got into writing my talk… the less my talk had to do with the scriptures given. So I finally let the bishopric know that my actual topic was going to be President Nelson’s talk from October 2017 General Conference.
I had thought his talk was given recently recently, so I was surprised to find that it was almost 8 years ago, back when President Nelson was still Elder Nelson. He issued a challenge that had struck me and I had pondered on it over the years, but never taken the time to write out my ponderings.
As I wrote my talk I looked up the quote that I remembered, pasted it in, but I didn’t actually re-listen to the talk 🤦♀️ This morning, after I’d finished printing out my talk I finally listened to it while curling my hair and found so much in it that I wished I had incorporated into what I was going to share! I had spent all week trying to cut bulk out of my talk because I was worried that I would go over, and it was really too late to change things so I was just mad at my own lack of preparation.
However, when I got to church the returning missionary who was speaking with me mentioned that she didn’t have a lot to share. Aw man! I’d just spent all this time cutting parts of my talk out and now I was going to be short instead of long!
Luckily I was able to pull President Nelson’s talk up and add in some of the things that had impressed me while listening to his previous address. I think it was a little tender mercy because if I hadn’t cut down what I’d originally written I wouldn’t have had time to share President Nelson’s words directly – it’s interesting how the Lord works with us.
President Nelson shared this in his talk –
My brothers and sisters, how precious is the Book of Mormon to you? If you were offered diamonds or rubies or the Book of Mormon, which would you choose? Honestly, which is of greater worth to you?
Remember in the Sunday morning session of the April 2017 general conference, President Thomas S. Monson pleaded with “each of us to prayerfully study and ponder the Book of Mormon each day.” Many have responded to our prophet’s plea. […]
Something powerful happens when a child of God seeks to know more about Him and His Beloved Son. Nowhere are those truths taught more clearly and powerfully than in the Book of Mormon. Since President Monson’s challenge six months ago, I have tried to follow his counsel. Among other things, I’ve made lists of what the Book of Mormon is, what it affirms, what it refutes, what it fulfills, what it clarifies, and what it reveals. Looking at the Book of Mormon through these lenses has been an insightful and inspiring exercise! I recommend it to each of you.
I was impressed when I heard this talk to hear that Elder Nelson took the time to take the prophets challenge at the time. Somehow I had always thought of those challenges as being for regular members of the church. The apostles were in their own league and beyond having to do what the rest of us do, right? That really strengthened my testimony of how important it is for us to follow the direction of the prophet – even the apostles take it seriously.
President Nelson posed these questions –
“First, what would your life be like without the Book of Mormon? Second, what would you not know? And third, what would you not have?”
I tried to take his challenge. But I found it difficult to imagine my life without the Book of Mormon in it. I was raised in the church. Every single ancestor on my dad’s side of the family was baptized into the church during their own life time as far back as the church was restored, and my mom was raised in the gospel too. I was even raised near Palmyra, New York until I was 10, so church history was part of my childhood. Growing up, our family was always at church activities, my parents served in leadership roles, and the gospel shaped my life.
I attended BYU, where I met Eric, and as most of you already know we got engaged within 9 days of our first date. We married in the temple and now almost 18 years later we have 5 beautiful kids that we’re busy trying to also raise in the gospel. So far, I think I’ve had a pretty good life, and every single good thing in my life – I can tie back to the gospel.
I don’t say that with the intention to brag. Actually, somewhat the opposite. Because my life has been so entrenched in the gospel I can’t even fathom who I would be without it. When President Nelson asked about what my life would be like without the Book of Mormon I couldn’t even come up with a reasonable answer. Without the Book of Mormon does my Australian mom come to Utah – where my dad’s family only lived because of the restoration of the church – so that they find each other, get married and decide to have me? Who am I without the Book of Mormon?
This has caused me to stop at times and question – do I believe the gospel because it’s the only thing I know, or is it actually something that I know to be true for myself? Had I been raised in a different family would I have been just as firmly convinced of Catholicism, or Judaism, or Islam, or even Atheism? How much of what I believe is just because of my surroundings rather than my own personal search for objective truth?
I have a bit of what I’ve heard termed ‘holy envy’ for converts to the church. Not that I would trade my upbringing or the privilege that it has been to have that light in my life all along. I just wish I could better appreciate and value the truth and light that I have been given.
However, even without that experience, I can identify the good things in my life that have come as a result of the Book of Mormon. While I was being a little bit flippant in my list of reasons to not swap 9am church for 7pm mass – I’m also 100% serious.
There were over 20 things on that list that I identified as being unique teachings, programs or practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – and I wouldn’t trade anything to have to give up a single one of them. They might not all be directly from the Book of Mormon, but the restoration of the church was spurred by the Book of Mormon so I’m counting them all as byproducts.
As I tried to define what the restored gospel has given me, I grouped those truths into five categories that have shaped my life and testimony. I want to talk to you a little bit about the things that I would not know or have without the Book of Mormon. (as a side note, if you go to President Nelson’s original talk he includes his own list that he shared outside of his talk that I think would be a great study topic)
The first is Continuing Revelation – The Book of Mormon, the Doctrine & Covenants, living prophets, General Conference. I can’t understand a context of a loving God who would give direction to some children at one place and time, but not care about others. The restored gospel teaches us that the heavens are open and have been open to people regardless of where they live or when they live. God spoke to the peoples in the Americas, He speaks today, and He has spoken to many people throughout time.
God loves all people everywhere, everywhen. That to me is exactly what a loving God should look like.
Second – Organization and Authority entrusted to regular people. Relief Society, the priesthood, church callings , missionaries, ministering, self-reliance, patriarchal blessings, and personal revelation. The restored gospel uniquely empowers ordinary people to serve in extraordinary ways. Even my own 2 young sons have been given the priesthood to serve in our community. Where else do 14 & 16 year olds get that kind of authority?
From Relief Society presidencies to young missionaries, each of us has a role to play in God’s work. You don’t need a fancy degree or special training – God needs YOU and me. We are all called upon to serve God in our regular lives – you don’t have to live in a convent and give up everything to qualify. We’re taught in D&C 4:3 that “if ye have desires to serve God, then ye are called to the work.”
As Elder Holland pointed out, “imperfect people are all God has ever had to work with.” and I’m so grateful that He is willing to work with us.
Third – A knowledge of who we are, why we’re here, where we’re going. The Plan of Salvation, degrees of glory, and eternal progression. I can’t even understand how people get through life without this knowledge. These truths give life so much purpose and hope. Knowing that our loving Heavenly Parents desire the greatest possible happiness for us—even to progress eternally—fills me with hope and purpose.
Fourth – The rites of the gospel being offered to all. Temples, eternal families, ordinances for the dead, a physical resurrection. In many Christian traditions, the importance of baptism and sacraments is widely accepted, but what about those who never had the chance?
Would a just and loving God deny salvation simply because of when or where someone was born? The restored gospel is finally able to bridge the gap between the necessity of baptism and the impossibility of all to receive it in this life.
The reality of temple ordinances reassures me that God is truly no respecter of persons—every soul has an equal opportunity for exaltation.
Fifth – A better understanding of the Godhead. Their physical reality, their origin and the fact that we have a Heavenly Mother.
We don’t talk a lot about our Heavenly Mother, in large part because as a church we don’t really know a lot about Her beyond the fact that She exists and that we as women were created in Her image and can grow up to be like Her. I will be honest, this frequently causes me a lot of frustration to not know more about Her. BUT…. I have a Heavenly Mother. And because of the restored gospel, I know that. Of course I want to know more, but I know I have a Heavenly Mother. There’s a version of deity that looks like me, and I have someone who I can look up to and become like. I don’t know that I can properly express what that truth means to me in my life.
Testimony
I am so grateful for the Book of Mormon in my life. I may not know what my life would be like without it, but I do know that my life is immeasurably better with it.
I want to bear my testimony that I know that the Book of Mormon and the gospel truths that we have gained as a result of it are true. I’m so grateful for the organization of our church and that I can be a part of it. If you don’t have a testimony of the Book of Mormon I would encourage you to take President Nelson’s challenge as well. Consider the light and truth that is in your life because of its teachings.
I don’t just believe this because it’s the way I was raised—I believe the gospel because I’ve seen the power of the Book of Mormon in my life. I’ve tested it, and it has strengthened me. As the Savior taught in Matthew 7:16, “Ye shall know them by their fruits” The fruits of the Book of Mormon WILL bless your life. I testify that the Book of Mormon is true.
I know that we have Heavenly Parents who know and love each of you. If you don’t know that for yourself, ask Them, I know they are waiting and desperate to show you how much they care about you. I’m so grateful for our Savior and that through Him we can live and grow through eternity. I share these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
I was asked to help the Temple and Family History committee in our ward give a fifth Sunday presentation about family history. If you’ve been given a similar assignment I hope that you might be able to use some of what I’ve done (or go ahead and use all of it, the work’s been done so it might as well get more mileage) to help you prepare a meaningful lesson for your ward as well. Or if you just want some inspiration and to learn a little bit more about how you can be more involved in Family History in some way, or why it might be important to you, this is your chance to pretend like you were at my presentation that day 🙂
Specifically the committee wanted me to talk about how people can upload memories to Family Search as a way to help with their family history work. I was given WAY more time than I needed for that particular part of the demonstration so I decided I would start with some of the “why” behind family history and then work my way up to showing the “how”. I figured the memories section would take me 5 minutes at most and I had the whole meeting, and I really wanted to recreate a role play that I’d seen done in a previous ward that had deeply impacted my view of family history.
Well…. of course sacrament meeting that day went over by a good bit and it took awhile to empty out the chapel after the combined missionary farewell & homecoming that day. So my time was cut short. In the end I never made it past the “why” to get to the “how” that I’d actually been asked to talk on – oops! The ward members still seemed to really appreciate what we did get to and I think it was still a successful and meaningful lesson. My husband afterwards rolled his eyes at me. It was so typical “Brittny” to find a way to do a completely different assignment than I was asked to do, and have people like it anyways. I really did have every intention of sharing what I was asked to do though!
I figured since I’d put this all together I would share it here too, and actually put in the part that I promised I would get to in my original presentation. If you jump to the end I have all of the files that you are welcome to use and modify if you like any part of it for your own ward. I’ll go through basically what I presented in the blog post too so that you understand the context, rather than just having slides that don’t mean anything to you.
I actually presented with my mom, which was fortunate that she happened to be in town for that 5th Sunday because she is the family genealogist and knows MUCH more about all of this than I do. I’ll include my slide deck and print outs at the bottom and if someone else wants to do something similar in their ward I hope that this gives you some good ideas to put together an easy and compelling lesson 🙂
So I’m going to admit up front that most of my graphics are AI generated. I’m not artistic and I had specific ideas for how I wanted to portray some of the ideas so AI was my best bet… but if you look too closely there are definitely cursed faces and some real jankiness in some of the graphics…. So try not to look too closely. When I was asked to teach a fifth Sunday temple and family history lesson I thought it was kind of funny because I don’t actually do genealogy. I know how to open up Family Search and poke around a little bit, I know how to look people up in census records and I know I have the right skill sets to really be good at genealogy. But I don’t do genealogy. Why?
Because right now I feel like my part of doing genealogy work is in the branches rather than the roots. Rather than feeling guilty that I’m not spending my time finding my ancestors I’ve embraced the fact that I’m devoting my time to their descendants – and that’s ok! When I was growing up my grandma was the family genealogist and my mom didn’t have the time to order microfiches and fill out pedigree charts. Today my mom has moved into her genealogy era and I’m the one running to soccer games. But I know that one day I won’t have soccer games to run to and I’ll be the one ordering copies of death certificates to fill in the charts. I know that sometimes we have family history lessons and if you’re not in your genealogy era you might be tempted to pull up candy crush and tune out – but I hope today that we can help you find ways that you feel you can be a part of family history in whatever era you’re in today. I’m not going to tell you that you have to do all the research if research isn’t your thing, or attend the temple every single day. But there is *something* each of us can contribute to this work and I hope to help you find something that you can do in your present era.
As we started to put this lesson together my mom told me about this video clip that she saw at Roots Tech a couple years ago. The original presenter wasn’t able to make it to the convention so at the last minute they pulled in an engineer to give this breakout session. Now, I’m a computer programmer and I know that the last thing you want at your big convention is to pull out the engineers and make them talk. Engineers are rarely people people. They are happy to hide in a closet and build cool things but please don’t make them talk to someone about it. But what this engineer had to say completely changed the way my mom looks at family. The video was too long to watch in our lesson and there wasn’t just one little clip that showed the point, so I’ll summarize.
At the beginning of his presentation he told the audience that what they’re doing is all about building relationships and uniting families. He went on to talk about all of their different updates and each time showed how each tool and feature was created with the object of building relationships. If you’ve used the “find my relatives” feature before it might seem kind of silly – unless you understand that the idea isn’t necessarily to help fill out a chart but to connect you to other people.
So that’s what I want to focus on – it’s all about relationships. It’s not about charts, or records, or checking boxes at the temple – it’s about relationships. If you take nothing else away from what I’m sharing THAT is what I want you to take away. Temple & Family History work is about building relationships. I told you that I don’t do genealogy, but one of the ways I contribute to our family history work is by trying to still build relationships on both sides of the veil. Obviously the ones with my own living family feel the most important, but I try to treat my ancestors as real people because… they are. I can’t be the one digging through records right now but I try to do my part to listen to my mom when she’s discovered a new line or wants to show off the pictures she got from her dad. I may not be finding the people myself, but I try to always cherish the memories or tidbits of information that I can learn about those that have gone on before so that I can build a little bit of a relationship with them.
I would like to hear from you in the comments about how we build those relationships with those who have come before us. I thought I would start by telling you some of my own experiences. This picture shows some women who are an important part of my personal family legacy. I am on the far left and my daughter is on the far right. If you think my daughter looks like she might have just been crying that’s because we’d just done a gender reveal for our 5th baby and she’d just discovered that he was going to be a 4th brother… and NOT the sister that she was hoping for. Next to my daughter is my mom – we get told that we look identical pretty much all the time. Next to me is my grandma, and there in the middle is her mom – my great grandma. Pretty cool to get a picture with 5 generations of women all together!
Almost 2 years ago we went as a family down to Australia to celebrate my great grandma Kitty’s 100th birthday. We were a little bit late because of COVID restrictions and she was actually closer to 101 but it was such a treat to get to introduce my kids to their great great grandma. Grandma Kitty is pretty feisty. One of my favorite stories of her is that in the middle of COVID in Australia they had restrictions that made it so that you were only allowed to go to the grocery store on particular days based on where your name fell in the alphabet or something like that. One day she told my grandma that she was pop down to the shops and my grandma said, “Mom, you can’t do that, it’s not your day to be allowed to go!” My great grandma replied, “I’m 99 years old, what are they going to do to me? I’ll just act confused and tell them ‘Oh sorry love, I don’t understand all these new protocols.’ and they’ll let me shop.” Don’t stand between an old lady and the grocery store when she wants to go! She was still living on her own when we went to visit her at 101 and I think she’s amazing. I hope to grow up to be every bit as independent as she is – and to live as long!
I don’t know how many people have personally known their great grandparents personally but when I was born I had 5 of my 8 great grandparents still living – I’m the oldest child of an oldest and 2nd oldest child so the gaps are a little more condensed. On the other hand my husband is the youngest of 9 kids – his great grandparents were long since gone by the time he came around. Only our oldest two children were able to meet his last living Grandma, but they were too little to remember even that meeting.
A great grandparent might seem fairly removed from you personally if you haven’t had them in your life, but my great grandparents are people I feel very connected to. I can remember my Grandma Bonnie playing sports with her grandkids. I remember my Grandpa Tom whistling for the lorikeets in his backyard. I remember my Great Grandpa Anderson visiting our home in California and insisting on working in the yard – despite being well into his 90s and my mom being convinced it would be the thing that killed him and that the family would hate her forever. I remember the raspberries in my Grandma Arlene’s backyard that we would pick while my parents would visit with them inside.
These are very real people. Despite Grandma Kitty being the only one of those great grandparents still alive – she’s kicking around now at 102 – I know that all of them were invested in me while they were here on earth – and I can’t imagine that investment disappeared just because they passed through the veil. I think of my relationships with my own kids. I may not know a lot about what happens in the next life but I do know that it would take a lot more than death to erase the love I have for them. We may not remember these people but I know that they remember us and I am certain that they play a very active role in our lives, even though we don’t necessarily always see their hands in our lives.
For the next part of my presentation we did a little role playing activity that got people really involved. We had handed out little slips of paper with short stories of some of my actual ancestors. Everyone that had been assigned a role came up to the podium (we were in the chapel) and we assigned one side of the podium to be spirit prison and the other to be spirit paradise.
If I had a little more time I would have tried to have the people who came up be from real families that matched the roles of the families – i.e. one of the families in my script was a mother, father and two daughters. I would have liked for it to have been an actual couple in our ward with two daughters and have them stand up as a family – but my casting time was limited. It worked out beautifully even without doing that though and the experience was awesome all together.
I had the individuals come up to the microphone in order (the slips of paper are numbered) and they would read their little story. Just a few lines about their name, where they lived, something cool about them. At the end of the story they would ask – “Does anyone have my name?” Before the meeting had started we handed out slips of paper with a picture of the temple and a name of one of the ancestors to youth in the audience. If the name was in the audience the youth could come up to the podium and bring the ancestor from spirit prison to spirit paradise.
I intentionally structured the script so that the first whole family was all easily accounted for and they all made it to spirit paradise. You could tell that people were starting to get a little kind of giggly from the hokey representation. Not irreverent or anything just it was kind of fun to take people from spirit prison to spirit paradise and it was a little silly. Then as one particular brother got up he got to where he asked, “does anyone have my name?” and you could tell that it hit him. If no one out there had his name, he couldn’t go on. It changed the mood just a bit as the weight of it was felt a little more.
The second family that I had selected was a couple with two daughters. As we went through there was someone who had the name of the father. Someone who had the name of the mother. Someone who had the name of the first daughter… but no one had the name of the second daughter. She had to go back to spirit prison. Suddenly you could tell things got a little more real for the class. Oh… wait. You mean without someone to take her she doesn’t get to go to spirit paradise? Oh…
The next family wasn’t found at all, and the feeling was sadder still as a whole family didn’t get to go on to the other side. The last family was that of my Grandpa Tom. He had done his own work during this life so he got to go on to spirit paradise but he was trying to connect with his biological father that he hadn’t known and his son that he was estranged from in this life. The father and son weren’t able to get up and go to the other side.
While we were all sitting there I got up and told everyone how I was feeling. Of course it was happy to see so many people making it to spirit paradise. But no matter how many people made it, I was still infinitely sad about those who were left behind! Sure that second family had gotten 3 out of 4 members to the other side. Hey in school 75% is a passing grade! But oh, if that one left behind had been my child… it would count as a zero to me. I can’t imagine a happiness in the next life that involves leaving any one of my children behind. Seeing the people left in spirit prison was heart breaking.
After we sat with this for a minute I had my mom get up after this and explain why these people weren’t found at first and how we did eventually find them through family history work.
The first family I shared was the family of my 4th great grandfather Ira Allen. Ira joined the church in 1845. The family that we had stand up were representing his parents and siblings. All of their work had been done back in the 1800’s. They were easy to find because they were people that Ira would have known personally and he made sure their work was done himself.
The next family was that of my 3rd Great Grandfather Joseph Cabella. He was a ship’s captain that was lost at sea in 1847. His wife was pregnant at the time but the baby only lived for a few months after birth. The mother lived for 4 years longer before leaving their first child – who was only 8 years old at the time – an orphan. The father, mother and oldest daughter were easy enough to find – their oldest daughter was my 3rd great grandmother and her parents show up in the records plenty. Their work had all been completed in the late 1960s and 1970s. The baby though wasn’t obvious to find. She doesn’t show up on census records, she had no children of her own – there was no one to carry on her legacy. My parents found her through good old fashioned detective work. They felt like they ought to take another look at this family and really comb the records to make sure there was no one that was missed. Luckily Cabella isn’t a very common last name so searching records in their area for that last name inevitably pulled up relatives, the trick was just finding how they fit. As they did this they came across a birth and death record for Rose. She never appeared on any census but she still appeared in those records. Her work was finally completed in 2010. At this point in the presentation I was going to have “Rose” stand back up and ask “does anyone have my name?” I had a friend in the audience who was handing out the names of these lost people who could then have them come forward and take them to spirit paradise. Unfortunately, we ended up being strapped for time and that kind of got skipped but that was the intention.
Cyril Challoner’s family was more recent. He is the cousin of my great grandfather – one of the few great grandparents that I did not get a chance to meet in this life. While the other people that I highlighted were direct ancestors of mine, Cyril was a little more lateral. He, his wife and daughter were all killed during the bombings on England during WW2. They have no living descendants today. The only way they could be found was for us to explore more of our family tree than just our direct line.
The final family that we highlighted was my great grandfather Tom Smith. I talked about him earlier as the grandpa that I remember whistling for lorikeets in his backyard in Queensland Australia. You would think his genealogy would be super straightforward – he was a genealogist up until his death in 2014! We had the Smith line covered way way back and thought we were just working on branches that were going to be really hard to fill in because the records from so long ago would be difficult to find.
Then, after my grandfather’s death my mom did an Ancestry.com DNA analysis. Her report came back that she had Russian Jewish ancestry. Huh? How could that be? Slowly she was able to piece together that her biological great granddad was not the man that her great grandma was married to. Through a series of digging through records, comparing pictures, and talking with DNA matched relatives she determined that Tom Smith’s dad was actually Leopold Hirschberg – a sailor who was living in Liverpool, England at the time. Tom’s middle name of “Lusitania” suddenly made sense as his father survived the sinking of the Lusitania the year before his birth.
We actually found mention of Leopold in a book called Wilful Murder: The sinking of the Lusitania, however at the time he was using the name Leonard Thompson as a means of avoiding prejudice against his Jewish heritage. He was tricky to find with different names and no records that would confirm his identity but it was fascinating as we put some of these puzzle pieces together. We had joked for years that Grandpa Tom looked a lot like Tevya from Fiddler on the Roof and it was interesting to discover that we weren’t far off – his ancestors came from a town very similar to Anatevka. This has opened up a completely different line of research for putting together our family history.
This finding of Jewish ancestry was especially interesting to me. As I had named my children I’d felt very strongly drawn to specifically Hebrew names for them. It wasn’t anything intentional, but when I looked back I could see that I’d decided to give them names like Samuel, Daniel, Esther, & David. You know what names we found in this lost branch of our family? Yup, all the same ones. My older boys have had the opportunity now to go to the temple and do the baptisms for ancestors that share their names – ancestors that I didn’t even know about when I gave them those names.
The DNA analysis also started connecting my mom with cousins that she didn’t recognize. A little bit of sleuthing uncovered that during his military service in WW2 my grandfather had fathered a son in Ireland. The boy had spent his whole life searching for his dad but never connected to him. He had passed away before his father. We believe that this whole crew of estranged fathers and sons has been connecting on the other side and making up for the lost time they never got to have on earth. It has been an honor to reconnect them and restore these lost ties.
I hope that watching these examples has helped you see how you can start to connect to your deceased loved ones. These are real people, even if we don’t remember them anymore. If you’re familiar with the movie Coco you understand the sentiment that you die twice – once when your heart stops beating and once when there is no one on the earth who still remembers you. Through reconnecting our families and taking those family members to the temple we help make it so that these people are not forgotten. I would like to discuss some of the ways that we can make deceased loved ones feel real.
One of the ways that I have found has been a simple change of semantics. I no longer take names to the temple – I always take friends. Now I know this sounds kind of hokey, and I will admit that when I started doing this, I felt really dumb about it. But I have forced myself to always talk about these people as friends rather than names. Whenever I’m ready to go to the temple I call up my mom and ask her if she has any of her friends that she wants me to take to the temple. I will tell you that even if I felt dumb calling them friends, after doing the work to find these people, learn their stories and put them back together – my mom feels zero irony when I ask her for a friend.
Whenever I can I try to have my mom tell me a little bit about the person whose work I am doing. At the very least I try to look at the card and see where they were from and how long they have been waiting for me to take them to the temple. While I’m waiting I try to at least take a second to close my eyes and say hi to them and let them know that I’m excited to be with them that day. My 13 year old son recently went to the temple after having my mom give him a little bit of information about the people he was doing work for. He came back telling me how much better it made the experience when he’d done the work to find someone himself.
If you think you can’t take a family name to the temple because you haven’t been doing the research yourself – you’re probably wrong! It has never been easier to find a friend from your own family to take to the temple. I was going to record a video to show you how to do it but I found this one that someone else had already taken the time to make. So I’ll let them do the explaining, but it’s less than a 2 minute video – and it literally doesn’t take any more time than this to get family ordinances on your phone. I have done it on the way to the temple and they have printed it for me when I arrived. I don’t think they could make it much easier!
Ok, now that you have a name you need a time to go to the temple. I feel like we’re all busy and finding the time is one of the hardest parts of getting to the temple. I’m going to put in a quick plug for Ward Temple Night, if you have it in your ward. I was able to attend ward temple night just before giving this presentation and as I sat there I kept thinking “I really hope this is what heaven is like!” I love attending the temple, I love the peace that is there and the chance to serve, and just being somewhere with no one climbing on me for a little while. But attending with our ward was even better.
As I walked into the chapel I saw sisters from our ward who scooted over and made sure there was a place for me. I was able to watch as a few other sisters walked in. Literally with each person who walked in that I knew my heart swelled with happiness to see them there in the temple. It’s always great to go – but it’s even better when you can go and feel that love and connection with each other too. As I felt the happiness of seeing members of our ward family in the temple it made me think of how it must feel to see friends and family reunited on the other side of the veil and how much more excited we will be to see each other there.
So, if you’re looking for a good time to go to the temple – it’s much more fun going with your ward. If your ward doesn’t have a ward temple night, or the night they have doesn’t work for you – find a friend! My oldest boys are homeschooled and so are home during the days. They made a goal to go to the temple weekly and we scheduled it in our calendar. Then we decided to invite some other homeschooled kids in our neighborhood. We now take our whole van full of boys to the temple once a week! It’s wonderful for my boys to not only serve in the temple, but to get to do so with friends.
If you haven’t gone to the temple recently it might feel intimidating to navigate the new scheduling process. I promise it’s not hard! Here’s another video that shows you the process. It’s only 71 seconds long, so there’s no excuse to skip over watching this if scheduling an appointment has been keeping you from getting to the temple!
Ok, now we get to what I was *actually* asked to share, which is how to share memories on Family Search… which I never got to. The Temple & Family History committee wants me to give the other “half” of my presentation, but I’m going to have to put together a lot more to really make this into a full presentation like they’re looking for (so… stay tuned, that’s probably coming 😂) My mom has used the memories feature to upload pictures that she inherited from her parents of her ancestors. Using those pictures she’s been able to find people she didn’t know she needed to look for. There will be people in pictures from a wedding or other event and she will look and say “ok, I know who this is, and who that is… but this person looks like they are probably family – see they have the same nose and smile…. hmmm.” Then she knows to go piece together clues until she can find out who it is. If you find a family picture with 5 kids, but you only have 4 kids in the records, it looks like it’s time to do some research!
Being able to read the memories about those who have come before is a powerful way to bring them to life and appreciate all that has gone into putting you where you are today. In Family Search you can now upload your memories, photos, records etc. in a place where they will be preserved and shared with others who connect with your family. Below is a quick video that explains how to do this.
I hope you’ve caught a little bit of the vision of why family history is important to you. Maybe you’ve found some way that you can be a part of it. I hope that you will go out feeling like these are real people and not just names on the page. I bear my testimony that I know that that is true. I know that the work that we do in temples is so important. We need our ancestors and they need us. Life and salvation are a group project. In D&C 128:15 we read “And now, my dearly beloved brethren and sisters, let me assure you that these are principles in relation to the dead and the living that cannot be lightly passed over, as pertaining to our salvation. For their salvation is necessary and essential to our salvation, as Paul says concerning the fathers—that they without us cannot be made perfect—neither can we without our dead be made perfect.” I know our Heavenly Parents love us. They love those who have come before us and those who will come after us. The Plan of Salvation is such a gift. It will not be complete until we have connected the whole human family. What a privilege it is to be a part of this great work. I leave these things with you in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Resources
If you would like to use the materials I put together for our 5th Sunday lesson you are welcome to do so. If you can I would recommend talking to people in your own ward who have their own experiences with tracking down lost family members. It’s much more powerful to share personal experiences and I promise you that you have similar experiences in your ward too. I aimed to have 4 different types of families represented –
A family that was super easy to find – clear records, everyone accounted for right off, no problems at all
A family where *most* of the family was easy to find, but someone was left out and discovered later
A family that was very difficult to find because they have no one left on earth that is their posterity
A family with some tricky connections that we could only find through DNA matching and comparing memories & photos
You obviously don’t have to follow my family sets but I was aiming for people who could be found through totally different methodologies to highlight that there isn’t just one way to do genealogy. It would be really cool if you could get these examples from different people in the ward and highlight how the ancestors are connected to your own ward members. I was working on this presentation on my own but if you have a committee it could be fun to see different people’s research.
However, you are of course welcome to just use the ones that I’ve already put together. Included below are the Power Point presentation that I used, the script that I put together for the “does anyone have my name” section, “temple names” to go with the participation section, and a blank set of “temple names” if you choose to put together your own script.
Role Play Instructions
If you want to do the “Does anyone have my name” section here are the steps that I would take to keep everything organized –
If you are using your own family history experiences, I would recommend writing out your script and putting numbers in front of each person’s part and the gender of that person. This makes it easiest for keeping everyone in order and making it easy for casting to not have to read through the whole part to determine whether to give the part to a man or a woman.
Once you’ve made your own script use the fillable PDF to create “temple names”. I’ve made the name cards with a spot for the name, birth date/place, and death date/place. At the bottom I have a spot where you can put the gender (again, this makes it a lot easier for casting when you get to teaching the lesson), and stage. The stage lets you know when to hand out the cards. I’ll explain my stages in a second.
Whether you’re making your own script or using mine – print both the script and the temple names file that you are using. I would recommend having 2 scripts so that you have one on hand to follow along during the presentation
Cut 1 copy of the script and the temple names into strips so that you can hand them out
Before your lesson starts hand out the script strips and the temple names that either say “SELF” or “Stage: 1” – DO NOT HAND OUT STAGE 2 YET!
SELF: These temple names are for people who would have completed their own temple work in their lifetime. These should be handed to the same person who gets that part of the script (in my script this would be Thomas Smith & Ira Allen). They completed their work in this life so they don’t have to wait for someone else to come forward with their name
STAGE 1: These temple names are the people who are easy to find and their work is completed right away
STAGE 2: These temple names are the people who were difficult to find and won’t have their work completed until after you explain the work that went into finding them
Choose someone who can be in the audience who can hand out the Stage 2 names during the presentation AFTER you’ve completed the script. It really helps to have someone who understands the whole presentation so they know when to hand these out
I love General Conference, they are two of my favorite weekends of the entire year. I’ve posted in the past some FHE lessons to help prepare kids for conference and posted my thoughts on conference many times. For awhile I tried running a General Conference book club, but it never took off like I’d hoped. I love that we now have the opportunity to basically have a book club type discussion in Relief Society every other week for these wonderful words from our prophet and leaders!
For the past four years, I’ve had the privilege of serving as the Relief Society Secretary in our ward. Part of my responsibilities has included helping to coordinate lesson schedules for both the Relief Society and Elder’s Quorum. Our process started with a very basic spreadsheet, but through the years, it’s grown into something much more organized and collaborative. After spending so much time perfecting our system I’m excited to share it with you! Hopefully this General Conference lesson schedule spreadsheet can help you simplify the process of creating a lesson schedule for your ward too! (The spreadsheet is currently pre-populated with the talks from October 2024 conference)
The Why Behind the Spreadsheet
Our goal with creating this schedule is simple: we want to foster meaningful discussions in both the Relief Society and Elder’s Quorum by focusing on talks from General Conference. By coordinating our lessons, we give families the chance to talk about the same messages during the week—making it a shared experience between spouses, family members, and even friends. We also aim to ensure that our lesson topics reflect the needs of the ward while balancing seasonal themes (like gratitude near Thanksgiving or talks on the Resurrection around Easter).
The Spreadsheet in Action
The process actually begins before General Conference even happens. About a week before, we prepare a version of the spreadsheet that has no talks listed—just the basic structure. Both the Relief Society and Elder’s Quorum presidencies share this sheet to ensure collaboration. It would be easy to include the bishopric as well, but in our ward, that hasn’t been part of the process historically.
During Conference weekend, one member of the presidency keeps the spreadsheet open and fills in the talks as they happen. We usually rely on KSL’s news blog to get the titles quickly—usually within 30 minutes of the talks being given. Once all the talks are in, the real magic begins.
Each presidency member marks the talks they feel would be most valuable for discussion by simply placing an “X” in their assigned column. It’s a straightforward way for everyone to voice their opinions on which talks resonate most with the needs of the ward. We also start a discussion on our Relief Society’s GroupMe about the conference so that we can get feedback from the sisters in our ward in real time about what is resonating with them.
Creating the Lesson Schedule
After everyone has had time to vote, the presidencies meet together to plan the schedule. We start by listing out all the Sundays that need to be scheduled on the right-hand column of the spreadsheet. This usually starts with the fourth Sunday of the month following General Conference and going through to the second Sunday of the month after the next General Conference, and includes every second and fourth Sunday in between. We are sure to take note of any Sundays where lessons won’t be held due to Stake Conference, holidays like Christmas, or other special events.
From there, we typically look at how the talks ranked based on the votes. The spreadsheet includes a formula that automatically takes all of the talks that received any votes and puts them on the schedule page in ranked order. This makes it SO much easier to sort through and find which talks that we all liked. The highest-ranked talks often go straight onto the schedule, though we leave room for discussion if someone feels strongly about a particular talk that didn’t get as many votes. Sometimes a talk might have been a favorite of everyone’s but it might not really be a good discussion talk, so we try to take those things into consideration.
Another thing we consider is seasonal themes. For example, if there’s a talk on gratitude, we might aim to schedule it near Thanksgiving. We also try to link talks that share similar themes. If we find talks that complement each other well then we might assign two talks to a particular week to maximize conference coverage and create cohesive lessons.
Sometimes there are talks that feel more appropriate for Relief Society or Elder’s Quorum individually. In those cases, we’ll schedule separate lessons, but we still try to coordinate so that most lessons are aligned.
Once we’re happy with the schedule, we send it off to the bishop for approval. After he gives the green light, we input the schedule into Tools so that everyone in the ward has access. (If you don’t know how to input your schedule into Tools I’d recommend checking out this YouTube video that has a great walkthrough)
Ready to Try It?
If this process sounds like something that could help your ward or organization, you can copy our template Google sheet and customize it for your own use. It’s been such a helpful tool for us, and I hope it will make your lesson planning just a little bit easier and helps your presidency organize lessons in a way that fosters unity and meaningful discussion in your ward. If you have any questions or thoughts, I’d love to hear them in the comments! 😊
On Sunday night our stake held a Life of Christ Open House in our building. Each ward was assigned a specific segment of Christ’s life to represent in displays or activities in different classrooms. Our ward was assigned Christ’s ministry in the Americas to portray. At first our ward council really struggled with what they were going to do. Despite months of lead time and plenty of attention given to the project it just wasn’t coming together.
Finally they decided they needed to bring in some outside help. Which is when they realized that in our ward we had someone who works for church headquarters designing visitor center experiences, a professional artist, and someone who owns all their own professional lighting and sound equipment. They quickly turned the project over to this team of creatives and – despite a now very shortened timeline – they came up with an amazing experience.
They separated our room into three sections. The first featured a hand painted mural of Christ’s visit to the Americas. This was really stunning to see as people walked in. Brian Hailes designed the mural digitally and then projected it onto the large format poster boards so that he could have help from his kids and other members of the ward to complete it without losing his vision. It was really cool not only to see the finished product but also to get to watch how many people were able to work together to get it made. (Brian has a really neat series of portraits of Christ that he’s been working on recently that you should definitely check out as well as many other great books and art resources.)
The third section featured artwork of the Savior done by kids in our ward. They were certainly less artistically impressive than the mural in the first room, but it was nonetheless really tender to see the testimonies of our children portrayed in artistic format. Well, perhaps with the exception of my 6 year old’s drawing. It featured Jesus on the cross… with snowballs all around. At some point he’d gotten a highlighter and wrote “pooper scooper” on the piece as well 🤦♀️ I’m sure the caption was not necessarily intended to go along with the subject matter, but he’s 6 so anytime he can write “pooper scooper” it probably seems like a good idea. *sigh*
The section I was in for most of the night was the middle section. Since the brother who designed the experience worked for the visitor’s center department he was able to borrow a 8 foot tall Christus statue from church headquarters. It is one that they will take when they do open houses at new temples to be part of a temporary display.
Once the statue was in place the brother who was responsible for it requested that one person be given the role of guarding the statue. As you might imagine, a statue of that size would be expensive to replace and he did not want to be on the line if something happened to it. Somehow as they looked around the room 5’2″ Brittny seemed like the best person for the job, so I was assigned for the night as Jesus’ bodyguard.
My job was basically just to stand by the statue, not let little kids climb on it and react with sufficient anxiety if someone bumped it during set up. I felt a little silly, and extremely inadequate. I mean, Jesus didn’t exactly look kindly on keeping people from coming to see him and He rebuked Peter for defending Him with a sword. Pretty sure whatever protection Jesus needs, He can handle it Himself. (Yes, I’m being a little bit silly since obviously the statue was not *actually* Jesus, but I still felt there was some interesting scriptural precedent to the role).
However silly I felt acting as bodyguard, it was actually a really neat place to be throughout the night. One of the coolest parts was to watch as little kids would come in the room. The kids were generally running around the building while their parents were working on setting up their own part of the displays. Without fail when a kid would come into the room they would run in and then stop dead in their tracks. They would look up at the statue and say, “WHOA!” Then their first reaction was always to run back out of the room to bring a friend to see the statue as well.
I loved seeing that. Isn’t that what we should all do when we find Jesus in our lives? Our first reaction should be to share Christ with others. That’s what Lehi’s first thought was after partaking of the fruit of the Tree of Life. I want to be more like all of those kids and be so quick to bring those around me to Christ.
The experience also gave me pause as I stood in the room between the people who were there and Christ. I wondered, who am I keeping from knowing Christ? I may not stand in my day as a bouncer who won’t allow people to approach Him, but am I sharing the gospel? I have a knowledge of my Savior and I have a responsibility to share that knowledge with others.
I also asked myself, does the way I live my life as Christ’s follower make others want to know Him too? When I do declare the gospel those who don’t know Christ for themselves may judge Him based on my actions. I have to take care that the way that I act towards others makes others want to know Him as I do. I hope that others can feel of His love because of the love they see through me. It reminded me of this song that was part of the BYU Young Ambassador fireside when I was on their tech crew years ago.
My biggest task in protecting the statue was being conscientious of His outstretched hands. They are easily the weakest part of the statue and easily knocked into. As I was taking care that they remained in tact I wondered about whether I take the same care to keep His doctrine in tact. Am I careful in the way that I teach His doctrine so that it remains clear to others? Can I be trusted with keeping safe those in my care and the callings I’ve been entrusted with? It was a team effort, especially as the men were carrying the statue back out at the end of the night. We are all given a small part of the task of holding up the kingdom and it takes every one of us doing our part to protect the doctrine and care for God’s children here on Earth.
My favorite part of the whole night was after the open house actually began. For the first bit of the open house I was still charged with watching over the statue while visitors came in. As a couple of little girls came in I could see that they were hesitant to approach the statue. While their parents were looking at the other parts of the exhibit I quietly motioned them forward. I’d been instructed that people were permitted to touch His hands and feet so long as they didn’t stand on the base or hang on it.
So I brought these two girls forward so they could have their own moment with the Savior. Together we knelt down and lovingly touched His hands and feet as we spoke about our Savior. It was so tender and it reminded me that THAT is exactly where I want to be. I believe the kind of guarding that Christ truly wants. Not the kind of guarding that would keep people away but that will bring people TO Him with gentle care. I want to be in a position that I am bringing others to Christ so that they can have their own experiences with Him. Sharing my experiences is nice, but the ultimate goal is for everyone to experience His love directly for themselves.
Not long after that I was relieved of guard duty. I went quickly home so that I could get my four oldest children and bring them up. Of all the people that I want to help have an experience with the Savior my own precious babies are at the very top of the list. I was eager to bring them back so they too could feel the love that I know our Savior has for them.
This last picture isn’t of the statue that was in our building on Sunday, but a much larger version that lives in the visitor’s center of the Los Angeles temple. The little boy at Christ’s feet is my oldest son who is now 15 years old. I hope I’m always doing all I can to help him and his siblings find their own place at the feet of our Savior.
I was asked to give a Relief Society lesson on Elder Bednar’s talk “In the Path of Their Duty” from October 2023 General Conference. Ok, that might not be entirely accurate… I was asked to give a lesson on a different talk and I coerced our Relief Society President into swapping teaching month’s with me so that I could teach this talk. It was my absolute favorite talk from this last conference, and will probably be one of my all time favorite talks so I’ve been looking forward to sharing this with the sisters in our ward for months. So long as I had put all the preparation into my lesson notes and making fun graphics with ChatGPT I figured I ought to share it here as well. I would love to hear your thoughts too! I’ll leave my discussion questions along the way and I’d love for you to leave a comment letting me know what you thought too!
About the time that this talk was given my mom, sister and I were discussing a relatively famous member of the church was in the news for living a life that was incongruous with the way they had presented themselves. It’s not important who it was but we will just say that it was someone who everyone thought was SO great and doing amazing charitable things… only it came out that actually… they weren’t. As we discussed this we noted that this wasn’t the only person we had seen who had gone through this pattern of fame gained for virtuous and righteous actions then seeming to go off the deep end. Somewhat reminiscent of what we learn in D&C 121:39 –
“We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.”
My sister made the comment that she just wanted to get a C average in life. She didn’t want to do anything flashy she just wanted to get through this life with a passing grade. Which reminded me of the mantra that I would sometimes have in college at the end of the semester. I’m sure no one else said this because you were all much better students than I was but I would sometimes remind myself that “C’s get degrees!” Meaning that sometimes it is time to stop striving for perfection and let good enough be good enough. I could keep working and trying for extra credit and try to eke out an A+, but if I spent all the time to get an A+ in my Physical Science class and failed my American Heritage final that wasn’t really the best outcome. When applied to how we serve in the kingdom however I’ve modified that slightly to…
C’s get degrees… of glory! I think a lot of times we can get caught up in trying to find the BIG things to do that are in keeping with the gospel. Planning the big service project, serving missions, spending all of our time at the temple etc. But the reality is that’s not always what the Lord has called us to do. Most of the time the service that we give is much smaller and less noticeable, but no less valuable in the Kingdom. I felt like this was sort of the main message of the talk was that we don’t have to do anything that’s so visible and grand. The service we give in our homes and at church are what the Lord asks us to do and if we’re doing that – that’s enough! The Lord doesn’t expect us to be always going above and beyond, He just asks us to do the things that we’ve been asked to do. In 1 Samuel 15:22 we’re taught, “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice.” We’re even taught in Jacob 4:14 that the Jews fell because they were “looking beyond the mark”.
I’m by no means advocating that we don’t try to magnify our callings or do the best that we can. However, I think it is important for us to learn that the best that we are called to do doesn’t mean above and beyond, it just means fulfilling our responsibilities well. Elder Bednar included this quote from President Hunter –
It can be frustrating to not see yourself in a lot of the stories that you hear in the scriptures or in conference, but the truth is that most of the most important stories are the ones that are never told. I would love to hear your thoughts on how can we find joy and fulfillment in fulfilling our responsibilities, even when they seem mundane or unnoticed by others?
When I read this I was reminded of a quote from a blog post that I read years ago. The sister who wrote the article had requested to work as a temple worker but was rejected because she had young children at home back when they had a policy that women with children at home couldn’t be temple workers. The blog seems to have been discontinued but I was able to find the full article on Archive.org and I would definitely recommend the article to anyone who is struggling with feeling like they might not be used to their full potential. Here’s an excerpt of some of the parts that struck me most –
“The fact was, the Lord didn’t want me, not to do anything eternally important, anyway. […] The Lord felt that all I was useful for was to wipe noses and bottoms and endlessly feed people. I could do so much more than that, but he didn’t want it – not from me.
[… In the years since] I’ve come to appreciate with a soulful assurance that God cares most about the details surrounding his children, and that what truly heals, what truly makes a difference, is profoundly personal. It’s a bitter pill to swallow that wiping noses and bottoms and endlessly feeding people is what he really wants from us, if we would rather do something else. Something more romantic, something more visible, something with a tangible feel of obvious service seems infinitely more appealing. But the fact is, to the person with a runny nose or a messy bum or a hungry stomach, nobody else matters.
In his own life [Jesus] repeatedly taught that the most important service was between individuals, and that if we would lead we must learn to minister as a servant: to those with metaphorical runny noses and messy bums. I’ve taught that principle for nearly three decades, but I still need to be reminded occasionally that it’s better to save one person than to impress a multitude.
[…] For a Father who loves his children, the most meaningful gift he could give them is someone who will descend below all to serve them. If that is the work to which you are called, whether it includes runny noses or quiet corners of the kingdom, whether it is in Paris or Nepal or a small house in a subdivision, know that your call perfectly illustrates just how much God needs you. […] The real power is personal, and all of us are equal to that opportunity.“
As a mom this story just hits me in the gut every time. I often feel like the skills I have are not being used to their full potential at home. Moreover, the skills that are really needed to be a successful homemaker are NOT even the ones that I have. I’m no great chef, my cleaning abilities are atrocious, and I’m certainly no hand at decorating. But this thought hit me so strongly – even if the service I’m giving isn’t glamorous, even if I can’t do it Pinterest perfect it’s also not something anyone else can truly do for my family. The line “to the person with a runny nose or a messy bum or a hungry stomach, nobody else matters” hits me so strong every time. Yes, there might be other things I could be doing that are bigger in the world, but I mean the most to my family who I spend my time caring for.
When I was pregnant with my 4th I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes – which may not be major but I have serious issues with needles and so personally it was devastating. I didn’t know what I could eat and I had 3 kids at home that weren’t going to go for any modified diet. My ministering sister took the time to research what foods I could eat without messing up my blood sugar and made me some soups that I could heat up just for me while I fed the kids chicken nuggets or whatever they wanted to eat. I can’t tell you how much that meant to me at the time, just to know that I had something I could eat without having to guess if it would hurt my baby or not. Just to know that someone had seen me and cared about what I was going through. It wasn’t newsworthy, but to me it was everything. I hope as we go about serving in less noticeable ways we remember just how much the small things we do can mean to those we serve.
As part of his talk Elder Bednar spoke about some of the unsung heroes in our past. He quoted from a talk that President J Reuben Clark gave at the centennial celebration of the pioneers arriving in Salt Lake. He noted that while we know and often honor those who led the pioneers out west we generally don’t even know the names of those who were in the last wagons of the expedition. These men and women made the same journey, although with the added discomfort of having the dust of the previous wagons in the air as they walked along. Plus, although it’s not mentioned in Elder Bednar’s talk, I would imagine that most of those who were in the last wagons were at the end of the train because they had other difficulties that made the travel extra difficult – an injury, young children, missing father etc. These people likely not only had a journey that was AS difficult, but likely even more so.
I appreciated President Clark taking the time to remember those who history might not have remembered. I would love for you to consider who has impacted your life – either in your history or personally – by their example of faithful living through difficult trials without the recognition of the world?
When I heard that it reminded me of a story that my dad told. I made him write it out for me so that I could share it more or less in his words, although I re-wrote it slightly to be in the third person so that it felt authentic to me as I read it to the class. I’m formatting it as a quote, even if it’s not his words exactly (although it almost is) –
In 1997 the Church celebrated the sesquicentennial (150 year anniversary) of the first pioneers entering the Salt Lake Valley. As part of the celebration members had the opportunity to research and document any direct ancestors that had arrived in Utah before the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10th 1869. Those who wanted could complete a “Faith in Every Footstep” form listing all their names and the evidence that they had ‘walked’ to the Salt Lake Valley to receive some sort of certificate.
One day in High Priest group meeting the guy giving the lesson mentioned this initiative and stated that he had ’22’ such ancestors (the number might have been more or less than 22, but the exact number isn’t necessarily relevant. We’re going to pretend that it was 22 for the rest of the story). He then stated that he was fairly certain that no one else in the group had more.
You may not know this but Andersons are competitive, and all of our competitiveness we get from our dad. Since he was about 40 years younger than this guy he figured that he had at least one generation on the teacher so about twice as many potential ancestors who could fit the bill.
The next Sunday the teacher asked if anyone had taken his challenge and done their own research. My dad raised my hand and told the teacher that he had ’24’ and had stopped looking once he had more than the previously proclaimed ’22’. He then threw out a caveat that actually his 4th great-grandfather, David Reeder, had died on October 1, 1856 on the plains of Wyoming somewhere west of Fort Laramie as part of the Willie Handcart Company. The brother very boldly stated “Well then, he doesn’t count.”
My dad was taken aback and said ‘What do you mean that he doesn’t count?’ David, a widower, had left his home in England with his three living children, one of which, Eliza was married and had three children of her own. When he left his home he was 4846 miles away from the Salt Lake. He ‘walked’ 4496 of those miles and my dad was definitely going to count him. In any event, that still left him with 23 ancestors which was one more than the teacher had! Which in my dad’s opinion was the most important part of the exercise 😉
Because of David Reeder’s sacrifice his daughter Eliza was able to bring her 2 year old daughter Sarah to Utah. Sarah’s son Henry was the father of my great grandmother Bonnie who I remember well – she passed away a little over a week after I had Sam. His willingness to not only cross the plains but sacrifice his life allowed me to be brought up in a family that had the gospel. He might not “count” as having made it to the Salt Lake Valley, but in my book, he counts twice. I am eternally grateful for David Reeder’s trek across the plains regardless of what anyone else thinks.
The title of Elder Bednar’s talk came from Samuel the Lamanite while talking about the righteous among his people.
I find it interesting that Samuel didn’t mention the big things that the righteous were doing – it wasn’t big projects or grand gestures, but simply the things that they were doing “in the path of their duty”. The every day things that kept their community running. What does it mean to you to be “in the path of [your] duty?”
Elder Bednar went on to discuss examples of what that might look like today. I really wanted to pull out quotes from that section of his talk, but it was nearly 10 minutes of his talk that he spent praising the often overlooked ways that many serve in the church. If you haven’t listened to the talk yet I would strongly encourage you to take the time to listen to all of the ways Elder Bednar honored the often unsung heroes of the church. I went through and with ChatGPT’s help made a condensed list of the ways that he mentioned that we can be serviceable “in the path of [our] duty”
Offering comfort and support to those in need
Supporting family members in their callings
Repenting and returning to the covenant path
Waiting on the Lord for blessings and answers
Helping others receive the gospel in their own language
Multiplying and replenishing the earth, despite challenges or unfulfilled desires.
Teaching in nursery & primary
Caring for aged parents.
Comforting and protecting your children.
Setting up and taking down chairs, and performing other tasks to support meetings and activities.
Inviting others to come and see, come and help, and come and stay in the Church.
Fasting, praying, listening, learning, caring, consoling, teaching, and testifying by the power of the Holy Ghost.
Enduring trials and challenges for the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I’m sure everyone can find yourself somewhere on that list, and probably in different places on that list in different stages of life. I loved what Elder Bednar had to say about all of these different types of service.
I appreciated Elder Bednar’s words. Especially where he said that those who are serving in less visible roles inspire him to be a better disciple. He’s an apostle of the Lord, and he has lots of visibility into the BIG things that the church is doing. Humanitarian efforts, building temples, aiding refugees, scholarly efforts, large scale devotionals, the legion of full time missionaries currently serving. If he wanted to talk about the big things that are being accomplished by church members he could certainly have done it. Instead he spoke about nursery leaders, parents, and people repenting and doing their best in their own small ways.
If Elder Bednar can show that kind of appreciation to regular church members in their regular callings I would love for you to think -What are some ways we can show appreciation for those who serve in less visible roles in the Church? What are some ways we can support and sustain those who serve in different callings in the Church?
At the leadership session of our most recent stake conference one of the brothers who spoke shared some thoughts about the parable of the Vineyard as found in Matthew 20:1-16 and how we might apply it to how we serve in the church. Brief recap if you don’t remember that parable, the owner of a vineyard hires people to work for him at several different times during the day and pays them all the same amount for their service at the end of the day. The speaker mentioned those who came in the later part of the day and posited that perhaps they were called later because they couldn’t have withstood the heat of the day. He talked about the Prado principle which is that generally 80% of the work in an organization is done by 20% of the people (and annoyingly 80% of the work on a project takes 20% of the time and the other 80% is spent on a mere 20% of the work). Often in the church this holds true as well and you will see that about 20% of the membership of the church is doing 80% of the work.
Sometimes if you are part of that 20% you may be tempted to say, “hey! I’m holding up my part, why can’t other people pitch in and serve like I’m doing?” This speaker said that we should consider that others might not have the ability to serve in the same way we do. Maybe they have physical limitations that we don’t know about, or their capacity might be limited in other ways. Maybe they simply haven’t had the experiences of being blessed by service and haven’t received a testimony of how important the work can be. Perhaps they haven’t had the same opportunities to serve and don’t understand how they might be blessed for their service. Rather than begrudging others we should be grateful that we have the abilities to serve. We should be grateful that even those who cannot serve through the heat of the day receive the full reward. Sometimes we might be the person who can’t make it through the heat of the day and how grateful we are then that the Lord does not begrudge us our lack of abilities. Every person is facing different challenges and it isn’t helpful to compare one person’s abilities to another person’s.
I would love for you to consider – When have you felt grateful for the opportunity to serve or felt grateful for someone else being able to serve where you could not?
Probably the part of the talk that most spoke to me while Elder Bednar was talking about the ways that people serve “in the path of their duty” was where he spoke about the work that parents do.
Having children is not for the faint of heart and it can be frightening to consider raising them in this world. I currently have 5 children and it takes so much of my time and energy to facilitate their growth and development. I was so touched to have my experiences of wrestling kids in sacrament meetings (which definitely happens weekly) recognized. Something Dr. Shon Hopkin mentioned in the Follow Him podcast last week really struck me as well –
I loved how he categorized having children as an act of faith and a way to show the Lord that we trust Him even as He trusts us with the care of His children. I also loved the idea that every new baby born is a sign that God is with us. I thought that was a beautiful way to honor those new babies. It may be more tender to me currently as I have my own small baby in the home (although he’s getting big much faster than I authorized him to!) but as the world often considers the addition of more children as an act of insanity it is encouraging to have it honored instead as an act of faith. I would love for us to consider how can we have faith to have families despite the difficulties of the world around us? How can we support the families around us to grow in faith?
I want to share my testimony that the greatest works that we can do in this life are often those that are most likely to be overlooked. But that nothing that we do is overlooked by the Lord. You matter. All that you are doing in your calling, for your family, in your personal relationship with the Lord – it matters. I hope that we will all find ways to recognize all of the different ways that those around us are living the gospel “in the path of their duty” and that we will strive to find the ways that we can best serve, even when it’s not glamorous. I know that our Heavenly Parents love us and I’m so grateful that because of Jesus Christ all of our small and seemingly insignificant works can help us to live with Them again.
In March last year I found myself 8 months pregnant with a kidney stone. If you’ve never had a kidney stone I would strongly recommend against it. They are no fun. I’ve gone through childbirth 5 times without an epidural and the kidney stones are worse than childbirth – and instead of a cute baby you just get a stupid piece of gravel out of the ordeal.
The kidney stone was the icing on the cake after a long hard pregnancy. Nothing earth shatteringly bad, but a lot of normal pregnancy stuff. My back is terrible when I’m pregnant so I’d hardly been able to walk the whole time. I had pregnancy induced tachycardia – which meant that my heart would race for long stretches of time for no good reason. Think of the way that your heart feels after you finish running a race, except you are just sitting around doing nothing, and it won’t go back down with rest. Heartburn was a given constant regardless of how bland I kept my diet – you have to really watch out for that spicy oatmeal! My morning sickness wasn’t terrible but not fun either. I had Braxton Hicks contractions pretty constantly as well – which aren’t really painful but they are exhausting. It’s kind of like having an involuntary ab workout – even if the muscles are strong, they get tired after awhile.
On top of all of that, pregnancy means that at least twice I’m going to have to deal with needles – which I hate. I think I’m pretty tough when it comes to pain but I deal with vasovagal syncope which means that my body freaks out with needles and I tend to pass out HARD. I used to say that I was afraid of needles, but it’s less of a fear than almost an allergic reaction. I dread those needles more than I dread labor.
My postpartum recovery was actually pretty straightforward this time around – however that kidney stone never made its way out as far as I could tell. I assumed that it had just seen its way out undramatically while my attention was more focused on all the other unpleasantries of post partum recovery. Until…
The day after Christmas I found myself in downtown Salt Lake City, with just my 6 year old and 8 month old when that kidney stone reared its ugly head again. I drove myself to a place where I could charge our car and sat there writhing in pain. At one point I handed my 8 month old to my 6 year old so that I could find an empty grocery bag to throw up in. It was certainly a low point to feel surrounded by people in the middle of a city, but so very very alone at the same time and in agony, needing help. Fortunately my amazing husband raced back down the mountain to rescue me and spent that evening in the ER with me while they loaded me up with meds and fluids.
One round of Flomax and antibiotics later and… I still seem to have that kidney stone. It hasn’t been bothering me but every so often I’ll get a little stab of pain and I can tell – it’s still there just biding its time. It’s been another couple months and I’m realizing that I never got a call from the imaging department at the hospital about the CT scan the urologist ordered. I’m sure that I have surgery in my future which is not my idea of a good time. But I know that if I leave that stupid tiny piece of gravel in its place then its likely to cause an infection and I’ll be back to inordinate amounts of pain.
One night shortly after my ER adventure my husband was walking around with our son and pretending to talk on his behalf. He was being a little silly and voiced for the baby, “Mom, look how cute I am, aren’t I the cutest? I’m worth having a kidney stone for, right?” I matched the silly mood and immediately replied, “Of course you are, you’re adorable!”
He was being silly but the exchange stopped me a little abruptly. A lot of what happens to me as a result of pregnancy isn’t fun – but at the same time, I knew what was likely to happen and this baby was not a surprise. I had chosen to go through all of that for a baby that I didn’t even know yet. Pregnancy amnesia is real and there were definitely points along the way where I felt like “why did I choose to do this again?? This is the worst!”
But now my husband was asking me if I would go through all of that again for this baby that I *do* know. Only a little bit, I’ve only had him for 10 months, but knowing him like I do now, would I go through all the struggles of pregnancy, childbirth AND even kidney stones again to have him?
The answer was unequivocally – YES! Of course! There isn’t even a question in my mind that all that I endured for him was worth it. I cannot express emphatically enough how I would go through all of those things again for this cute baby. He really is the cutest, but more importantly, he’s mine and I love him beyond words.
Which then got me thinking – was there anything that I wouldn’t go through for him? I tried to think of a single thing that I would not suffer through for my baby. Cancer, loss of limbs, torture – none of it seemed worse than the idea of not having my baby. He is precious to me beyond anything I can count. While my love for him has never been (and hopefully never will be) tested to the limits, at least in the hypothetical I can’t think of a situation where I wouldn’t be willing to suffer through anything in order for him to have his life.
As I thought about that my mind turned to our Savior. I have often wondered and marveled at His sacrifice for each of us. Not just in giving up His life, but at the idea of Him suffering through all of the pains of each individual person’s life to save us. How could He possibly bear to go through all of that?
But then in my mind I pictured my Heavenly Father taking me in his arms, showing me to Christ and speaking on my behalf. “Jesus, look how cute I am, aren’t I the cutest? I’m worth atoning for, right?” I can see Jesus, who has known me for a lot longer than 10 months and who has love beyond that of a mortal mother, looking at me, smiling and saying, “Of course you are Brittny, you’re adorable.”
And he cometh into the world that he may save all men if they will hearken unto his voice; for behold, he suffereth the pains of all men, yea, the pains of every living creature, both men, women, and children, who belong to the family of Adam.
Clearly I’m nowhere near the Savior, but for a moment I could understand in some small way how Jesus could do what He did. I can imagine each one of us being presented to Him and having the same question asked of Him – “What about me? Am I worth atoning for?” If the answer was no He would not have to suffer for us, but He also would have an eternity ahead without us. As a mother I can think of nothing that would be worse than facing an eternity without my children and knowing that I could have done something that would have saved them. Perhaps that’s the way Jesus feels about us too.
In Isaiah 49:15-16 Christ says, “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands;” As a mother the idea of being able to forget one of my children and not care about them seems so ludicrous. But Jesus says that even as remote as that possibility may seem, it could happen to us. But not to Him. Whenever He sees His hands He remembers us.
There’s a book by Max Lucado that I haven’t read yet but I’ve seen this quote from it as a meme and it struck me to my core – “He knew the price of those sins was death. He knew the source of those sins was you, and since he couldn’t bear the thought of eternity without you, he chose the nails.” Somehow it just hits different when you think of the atonement as being that personal. Not just some cosmic collective moment, but a sacrifice that was indescribably individual. Not something that happened to Jesus, but a choice that he made deliberately. A choice that He made for YOU.
I want to bear testimony that YOU were worth it. You are worth it. Every day Jesus is reaching out to you, trying to remind you of His love for you. You are valuable to Him beyond price, and hopefully you never forget it.
It’s been fascinating this year to study The Book of Mormon that I am SO familiar with… and find out that there is SO much that I’ve never seen it in before. How is it that I’ve read these stories so many times and there’s still more to unpack? I’m so grateful for the Come Follow Me program and how it helps me to dive into the scriptures in more meaningful ways.
This last week we studied about Nephi’s family preparing to leave Bountiful. If you’re unfamiliar with the story I’ll give a brief recap (or you can read 1 Nephi 1-18 for all the details). Nephi’s family was called to leave Jerusalem, their home filled with comforts and riches prior to the Babylonian captivity (as recorded in the Old Testament books of Daniel, Jeremiah and others). Despite the challenges, they obediently followed the Lord’s command, embarking on a journey into the wilderness that lasted eight long years. Finally, they reached the land Bountiful, a place of abundance and prosperity.
At first glance, Bountiful seemed like the promised land they had longed for—a place flowing with milk and honey, where their family could thrive. FINALLY, they had made it! They had escaped the perils of remaining in Jerusalem and being subject to captivity, and they had survived the long years in the desert where they had suffered hunger and privations. I can only imagine their gratitude to reach this beautiful place as their reward for enduring through nearly a decade of trials. Yet, even in this seemingly idyllic setting, they were not meant to stay. The Lord had greater things in store for them, beyond the comforts of Bountiful.
As part of my Come Follow Me study last week I listened to the Follow Him podcast where they had Dr. Tyler Griffin on the show. This part of their conversation keeps replaying in my head –
Hank Smith: We’ve made it through the wilderness. We’re to Bountiful and you would think we made it. We could stay here forever, yet there’s a lot more to come. Dr. Tyler Griffin: This is a beautiful reminder to us that if we’re not careful, we will mistake these byways or these incredible locations like Bountiful. It’s oceanfront property. It’s got all the fruits we could want. Why not just set up our civilization here? […] From an earthly perspective you could say, “Hey, it’s Bountiful. This is the perfect place,” but the reality is God has so much more in store to give this group. They don’t even know the extent of the lands and the fruit and the flowers and all of the amazing things that they’re going to get to experience in the promised land after having given up all of their gold, silver, precious things in their house and their land of inheritance in Jerusalem. It’s like what they sacrificed is nothing compared to what he has in store for them and what he has in store for them is not Bountiful. It’s just a staging area for that next phase which involves crossing the ocean. […] John Bytheway: I’ve never thought of that before, but we all understand what the Lord means when he says, “Leave Babylon,” but leaving your Bountiful. Ooh, that’s tough. And it was as Michael Wilcox who talks about the Lord sometimes calls us when the nets are full. That’s when it’s tough. I know people in my own ward, they just bought a house and got called on a mission, and asking you to leave when the nets are full. Maybe they got comfortable here in Bountiful and, nope, you’ve got to leave your Bountifuls too.
Leaving behind Jerusalem would have been very difficult. Lehi’s family seems to have been in a position of wealth and comfort. They knew that there were bad influences around them though. That sacrifice would have been hard but it feels like the kind of sacrifice you expect to make as someone trying to follow God. Leaving behind something that looks and feels good but is bad for you. Like when you’re comfy binging Netflix but you know it’s time to get your lazy butt off the couch and start exercising. You might be happy on the couch, but you know you could do better.
Going through the wilderness was obviously difficult. Lack of food, broken bows, living in tents – none of that sounds fun. But it was necessary. If they were to leave behind Jerusalem and escape the judgements that were coming there was a desert standing in their way. It feels acceptable to have challenges that come after making a sacrifice of something that is bad for us. It’s like the daily grind of waking up each morning to go to the gym after leaving the couch. it’s not fun, but the results are worth it. Plus, on the other end of it you can justify eating chocolate cake!
When they reached Bountiful – they had made it! All of that misery in the desert was over and now they were being rewarded. It might have been so hard, but looking around them I would imagine they thought it was worth it. They didn’t have to worry about being captured by Babylonians, they weren’t starving in the desert – clearly this is what the Lord had in mind for them. They had gotten in shape and THIS was the chocolate cake that they had earned by putting in all that time at the gym.
But instead they were told to leave that beautiful, rewarding place as well. In order to get into the really amazing shape that you want to get into, you also have to give up that chocolate cake that you feel like you’ve earned. For Lehi’s family to get to America – a land that was teeming with natural resources, space and so much more than they could have ever dreamed of – they had to give up Bountiful. It was the best they had seen so far – but they had no idea what was in store.
Nephi’s story must have been very comforting to Latter-day Saint Pioneers. As they were driven from Palmyra to Kirtland to Missouri to Nauvoo and ultimately to Utah. How hard it must have been to give up homes, businesses and lands in Illinois for the deserts of the Mountain West. But what would they have given up if they had stayed? Would the church have had the space it needed to grow and thrive if they hadn’t been willing to give up what they already had?
I keep asking myself, what about me? Would I be willing to give up Bountiful for the Promised Land? What are the good things that I might have to give up for something that would be even better?
One example that came to mind from my own life happened about a year and a half ago. I had 4 children and my youngest had just made it into preschool. Things were clicking along with my business and my kids were starting to be able to handle their schooling on their own – I was actually getting to a point where I had something resembling free time in my day! We were getting out of diapers and carseats, no one needed to be back at home for naptime. My oldest had finally reached 13 too so I had a legitimate babysitter built in when I wanted to leave the house. I had done the baby/toddler/little kid thing for so long and I’d finally made it to having big kids. This was the life!
Then… the prompting came. It was time to have another baby. What?! Didn’t the Lord know? I already had 4 kids – which is maybe not a LOT of kids – but it is certainly still a lot of kids. I was past 35, which meant that I now qualify as a “geriatric pregnancy” (lots of feelings about that terminology, but that’s another topic). Plus, my 4th pregnancy had been ROUGH – gestational diabetes, kidney stones, back problems – and when it was over I got a difficult baby who was always mad, didn’t sleep and required a lot of attention. Was I really being sent back to the wilderness of newborns and toddlers? Hadn’t I earned my Bountiful?
I would be lying if I said that I jumped right in with Nephi’s “I will go, I will do!” personality. It took some time for me to warm up to the idea, to discuss it with my husband, and to clear it with my midwife. But eventually I allowed myself to be “led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do.” (1 Nephi 4:6) Within a few months I was pregnant again – being tossed about on the seas of morning sickness, kidney stones and tachycardia. It was a pretty rough go of things, and there was a lot of misery through those nine months of pregnancy. But at the end of it…
I got this sweet baby! He is sweet tempered, loving and adorable. He even sleeps through the night! He only sleeps in my bed next to me – but to be honest, that’s par for the course and he actually *sleeps* so he’s ahead of his siblings. The word most often used to describe him is “delightful” and it is certainly fitting.
Before his arrival our kids had pretty well decided that babies were ROUGH. They weren’t really sure about having a baby again after how much their youngest brother had cried and been miserable to be around. But this baby has completely changed their tune. They carry him around like he is their own. He has been so good for the big kids to learn some responsibility, and he’s even helped the youngest learn to regulate himself a little better. In all he has been the most wonderful blessing that we had no idea we needed in our family.
There was nothing wrong with our family before. But now that we know how wonderful our family is with this new baby – how sad it is to think how easily we could have stayed in a place of contentment and complacency and missed out on him! How sad it would have been knowing all the vastness and bounties of the Americas were given up for a few miles of oasis on the Arabian peninsula.
I don’t think that leaving Bountiful is a one time thing in our life. I’m pretty sure it’s a pattern that will happen again and again and again. Because we have no idea the treasures and blessings that God has in store for us. He will continue to lead us from good to better and better and better until He can finally lead us into Kingdoms of Glory. But we have to be willing to let go of the good that we have now, and cross the raging seas before we can get what He has in store for us.
Personally, I was happy to hear the re-emphasis on the proper name of the church. I remembered President Hinckley giving a similar charge back in 1990. Even though I was only 5 years old at the time that call had stuck with me. I went back and looked up President Hinckley’s talk. I found this portion especially interesting –
Six months ago in our conference Elder Russell M. Nelson delivered an excellent address on the correct name of the Church. He quoted the words of the Lord Himself: “Thus shall my church be called in the last days, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” (D&C 115:4.)
I was interested that it was Elder Nelson who had originally inspired President Hinckley to give us that charge. Now that same Elder Nelson has the role of President of the church and he’s back saying, “Ok guys, I’ve said this before almost 30 years ago but let’s do this again. Maybe a little louder for those of you in the back?” Far from being something new, this is something he has been saying for literally decades.
All through my school years I was dogmatic about using the proper name of the church. The prophet had asked us to be careful about how we referred to ourselves and it was something that my family took very seriously. In fact all through my growing up years to call ourselves “Mormons” was akin to swearing in our household. All the way through college I don’t think I once called myself a Mormon without having first used the proper name of the church. I remember introducing myself to friends at school and stating my religion as “I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” and then if I got a look of confusion I might follow up with “Some people call us Mormons but we don’t really like to be called that.” Believe me, if you’ve had that whispered conversation in French class in the few minutes before the bell rings, while trying not to trip over the many words in the name of our church – it sticks with you 😛
So in 2010 I was a little dismayed to hear that the church was starting a new campaign introducing the website Mormon.org. I was confused that after all these years of really trying to eschew the nickname of Mormons that we were suddenly changing paths. I imagined President Hinckley rolling in his grave at the introduction of this new website.
At the same time, as a web professional I understood the value of taking ownership of the name and search term. Hopefully rather than someone running a google search for Mormons and finding sketchy websites run by detractors from our faith – they could come to our site and see for themselves what we believe. That to me made sense from an SEO standpoint. Ideally we would want people to call us by our proper name but you have to play the hand you’re dealt not the hand you want. There was a lot more “brand recognition” if you will for Mormon – and can you blame people? One word is a lot easier to remember than the whole string that titles our church. We still weren’t calling ourselves Mormons, just using the term as a way to help people find out more about us. That seemed justifiable to me.
If I was dismayed with the introduction of Mormon.org I felt almost betrayed a year later in 2011 with the introduction of the I’m a Mormon campaign. Again, I understood the motives of wanting to take ownership of the term. I liked that the people who worked with the church were saying “Look, there’s nothing bad about being associated with the church, let’s not allow others to take this term and use it as derogatory. It isn’t a derogatory thing to be associated with the church so let’s take this and be proud of it.” I really do think the motivations were pure and good and I think a lot of good came from that campaign. Despite my confusion at the change in course, I am proud of my faith. So I filled out a profile on Mormon.org, stuck an “I’m a Mormon” badge on my blog and proclaimed myself as a “Mormon” on my social media profiles. If this was what our church leaders had approved then I was all in.
After that I dropped the crusade of using the proper name of the church. I had done my part to use the proper name for so long, but if it wasn’t going to be taken seriously even at church headquarters then there didn’t seem to be a point in me taking it seriously either. To be honest, the word Mormon is a lot easier to use. From a brand perspective it’s easy to fit “I’m a Mormon” in a 160 character Twitter profile. To write “I’m a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” takes 63 characters as opposed to 12 – leaving more room to make other statements about why someone would want to follow me. In conversation it’s easier to talk about our community as “Mormons” rather than “members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”. In a recent conversation a fellow member used the term Mormons about a dozen times and I didn’t stop her because I recognized the impracticality of adding over 100 words to what she was saying.
Then of course President Nelson reiterated his previous statements about the name of the church. I believe strongly that it was important that the name we took upon ourselves was Christ’s name – not Mormon’s name. I’ve been told in the past that I was not a Christian because Mormons are not Christians. Which bothered me deeply. It’s much more difficult to tell someone who is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that they are not a Christian than it is to think that “Mormons” are probably a weird cult that believes in totally out there things.
However, I still struggled with the return to the doctrine. For 20 years I had personally worked very hard to not use the term Mormon and always use the full name of the church – and after all that even the people at church headquarters had given up. I know what a mouthful the name of the church is and how regardless of my willingness to say all of that I knew others – especially those who don’t share my faith – would not be so willing. I feared that this would be destined not to stick just as it hadn’t before.
As I pondered on this I composed in my head an open letter to President Nelson to express all that I’ve posted above and to ask him to inquire of the Lord for an approved nickname for church members. I totally agreed that we needed to eschew the use of the nickname Mormon to describe our people and that it was of utmost importance that the name we use was the name that we took upon ourselves at baptism – Jesus Christ. I knew that the correct term was that we are Christians, but that term is so broad and encompasses many different sects of Christianity – Methodists, Catholics, Baptists, Evangelicals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, 7th Day Adventists, Anglicans, Amish – it wasn’t a term we could claim that would show our differences. We share our belief in Christ with all of these, but each sect has important differences that distinguish us from one another. I wanted to find a short name that could explain who I was that still kept the focus on Christ.
I have a background in marketing so I decided to also take the challenge on myself. I figured it was wise to take a leaf out of the Brother of Jared’s book and present a possible solution, not just a problem 😉 I found it interesting to note that of the different denominations of Christianity, the only one whose nickname involved a direct reference to Christ is the Jehovah’s Witnesses. As I thought through it the best name I could come up with as an alternative for Mormon was Christian Restorationist or perhaps Latter-day Christian. The thing that sets us most apart from other Christians is our belief in the restoration of the priesthood keys, prophets, apostles and all of the things that were practiced in Christ’s church when he led it personally on the earth.
Peter gives Paul the priesthood by the laying on of hands. Image courtesy of ChurchOfJesusChrist.org
This is of course what is supposed to be conveyed in the name of our church – Latter-day Saints is supposed to refer to the fact that we are practicing the same religion as the early saints. We are little s saints meaning followers of Christ who have been sanctified through baptism – not big S Saints like those revered as being holy in the catholic church. Latter days refers to the fact that we are just doing this in a more modern time – a latter day from the original church. Unfortunately that gets a little lost on modern ears and saints has been co-opted so much by the Catholic church that to say that you’re a Latter-day Saint sounds presumptuous – as though we believe we are perfect on a level with their revered Saints. Although it should, the name no longer conveys necessary ties to Christ’s name without the rest of the church’s name.
My degree is in linguistics and I understand that languages change through time and meanings of words are not static. You have to express yourself in terms that are understood by the people receiving your communication. Linguistic success is achieved by conveying meaning, not by using the word you like. I was pretty pleased with this moniker of Christian Restorationist with the only problem being that there are other faiths (Jehovah’s Witnesses, 7th Day Adventists etc) that would also fall under that category, but I felt like it at least got closer to the mark. There would be the issue of adoption outside the church, but it was at least a name that was short enough that I thought it had a chance. But I continued to mull over options and mentally compose that letter.
That has been rolling around in my brain for several months. Then, a couple weeks back I was sitting in the temple and pondering on names. I was reminded of a post that a friend made on Facebook. She had been reading the Book of Mormon and had gotten to 4 Nephi and read about how after Christ’s visit to the Americas there were 200 years of incredible peace and prosperity among the people. She was bugged that we have over 500 pages of the Book of Mormon that discuss all of their wars and disputes, but only 24 verses that tell us about this time of amazing peace an prosperity. She pointed out that what she really wanted to be reading was all about how they did the peace and prosperity! Twenty-four measly verses wasn’t enough to teach us all that we needed to know about how to achieve that! Her words stuck with me and I agreed with her wholeheartedly. I decided to go back and re-read those 24 verses to see what I could glean out of them. Here were some of the verses that I read –
15 And it came to pass that there was no contention in the land, because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people. 16 And there were no envyings, nor strifes, nor tumults, nor whoredoms, nor lyings, nor murders, nor any manner of lasciviousness; and surely there could not be a happier people among all the people who had been created by the hand of God. 17 There were no robbers, nor murderers, neither were there Lamanites, nor any manner of -ites; but they were in one, the children of Christ, and heirs to the kingdom of God.
It struck me that a major portion of what helped the people gain this amazing peace and prosperity was this idea that there was not “any manner of -ites”. They were able to have peace in the land because they allowed what united them – their faith in Christ – to be stronger than what divided them. I went on to read that not only was that what caused their peace, but it was a departure from that which led to their downfall. If you read on you see that the people divide into many different churches with each one focusing on one doctrine or another and ignoring those that didn’t suit them. From there they go from having 200 years of peace and prosperity to (spoiler alert) completely destroying the church and their civilization in the most gruesome ways within the next 200 years.
I pondered on this idea of “ites”. The thought came to me that isn’t this exactly what we do in modern times? Rather than uniting ourselves as followers of Christ under the name Christians, we divide ourselves into our many different denominations. We decide that our differences are more important than our similarities. I had been thinking that the Lord had called us to be a “peculiar people” as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and that we needed a name that reflected that. However when I went to look up that scripture I discovered that it wasn’t a calling given to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but it came from the book of Peter in the New Testament. We are peculiar for being Christians, and the name Christian IS what sets us apart.
After reading all of this I no longer feel inclined to find a better nickname for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Certainly I would gladly accept one to be able to distinguish ourselves culturally with linguistic efficiency. However, we have taken upon us the name of Christ – we are Christians. That’s enough. If that means that we are lumped in with all of the other denominations of Christianity – well isn’t that wonderful? I don’t believe Christ wants us dividing ourselves, he wants us united in living our faith as best as we can. Yes, your faith might be practiced differently than mine, but that can be as true between members of the same denomination as it is between denominations. If you believe in Christ and are working out your salvation with Him, then I want to stand with you. Whether you wear a cross or a CTR ring. Whether you listen to the pope or the prophet. Whether your baptism was performed with sprinkling or with immersion. I don’t care. We are followers of Christ and that’s the only name we need to take on ourselves.
So who am I? I am a Christian.
I believe in prophets and apostles, both ancient and modern.
I believe in the power of God given to us through the priesthood.
I believe in the scriptures as the word of God given to us to guide us.
I believe in temple ordinances and the power to bind families together forever.
But above all else – I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe in His atonement to cleanse us from our sins. I believe in His resurrection and that through Him we can all live again. I believe that He is the way, the truth and the light and that all who come unto him can find peace and everlasting life.
I’m a Christian, and I am proud to share that name with anyone else who wants to it take upon themselves.
Today, as we celebrate Mother’s Day, I feel keenly aware of the women within my circle of friends for whom this day is a reminder of the imperfect situations they might find themselves in. Whether they are unmarried, struggling with infertility, single parents, feeling overwhelmed with many children, have wayward children, children they gave up for adoption, children who have passed on before them, have lost their own mothers, or don’t have the relationship with their mother that they desire. Mother’s Day can be a difficult day for many people.
,About a year ago one of my friends who had struggled with infertility for a long time, posted that she would go to Relief Society on Mother’s Day and go home with the Mother’s Day treat and cry. She felt like she’d been given something that she didn’t deserve. Rather than feeling included (which I’m sure was the intention), the gesture exacerbated her feelings of inadequacy. This broke my heart to read how a wonderful day for so many is a bitter reminder for others of a blessing which they have been denied.
Particularly for those who are struggling with not having yearned for children I wanted to share this thought from my favorite blog, Women in the Scriptures. One of the first posts of hers that I read was this one about infertility. I want to share one particular quote used in that post from Sheri Dew –
” …While we tend to equate motherhood solely with maternity, in the Lord’s language, the word mother has layers of meaning. Of all the words they could have chosen to define her role and her essence, both God the Father and Adam called Eve “the mother of all living”—and they did so before she ever bore a child. Like Eve, our motherhood began before we were born. Just as worthy men were foreordained to hold the priesthood in mortality, righteous women were endowed premortally with the privilege of motherhood. Motherhood is more than bearing children, though it is certainly that. It is the essence of who we are as women. It defines our very identity, our divine stature and nature, and the unique traits our Father gave us…
…Motherhood is not what was left over after our Father blessed His sons with priesthood ordination. It was the most ennobling endowment He could give His daughters, a sacred trust that gave women an unparalleled role in helping His children keep their second estate. As President J. Reuben Clark Jr. declared, motherhood is “as divinely called, as eternally important in its place as the Priesthood itself.” (Are We Not All Mothers, Ensign. Nov. 2001)
I loved this definition of motherhood. While I’ve never struggled with infertility I did have my own experience with not feeling like I fit the definition of “mother”. When Eric and I were first married we lived in married student housing at BYU. It seemed like a majority of the women in our ward were mothers. Our plan at the time was to wait to have children until Eric was done with school and I was working full time to support us while we got to that goal. I felt excluded from the mom club – the circle of women who passed their days in the middle of the quad at the playground chatting.
I remember the first time my visiting teachers in that ward came to visit me with their toddlers. In the process of getting to know one another I told them that I was working full time. While they didn’t say anything disparaging, I felt judged, as if they were high society women who saw me merely as ‘one of those working girls’. Whether that sentiment was real or imagined (and let’s be honest, it was probably more imagined), it was a difficult moment for me.
At the time I felt like I had a hard time defining myself. I’m the oldest of 5 children and my mom has called me the second mother in our home. I grew up carrying around babies, playing with kids, babysitting, and loving being around children. However in that season of my life I was without children – far away from my siblings and not yet having children of my own. At the same time, I still felt the inherent mother-ness in me.
I had a hard time figuring out how to refer to myself as a married woman without children. I would often try to call myself a single mother – which was ironic since I was completely the opposite . I think I felt similarly displaced to those mothers who find themselves without a father to aid them, which is likely why I would gravitate to that title. The other title I would come up with was “childless mother” which also felt odd since it seems weird to call someone a mother who doesn’t have her own children.
In retrospect I think the title of “childless mother” was actually the right term. Despite not having children, I was a mother. I liked what Sister Dew stated about our motherhood as women beginning before we were born. Motherhood is not dependent on 9 months of pregnancy, it is inherent in our calling as women. Motherhood is the qualities of women that dispose us to teaching, building, and growing not only children but the world around us. You can fulfill that calling as a sister, daughter, aunt, friend, teacher, office worker, CEO, Relief Society president, yoga instructor or whatever role you find yourself in.
Just as a man is no less a priesthood holder for not being a bishop, women are no less mothers for not having children. Motherhood is part of who you are. I know that might not be much consolation to those who would like to discharge that calling in the conventional way, especially when proffered by one who has been given that more conventional mother role. However, I hope you know that whatever your contribution to motherhood is I honor you for what you are building and the love you show for those around you.
So take that cookie offered to you with pride, you are a mother. Happy Mother’s Day to all women, whatever circumstance you find yourself in. You are a daughter of our Heavenly Mother, and I want to celebrate that divinity within you ❤️
Lately we’ve been having issues in our family with respecting other people’s personal space and being kind to others. So I decided we needed to have an FHE lesson on respecting our bodies and other people’s bodies. I looked around the internet and didn’t find anything that quite fit what I was looking for so I decided to make my own. I decided to play to my strengths this time and make a Power Point presentation instead of flannel board cut outs.
As part of our lesson we made gingerbread men and decorated them. After the boys had decorated their cookies I took the rest of the frosting and just squiggled it all over the other cookies so they’d be edible. Sam came up to the counter and said, “Wow Mom, you’re quite the artist!”
I guess I’ve raised kids with pretty low artistic standards. Anyways, here’s the outline and power point. Hopefully someone else enjoys them as much as we did 🙂
![“I have described only a few selected examples of covenant-keeping and devoted disciples of Jesus Christ like you who are pressing forward “in the path of [your] duty.” Millions of additional examples of Latter-day Saints who offer their “whole souls” unto God are found in Christ-centered homes and in Church units around the world. […]
I am grateful for millions of Church members who today are coming unto the Savior and pressing forward on the covenant path in the last wagons of our contemporary wagon trains—and who truly are no less serviceable. Your strong faith in Heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus Christ and your unpretentious, consecrated lives inspire me to be a better man and disciple.
I love you. I admire you. I thank you. And I commend you.”](https://i0.wp.com/www.haitechmama.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Slide14.png?resize=1024%2C576&ssl=1)
![“[Many] are afraid to have families and children under the difficulties of our day and those who trust in the Lord say, "I will move forward in faith and we will have families, we will support families. If I'm an aunt or an uncle, I'm going to support my brothers and sister's family. I'm going to be a primary teacher and support families. We will not be afraid, but we will move forward.”
And I would submit every time a child is born and the spirit that comes with that childbirth is a witness of Emmanuel. God is with us. He's still sending His children to this earth.”
Dr Shon Hopkin, Follow Him Podcast, Book of Mormon Episode 9](https://i0.wp.com/www.haitechmama.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Slide19.png?resize=1024%2C576&ssl=1)
