Sephra Kinikini: "God Is a Perfect Being"
My brothers and sisters, Aloha! In the words of the prophet Joseph Smith, “Without the knowledge of all things, God would not be able to save any portion of his creatures; for it is by reason of the knowledge which he has of all things, from the beginning to the end, that enables him to give that understanding to his creatures by which they are made partakers of eternal life; and if it were not for the idea existing in the minds of men that God had all knowledge, it would be impossible for them to exercises faith in him” ( Lectures on Faith [1985], 51–52). Brothers and sisters, this is an eternal principle; since we were made in His image, we have the potential to know all that God knows, for God is the God of all truth. We know that truth is having a full understanding of both temporal and eternal truths. As students at Brigham Young University – Hawaii, we are learning temporal knowledge. In order to learn eternal knowledge, we must go to Heavenly Father. We must seek for truth in everything that we learn in this life.
However, sometimes people stop learning after they graduate; sometimes people stop learning about the Gospel after returning home from their full-time missions. Brothers and sisters, we cannot do this. What is the counsel that the prophet Joseph Smith gives in Doctrine and Covenants 130:18-19? He said, “Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection. And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come.” This is a key principle in achieving exaltation.
Remember that Heavenly Father has given us a mind with which to reason, to analyze, and to understand like He does. He has guided you to this university to learn so that you may gain knowledge that will change your character. We are to “seek learning, even by study and also by faith” (D&C 88:118). Pray for the Holy Ghost to help you understand the things that you need to learn in your classes. I promise you that the Spirit will open your mind so that you may understand, and like Heavenly Father, you will be on your way to obtaining this higher learning. My little brother Daniel, has been an example to me of studying by study and also by faith. He is an example of humility and diligence in putting the Lord first and always seeking to learn. He always reminds me that a person’s present circumstance doesn’t determine his or her future success. It only motivates it. That success depends on your attitude to never stop learning both temporal and spiritual things. Do we have this type of motivation towards our studies? Brothers and sisters, we must never stop learning.
We know that Heavenly Father only has one motivation, which is “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39). President Dieter F. Uchtdorf explains that because of this desire, “He is a God of creation and compassion. Creating and being compassionate are two objectives that contribute to our Heavenly Father’s perfect happiness. Creating and being compassionate are two activities that we as His spirit children can and should emulate” ("Happiness, Your Heritage," Ensign, Oct. 2008). As such, we can be like Him in these ways: when we are sealed to our eternal companion in Heavenly Father’s holy temples. As we are all descendants of Adam and Eve, we should look to them for an example of fulfilling our creation as co-creators with Heavenly Father.
Through revelation, the prophet Abraham learned that after Adam had named all of God’s creations, Adam’s eternal wellbeing was on the brink. “And the Gods said: Let us make an help meet for the man, for it is not good that the man should be alone, therefore we will form an help meet for him” (Abraham 5:14). Thus came the complete creation of man. For Adam was not complete until Eve was created. This union between a man and women is a huge reason for our creation. Whether we are single or married at this time, we all share in this divine power. This power is sacred, and I invite all of you to review the words of President and Sister Wheelwright in our last devotional over this sensitive matter. I know that what they said is true.
Brethren, you can be like Adam by being presiders. To preside is to watch over and care for the needy. We need you to preside as the priesthood holders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We need you, brethren, to faithfully and worthily exercise that power to bless us. We cherish the blessings of comfort, healing, and companionship that only you can give, but also, please remember to treat us with the same kind of respect that you would want the choice woman in your life to be treated. You can fulfill these callings as you rely on the Lord. I’m grateful for my father and two brothers who are worthy priesthood bearers and are great examples of servants of the Lord.
Sisters, you can also be like Eve by being an help meet. Elder Bruce C. Hafen explains, “The original Hebrew word for meet means that Eve was adequate for, or equal to, Adam. She wasn’t his servant or his subordinate. And the Hebrew word for help in 'help meet' is ezer, a term meaning that Eve drew on heavenly powers when she supplied their marriage with the spiritual instincts uniquely available to women as a gender gift” ("Crossing Thresholds and Becoming Equal Partners," Ensign, Aug. 2007). Sisters, that gender gift is being a nurturer. A perfect modern example is Emma Smith; the Lord declared to her, “And the office of thy calling shall be for a comfort unto my servant, Joseph Smith, Jun., thy husband, in his afflictions, with consoling words, in the spirit of meekness” (D&C 25:5). Being a comfort is like being a friend. Having the spirit of meekness is to be accepting and patient. Remember that being co-creators with God must also be built on the foundation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The words of the prophet Gordon B. Hinckley can be applied to both men and women in our relationship with our eternal companion. He said, “Aim high, but do not aim so high that you totally miss the target. What really matters is that he [or she] will love you, that he will respect you, that he will honor you, that he will be absolutely true to you, that he will give you the freedom of expression and let you fly in the development of your own talents. He is not going to be perfect, but if he is kind and thoughtful, if he knows how to work and earn a living, if he is honest and full of faith, the chances are that you will not go wrong, that you will be immensely happy” ("To the Women of the Church," Ensign, Oct. 2003). We should follow this counsel so that we can experience the happiness that comes through Heavenly Father’s plan. I am so grateful for all of my experiences as a student and in BYUHSA because they have made me realize that Heavenly Father knows what’s best for me to become who I am supposed to be. I simply needed to give my will to Him and all will be well. I bear my witness that Heavenly Father loves us. He will always love us, no matter how much we fall short of His glory. I know that Jesus is His Beloved Son and that through His Atonement we may be as compassionate as He was. I know that we are here to build His kingdom. We will be able to return back to our Heavenly Father with an appreciation for all that we have learned. I say these things in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen.
Raife Campbell: “In the Quiet Heart”
My brothers and my sisters, Aloha.
Each of you has blessed the lives of your fellow man through your faithfulness in the gospel, and I thank you as your friend, as your brother, and as your representative.
I ask that the Spirit be present today as we share our testimonies with you all.
Shakespeare once wrote, “What win I if I gain the thing I seek?” This question asks us to evaluate our intents and decisions deeper than the face value, which we often give them. I wish to use this quote to springboard my topic, which I have taken from hymn number 220, “Lord, I Would Follow Thee,” of the standard LDS hymn book, which states, “In the quiet heart is hidden sorrow that the eye can’t see.”
Today, I wish to talk about the sorrow that exists in every one of us, and then I want to share some tools to help you overcome what sorrows may exist. I wish to discuss this for the purpose that you cannot fulfill the measure of your creation when weighed down by the sorrows of the heart. We can see how Satan will deform your growth and potentially disable your destiny by simply reminding you of the inflictions of the past.
I have felt the need to talk about this subject because I have visited with a great number of you who have suffered either because of the actions of others or because it was and is self-inflicted. I wish to state that any examples I use will only be of my own personal experiences.
On this earth, there are human beings, people, with names, with dreams, hopes and beliefs, people with visions and potential, people who could change this world and the world of others. Every day, their minds, their hearts, their souls, and their bodies are being manipulated and mistreated. Every day, sorrow upon sorrow is being added into their internal accounts never to be sufficed or equalized. If you think that you are excluded from this number, think again.
Every single one of us in our quiet hearts carries sorrows that the eye can’t see.
So I ask you, as we seek to support these sorrows, what do we inevitably, ultimately gain?
I testify that in the garden of Gethsemane, our Savior, Jesus Christ, knelt at a tree and took upon himself our transgressions, our weaknesses, and our sins with us in mind and in focus. More importantly and probably the most significant of all, he took upon himself our sorrows. As it states in Doctrine and Covenants 19:16, “For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent.”
His Atonement means that we need not carry these burdens throughout our mortality. So why do we? Why do we latch on to these internal infernos that destroy us?
Releasing this history is easier said than done. I know. I get that, but it is possible, and it is for this purpose that the Savior did suffer for us: so that we can relent through and by him. It is my prayer that all of us will come to realize that we need not carry this any more. As the Savior invited us in Matthew 11:28-30 to give unto him all of our burdens that they may be light, he didn’t ask for a portion. He didn’t ask for the majority; he asked for all of it so that your burdens may be light and “ye shall find rest unto your souls.”
I testify that the Atonement is the balm of Gilead that will sooth the soul from all abuse and battering that we are encumbered with every day of our lives.
I wish now to give you a three-step method on how to best utilize the healing forces of the Atonement.
Step 1: Change your thinking.
Human nature always draws us to focus on the negative because it is so delicious. What we need to do before we can change anything is shift our thinking. Ultimately, if we try to fix a problem using the same mindset that created or supported the problem in the first place, then we will ultimately be doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different results. We need to start focusing our thoughts and training our minds to believe the positive, to focus on that one ray of sunshine that always appears on a rainy day. There will be some days that tears come, and we will have to drink the bitter cup because it will not pass us by. Elder Holland stated, “Drink it and be strong, trusting in happier days ahead” ("Like a Broken Vessel," Ensign, Oct. 2013).
Life will not be easy, and it never was designed to be so, but I testify that the Gospel is the easiest way to live.
Step 2: Only embrace diamond truth.
Bruce R. McConkie stated, “Truth, diamond truth, truth unmixed with error, truth alone leads to salvation” ("The Seven Deadly Heresies," BYU Fireside, Jun. 1980). As you shift your thinking, you need to start embracing eternal diamond truths. Diamond truths are both unchanging and valuable. To define truth, truth is not subjective, it is not circumstantial, and it is not reasoned. Truth is not as you believe it or as we define it, but it is given to us from God, and we accept it.
The TRUTH is that you are a child of God with unmeasurable potential, the only limiting factor being the natural man, an enemy to God, and limiting in the sense that you define your limitations through fear and by the influence of others.
Accept truth and you accept freedom. Accept lies and you will always be in bondage to your own self.
Step 3: Gain a conviction of self.
My definition of conviction is this: that it is the result of a synergistic relationship between both body and spirit. Conviction is what you gain when your mind accepts what your spirit has been teaching you all along. When the Savior was born, he was born a baby. He was limited to the mortality that we all have to deal with, so for him to be able to complete his destiny and perform the Atonement, he needed to gain an understanding, a testimony, a conviction of who he really was. Following in the footsteps of the Savior is not only gaining a testimony of him but of yourselves as well. “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). “I am a Child of God, and He has sent me here.”
Gain your conviction, and cultivate it through prayer and study. Fight off the natural man and become what your spirit is trying to teach you about what you always were.
My testimony is that within the quiet heart, there can be conviction and a belief that will trump all gossip and hearsay. As we overcome our sorrows and delete from our souls the deepest of depressions, we will win the strength that we seek.
God bless you all, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
John Fisihetau: "Fulfilling the Measure of Your Creation"
Brothers and sisters, Aloha!
I am humbled to stand before you today to share the feelings of my heart. I will speak on fulfilling the measure of your creation. I pray that the Spirit may enter unto and into our hearts as we seek to be better servants to the Master, our Savior Jesus Christ.
As a son or daughter of an eternal royal family, the Lord knows our divine potential. He has a personal plan of salvation for each of us. As students of Brigham Young University–Hawaii, the Lord is preparing you to become his chosen vessels for the rest of your lives.
What does it mean to fulfill the measure of your creation?
The Savior, in speaking about the world, defines it in this phrase: “Therefore, [we] must needs be sanctified from all unrighteousness, that [we] may be prepared for the celestial glory; For after [we] hath filled the measure of [our] creation, [we] shall be crowned with glory, even with the presence of God the Father” (D&C 88:18-19).
The Lord is pleading with us to prepare and be clean and pure to enter back into His presence.
How do we do this? How do we fulfill the measure of our creation?
I will share five ways in which to do this.
First, we believe in ourselves and trust God. At this pulpit, during the commencement of December 2011, Elder Jeffery R. Holland said, “It is incumbent upon us as students, as Latter-day Saints, and as children of God to see the divine potential in ourselves, to believe in ourselves, and to know that with God’s help there is quite literally nothing in righteousness that we cannot become.” He continued, “Take your dreams, take your education, take the love of a whole Church full of people, and go make something of yourself” (“The Parable of BYU–Hawaii.” BYUH Commencement, Dec. 2011).
Elder Holland is saying that through our belief in ourselves and our trust in God, we can become all God has intended for us. Elder Richard G. Scott states, “We become what we want to be by consistently being what we want to become each day. Righteous character is a precious manifestation of what you are becoming” (“The Transforming Power of Faith and Character,” Ensign, Oct. 2010).
I testify that our Father in Heaven chooses to see us as what we can become. Believe that you can do all things in Christ.
Second, we should have an assurance that God believes in us. Moses 1:39 declares, “For behold, this is my work and my glory – to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. We are his reason. We are his passion. I testify that he has no private agendas that would pull his attention away from his most prized possession: you, his children. You can put your trust and direct your fervent prayers to him who beckons you to come.
The third way we fulfill the measure of our creation is building faith and testimony. We learn from the Gospel of John that “this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3).
On another occasion, just prior to his ascension into heaven, Christ’s disciples asked him when he would restore the kingdom of Israel and usher in the Millennium. It reads, “When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judæa, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:6-8).
Christ teaches us that having a witness or testimony of the gospel is prized above knowing the time of the Millennium.
Listen to Elder Richard G. Scott’s powerful witness of Christ: “Jesus Christ lives. He is our Savior, our Redeemer. He is a glorious, resurrected being. He has the capacity to communicate love that is so powerful, so overwhelming as to surpass the capacity of the human tongue to express adequately. He gave His life to break the bonds of death. His Atonement made fully active the plan of happiness of His Father in Heaven.” ("He Lives! All Glory to His Name!," Ensign, Apr. 2010).
Come to know him. By so doing, your anchored faith will give you confidence in the road he has prepared you to travel.
Fourth, we need to be true. Elder Holland again stated, “Be strong. Be true. Teach quietly, by example if by no other way—and that’s the best way—rather than being taught. You can’t control everyone else’s morals—you’re about to learn that—but you can control your own. You can’t control everyone’s language, but you can control your own. You can’t control everyone’s personal standards, but you can control yours” (“The Parable of BYU–Hawaii.” BYUH Commencement, Dec. 2011).
Finally, the most important thing we can do to fulfill the measure of our creation is to accept and embrace the enabling power of the Atonement of Christ. Elder Richard G. Scott states, “There is an imperative need for each of us to strengthen our understanding of the significance of the Atonement of Jesus Christ so that it will become an unshakable foundation upon which to build our lives.” ("He Lives! All Glory to His Name!," Ensign, Apr. 2010).
Elder David A. Bednar teaches us that the grace of the Atonement is the source by which we can fulfill the measure or our creation: “Grace is the divine assistance or heavenly help each of us desperately needs to qualify for the celestial kingdom. Thus, the enabling power of the Atonement strengthens us to do and be good and to serve beyond our own individual desire and natural capacity. … The enabling power of the Atonement of Christ strengthens us to do things we could never do on our own. Sometimes I wonder if … we ever learn to acknowledge our daily dependence upon the enabling power of the Atonement” ("The Atonement and the Journey of Mortality," Ensign, Apr. 2012).
The sons of Mosiah in the Book of Mormon knew of the enabling power of the Atonement. They suffered greatly while seeking to serve their brethren the Lamanites but were strengthened by the Lord’s Atonement while on the Lord’s errand. Ammon recalls, “Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold, the Lord comforted us, and said: Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success” (Alma 26:27).
I testify that the Lord will provide us with success in our lives as we seek him. He will lift us beyond what we could possibly imagine. His love embodies his actions to purify and sanctify us through his Spirit. I leave you with a poem which embodies how we can fulfill the measure of our creation as a constant reminder to seek him:
“Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.
This we ask in the name of our Captain,
Who is Jesus Christ.”
(attributed to Sir Francis Drake - 1577)
I testify that through believing in ourselves and trusting in God, having an assurance that he believes in us, and building unshakable faith and testimony in knowing God and His Son, we will find confidence and peace in storms of affliction and gratitude and love in times of plenty. I also bear my witness that by being true to ourselves, others, and God, we will be worthy to enter into the presence of our Father. I testify to each of you that through your reliance on the enabling power of the Atonement of Christ, you will fulfill the measure of your creation, and your joy will be full in Christ. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.