Dear brothers and sisters guten-tag,
Brothers and Sisters in a moment you will hear first, from my wife, and I just wanted to say a couple of words before she does so, and then I will follow her.
Bless you for being here because you don’t have to be here and there are probably a few not here, that could be here, if they were not otherwise engaged. I have learned in my years as a member of the church, as a convert, a valuable lesson, a long time ago. I’ve learned that there are surely blessings and points for showing up.
It’s good to be here. It’s good to always be where you are supposed to be as a Latter-day Saint. To sit at the feet of a sacrament meeting, or a conference, a general conference session, it’s always good to be there. But I’ve also learned, partially from my own experiences. That the half-life of any meeting such as this one can be as short as 24 hours, maybe 72 hours, which means that in that period of time often we don’t hardly remember what was said. We may remember who was here but we won’t remember much of what was being said.
Now, an invitation to you is very simple. You will hear the gospel taught today, you will hear doctrine taught. You will hear a number of invitations being extended. And again, my experience has taught me, unless you and I have a prayer in our hearts, a prayer along the lines of, ‘Heavenly Father we both know, there are things that I still need to do and become and understand, wilt thou please help me today to have some kind of an experience with the spirit either by what is being said or hopefully by what the spirit is going to communicate to you.’ And then based on that prompting make a decision, or to renew a certain covenant, or to simply promise Heavenly Father that I shall do this, or I will stop doing that.
And brothers and sisters that is what we do in the church, that is really frankly in my opinion the only way we can be happy and faithful and striving Latter-day Saints. When we use these kinds of opportunities and hundreds of others throughout any given year to really knock on heaven’s door and say father wilt thou please feed me something I can make my own, something that will help me become more like thee or to become more like thy son. That is my simple invitation to you, if you haven’t already done so. Send up a prayer or two right now, because to those who knock Heavenly Father always gives, so you will learn something, you will feel something, you will have a prayer completely answered, or partially answered, something will happen this morning to help you and your individual discipleship but that is only a blessing that can be claimed by those who actually care. So we love and I look forward to addressing you in just a moment and for now I am happy to turn over the time to my wonderful wife. She’s not only cute, she’s also very smart, and very spiritual, so she’ll teach, I don’t know what she’s going to say, but along with you I’m looking forward to learning.
So Julia, here you go.
Sjster Klebingat
Well brothers and sisters aloha, ok I got this right. Its’ wonderful to be here, and to those of you who were at the Polynesian cultural center last night, performing, thank you we had a wonderful time there. And we really enjoyed the performances we saw there and experienced. It’s our first time in Hawaii. And we are having a wonderful experience here. I thought I would start by just introducing us a little bit. My husband is from Germany, hence the gretting guten-tag, he’s a convert to the church. I’m originally form Latvia, I was raised Russian speaking and learned Latvian in school as I was growing up but my main language is Russian. I am also a convert to the church to this day both of us are the only members in our families. We hope that might change one day but we have great hopes for our children and our posterity to remain strong in the church. So the gospel has meant everything to both of us, ever since we found it. We were both in our teenage years, my husband was 18 and I was 19 when we joined the church. And having grown up in Latvia back in the day, when it was still a part of the soviet union, I grew up in an atheist society where God was not an issue, was not something you spoke about. In fact, the only thing that was said about him was that he does not exist and that it’s foolish to believe in God. But you cannot, all of us being children of God, of course you cannot erase just by teaching a falsehood. You cannot erase one’s divine identity. And so still, the soul continues searching. And I had my questions and I had my searchings. Eventually, Heavenly Father blessed me to still find the gospel in my youth and to be able to then build my adult life on the principles of the gospel. And what a blessing it has been. Truly the gospel is the pearl of great price. It’s worth really sacrificing anything worldly in order to obtain it. I want to share with you a piece of wisdom or advice, that was given to us when we were young students at BYU-Provo, we are both BYU graduates. And we had an opportunity when we were just a young married couple to visit with President James E. Faust at that time who was a member of the first presidency. And we spoke to him for a short time in his office in salt lake and finally asked what advice he would give us a s a young married couple in the church. And he just simply quoted a scripture, which I will quote to you. It’s in Matthew chapter 6 verse 33, “but see ye first the kingdom of god and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you”. What are all these things? All the other things, all the worldly things, all the thing we worry about, they will fall in to place for us, if we put the gospel first. Put the Lord first in our commitment to follow him and live the principles of the gospel.
And how do we do that? Because that requires that the gospel doesn’t just become a tradition, sort of a nice philosophy to live by when or if you like it. It’s not just an empty ritual, not just things we do, it is also what we become through the gospel. If we treat it that way then it becomes a real power in our life, a power for change. It becomes rooted in our hearts. But how do we do that? Well a few verses earlier, Jesus Christ himself gives us sort of a formula, a formula for success and happiness in this life. How to make the gospel a treasure of our heart. This is what he says, again Matthew chapter 6 starting in verse 19, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and dust doth corrupt, where thieves break through and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor dust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal.” And here’s the key promise, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” You know this last sentence used to not make a lot of sense to me, because we often attach a lot of meaning to our feelings. Where our heart is, where our feelings are that’s where our treasure is, isn’t that the other way around. But the Savior gives us a more proactive approach to gospel living and to life in general. He says, you treasure what you know to be of eternal value first, even if you don’t feel like it or if you’re not truly in love with the principle yet. Or it’s not yet the treasure of your heart, but you treasure by your attitude and your actions and then your heart will follow. It will become a treasure of your heart.
Let me just illustrate quickly, for example, we all know that the word of god, the scriptures are of eternal value. And we all know that we should study them every day. But many struggle with consistent study apply that principle? Some would say, well I’m going to pray for a desire to love the scriptures and wait to see what happens. Well it’s a plan but not a very good plan if it’s not followed by actions. So according to what Christ suggests we should do, we would start treating scriptures as a treasure. Whatever that involves, how would you treat a treasure? What would that then mean? How would we treat the scriptures daily? And once we do that and we do that prayerfully and consistently, then they will become also the treasure of our heart, as the promise says. And so apply that to any principle you might be struggling with in the gospel. Start treasuring it, start treating it as a treasure. If you have a hear time following the prophet’s counsel, starting treating that counsel as a treasure. And then your heart will follow, and you will be in love with your scriptures. You will be in love with the prophet, symbolically speaking, with his words. And you will just be in love with the gospel of Jesus Christ and it will mean everything to you. The gospel should not just be one aspect of our life but it should be our whole life and all the other aspects should be seen through our gospel glasses, or through the gospel eyes. And the gospel should be our yardstick in deciding the value of all the other worldly pursuits in our life. So I invite you to treasure things of eternal value in your life, regardless of how you feel about them right now. If you treasure them your heart will follow, they will become the treasure of your heart. I bear witness of this principle and I bear my witness of the Savior, who knows each of us personally and he is our redeemer and of a loving Heavenly Father who is so excited and interested in our success in life and is always willing to bless us as soon as we turn to him and walk in his path. And I say this in the name of Jesus Christ amen.
Elder Klebingat
Aloha, there you go I know how to say that and I’ve come to love and appreciate the cultural traditions here in Hawaii. And we’re just so excited to be here Brothers and Sisters and share a few thoughts. May I share with you a comment briefly on what my wife said. Isn’t it sometimes tragic to contemplate that it’s possible, and all of you who are returned missionaries you may have observed that on your own, it’s tragic that it’s quite possible to go through a mission experience without the mission actually going through us, right? Through our heart. Even more tragic it is that we can go through the temple without the temple experience going through us. I don’t know which one is worse, they are both tragedies, because they point at an inner deficiency that we mortals have in this life and the fact that you and I, you can fake your way through much of church membership. You may go through seminary and you may not remember what in the world the teacher talked about today. You may go through a sacrament meeting and you come home and your parents ask you, as we ask our boys, “So what did you learn?” There may not be a lot there. But brothers and sisters you’re at an age where it is time to change from activity in the church and to learn how to voluntarily turn over your heart to Heavenly Father.
Now let me just give you a piece of comfort, you may look at us and go you know they seem to have it together, you know they know the gospel they seem strong and what not. But let me tell you, that when I found the Church, I was a failing High School student, and I frankly, I don’t even have a high school diploma if that give you any comfort, I really don’t. And, as my wife said, it was really only the Church and the gospel, when it, when the Father showed up in my life, and I began understanding the doctrines of the Church, that is when I realized there is more life than whatever it was that I was doing, much of it wasn’t probably completely right and worthwhile. but I want to give all of you who are sitting here today, who are wondering about the future who are a little bit anxious about who you are, and what follows BYU-Hawaii, can I make this work? Will I be able to go get a job? Will I ever realize my dream of getting married? I just want you to know that you are in great company because those are the very thoughts, once I understood, or began understanding, the purpose of life and the gospel plan, I had those same feelings and thoughts.
I came from, and I come from a home that is not very well to do. I think I’m speaking the truth even on behalf of my wife growing up where she did in very humble normal circumstances there. We didn’t have a lot of money, when we got married, I tell you when we went back to Rick’s College there wasn’t much in our bank account in our wallets. We didn’t have many of those material things in the apartment. And there was even one winter where a member of the bishopric, or was it the bishop, I can’t remember, came by and he saw his breath in our apartment. Wondering if the heater was broken and we said, “Well we just don’t have any money to pay for it.” And the Relief Society came and started bringing us quilts and things to keep us warm. And in our first year at Ricks College, I took my wife, my newlywed wife, out to eat once. And that was to subway sandwiches.
So, why am I telling you all this? I just want to go on record and be a witness today this morning, to all of you, that I don’t care how lacking you think you may feel, how unprepared for the world you may think that you are, as a servant of the lord I will just make you a simple promise, put your heart, your heart, before the Lord and tell him that you from now on will give yourself to him, to the best of your ability, that never means perfectly because while we are in mortality that’s never going to happen. But, go before the father and promise him that you will strive to do your very best, to be on the covenant path, to keep the covenants that you’ve made and to learn more about how to keep them better. And to do so, and then the promise is sure that as long as you are on the covenant path, giving your best effort, nothing will ever go permanently wrong in your life, that’s a promise. Step off the covenant path, become a law unto yourself, think that you know better than the Lord and his servants, nothing will ever go permanently well for you. And that is my promise to you this morning, brothers and sisters, I learned that slowly, line upon line, precept upon precept, as a new member of the church. As we together as a young married couple, clueless about the future, clueless about what I was supposed to graduate in, I didn’t know that until half way through the program but I am a witness that Heavenly Father is aware of you that he knows exactly where you will be in a few years and in 10 years and in 20 years. And he will lead and guide and direct you, as long as you simply do your best and consecrate yourself to him.
Now let me give you an example from the scriptures. You may not have read yet, but I recommend it to you. This is found in first Kings chapter 18, you should read the whole thing but what I want to talk about really kind of is around verse 21-ish or so, and this is the time the prophet Elijah is having sort of a thing with the priest of Baal. And the people were all looking on. And remember they had this barbecue contest that was about to begin to see who can, who has the power to make this work. And in those verses, you will read, and you can tell and recognize the frustration the prophet had with the people who should have known better. And in frustration he said, listen if God is the God of Israel and if I’m his prophet then will you please just make a decision right now to follow him, and listen to me as his prophet. However, if the true God if they are his representatives, you know those priests of Baal, then be my guest, then worship them. And then in frustration he asked those early saints, and maybe I’m rephrasing it and I’m submitting that question to you the prophet Elijah then asks, penetratingly, “How long will ye halt between two opinions? How long will you just kind of hang around in neutral, so-to-speak, in this really non-existent neutral ground between not being too good but not being too evil either. Just sort of this amorphous middle ground, how long will ye halt between two opinions? And then at the end of that verse 21, very tellingly we read, and they answered him not a word. They wanted to see how this was going to shake out. Their hearts weren’t quite ready; they weren’t quite ready to fully commit themselves to him.
If you were missionaries, and this morning while running, I actually ran into an Elder who served in a mission that I had toured in Tampa, Florida and he may remember. But if this were a zone conference right now, my dear young brothers and sisters, and frankly the older ones as well. I would invite you to consider the following truths, and those who have served know that this is true. That it is much easier and you will be much happier as a missionary when you are striving with all of your best effort to keep all of the mission rules and all of the commandments. That mission is much easier to serve than a missionary who chooses to obey most of the mission rules and most of the commandments. And the reason for this, I think you all know, and we’ve all experienced that, and that is that when you and I give partial effort, partial commitment, partial consecration, all the Lord by law can return unto us are partial blessings. However, when Heavenly Father recognizes that you and I are willing to voluntarily, that’s a big condition, when you and I are willing to voluntarily place things on the altar of God, that’s when the real blessings in this gospel follow. So, as we’re sitting here this morning, dear brothers and sisters, one of my questions to you is, what do you feel right now? What comes to your mind, in terms of what you might today voluntarily place on this altar of God? We’re close to a temple, most of you have been to the temple and you’ve all seen these altars, so I’m inviting you to contemplate what are you willing to put on there? What part of yourself? We all know that it’s easier to give up things than it is to give up self. It’s easier to write a tithing check, it’s easier, relatively to pay your fast offering. It’s easier perhaps to give a few hours in church service and those things are very good, to present to the Lord in the path of our discipleship but what part is really the most difficult to give? Well, that is our free will, our, if you will, our pride, our ultimate commitment to say, “Father in Heaven, I have no tragedy in my life, nobody is sick, nobody has a brain tumor, nobody is lying in the hospital upon the brink of death amongst my family or close friends, or spouse. I have no particular reason to call out to thee, because life is pretty good right now, but Heavenly Father because my life is pretty good right now and I don’t have a tragedy that will drive me to my knees. I am now coming to thee, I am coming to thee in humility in faith and I’m offering to thee, the following things, that I know that I need to yet consecrate in order to become more like thee and thy son. And then you and I will do it, we will place it on the alter and we are careful, in Elder Maxwell’s language, that we do not write check with our mouths that our conduct can’t cash, a few weeks down the road. So, you want to be very deliberate and very honest as you and I approach the lord in this kind of a conversation but I can promise you the moment you do that, the moment the covenant of sacrifice and consecration which we learn about in the temple but also in the baptismal waters in the scriptures everywhere, the moment you and I voluntarily offer up instead of grudgingly giving things, handing things over piecemeal, sometimes even under some kind of peer pressure by others. The moment you and I do this voluntarily and happily, you and I will become different creatures, our hearts will be changed and our natures will be changed.
So, here’s an invitation, again I repeat it, think while you are sitting here, upon things that you may offer up in this spirit. I will remind you of the experience that King Lamoni’s Father had. I shared this at a stake conference on the other side of the island, and I’ll just be very brief about it. But you remember he was very far away from God when he ran into Ammon and his son, and he was very upset about them meeting, who is this guy? Why did he just show up to the party? Let’s kill this guy, anyway you read the scriptures. You know that in Alma 20, verse 23 he was lying on his back looking at his sword and in this state of being very distant from a God, from a knowledge of a God, his life was worth to him half of his kingdom. And then the miracle begins happening. Aaron the missionary begins teaching him and his heart begins to be softened and I should turn to you and read it, you know in verse 15 and this is in Alma 22:15. He has been taught and Aaron had expounded the gospel and suddenly he felt the spirit and asked “What shall I do that I may have this eternal life of which thou has spoken, yea what shall I do that I may be born of God having this wicked spirit rooted out of my breast and receive his spirit, that I may be filled with joy that I may not be cast off at the last day?” And now watch what he is willing to do. “Behold said he I will give up all that I possess. Yea I will forsake my kingdom that I may receive this great joy.” So remember not knowing anything about god and the gospel his life was worth to him half of his kingdom, once he felt the spirit and recognized that there’s really only one thing that has eternal meaning and that is covenant keeping and life in the gospel he was willing to give up all his kingdom. But again giving away or giving up stuff is easier than giving up things which is why Heavenly Father gave us, through him, verse 18. And this is the first time that this good man now being taught by the missionaries, is turning away from the missionaries who had been teaching him and he is turning to Heavenly Father and he says “Oh God Aaron told me that thou art god, that there is a God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me?” And here comes his commitment and this is a happy day for any Latter-day Saint, a very happy day, “and I will give away all my sins to know thee.” I will give away all my sins to know thee.
So dear young people, Elder Maxwell also said, coming unto God is not a negotiation it is a surrender. What could he have possibly meant by that, well, sometimes you and I try to negotiate a little bit with the Lord, if I’m going to do this, I want you to give me that. If I serve a mission, I want you to give me her as my wife. We negotiate…we’re good at that. I’m going to do this; you’re going to help me get an A on this test. Now, some of that may be appropriate, I suppose, we’re okay to express our thoughts and our desires to the Lord. But can I just suggest to all of us listening today that coming unto God, as Elder Maxwell said it is never a negotiation. He owes us, frankly at the end of the day very little, except exaltation and eternal life. And the less, you and I attach to our obedience, to our willing obedience, the less we attach to those in terms of expectation. As if we’re hanging around for a receipt, ‘I’ve done something good Lord…pay me’ That’s not how this works. You and I do good because we love the Lord because you and I made covenants with him. That should be good enough, that’s what President Faust back in the day said, “Blessed is the Latter-day Saint who needs no other reasons at all to love the Lord and keep his commandments, then just to love.”
You’re getting this, right? I’m inviting all of you, especially you dear young people, think on the Father and think on the Son. Cast your mind back to your divine sonship and daughtership, if you will, to this pre-mortal realm. President Benson told us, probably in view of the long eons of time, that you and I sat at the feet of Heavenly Parents being taught by them, through long ages, he taught us that the one thing that will shock us, perhaps more than anything else, when you and I return and for the first time lay our eyes again on the Father, we will be shocked, according to President Benson by how familiar we are with his very features. You will be amazed that you’re looking at Father. Right now it’s more of ‘God’ or ‘Lord’, he seems anonymous to us a lot of the time throughout our life, even distant. But the day will very quickly come when you and I will see him again, that it will be ‘Father’. And all that pre-mortal knowledge will be restored in an instant, and you will know that you’re a beloved son or daughter of God and that he never for one second of your life, left you alone.
Now let’s talk for a moment about two things that I’d like to share with you in order to help you have a solid foundation with your Father and with your Savior, without which nothing else we could possibly talk about will make much sense. These are things that I learned as a new convert, you’ve heard them all there’s nothing new. But they’re really really essential.
The first one I want to talk about is prayer. Prayer can be very rote, and very cold even, if you will. As long as you and I do not have a very good understanding of that relationship, You and I do not pray brothers and sisters to do the lord a favor. We don’t pray to check-in with him or to check it off a checklist. When you and I pray, then it is a child reaching out to hi, or her father. We talk, we speak, we take time, we take time beyond the morning prayer. We take time beyond the evening prayer. I learned that in the military. I had to serve in the German army for a year and a half before serving a mission. You know, that was not easy. It wasn’t easy to maintain gospel standards in the military and in basic training, you can appreciate that. But I learned in that time, during the military, when I was alone and I was able to just be by myself a little bit, or I was out in the field, or driving somewhere. That I could pray and I could talk to my Father in Heaven. And I’ve never lost that habit, I’ve never lost that desire to talk to my Father way beyond the usual morning prayers and the evening prayers. So this is an invitation, that I’m extending to all of you, especially the young people. If you feel distant a little bit from your Father, if you’re sometimes wondering is her really there? Does he really care? Does he love me? Then I will invite you to simply to contemplate what part of the day are you offering to him. Are you giving Heavenly Father the breadcrumbs that fall off the table? What’s left over after your busy day, after you’ve had all the fun and done all your studies, is that what you offer to him? Or could you not consider making a change? And saying, ‘Father, here is what I am going to do in order to close this perceived gap between me and thee. I will give you my best time to communicate and to talk, I will reserve that, I will defend it, nothing is going to interfere.’ And you contemplate who your friends are, who your best friends are, they’re your best friends because you’ve been spending time with them. You two, or the bunch of you, you’ve gone through things together. You’ve come to know each other because of time spent.
So now some complain, you know I don’t think he’s listening. And as I talk and interrupt I find out, well it’s no surprise because you’re not really putting forth much effort to really dedicate time to your Father, to your relationship with Heavenly Father. So that’s another invitation I’m sending to you and I’m giving you young people, learn to talk to Heavenly Father throughout the day, take some time, go to the beach, just sit there. Stand there. I’ve already done that several times in my few days here, and then just simply pray. And if you’re out of things to pray for, the most powerful part comes when you start giving thanks. When you go through your life, current and past, and you just item by item give thanks to your Father in heaven. You will develop an attitude of gratitude, that’s not meant to rhyme, but it does. Ok, so you will develop this attitude of being thankful, you will begin to notice Heavenly Father’s hand and his blessings in your life. And Heavenly Father loves that. Add to that some journal-keeping I spend about half an hour this morning trying to capture the wonderful events of yesterday, the lord loves it when we take note. When we are observant, when we say thanks, I know that this came from thee. I know that this meeting wasn’t chance. I know that this answer as it came to me during the test, I didn’t study it but it came. I know that this was from thee. That’s how you and I develop a relationship with our Father on a very personal level. We cannot just give him these rote prayers at 11:30 at night, and while we say amen our head hits the pillow and we’re done. That is no way to treat a friend. That’s no way to establish a relationship, right? I mean, is this making sense? So that’s all I want to share on the idea of helping you develop a life-long habit of praying, of meaningful purposeful prayer.
Now add on top of that the second thing and I believe you will have a very firm foundation to get you going. And that second thing is not scripture reading, because that’s easy, but scripture study. And just a few thoughts on that regard. If I want to talk to my father when I pray, but fi I want him to speak back to me, then I read the scriptures. Heavenly Father has given us the answer book for many of our questions. They’re right before us. Maybe not explicitly written but the spirit that accompanies true scripture study, that’s how revelation comes mostly, at least in my life. So here are a couple few short tips for your personal scripture study.
If you are a willing to give the Lord 10 minutes a day. I would invite you to contemplate perhaps taking half of that or so, don’t make this mathematical it doesn’t really matter. Half or 60% actually reading something and then slow down and stop reading and take the remainder of the time to sit back and stare at the page and do what’s kind of become a lost tradition in the church; ponder, think, ask, write some thoughts down that come to you, either in a notebook or online. But sit there and say, ‘Heavenly Father I’ve just read that, so what? What am I to learn from that? Wilt thou please help make connections?’ Ponder. It is after pondering that the Church has received some of the greatest revelations, from the prophet joseph to president Kimball and others, and president Smith and so on. It is this pondering, again dear young people, especially, we’re talking about giving Heavenly Father quality time. This doesn’t have to be hours of the day, this can be rather just a few minutes a day. But make sure that Heavenly Father knows, that you are consecrating your time in order to strengthen a relationship so that you may receive more guidance for your personal life. Okay? So that’s just a thought on scripture study.
Now, it is a blessing and a great thing for Latter-day Saints to want to be led my Heavenly Father. It can become a downfall as president oaks once taught us, while he was BYU president. It can become a downfall when you and I think that the Lord should lead us in all things, in everything, in all the little decisions, all the time. That simply isn’t going to happen. There’s actually a scripture to the early missionaries of the church, where that principle kind of comes out a little bit. It’s found in section 80 of the Doctrine & Covenants in verse 3 where he makes that point he says, “Wherefore go ye and preach my gospel,” and then he says, “Whether to the north or to the south, to the east or to the west, it matters not, for ye cannot go amiss,” Am I telling you it’s not important to pray over things you’re going to do? No, pray. But I’ve learned in life that most answers to prayers in my life have come when I was on the move. Remember Nephi going in to Jerusalem a couple times trying to get those plates, it didn’t work. Being stuck in the cavity of a rock, being beaten up, and the angel…you know the story. And remember that he then went out not knowing beforehand what he shall do. And the Lord wasn’t going to let him know while he was in the cavity of the rock, that which he should do. He could have started a fast, he could have started whatever, the Lord I’m sure was not going to tell him. The Lord required Nephi, and I’m inviting all of you, especially you who have decisions coming up, regarding your life. The Lord is more likely to bless you with guidance and direction when you study it out in your own mind, and in the absence of firm direction and clear direction from the Lord, ‘Go here. Do this. Marry him.’ Or whatever, that can happen of course, and it does happen. But in the absence of it, use your best judgement. And then say, ‘Father in Heaven, this is the best I can come up with. This is what I would like to do. And I’m not getting anything specific right now from thee, so Father, watch me, I’m just going to go move forward.’ And then I can promise you, a couple of things will happen. Either as you start acting upon those feelings, dear young people, the spirit will come and you will know and you will feel that this was the right decision because I feel it now. Or a little ways down a path, that may not have been completely right because the Lord wants to teach us lessons. You may quite firmly feel like this stupor, that maybe this isn’t. And then, without too much damage being done, you can change direction and come back to, you know, start over. This has happened to us countless of times and I just want to encourage you dear young people, do not be afraid of making decisions, don’t wait and don’t become paralyzed, almost because you’re afraid of the future. As I told you, if you’re found on the covenant path, Heavenly Father will not ever allow you to walk in to a tragedy, without give you many opportunities. To overrule, some warnings that he may send you. You know in section 67 of the Doctrine and Covenants he says, “Ye endeavor to believe that ye should receive the blessing which was offered unto you, but behold verily I say unto you, there were fears in your hearts and verily this is the reason that ye did not receive.” Fear is the opposite of faith. I think you’ve been taught that by your wonderful president a little bit.
I need to close, but I want to say one more thing, probably, not probably, but the most important thing that I will leave with you today is as you pray in ways you haven’t prayed before, as you study the scriptures in ways that you haven’t been studying them before, you will very quickly find out this distance, the emotional connecting you will feel with your father and with your savior will strengthen, it will become stronger. Remember always, dear young people that the greatest gift that the father gave to you and to me was the sacrifice of His Son. There is a tiny verse in Alma 30 verse 16 where the prophet Zenock is being quotes as saying that, “Thou art angry O Lord, with this people. Let’s consider ourselves, thou art angry o lord with this people for they will not understand thy mercies which thou hast bestowed upon them because of thy son.” Let me say that again: thou art angry or disappointed, thou art angry dear lord for they will not understand thy mercies which thou hast bestowed upon them because of thy Son. The greatest tragedy you and I can be guilty of as Latter-day Saints is to look at things we may have done in life or we might be engaged in them right now and of course we need to repent. But the greatest tragedy is to consider oneself beyond the cleansing and the ultimate forgiveness of a loving Father in heaven and a loving Savior. That makes Heavenly Father according to the verse, angry.
So as a servant of the Lord and as a representative of Jesus Christ my dear young people, I just want you all to know and hear it from me that there is nothing that you have ever done in life that puts you outside of the scope and the reach of your father in heaven. There’s nothing that you are currently struggling with that with His help and by applying the atonement of Jesus Christ you cannot overcome. There is no temptation that has ever taken every one of us that cannot be dealt with and ultimately conquered through the atonement. To the point of being completely forgive, to the point of having the clock reversed in time, to the point where though your sins may have been as scarlet, they can be white as snow. But brothers and sisters, in order to take advantage of that you and I need to send out signals to the father that this is what we want. I bear witness that Jesus Christ, he is really real. This is His Church. In a coming day, not too far distant he will come back to reclaim his church and frankly his stewardship over the whole earth. You and I are so blessed, you and I know so many things. Remember the Lord wants your heart, the Lord desires your and my repentance every day in a joyful happy way. Little indications that ‘Father, I’m going to choose thee over this. I’m going to choose the Sabbath day over the beach. I’m going to choose virtue over vice. I will not watch this movie because I love thee more than I love these people and the movie.’ There are hundreds of decisions you and I make every day that will signal to your Father in heaven what it is you really want.
I keep saying sometimes that there won’t be any scratch marks on the outer door to the celestial kingdom. Nobody will want to get in there who is not fully prepared. Nobody wants to go to the temple even today, unless they partially understand the magnitude and the beauty of what goes on in there. Nobody is drawn to the temple unless they have a heart that has been changed or is in the process of being changed by the savior. The things of the spirit they are boring to the natural man. They repel him. Which is why later the wicked will say let us not go up to Zion for her inhabitants are terrible. And whenever Zion and Babylon have come to close, and remember this is a final lesson, Zion has always fled. Read the scriptures, Zion always takes off, leaves, it gets away from, it is taken up. Zion and Babylon, they do not mix dear young people. You cannot have it both ways. Which is why I’m inviting you to choose this day who are you going to be before the Lord. Are you good for your word? You’ve signed, well you’ve been baptized, that’s even more important than the honor code, but you’ve signed the honor code. Are you a man and a woman of your word? Can I trust you? Can the Lord trust you? Can the Lord trust you when you’re alone and nobody sees what you’re doing? That is where you and I can discover where our true self is and our true heart really is. Carl G. Mazer the first president of the BYU academy once gave this wonderful example that I will leave to you. Listen, you can put me in the deepest pit, with the thickest walls, underground, in time I may still figure out a way to get out of there. But take a piece of chalk right here and draw a square and ask me to get inside of it and then invite me to give you my word of honor that I will never cross it to get out, could I ever cross it? And he answered the question by saying, “Never. I would rather die.” So brothers and sisters, let’s be on the covenant path, let’s be the kind of Latter-day Saints and YSA who Heavenly Father can truly bless, whom the lord can really trust. Be men and women of honor. Do not fight the rules, do not fight the commandments, do not fight the honor code. But offer with your free will offering yourself and the lord and in the spirit of what my wife said, treasure those things. Understanding the reasons for everything that goes on in the church is completely irrelevant to being obedient. Even I don’t understand everything that goes on, I don’t understand a few things that went on in church history but who cares. You know, I know the gospel is true and I’m happy to move forward.
So I just want to bear you my testimony that I know that this church is true. I want to bear you my testimony that I do know, because I see him almost on a weekly basis, that President Russell M. Nelson is a prophet. I received that witness in a very personal way the week after he was ordained. And I’ve known him for years and we’ve even been to his home. So I’ve been around President Nelson, the President of the Quorum of the 12, had lunch and whatever. But when I saw him a couple of days after he was set apart as prophet I was standing in the hallway of the church administration building and he was walking towards us on his way to have lunch himself. And as he was walking towards me, and this is my witness, he was different, he was different. The man was different. The mantle of the prophet had settled upon him. There was something about him that made him different and I cannot put words into it but I received that witness and I bear to you that there is a prophet in Israel and blessed you and I will be as we hearken unto him and follow his example or we will sit down to a banquet of consequences one day. He is really a prophet of God. But above all as a member of the Seventy I bear witness of my savior. I love my Savior very much, I’m so grateful that he will take someone like me who is very imperfect still but yet trust me. Maybe for no other reason than knowing that I strive, I’m really trying, I try. That is, I guess, all I can offer. I can try to give my best every day in a happy way, knowing that that is quite acceptable to the father. So in that spirit I bid you farewell, I’m not sure if I’m ever going to be back here but the Lord loves you. We love you. Just do the best you can brothers and sisters, focus on the prophet, focus on the Savior, offer your freewill and your heart in a spirit of joyful consecration to the Lord. Pray more earnestly, pray more naturally, speak and listen, study the scripture, do not read them. Have questions. Search. Write down. Pause to ponder. Do those things and many more, and you don’t have to fear. And where fear may have been, it will be replaced by a calm assurance that even with all of your weaknesses you’re accepted and the Lord loves you. And you will go on to your exaltation. This life is to become perfect, it’s not to be perfect. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.