Elders Quorum
Discussion this week on I Believe in Angels
By Elder Carlos A. Godoy You can find the link here:
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2020/10/44godoy?lang=eng
We can be ministering angels to others, even though we are not perfect.
First Speaker
She talked of being on a family vacation and pulling some handcarts. They got hit with mosquitoes and had to turn back because they were not prepared for that.
She said, “Our prophets and apostles today have repeatedly warned us to make sure we are prepared by daily scripture study so that when God needs us, we don’t have to turn back.”
She related the events described in 2 Kings 18 and 19, as a lesson of listening to the prophet.
Most of My Talk
I saw something on Tyler Griffin's Come Follow Me Insights YouTube channel the other day that struck me. He shared the parable of the chickens.
There once was this ward of chickens. The bishop would see the chickens walk to church each week and he knew they could do more than walk. He gave a talk on how they were birds and they could do more than walk. As he taught them, the chickens were stretching their wings and raising up out of the pews and they could see that they could fly.
After church, they all walked home.
My talk today is on something Sister Jean B Bingham said, “What does ministering look like? ... It looks like becoming part of someone’s life and caring about him or her.”
As with most talks and lessons I give, this talk is mostly things I need to learn, but you all are welcome to listen in.
With the change from home and visiting teaching to ministering a while back, we may still be kind of stumped as to what this "holier way" that President Nelson talked about looks like.
Out of administrative necessity, the organization of the Church has had home and visiting teachers and now ministering brothers and sisters as assignments that are given out. That can be kind of a cold way to look at it, and if ministering is merely defined as an assignment then it can be less warm.
We call them ministering brothers and sisters, and while they have people assigned to them, I would argue that ministering is not an assignment and is not limited to those whose names are on a list one has been given. Ministering is not a task one performs because the Elders Quorum or Relief Society assigned them to do it. Ministering is not a calling, in the sense that a member of the bishopric calls one to minister.
True ministering does not look like an assignment.
“What does ministering look like? ... It looks like becoming part of someone’s life”
As we learned about a few weeks ago, I think it was in one of our 2nd hour classes, Hope grows into Faith and Faith grows into Charity and Charity is the pure love of Christ. I believe ministering is the application of the pure love of Christ. Not an assignment.
So what is pure love and what does it look like? We may deeply love our parents. We may deeply love our grandparents. The love of our children is also pure, unconditional, and very deep and strong. These are pure love… and they are often pure joy.
Jacob tells us in 2 Nephi 2:25, “Men are that they might have joy.”
That feeling of love and joy for our family members...is that maybe part of what Jacob was trying to tell us? “Men are that they might have joy.” Perhaps he was trying to make us remember how that feels?
Have you ever had a friend, that you have felt this same kind of pure love for? A friend that you love so deeply. The kind of friend, that when you see them, after being apart for a while, you hug them so tightly... and you feel such joy.
Is this what Jacob was trying to show us? “Men are that they might have joy.”
What do you do with people that you love so deeply? Do you go to lunch or dinner with them? Do you invite them to your home? Do you watch your favorite movies or TV shows with them? Do you go to the mall with them or a car show or an air show or hiking, biking, or skiing? Do you go to their kids events?
“What does ministering look like? ... It looks like becoming part of someone’s life”
I think there is sometimes a culture in the Church, where some feel that if someone is ministering to them, it is because they were given an assignment. Or they might feel that if someone in their quorum or class is spending time with them, it must be because they were given a calling. ---- Is that joy? ---- Is that love? ---- Is that ministering?
I have witnessed this first hand as I have worked to build true friendships with members of the Church over the years. I have, at times, had people ask me verbally, point blank, or with their body language if someone assigned me to spend time with them.
“What does ministering look like? ... It looks like becoming part of someone’s life.”
I grew up in a small town in Northern Indiana with the Amish. One small seed of ministering that was done in my small town, was when a car would pass by, one would wave. If not a wave, a tip of the hat or a nod if you didn’t have a hat.---More often than not that passing car was a horse and buggy.
If a person passed anyone on the sidewalk or in the store they'd say, “Mornin’” or “Evnin’” or “Afternoon”. I ain’t very good at such things, since I am sometimes a little insecure and possibly self absorbed, but I am trying to do better.
One would also say yes ma’am or no ma’am when responding to a woman. Didn’t matter the age of the woman, because you’re never too young to be spoken to with respect.
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It doesn’t matter the age of the woman... because...you are never too young...to be spoken to with respect.
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Does greeting those around us bring joy? Is talking to someone with respect pure love?
What does ministering look like?
I joined the Church when I was 14 years old. My dad was raised Catholic and my mom went to a protestant church with her aunt sometimes.
When I was ten my baby brother was born sick and died 8 months later. We had many people and churches bring us food and we attended many different churches.
My mom became friends with a lady in town. Because of that lady’s friendship, my mom convinced my dad to meet with the missionaries. Not because that lady gave her a Book of Mormon, which she did, and which my mom did not read, but because they became true friends.
We met with the missionaries many times without saying much about religion. The missionaries got to know my parents and became friends with them. My dad eventually asked them, “Do you believe in Jesus or what?”
Because he was friends with them he felt comfortable to ask what was on his mind and start taking the lessons. We went through several sets of missionaries as they all played with us kids and built a friendship with my parents. After two years we were baptized, because we built friendships, which allowed us to feel more deeply and opened our hearts to learn. After we were baptised, I went to my youth activities because people built friendships with me. I went to Sunday school because I had friends there. I left my house before the sun was up and walked across town in the dark and cold to go to early morning seminary every day before school because I had friends there. I have several life long friends that I made in that ward.
“What does ministering look like? ... It looks like becoming part of someone’s life”
I will close with something that contrasts this.
There have been others I have tried to keep strong friendships with or build new friendships with who are always very, very busy. It is very difficult to maintain friendships like that. Some I haven’t communicated with in years.
Even people that are very important to us can slip away from us if we don’t put in the time before we are assigned and after we are released.
“What does ministering look like? ... It looks like becoming part of someone’s life...”
In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Utah East Area Devotional
Elder Evan A Smoots
Three historical instances where the Savior appeared to both men and women,
Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene.
We see how carefully Mary served.
We do not pray to someone that does not know us. God the Father and Jesus know us by name.
Jesus appeared to the two disciples on the road to Emaus.
Jesus walks with us and sometimes withholds himself from us to allow us to have an experience with the Holy Spirit.
Jesus appeared to the apostles, including Thomas after 8 days.
We should choose to believe and not refuse to believe until we have all the proof laid out in front of us before we believe.
Next Speaker
Why do we need a church?
“There is a second major reason the Savior works through a church, His Church, and that is to achieve needful things that cannot be accomplished by individuals or smaller groups. One clear example is dealing with poverty. It is true that as individuals and families we look after the physical needs of others, “imparting to one another both temporally and spiritually according to their needs and their wants.”23 But together in the Church, the ability to care for the poor and needy is multiplied to meet the broader need, and hoped-for self-reliance is made a reality for very many.” (Elder D. Todd Christofferson, “Why the Church”, October 2015 General Conference)
Our members of the Church are the Lord’s storehouse.
March 12th Countries’ borders almost all closed. Airports closed. In spite of this, 31,000 missionaries were returned back to their home countries.
John 17:20-21
20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
Next Speaker
DnC 121:33
33 How long can rolling waters remain impure? What power shall stay the heavens? As well might man stretch forth his puny arm to stop the Missouri river in its decreed course, or to turn it up stream, as to hinder the Almighty from pouring down knowledge from heaven upon the heads of the Latter-day Saints.
“Imagine the miracle of it! Whatever our Church calling, we can pray to our Heavenly Father and receive guidance and direction, be warned about dangers and distractions, and be enabled to accomplish things we simply could not do on our own. If we will truly receive the Holy Ghost and learn to discern and understand His promptings, we will be guided in matters large and small.”
...
“Pray in the name of Jesus Christ about your concerns, your fears, your weaknesses—yes, the very longings of your heart. And then listen! Write the thoughts that come to your mind. Record your feelings and follow through with actions that you are prompted to take. As you repeat this process day after day, month after month, year after year, you will ‘grow into the principle of revelation.’” (President Russell M Nelson, Revelation for the Church, Revelation for Our Lives, April 2018 General Conference)
Elder D Todd Christofferson
We need to love each other. We need to do hard things. We need to love those that are sometimes a little prickly.
3 Nephi 9:19-20
19 And ye shall offer up unto me no more the shedding of blood; yea, your sacrifices and your burnt offerings shall be done away, for I will accept none of your sacrifices and your burnt offerings.
20 And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost, even as the Lamanites, because of their faith in me at the time of their conversion, were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and they knew it not.
What the Savior wants as an offering is ourselves. A better self. The higher law is, to become something.
What can we remove from our lives or a characteristic that we should develop to be a more worthy offering?
Doctrine and Covenants 88:124
124 Cease to be idle; cease to be unclean; cease to find fault one with another; cease to sleep longer than is needful; retire to thy bed early, that ye may not be weary; arise early, that your bodies and your minds may be invigorated.
DnC 4:1-7
1 Now behold, a marvelous work is about to come forth among the children of men.
2 Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day.
3 Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work;
4 For behold the field is white already to harvest; and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul;
5 And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work.
6 Remember faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence.
7 Ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Amen.
2 Peter 1:4-8
4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Wouldn’t it be nice to walk through the doors of the new Layton temple a holier person than we are today.
The Lord does not just give you a witness one time. You get small witnesses through all your life.
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