August 18, 2011

This morning it was raining quite hard as we came down to the hotel lobby to await our ride from the Zone Leaders. They picked us up and we went to the Church where we had scheduled to have our Zone Leader’s Training Council. Jan had gone to one of the Sister apartments the last evening and made some cinnamon rolls. The Sisters there finished the baking and we picked them up on our way to the training meeting. Needless to say, they were a hit! Before the meeting I had interviews with 2 missionaries. We then had the council meeting. During this meeting, we had some brief teaching moments on the missionary handbook and Preach My Gospel from the missionaries. I then spent about 15 minutes providing some Doctrinal instruction. The topic was ways in which we can receive personal revelation. We read from the Preach My Gospel manual from chapter #4 “How Do I Recognize and Understand the Spirit?”
“Joseph Smith said, ‘Salvation cannot come without revelation; it is in vain for anyone to minister without it.’ You will succeed in your work as you learn to receive and follow personal revelation. Joseph Smith also taught that revelation is vital for our daily work: ‘This is the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted – by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the kingdom are placed.’”
I also told them of the time that Joseph Smith went to Washington D.C. to seek compensation for the Church for the damages that had occurred in Missouri. When he was there, President Van Buren asked him what the difference was between the Mormon Church and other Christian denominations. He responded, that priesthood authority and the gift of the Holy Ghost were the primary differences. All other differences hinged on these two things.
We then had a discussion as to the ways they were aware that we could receive truth from the Holy Ghost. As I remember it now, the following was the list:
· Reading the scriptures
· Feelings
· Thoughts
· Other people
o Spoken word
o Actions
· Prayer
· Church Meetings
o Talks
o Teaching
o Music
o Testimonies
I then told them the following 4 stories from my life:
“I would think you Mormons would have to wear your seatbelts” – In May of 1982 I was going to a business luncheon with a non-Mormon associate at the office. As we got into the car, I got in the driver’s side and he on the passenger side. He buckled up his seat belt and I did not. He looked at me and said, “Ken, of all the things you Mormons have to do, I would think you would have to wear your seat belts!” His comment hit me with much more force that one would normally expect. I recognized that I tended to be very sensitive as to what non-Mormons thought of me as a Mormon and I buckled my seat belt that day. However, the comment hit so deeply that I began from that point to always wear my seat belt. In mid-August that year, I had recently bought a brand new Ford Tempo and was driving it to work. It had approximately 1,000 miles on the car. I was on the freeway and go into a relatively high speed accident (the only accident I had ever been in) and an 18 wheeler crushed my car. It was totalled. However, as I was wearing my seat belt/shoulder harness, I came out of the accident with a slight bruise on my shoulder and no other physical damage. I know that the Spirit had prompted me that day in May and I was protected because of it. The Lord sometimes will communicate to us through the spoken word of others who may not even be of our faith by causing their words to be confirmed by the Spirit.
“I thought I would stop by to watch conference with you guys” I was working on painting the outside of the house and it was general conference weekend. I was up on the roof of our two story house painting the trim boards when Byron Barker drove up in front of the house. He had been home from his mission a while and had moved out of the house and was living on his own. I came to the ladder to go down and get some tool I needed when Byron came up the ladder to talk with me on the roof. He told me, “I thought I would stop by to watch conference with you guys”. We chatted for a few minutes and then I stepped on the ladder to go down. The ladder suddenly slipped and slid completely off the roof and slammed down on the concrete below. In a split second, I found myself hanging there on the roof with one foot on the roof and one out in mid-air. By balance was completely off and I was about to tumble onto the ladder and concrete below. Byron was standing next to me and simply reached out, grabbed my hand and easily pulled me back onto the roof. After call for Jan to come and help rescue us, he suddenly remembered another commitment he had and he went down and left. Sometimes the Holy Ghost can protect us physically by prompting others to come and be with us at a time when we need physical protection.
“ I feel to tell you this is why you were asked to do this thing” I was a newly called bishop. I don’t think I had been a bishop for more than about a week when a received a phone call and learned that a sister in our ward had been babysitting for someone else and one of the babies had died of crib death on her watch. Needless to say she was devastated. I was very inexperienced with consoling others and had no experience counselling others as a bishop but I new I had to go over to be with her and do just that. I had no idea what to do or say. As I got there and sat down on the couch with her, I began to explain to her why the Lord needed her to be a part of this experience. I was shocked and amazed at what I was telling her and I knew as I was speaking that I was not in control of what was being said. The words came as a surprise to me as they were spoken to her to provide comfort and counsel to her. I know that the Spirit will oftentimes speak to us through the counsel of our priesthood leaders who are also charged with receiving revelation for us.
“Receiving the Holy Ghost” Last September, I was called and set apart as a temple ordinance worker. I began my two-shift per week experience and was immediately taken aback by the significant learning curve there was to becoming an effective temple ordinance worker. I knew that I would have to memorize the words to a number of ordinances. However, I was not at all ready for all the additional unwritten rules there were to learning the various positions of service in the temple. I was so surprised that I found myself losing sleep worrying about all this information. My chest was tight and I experienced significant feelings of need for help. The thing that bothered me most about this experience was how much in bothered me! Fortunately, two weeks after beginning this calling was conference weekend. I really wanted to find a solution to this problem from one or more talks given there. Elder Bednar gave a talk during this conference entitled something like “Receiving the Holy Ghost”. In this talk he explained that although at baptism we are confirmed members of the Church, the act of “receiving the Holy Ghost” was something that required 3 things:
1. We must be living worthily to have the Holy Ghost as our companion.
2. We must desire to receive the Holy Ghost.
3. We must appropriately invite the Holy Ghost to be with us.
As I listed to this talk, I felt strongly that this counsel was what I needed. At the end of the day, as I knelt to pray, I thought to myself that I was worthy to have the Holy Ghost as my companion. I truly felt that I desired that gift and in a particularly strong way at that time in my life. As a consequence, as a primary part of this prayer, I pleaded with the Lord to give me an extra portion of His Spirit to be with me and help me through this learning process at the temple. As I completed my prayer that night, a warmth enveloped me like nothing I had felt before. The Spirit was so strong and the comfort so complete that for the first time in over 2 weeks, I felt no worry and I knew that all would be well with that calling. I truly enjoyed that great experience that night and found that after that point I no longer had any worry or discomfort in learning my duties in the temple. I know that the steps prescribed by Elder Bednar are indeed inspired and will help each of us feel closer to the Spirit. Since that time I have consciously applied these principles to invite the Spirit to comfort me in times of stress and concern and found Him to be there at every request.
The rest of the meeting went well and we went on to have a training meeting for the one trainer of a new missionary who was to use the new training program from the Church. I also trained both the trainer and new missionary and sent them on their way with the new DVD player, the DVD’s and the brochures produced by the Church. I finished the afternoon by interviewing 5 sister missionaries and then I was rushed over to a dinner appointment.
This dinner appointment was with a long time member family. However, one of their sons is dating a non-member and we had a lesson with this couple before the dinner. This was a very interesting meeting. The girl friend was very outgoing and self confident. She actually conducted the meeting. She asked for someone to choose a song and asked me to give the opening prayer. She then turned the time over to the missionaries for the lesson. As they spoke with her she spoke very fast (like most 20ish year-old girls in the world). It was all I could do to try to keep up with what she was saying (since it was all in French). She expressed her frustration with the difficulties she was having with deciding between the lifestyle of fun and friends she has and the Church prescribed life-style and how it makes her feel. She said she was having difficulty remembering to read the scripture reading assignments and saying her prayers. Elder Stilson helped her work through a plan to help her on a daily basis. With her input they decided she should have personal prayers each morning and evening. She also decided when during the day she would read the scriptures. They also added weekly attendance at church meetings. He asked me for some input and I encouraged her to recognize how important it was to have prayers with real intent to communicate with God and to look for answers to your prayers. I also emphasized that the scripture reading also needed to be with real intent to understand what is being read and to want to know whether or not the scriptures were truly of God. By the end of the lesson, Elder Stilson asked me to give her some additional insights. I felt to encourage her by telling her that if I were choosing between two life styles that were simply two different philosophies of men, even though one life-style could very well end up better for me than another, I could imagine that the choice could be difficult. However, if I thought that it was possible that God had called a prophet to the earth today and if I believed that God was our Heavenly Father and knew exactly how we should act to be happy in this life and what we needed to do to qualify for eternal happiness. And, if I thought it was possible that God could tell me for myself that this was the case, I would want to pursue that course to see if I received that confirmation from God that this was true. And furthermore, if that confirmation came, I think that would be a tremendous motivation for me to choose that path. The Spirit was very strong that night and we, the missionaries, felt the message was delivered and we hoped it was well received. The dinner following was very pleasant and we got back to the hotel a little after 9 that evening.