Good afternoon brothers and sisters, I am so excited to be speaking today mostly because of what this means. Today is my farewell talk and tonight I will be set apart as a missionary for the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints! I have the amazing privilege and opportunity to be serving a mission for the Lord. I report Wednesday to the MTC in Provo to begin my studies to hopefully become an effective missionary and to learn the Russian language and then I will eventually serve in the Ukraine, Kyiv mission. I'm really excited!
I was asked today to speak on gospel principles and their importance in preparing to serve a mission, and really there importance throughout our lives. When I first learned I would be speaking about gospel principles, my first thought was the fourth article of faith, which says,
"We believe that the first principles and aordinances of the Gospel are: first, bFaith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, cRepentance; third, dBaptism by eimmersion for the fremission of sins; fourth, Laying on of ghands for the hgift of the Holy Ghost.."
These are great principles and ones I know I will be testifying a lot of on my mission, but then my ideas of what the gospel principles were expanded, and I was reminded of this book, entitled, "Gospel Principles" An entire book with almost fifty chapters containing gospel principles. I love that this book has been the study book of choice for our relief society and priesthood lessons this past year and will continue to be this year. It really shows our need to return to the basics of a Christ-centered life. In this past general conference, Quinten L. Cook, one of the twelve apostles noted in his talk that a colleague of a friend of his had studied democracy across the world and this friend
"was surprised at how critically important religion is to democracy. He pointed out that in societies where the citizens are taught from a young age to feel accountable to God for honesty and integrity, they will abide by rules and practices that, while unenforceable, promote democratic ideals. In societies where this is not true, there cannot be enough policemen to enforce honest behavior."
And how true that is, nothing can substitute or make up for the lack of integrity. And we can gain such integrity by living the gospel principles.
In preparing to serve a mission, I have really seen the fruits of two deep principles of the gospel and those are the law of sacrifice and the actions we should be taking to live a consecrated life.
So, first, the Law of Sacrifice: the requirement to give things up to the Lord, anciently in the form of an animal, and today to give of our time and talents to the Lord. By way of human nature, it doesn't seem much fun or appealing if it is a requirement, or an obligation. Recently I have redefined the "Law" of the Law of Sacrifice and understood it the same as Newton's Laws of Motions, especially the one that states,
"for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction"
Understanding the "Law" of the Law of Sacrifice in this way to me, is that when I decide to sacrifice something on behalf of the Lord, something as simple as staying up an extra five minutes to read my scriptures, there will be an equal reaction from my Heavenly Father to bless me. Much more appealing to sacrifice.
An experience this past year has also helped me to understand the Law of Sacrifice a little better. I go to school back on the East coast, and one semester I had the wonderful opportunity of living with a great friend of mine named Jamie. Even thou Jamie lives in a one bedroom, very small apartment, we attempted to make it work as I transformed her tiny living room into a bedroom and I slept on the futon. I lasted one semester in that living situation, but enjoyed my time rooming with one of my best friends and moved out. Well, the following semester, another friend of Jamie's found herself in a pretty unfortunate situation. She had been kicked out of her home, left with no job or place to stay while she attended school. Jamie, filled with a lot of compassion toward her friend offered up her futon as a temporary home free of cost until she could figure something out. Her friend was so grateful and promised to stay neat and to continue to look for a job. Well I didn't check back in with Jamie and how her new roommate were doing until a few weeks later. Jamie and I went out to lunch were she explained to me her situation and her feelings. The new roommate had not become a nuisance, but more thoughtless and inconsiderate for the great act of compassion that Jamie was providing to her. The job search became less zealous, the complacency with the living situation was overriding any motivation to move out it seemed. Jamie said to me something along the lines of, "I know I am a fortunate person to have what I have and therefore I should be willing to help out people who don't have what I have. And I don't even mind that this friend doesn't have a job or isn't paying rent, but the simple observation that her efforts to find a job or another place to live have become less than zealous makes it really hard to have compassion on her. If she could just show a little more gratitude by her actions to attempt improve her situation, I wouldn't mind continuing to help her out"
Well Jamie got quite an unexpected response from me. I said, "Jamie, I just had an epiphany as you described this situation, you say you want to be compassionate and help someone less fortunate , but you would be compelled to more compassion and to help your friend out even if she just showed the smallest signs of wanting to improve her situation through actions, and that must be exactly how God feels toward us! Heavenly Father wants to bless us, but it makes it harder for him to do that when we are not putting in the effort to improve our lives in any way."
Jamie, who was looking for some consolation and advice on how to fix this situation was less than thrilled with my response, but I thanked her for her account because it helped me realize that to Heavenly Father those little things, those little sacrifices, are big things to him and he can more freely bless us when we show him some effort in our lives. Thus, the Law of Sacrifice.
Next, the importance of living a consecrated life. To consecrate is to dedicate, to make holy, or to become righteous. One of the many great talks given in this last general conference was by D. Todd Chrisofferson, an apostle, entitled "Reflections on a Consecrated LIfe." In it he gives counsel on how to we can consecrate our lives today. The five elements he details of a consecrated life are first purity, then work, then respect for one's physical body, service, and finally integrity. I just want to focus on the last one of integrity. Integrity encompasses a lot of gospel principles, including honesty, purity, and steadfastness. In his talk D. Todd Chrisofferson recounts this story.
Years ago I became acquainted with two families in the process of dissolving a jointly owned commercial enterprise. The principals, two men who were friends and members of the same Christian congregation, had formed the company years earlier. They had a generally congenial relationship as business partners, but as they grew older and the next generation began to take part in the business, conflicts emerged. Finally, all parties decided it would be best to divide up the assets and go their separate ways. One of the two original partners devised a stratagem with his lawyers to secure for himself a significant financial advantage in the dissolution at the expense of the other partner and his sons. In a meeting of the parties, one of the sons complained about this unfair treatment and appealed to the honor and Christian beliefs of the first partner. “You know this is not right,” he said. “How could you take advantage of someone this way, especially a brother in the same church?” The first partner’s lawyer retorted, “Oh, grow up! How can you be so naive?”
Integrity is not naiveté. What is naive is to suppose that we are not accountable to God... One who lives a consecrated life does not seek to take advantage of another but, if anything, will turn the other cheek and, if required to deliver a coat, will give the cloak also.
I have read a book the past little bit entitled "Valient in the Testimony of Christ" by Joseph Fielding McConkie. In it he offers this counsel of the responsibility we have to consecrate our lives and live what we believe. He says
As Latter-day Saints we covenanted in the waters of baptism that w3e would "stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things and in all places that we may be in. Mosiah 18:9 This does not mean that we are forever forcing our profession of Christ on all who have the fortune-or misfortune, as the case may be-to be in our presence. It does mean, however, that our speech and actions will always be such that the LIght of Christ can shine through us. Our actions are our testimony. In all occasions in which we are invited to teach and to preach, our testimony is what we teach.
When we work towards consecrating our lives and work towards living simple gospel principles each day, we are sharing our testimony with everyone we come in contact with. Not by preaching, but by doing. In this book it says you cannot separate belief from action. And i think that it goes both ways, you cannot say believe something and then live your life another way.
It has been really intimidating growing up with the counsel from the apostles and prophet that every member should be a missionary. But if we can spread our testimony through our actions, it really should be quite easy. When I reflect on my life and i invite each of you to do the same, think of every person you have come in contact with, deep and casual relationships, coworker of different jobs, customers, students, friends back to high school , middle school. We come in contact with so many people throughout our lives, and how great the thought would be if we could say we have been honest with every single one of them, that we exercised compassion as Christ would do if he were here. When i reflect i see so many missed opportunities to share my testimony of My Savior, My Heavenly Father, the Holy Ghost, and the Plan of Salvation by simply living simple gospel principles. And that motivates me to continue living righteously so that others may see the Light of Christ that emits from me.
We should be working toward a point where sacrifice and integrity and the other elements of a consecrated life are natural desires for us. But sometimes they are not. We can be thinking we are living the gospel with every ounce of energy we have, but our hearts may not be in the right place. There was a point in my life when I was attending church, doing everything I thought I was supposed to be doing, but I was unhappy and not enthusiastic about the gospel. I knew I had a few distractions going on in my life, but I figured that was normal and could not be affecting my spirituality. Well I turned to the lord in sincere prayer for an answer on how I could return back to a state of happiness and love for the gospel. And I found my answer in a scripture that came up in my scripture reading that night. In third Nephi chapter 13 starting in verse 19 it reads,
"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where amoth and rust doth corrupt, and thieves break through and steal;
But lay up for yourselves atreasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
At that point in my life, I realized, my treasures I was pursing were not holy, and thus my heart could not feel holy. I needed to redirect my treasures so that there were eternal in nature and only then could my heart feel the spirit once again. And it didn't happen overnight, I even prayed to my Heavenly Father to help me have more righteous intentions, and He did. Just as the scripture says, I do not want treasure that exists temporarily, I want everlasting joy. And because that is where my treasure is, there will my heart be also.
I know that Heavenly Father answers prayers through the scriptures and by teaching us through the holy ghost and for me, and those the most important reasons to me for living the gospel principles, in order to be worthy to receive answers to my prayers.
I look forward to serving and sharing my testimony and giving up 100% of my time and talents to the Lord while on this misison.
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