The two dogs...

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Stake Conference 3/06
Opening

My beloved Brothers and Sisters.

I'm humbled once again to be with you as we seek together the spirit of the Lord to be with us this morning, that he will soften our hearts so that we may converted by the things we hear today.

I am so grateful for all that has been said and done during this conference.

I'm grateful for the powerful messages given by those who have participated so far in this conference…and all the sessions of conference. And I want to especially thank the youth choir and Sister Thomson and Sis Ward. We are so blessed to have youth as wonderful, talented and beautiful as you all. Thanks.

I'm also grateful for my good counselors, and their words of wisdom. These are great men who consecrate their time to the Lord. As a quick aside…

I heard the other day that President Yorgason stirred in the middle of the night from a dream, and Nancy overheard him in a conversation with someone in his dream where he said, "Yes I know who you are, you're John the Baptist."

These men are even dreaming inspiring dreams! I appreciate the brotherhood I feel from them

I appreciate each of you, and hope we can be strengthened by the spirit for the remainder of this meeting.

As I’ve sought to know what the Lord would have me share with you this morning, I felt the need to talk about the metaphor of the dogs.

Two dogs
The story is told of the man who climbed the proverbial high mountain seeking guidance from the wise man who lived on top. And when the seeker of wisdom got to the top, the wise man told the seeker, that within him were two dogs who fought each other. A good dog, and a bad dog. The seeker asked the wise man, which dog would win the fight… and he replied, the one you feed the most.

Sundays are a wonderful time each week when we revitalize our spirits. We have time to focus on covenants, on family, on visiting others, and on serving in the church. It is such a blessing to have a sabbath day.

But if Sunday is the only day in which we seek the spirit then we have a 1 in six chance of making it to heaven. We must work all week at nourishing our spirits, so that our spirit will be strong enough to beat the opposing dog who is fighting all week long.

I guess what I’m saying, is that in the world in which we live, where spiritual sewage is being spewed through the broadcast airwaves and every other media, we had better be feeding our spirits everyday and praying always, or our spirits will starve, just as our bodies would starve if we only fed them weekly.

There are two important principles which will feed our spirits and make our good dogs strong enough to defeat our bad dogs.

The First is -

The power of Remembering
The Second is - The power of Pure Religion

1. The power of remembering

Build a Reservoir of memories
In my work I have the opportunity to go to Phoenix Arizona fairly often.
Lately, each time I go, I hear a lot about their weather conditions. They are currently suffering a record draught. The last time they saw any precitiptation of any kind was in early October. I take the following from the phoenix.gov website.

“… this current drought has now surpassed the worst drought in the last 110 years of recordkeeping. Beyond the written record, tree ring research reveals that 20 to 30 year droughts were not uncommon over the past 1,000 years in the major watersheds serving the City of Phoenix and surrounding municipalities."

So why aren't their more cries of anguish? It’s because during this current drought, Phoenix has been able to manage its available water supplies to meet the community's water demands. They have the Central Arizona project which runs river water from the Colorado to Tucson. They have enough water stored behind dams to provide the needs for all the upper and lower basin states for 3-5 years.

In other words- they were prepared for drought.

What does this have to do with the power of remembering? Building a reservour of wonderful and powerful memories is one of the greatest tools we have to keep us on the path to eternal life…it can feed our spiritual dogs even at times when there is little to pull from around us.
If we let our reservoir of spiritual memories run dry, and we don’t continually replenish it, we run the risk of our spirits drying up and becoming hardened by the world.

God commands us to remember. Remembering is one of the most powerful forces we have to help us stay true, and to get our lives on track. President Bensen said that the word “remember” is one of the most important words in the Book of Mormon.

I love the words of King Benjamin to his people Mosiah 4:30 But this much I can tell you, that if ye do not watch yourselves, and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in the faith of what ye have heard concerning the coming of our Lord, even unto the end of your lives, ye must perish. And now, O man, remember, and perish not.

Processing
One of the things we learned during our Trek last summer, was the importance of taking time to remember the things that had happened during the day. We called this “processing”.
Everyday the youth would take time to "process".

Sometimes they processed by writing their memories in a journal, or saying a testimony, or sitting at night with their family to discuss what happened that day.

This we discovered was a critical part of making the trek such a success.
The same is true with our lives. If we just walk along the paths of our lives, without introspection or as King Benjamin said “watching ourselves, our thoughts, words, and deeds”, without remembering, we risk losing the value and the strength from all that we experience.
But if we will reflect periodically on the blessings of the Lord, perhaps each Sunday as we sit quietly during the sacrament, or perhaps each night before or after our scripture study, or perhaps as we sit in quiet contemplation during our visits to the temple, then we can learn and grow. We can gain something which people who just rush through life with no introspection can never gain - perspective and wisdom.
The Lord tries to teach us this principle in so many ways...he encourages us to keep journals and personal histories.

He turns our hearts to our parents through family history work and extraction.

Even in the covenants we make, he commands us to remember.
As we partake of the sacrament each week, we are making a promise to remember. "..that they may eat in remembrance of the body of thy Son, and witness• unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son, and always remember him and keep his commandments which he has given them..."
The temple garment and temple covenants are also great symbols of the importance of remembering. The lord makes covenants with us, but then he enable us to go again, and again for those who have passed on before, precisely so that we will remember the covenants that we have made.

Remembering puts us on the Path to happiness
In essence the Lord teaches us that ‘remembering’ will lead us to true humility, and from true humility will grow true joy.
In King Benjamin’s address, he taught those who had already received great joy from receiving a reminssion of their sins he said: “I would that ye should remember, and always retain in remembrance the greatness of God and your own nothingness, and his goodness and long-suffering towards you, unworthy creatures, and humble yourselves even in the depths of humility, calling on the name of the Lord daily. . . And behold I say that if ye do that…
Do what? Remember and always retain in remembrance the greatness of God and our own nothingness…
…ye shall always rejoice, and be filled with the love of God and always retain a remission of your sins; and ye shall grow in the knowledge of the glory of him who created you, or in the knowledge of that which is just and true.” (Mosiah 4:11-12)

Remembering 2005

In 2005, as a Stake, we were blessed over and over again in so many ways. I can’t remember a time in my life where my testimony and my appreciation and love for fellow saints grew as much as it did last year.
So for a few minutes in Stake Conference, let’s do some processing.

I'd like for us to remember just a few of the blessings the Lord gave us as a stake in 2005.
In 2005:

We had lots of fun - With a marriage seminar, a basketball clinic, a day of celebration, multipile trek firesides, youth dances, a Region wide Singles “Dating Game” we hosted, and watching the incredible trek movie.

We had fun groups like "vocal point" come and sing.

We were able to participate in Pres. Hinckley's 'Celebration of Life".

We had a stake-wide challenge program to 'put our homes in order'.
We had lots of inspiring moments - We were able to hear the inspiring words of Elder and Sister Heidi Swinton on Joseph Smith, Craig Jessop, Kenny Mays, Elder Harold Brown, and others...We had an incredible experience with the Youth Trek esp during the women's pull and the testimony meetings. We sacrificed and gave lots of service - We served frequently at the humanitarian center Deseret Dairy, the pasta factory, DI, Blood drives, temple assignments, cleaning at the temple and conference center, pulling flowers at temple square and so much more...

We adapted to a lot of changes -

We created a new branch in our Stake.

We remodeled and then dedicated our stake center and our family history center, we relandscaped our Bangerter building. We lost our beloved patriarch, and were blessed with a new partriarch.

We began a new English teaching class called Daily Dose. We received lots of instructions through the year. General Conferences, Ward Conferences, Stake Conferences one with instructions from Elder Wirthlin and Elder Pingree. General Priesthood Meetings, Auxillary Leadership Meetings.

Processing
We could spend hours remembering each of these things, and processing how we are doing in each of those areas.

But I hope that as you listened to each item a couple of important processing principles touched your heart.... If you missed some of the wonderful experiences which happened in 2005, I hope you'll recommit to get more involved in 2006. If you participated in these experiences, I hope a feeling of joy and satisfaction crossed your heart for having sacrificed to participate...and that it has helped you want to do more this year.

If you made these moments happen in some way by serving or planning, or leading or in any way helped, I pray that you will feel the great appreciation we have for you...and that you have felt the joy of coming closer to the savior through your sacrifice. In any case, as I reflect on last year, I am drawn to feel a great love for you and the experiences we have shared.

Building Successful Memories in 2006. We can have similar successes this year in 2006.

But only if we grow spiritually, and sacrifice like we did last year. The question I guess is what can we do to sacrifice as much in 2006 as we did in 2005 since we don't have a trek or Day of Celebration lined up? The answer is, that we have a new challenge program which was rolled out during Ward Conferences this year. This challenge can help us have even more mighty miracles, testimony shapers associated with it, if each quorum, class, Primary, RS group in the stake will work at accomplishing it.

Last Sunday in our 2nd Ward HP Group Meeting, we had a great discussion led by our HPGL Ernie Wessman where we finalized our HP group goals for 2006. We discussed together options for different goals. By the end of the discussion, we had sustained as a group 2 goals we wanted to achieve as a group. I felt a real spirit of excitement and commraderie and love for each other as we unitedly agreed to stretch ourselves to reach the goals we set.

As Stake President this was exactly what I am praying is happening all over the stake. That Primary organizations, RS classes, YM/YW groups, Elders quorums are all having similar discussions and committing together as a group that they will achieve specific goals of their own making...and in the process are growing closer and closer together in a spirit of unity.


Which brings us to the second way we feed our Spirits… The power of Pure Religion

Pure Religion
In our wonderful Christmas Fireside this past year, Elder Harold C Brown, the head of Church Welfare and Humanitarian services, taught us how we feed our spirits…when we participate actively and fully in PURE RELIGION our spirits become stronger.…for isn’t that the purpose of religion is to feed the spirit and help it fight the worldliness? And certainly Pure and True Religion in the Lord’s true church is the most sure way of feeding and strengthing the spirit for eternal life.

Elder Brown read to us the definition of Pure Religion, and then examined it with us. It’s found in James 1:28.

It reads - "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world"

Elder Brown then explained that pure religion does two things to feed us: it helps us to DO GOOD AND to BE GOOD.:

He showed that DOING good includes getting out of your easy chair, out from behind the computer and the remote control, and DOING something good. And that includes visiting those in need, the fatherless and widows and those with afflictions.

He then explained that DOING good was not enough. But rather we must also BE good. Our motives must be pure. He explained that BEING good was to be clean and undefiled before God, and to keep ourselves unspotted from the world

Metaphor of the Brick Wall
Years ago I taught a lesson to our young women in the 2nd ward which had a deep impact on me. It was the metaphor of the brick wall. In essense the metaphor is that each brick we lay represents each action we DO. We can have a wall full of wonderful deeds. But if there is no mortar to hold the wall together, then it will collapse – and great will be the fall thereof. And what is the mortar? I would suggest that it is our integrity and our honesty to our beliefs. It is who we are. If we do things just for the sake of being seen, and inside we don’t have a testimony, then when the trails come, we will fall apart.
And so we must have both…the bricks of our actions, and the mortar of our convictions and integrity.

So what are we to do…

1. Do good of our own free will…because we want to…
Do good without being assigned to do good. Be kind to others. Look for those who are troubled, and see what can be done to bless them. Especially reach out to touch even the least of these our brethren. Being a good samaritan will not only bless others, but it blesses us as well.
When we don’t have a calling in the church – we still have a calling to be help strengthen our communities, bless our neighbors, and lift the poor wayfaring man of grief.
Verily I say, Men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much rightousness. For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward (DC58:27-28)

I’m so impressed with all the wonderful examples we have in our Stake of people who love to work. Who look for people at church, at work, or wherever they are and find ways to help them. They aren’t being instructed to serve, they just do it because it’s right.
My wife was out running and found a neighbor who was loading up into his car a shopping cart that had gone astray and was going to return it to the labelled store. He wasn’t commanded to do it. He wasn’t assigned to be the sherpherd of all lost carts returning them to the fold. He just saw a need and did it.

2. Serve a mission
A second thing that we should plan to do, is to prepare to serve a full-time mission.
Elder Bateman as a Stake President said that when he focused on helping his retired couples go out to serve full time missions, he said that it took the couples about 2 years to get things ready and in order to go.
So, If you are retired or are coming up on retirement, you might consider preparing now to serve a full-time mission for church.
If you are already prepared to serve, we encourage you to talk to the Bishop and grab the blessings of Full Time Missionary Service. We have had couples serve in so many wonderful. The interesting thing I’ve noticed, is that once they’ve got missionary service in their blood, they want to go back again and again.

If you are not prepared yet to serve full-time, you can almost certainly serve a church service mission right now.

Most CSMs enable you to serve during the week at your own schedule. Which enables you to ALSO serve in a Ward or Stake Calling...

A sister from the 4th ward recently came into my office for an interview to receive a Church Service calling. It was a nice visit and we discussed what she might be able to do. I congratulated her on her spirit of dedication. She informed me that if left to herself, she thought she was too old to serve, but her Bishop didn't think so, and so here she was receiving a call. I know there will be wonderful blessing which will come to her as she accepts her Bishop’s recommendation and starts her service.

We currently have over 40 people serving church service missions. We have people who:
- Work at the Employment Center
- Hostess at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building
- Host at the Church Office Building
- Ushers at the Conference Center
- Trainers at the Family History Center at the Prison
- Greeters at the Bishops Storehouse
- Language Missionaries serving in the Lighthouse Branch
- Family History Mission
- Public Relations Missions
- Inner City Missionarys
And so on and so on!

Please plan to go on full time mission. And while you’re prepareing for that, we’d encourage you to talk to the Bishop about serving a church service mission.

3. Serve in the Temple
Another wonderful thing we can do as part of our PURE RELIGION is to serve in the temple. In the next couple of years we are going to be blessed with 2 more temples in our temple district. Which means that all of us need to get active at the Temple so that we can be prepared to serve wherever our new temple district will be. There are many opportunties to serve at the Temple.
- Organist
- Gardening
- Baptistry worker
- Ordinance Worker
- Receptionist
- Veil worker and so on

And this week we received a letter from the Temple Presidency asking us to increase the number of called patrons who attend the temple on Wednesdays in the mornings. This is a slow time in the temple, and they would like to make it a busy time..

Please be open to receiving a call from your Bishop to serve in the Temple on Wednesdays.
The great thing is that we as a Stake are no strangers to temple service. We have over 60 people who are serving in the Temple. Two things to remember is…
You can serve in the temple AND serve in your current calling (especially if your current church calling is primarily a Sunday calling)

AND

You can serve in the temple AND be a young person. Even young return missionaries should consider serving in the temple.


Endure to the End
Regardless of whichever calling we have, or we participate in, we all must endure to the end.
It’s probably no surprise to each of you that our Stake is getting smaller. And I don’t mean that there are fewer people in it. I mean literally the people in our stake are getting smaller…
Our stake is getting smaller because it’s getting older. And as we all know as people get older they shrink. And so our Stake, as it gets older, is shrinking.

That’s okay. It’s okay to get old. Although getting old is hard, and isn’t for the faint of heart, it’s better than the alternative. Thnk about it.

But getting old, doesn’t mean you have to stop DOING, or SERVING, or LIVING… In fact in most ways you are in a position to touch lives better than ever. You have perspective. You have unique experiences which the youth can appreciate. You have love and commitment which is so rare amongst those in the world.

As we get older, it may seem like the right thing to do to let ‘the younger people’ take on the challenges of church work. It’s probably easy to say “No thanks, I can’t do it, I’ve got this problem, or this worry” and hope that the Bishop will leave you alone.
But stop before you decline a willing bishop. Take it to the Lord. Remember what Elder Faust has said…

My hope is that all in our stake, whether young or very old, will have the opportunity to serve. We just can’t give up serving. For a member of the church it’s as important to serve as the blood in his/her veins.

Being Good
Finally, I want to discuss the concept of Being GOOD – which is the second way that Pure Religion helps feed our spirit.

It's not so much about the things we do, or the places we go that are going to save us in the Celestial Kingdom with our Father. Rather it is the people we BECOME as we do the will of our Father that is important.

Elder Bednar spoke about this important principle in the Priesthood Session of General Conference last October.

He said,"In our customary Church vocabulary, we often speak of going to church, going to the temple, and going on a mission. Let me be so bold as to suggest that our rather routine emphasis on going misses the mark.

The issue is not going to church; rather, the issue is worshipping and renewing covenants as we attend church. The issue is not going to or through the temple; rather, the issue is having in our hearts the spirit, the covenants, and the ordinances of the Lord's house. The issue is not going on a mission; rather, the issue is becoming a missionary and serving throughout our entire life with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength. It is possible for a young man to go on a mission and not become a missionary, and this is not what the Lord requires or what the Church needs.”
I would add that a person can go to Church his whole life and not become a true disciple.

He can go to the Temple and still not become Christlike.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks has taught us

about the challenge to become something instead of just doing expected things or performing certain actions:

" . . . It is not enough for anyone just to go through the motions. The commandments, ordinances, and covenants of the gospel are not a list of deposits required to be made in some heavenly account. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a plan that shows us how to become what our Heavenly Father desires us to become" ("The Challenge to Become," Liahona, Jan. 2001, 40; Ensign, Nov. 2000, 32).

Closing
Brethren and Sisters, the challenge to become applies precisely and perfectly to James's challenge to us to BE GOOD.

We can avoid the worldly influences that cause the Holy Ghost to withdraw, and we can grow in confidence in recognizing and responding to spiritual promptings. Line upon line and precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, we will gradually become what the Savior expects us to become.

CS Lewis touched on this principle of becoming:
"It is not so much of our time and so much of our attention that God demands; it's not even all of our time and all of our attention; it is ourselves."

May we each spend our lives in doing good, in becoming pure in heart and in processing our lives, documenting our experiences, and remembering the good things which we experience, so that our spirits will be strong and healthy and able to withstand all the fights which we will surely need to engage in.

Is my prayer.