Introduction – Another Session another four talks on love and service

Continuing my journey through the October session of general conference, a conference that happens every six months when our church gathers to share the topics top of mind for our leaders. From session to session, the underlying theme is pretty consistent, to encourage the membership to better consecrate our lives in love and service for others. My previous posts are on the Saturday morning session and the Saturday afternoon session.

Elder Gary B. Sabin kicks off his talk with an experience he had talking to a self proclaimed “professor of happiness” who happened to be sitting next to him on a plane flight. This exchange prompted him to think about specific ways we might find happiness. First, we need to build our lives on the foundation of Jesus Christ which simply entails we give our heart in love and service as best as we can. Second is to remember our divine identity which as we come to realize our self-worth sinks deep within our souls. Third, in similar vein is to see the divine worth in everyone we meet so that we can properly “love one another”. Finally, he advises that we maintain an eternal vision.

Elder Joni Koch reads from the Book of Mormon a verse that indicates that humility is a trait required to enter God’s presence. He describes a rather humiliating experience where we was hoping to flex his authority to show his importance to his family only to be rebuked by a security guard when he forgot his badge. Humility does not necessarily correlate with poverty or with someone who is shy or has low self-esteem. Humility is a willingness to submit to the will of God. As we do all we can, we humbly leave the rest in God’s hands.

Sister Tamara W. Runia wants us to zoom out from time to time and view our lives through an eternal lens, to see the world the way God sees the world. As we focus on the Savior, we can know that “because of Christ, it all works out.” This ability to zoom out will help us see our loved ones through a big picture lens which will help us not get so hung up on day to day difficulties. With this ability to see the long view, we can be more tolerant with mistakes. She counsels, “let’s choose hope – hope in our Creator and in one another, fueling our ability to be better than we are right now.” Our children need to know we believe in them. Our direction matters more than our speed. Mostly, she encourages us to hold fast and continue.

Elder Ulisses Soares pleads that we abandon all feelings of prejudice and view every single person for who they are – sons and daughters of God worthy of our love and respect. The story of Jesus at the well with a Samaritan woman is interesting. Jesus, a Jew asked a Samaritan for help fetching water even though there existed a long resistance to such cross-ethnic interactions. Jesus saw through these arbitrary ethnic divisions and saw her for who she was and told her who he was, someone who came to bless, heal and ultimately save everyone. Elder Soares offers that the temple is a place where we can learn to love across all divisions as we enter wearing the same clothes, making the same covenants, participating in the same ordinances, united in a single purpose no matter our race, economic status, or political affiliation.

I’m currently taking a journey through the last General Conference to show where the current church right now is publicly centering itself. The themes in the Saturday afternoon session continue where the Saturday morning session left off. The emphasis is to bind oneself into covenant with God through ordinances that will serve to strengthen the individual through their troubles into lives of greater love, service and generosity. There continues to be an implicit message that this church has the goods to do this but there really is no mention that this sort of thing isn’t also found in other places. We do feel like we have a unique mission and a unique authority but our church consistently recognizes the good happening throughout the world and recognizes that God is in every good thing.

Elder Neil L. Anderson centers his talk on an experience a Venezualan family had during political turbulance that caused a five day blackout and resulting riots and looting. The family owned a bakery whose owner had decided to give away their food to those in need and then ride out the riots. After the worst of the rioting was over, most food-owned businessed had been completely destroyed but this baker’s store was left untouched. The family attributed their good fortune to their willingness to pay tithing. Elder Anderson teaches that tithing is an act of faith whose funds go to helping the poor, sending and supporting all who are willing to serve missions, and to build and operate temples throughout the world. This message is a call toward generosity and support to the church whose mission is one of love and service.

Jan E. Newman talk focused on an experience described in the Book of Mormon where Jesus blesses the children, an experience Brother Newman attributes to subsequent peace, righteousness and prosperity that lasts for multiple generations thereafter. He suggests that each generation has to bind their heats to Christ through deep, sustained effort that will have the strength to endure obstacles. He cautions that we cannot expect the next generation to find Christ simply as a matter of inheritance, rather we need to do our best to ensure the next generation has every opportunity to have these same experiences these children had experiencing Christ first hand so that the connection to Christ endures.

Elder Joaquin Costa centers his talk on the real suffering he sees in the lives of so many members of the church – a woman who lost her husband in Bolivia, a young woman who lost her leg in Argentina when a train severed it after falling because someone wanted to steal her cell phone, families who lost homes in fires in Chile and so many others. These people endure these terrific challenges because of the strength they receive from their faith in Jesus Christ. His message is a message to seek Christ through covenant, devoted study and prayer and that as we do that, we will find the strength to endure whatever challenges we face.

Elder Gary Stevenson compares the physical gifts we so readily admire on the soccer fields or the concert halls with spiritual gifts all of us should seek. Just as an athlete with physical gifts must work to harness those gifts into mastery, we all should take the effort to harness our own spiritual gifts for the benefit of those with whom we associate. He suggests we can develop these gifts by standing in holy, sacred places where the spirit can be more easily felt, by standing with holy people, that gathering with others also seeking the spirit will strengthen ourselves, and that we should take every oppotunity to testify and to share truth with others, that doing so will invite the spirit to enhance our words.

Elder Yoon Hwan Choi makes the case that a happy life can be found within the covenant path. For him the covenant path means taking covenants by being baptized and renewing these covenants each week on Sunday when we take the sacrament. It means living your life striving to be kind, being willing to serve both officially when asked to in assigned positions and unofficially. Being in covenant makes a person happy because its through covenants we are bound to Christ and its in that binding, we are strengthened and sustained.

Elder Alan T. Phillips grounds his talk in an experience he had when he left his five year old son at a service station only realizing it fifteen minutes later driving down the highway. Fortunately, all was well, but that experience of loss and restoration reminded him of the central role of Jesus Christ whose mission is to find, gather and restore each and every one of us. The key doctrine is our divine identity and worth and that the commandment to love God and to love each other is the foundation of every other commandment. Elder Phillips reminds us that its eas to find people who are struggling, they are all around us but also we can see “700 million people living in extreme poverty or the 100 million people who are forcibly displaced due to persecution, conflict, and identity-based violence.”

Elder Ronald Rasband starts his talk with a declaration that the greatest of all the works is to gather Israel which he describes as “the ultimate recognition that ‘the worth of souls is great in the sight of God.'” This talk centered on an encouragement for those in retirement to serve and support the church in foreign places where their talents are needed to build the church.

My Premise

A big thrust of church criticism often is to attempt to undermine the church’s utility by undermining its specific truth claims. If they can show the Book of Mormon is not historical, that the Bible is simply myth and that the miracles of Jesus are impossibilities, perhaps they can undermine the reason for church’s existence. I’m sure not all church critics are this cynical but many church critics focus much of their attention on these specific obsessions, issues I believe are actually a sideshow because they avoid the central premise of what most religions are actually about. Religions in fact who are not centrally concerned about these sorts of questions. I attend church Sunday after Sunday, and we spend no time trying to prove Book of Mormon’s historicity. Nobody ever tries to defend or explain Joseph Smith’s polygamy or Brigham Young’s racism. It’s just not part of the current church. So, what is? If you want to find out what the core message of the church through the minds of those who lead it, the talks of General Conference is where to find it.

My premise is that the church’s core message is to help lead its members find Christ through covenant and communal support and at the heart of these covenants is to engender a greater commitment to love and service. General Conference talks are nearly universally focused on love and service for others. In the following posts, I’ll show this through each session of general Conference. I admit that this call toward love often comes within the framework of the church’s belief in its exclusive ability to lead people back to God but at its core it’s message is that to find God, one does so through covenant to love and serve others and that the church’s purpose is to support members in this endeavor.

All of these talks from the last session can be found on the church’s website .

The Saturday Morning Session

Elder David Bednar delivered a talk in praise of those who “love and serve, listen and learn, care and console, and teach and testify by the power of the Holy Ghost.” Expressing specific gratitude for dedicated primary and nursery leaders and teachers, those who care for young children and aging parents, those who arrive early to set things up or stay late to clean up after an activity. This message does come that this service happens within the Gospel of Jesus Christ but it is fundamentally a message of love and service.

Sister Amy Wright strives to encourage each of us to prepare ourselves spiritually so that we can “abide the day” when troubles come drawing on the parable of the ten virgins for inspiration. For her, the importance of preparation came to her when she was diagnosed with cancer as a mother of a young family worried about what this might do to her children. Her faith gave her assurances that her children would be cared for because she had already spent the time nurturing this faith in her children. Being able to abide in faith during troubles is essential to living a life of service. People are often at their worst when times are the most difficult.

Elder Robert Daines used the analogy of being “face blind” to describe our inability to recognize God’s love in our lives, to see God’s love through our covenants and even through the commandments we are asked to live. His message is for each of us to find ways to help others see God’s love for all of us. A message purely about love and service.

Elder Carlos Godoy This talk was centered an encounter he had with someone who who was born into the church but whose parents stopped attending when he was ten and as a result his family did not have the church in their lives. His parents wandering had an effect on him and his family. His warning for those who think about leaving: “You know there is a plan for us in this life. You know that families can be eternal. Why put yours at risk? Don’t be the weak link in this beautiful chain of faith you started, or you received, as a legacy. Be the strong one. It is your turn to do it, and the Lord can help you.” Here, there is a message of boundaries – that only church membership can save souls within families. But it’s also a message that the church can save souls within families. The core premise of the church is to bind people together.

Elder D. Todd Christofferson This talk takes inspiration from the Abrahamic covenant and the gathering of Israel. Of course, the church’s definition of gathering is that it comes through bringing others into the church through baptismal ordinances, which is what we try to do both for the living and the dead. Again, there is an exclusiveness in this message, that gathering only happens by and through our church, but it is also a message of service, to gather, record, and remember our ancestry and bind ourselves to them through temple ordinances.

Elder Ian S. Ardern: This talk is centered on his experiences meeting with the Saints in desperately poor parts of Africa, where access to basic resources like water is precarious and difficult. The message here is for members of the church to give to those in need. “I assure you: it is sufficient to give or to do what you are able and then to allow Christ to magnify your effort.”

President Dallin Oaks: This talk is, at least on the surface the least applicable to love and service of all the talks in this session of conference, but the message is still in there. President Oaks focus for this talk is to distinguish the teachings of our church with other churches. He focuses on our teachings of the three degrees of glory and not “the inadequate idea of heaven for the righteous and the eternal sufferings of hell for the rest.” The kingdoms of glory are where each of us will one day abide only as we qualify through our choices for one or the other. We all want the best, so how do we get to the highest? The highest kingdom “can be attained only through faithfulness to the covenants of an eternal marriage between a man and a woman in the holy temple,⁹ which marriage will ultimately be available to all the faithful.” But of course, he expands on this requirement, we must become as Christ is, through covenant, become converted, living as Christ lives. Being a dedicated, devoted spouse in marriage, a committed parent to our children and ultimately like Jesus, loving and servicing others, this is a celestial life. So, in a round about way, this talk is also about love and service, albeit couched within the exclusivity of temple sealings.

Conclusion so Far

Not a single talk in this session mentions historical truth claims. It never came up. There was either direct or indirect references that the gospel of Jesus Christ in its fullness is found here and that through the church and its ordinances will individuals find Christ and achieve exaltation. For sure, this sort of exclusivity is within the church, but underlying it is a confidence and a faith that there isn’t anything magical about this. That people really do find the strength and support to become people of faith, love and service. In every talk this is either explicitly expressed or implied, that our role as covenant members of the church is to faithfully love and serve, to stay loyal and committed to our families and be generous to everyone. Love and service was the core message of the Saturday session and is the core message of our church.

I’ll continue with the rest of the sessions in subsequent posts.