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.