Mormon Life - Young Men

Young Men Lesson 36: In Everything Give Thanks

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:00:00 -0600

by Henry B. Eyring
source: MormonLife.com

Mormon Life says: “O remember, remember,” Book of Mormon prophets often implored. My point is to urge you to find ways to recognize and remember God’s kindness. I was grateful for the choir in their broadcast this morning, which was about the Savior, and grateful to see that the words of one of the songs they sang, "This Is the Christ," were written by President James E. Faust. As I sat down next to Brother Newell, I leaned over to him and asked, "How are your children?" He said, "When President Faust sat in that chair, that's what he always asked." I'm not surprised, because President Faust was always a perfect example of a disciple that was described in Music and the Spoken Word today. I always felt that when I grew up, I wanted to be like President Faust. There may still be time.

When our children were very small, I started to write down a few things about what happened every day. Let me tell you how that got started. I came home late from a Church assignment. It was after dark. My father-in-law, who lived near us, surprised me as I walked toward the front door of my house. He was carrying a load of pipes over his shoulder, walking very fast and dressed in his work clothes. I knew that he had been building a system to pump water from a stream below us up to our property.

He smiled, spoke softly, and then rushed past me into the darkness to go on with his work. I took a few steps toward the house, thinking of what he was doing for us, and just as I got to the door, I heard in my mind - not in my own voice - these words: "I'm not giving you these experiences for yourself. Write them down."

I went inside. I didn't go to bed. Although I was tired, I took out some paper and began to write. And as I did, I understood the message I had heard in my mind. I was supposed to record for my children to read, someday in the future, how I had seen the hand of God blessing our family. Grandpa didn't have to do what he was doing for us. He could have had someone else do it or not have done it at all. But he was serving us, his family, in the way covenant disciples of Jesus Christ always do. I knew that was true. And so I wrote it down, so that my children could have the memory someday when they would need it.

I wrote down a few lines every day for years. I never missed a day no matter how tired I was or how early I would have to start the next day. Before I would write, I would ponder this question: "Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us or our children or our family today?" As I kept at it, something began to happen. As I would cast my mind over the day, I would see evidence of what God had done for one of us that I had not recognized in the busy moments of the day. As that happened, and it happened often, I realized that trying to remember had allowed God to show me what He had done.

More than gratitude began to grow in my heart. Testimony grew. I became ever more certain that our Heavenly Father hears and answers prayers. I felt more gratitude for the softening and refining that come because of the Atonement of the Savior Jesus Christ. And I grew more confident that the Holy Ghost can bring all things to our remembrance - even things we did not notice or pay attention to when they happened.

The years have gone by. My boys are grown men. And now and then one of them will surprise me by saying, "Dad, I was reading in my copy of the journal about when . . ." and then he will tell me about how reading of what happened long ago helped him notice something God had done in his day.

My point is to urge you to find ways to recognize and remember God's kindness. It will build our testimonies. You may not keep a journal. You may not share whatever record you keep with those you love and serve. But you and they will be blessed as you remember what the Lord has done. You remember that song we sometimes sing: "Count your many blessings; name them one by one, And it will surprise you what the Lord has done."2

It won't be easy to remember. Living as we do with a veil over our eyes, we cannot remember what it was like to be with our Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, in the premortal world; nor can we see with our physical eyes or with reason alone the hand of God in our lives. Seeing such things takes the Holy Ghost. And it is not easy to be worthy of the Holy Ghost's companionship in a wicked world.

That is why forgetting God has been such a persistent problem among His children since the world began. Think of the times of Moses, when God provided manna and in miraculous and visible ways led and protected His children. Still, the prophet warned the people who had been so blessed, as prophets always have warned and always will: "Take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life."3

And the challenge to remember has always been the hardest for those who are blessed abundantly. Those who are faithful to God are protected and prospered. That comes as the result of serving God and keeping His commandments. But with those blessings comes the temptation to forget their source. It is easy to begin to feel the blessings were granted not by a loving God on whom we depend but by our own powers. The prophets have repeated this lament over and over:

"And thus we can behold how false, and also the unsteadiness of the hearts of the children of men; yea, we can see that the Lord in his great infinite goodness doth bless and prosper those who put their trust in him.

"Yea, and we may see at the very time when he doth prosper his people, yea, in the increase of their fields, their flocks and their herds, and in gold, and in silver, and in all manner of precious things of every kind and art; sparing their lives, and delivering them out of the hands of their enemies; softening the hearts of their enemies that they should not declare wars against them; yea, and in fine, doing all things for the welfare and happiness of his people; yea, then is the time that they do harden their hearts, and do forget the Lord their God, and do trample under their feet the Holy One - yea, and this because of their ease, and their exceedingly great prosperity."

And the prophet goes on to say: "Yea, how quick to be lifted up in pride; yea, how quick to boast, and do all manner of that which is iniquity; and how slow are they to remember the Lord their God, and to give ear unto his counsels, yea, how slow to walk in wisdom's paths!"4

Sadly, prosperity is not the only reason people forget God. It can also be hard to remember Him when our lives go badly. When we struggle, as so many do, in grinding poverty or when our enemies prevail against us or when sickness is not healed, the enemy of our souls can send his evil message that there is no God or that if He exists He does not care about us. Then it can be hard for the Holy Ghost to bring to our remembrance the lifetime of blessings the Lord has given us from our infancy and in the midst of our distress.

There is a simple cure for the terrible malady of forgetting God, His blessings, and His messages to us. Jesus Christ promised it to His disciples when He was about to be crucified, resurrected, and then taken away from them to ascend in glory to His Father. They were concerned to know how they would be able to endure when He was no longer with them.

Here is the promise. It was fulfilled for them then. It can be fulfilled for all of us now:

"These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you.

"But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you."5

The key to the remembering that brings and maintains testimony is receiving the Holy Ghost as a companion. It is the Holy Ghost who helps us see what God has done for us. It is the Holy Ghost who can help those we serve to see what God has done for them.

Heavenly Father has given a simple pattern for us to receive the Holy Ghost not once but continually in the tumult of our daily lives. The pattern is repeated in the sacramental prayer: We promise that we will always remember the Savior. We promise to take His name upon us. We promise to keep His commandments. And we are promised that if we do that, we will have His Spirit to be with us.6 Those promises work together in a wonderful way to strengthen our testimonies and in time, through the Atonement, to change our natures as we keep our part of the promise.

It is the Holy Ghost who testifies that Jesus Christ is the Beloved Son of a Heavenly Father who loves us and wants us to have eternal life with Him in families. With even the beginning of that testimony, we feel a desire to serve Him and to keep His commandments. When we persist in doing that, we receive the gifts of the Holy Ghost to give us power in our service. We come to see the hand of God more clearly, so clearly that in time we not only remember Him, but we come to love Him and, through the power of the Atonement, become more like Him.

You might ask, "But how does this process get started in someone who knows nothing about God and claims no memory of spiritual experiences at all?" Everyone has had spiritual experiences that they may not have recognized. Every person, upon entering the world, is given the Spirit of Christ. How that spirit works is described in the book of Moroni:

"For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God.

"But whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do evil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil; for after this manner doth the devil work, for he persuadeth no man to do good, no, not one; neither do his angels; neither do they who subject themselves unto him. . . .

"Wherefore, I beseech of you, brethren, that ye should search diligently in the light of Christ that ye may know good from evil; and if ye will lay hold upon every good thing, and condemn it not, ye certainly will be a child of Christ."7

So, even before people receive the right to the gifts of the Holy Ghost, when they are confirmed as members of the Church, and even before the Holy Ghost confirms truth to them before baptism, they have spiritual experiences. The Spirit of Christ has already, from their childhood, invited them to do good and warned them against evil. They have memories of those experiences even if they have not recognized their source. That memory will come back to them as missionaries or we teach them the word of God and they hear it. They will remember the feeling of joy or sorrow when they are taught the truths of the gospel. And that memory of the Spirit of Christ will soften their hearts to allow the Holy Ghost to testify to them. That will lead them to keep commandments and want to take the name of the Savior upon them. And when they do, in the waters of baptism, and as they hear the words in confirmation "Receive the Holy Ghost" spoken by an authorized servant of God, the power to always remember God will be increased.

I testify to you that the warm feelings you have had as you have listened to truth being spoken in this conference are from the Holy Ghost. The Savior, who promised that the Holy Ghost would come, is the beloved, glorified Son of our Heavenly Father.

Tonight, and tomorrow night, you might pray and ponder, asking the questions: Did God send a message that was just for me? Did I see His hand in my life or the lives of my children? I will do that. And then I will find a way to preserve that memory for the day that I, and those that I love, will need to remember how much God loves us and how much we need Him. I testify that He loves us and blesses us, more than most of us have yet recognized. I know that is true, and it brings me joy to remember Him. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Notes 1. Mosiah 2:41; Alma 37:13; Helaman 5:9.

2. "Count Your Blessings," Hymns, no. 241.

3. Deuteronomy 4:9.

4. Helaman 12:1-2, 5.

5. John 14:25-26.

6. See D&C 20:77, 79.

7. Moroni 7:16-17, 19.

Young Men Lesson 35: Obeying, Honoring, and Sustaining the Law

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 18:00:00 -0600

by Boyd K. Packer
source: MormonLife.com

Mormon Life says: Neither mobbings nor the army could turn the Saints aside from what they knew to be true. It is my purpose to show that in troubled times the Lord has always prepared a safe way ahead. We live in those "perilous times" which the Apostle Paul prophesied would come in the last days.1 If we are to be safe individually, as families, and secure as a church, it will be through "obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel."2

On July 24, 1849, the Saints had been in the valley two years to the day. They finally were free from years of mobbing and persecution. That called for a great celebration.

Just a few years earlier under dreadful conditions, the Prophet Joseph Smith suffered in Liberty Jail for months while the mobs drove the Saints from their homes. The words liberty and jail do not fit together very well.

Joseph called out:

"O God, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place?

"How long shall thy hand be stayed, and thine eye, yea thy pure eye, behold from the eternal heavens the wrongs of thy people and of thy servants, and thine ear be penetrated with their cries?"3

The Prophet Joseph Smith had earlier sought direction, and the Lord told the Saints to seek redress from the judges, the governor, and then the president.4

Their appeals to the judges failed. During his life, Joseph Smith was summoned to court over 200 times on all kinds of trumped-up charges. He was never convicted.

When they sought redress from Governor Boggs of Missouri, he issued a proclamation: "The Mormons must be treated as enemies and must be exterminated or driven from the state, if necessary for the public good."5 That unleashed untold brutality and wickedness.

They appealed to President Martin Van Buren of the United States, who told them, "Your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you."6

I will read the final paragraphs of their third petition addressed to the Congress of the United States:

"The afflictions of your memorialists have already been overwhelming, too much for humanity, too much for American citizens to endure without complaint. We have groaned under the iron hand of tyranny and oppression these many years. We have been robbed of our property to the amount of two millions of dollars. We have been hunted as the wild beasts of the forest. We have seen our aged fathers who fought in the Revolution, and our innocent children, alike slaughtered by our persecutors. We have seen the fair daughters of American citizens insulted and abused in the most inhuman manner, and finally, we have seen fifteen thousand souls, men, women, and children, driven by force of arms, during the severities of winter, from their sacred homes and firesides, to a land of strangers, penniless and unprotected. Under all these afflicting circumstances, we imploringly stretch forth our hands towards the highest councils of our nation, and humbly appeal to the illustrious Senators and Representatives of a great and free people for redress and protection.

"Hear! O hear the petitioning voice of many thousands of American citizens who now groan in exile . . . ! Hear! O hear the weeping and bitter lamentations of widows and orphans, whose husbands and fathers have been cruelly martyred in the land where the proud eagle . . . floats! Let it not be recorded in the archives of the nations, that . . . exiles sought protection and redress at your hands, but sought it in vain. It is in your power to save us, our wives, and our children, from a repetition of the bloodthirsty scenes of Missouri, and thus greatly relieve the fears of a persecuted and injured people, and your petitioners will ever pray."7

There was no pity, and they were turned away.

In 1844, while under the avowed protection of Governor Thomas Ford of Illinois, the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were shot to death in Carthage Jail. Words cannot express the brutality and suffering the Saints had endured.

Now on this 24th of July in 1849, free at last from the mobbings, they planned to celebrate.8

Everything the Saints owned would come across a thousand miles (1,600 km) of desert by handcart or covered wagon. It would be 20 more years before the railroad came as far as Salt Lake City. With almost nothing to work with, they determined that the celebration would be a grand expression of their feelings.

They built a bowery on Temple Square. They erected a flagpole 104 feet (32 m) tall. They made an enormous national flag 65 feet (20 m) in length and unfurled it at the top of this liberty pole.

It may seem puzzling, incredible almost beyond belief, that for the theme of this first celebration they chose patriotism and loyalty to that same government which had rejected and failed to assist them. What could they have been thinking of? If you can understand why, you will understand the power of the teachings of Christ.

Their brass band played as President Brigham Young led a grand procession to Temple Square. He was followed by the Twelve Apostles and the Seventy.

Then followed 24 young men dressed in white pants; black coats; white scarves on their right shoulders; coronets, or crowns, on their heads; and a sheathed sword at their left sides. In their right hand, of all things, each carried a copy of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. The Declaration of Independence was read by one of those young men.

Next came 24 young women dressed in white, blue scarves on their right shoulders and white roses on their heads. Each carried a Bible and a Book of Mormon.

Almost but not quite as amazing as their choice of patriotism for a theme was what came next: 24 aged sires (as they were called) led by patriarch Isaac Morley. They were known as the Silver Greys - all 60 years of age or older. Each carried a staff painted red with white ribbon floating at the top. One carried the Stars and Stripes. These men were a symbol of the priesthood, which was "from the beginning before the world was"9 and had been restored in this dispensation.

The Saints knew that the Lord had told them to be "subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law."10 That commandment, revealed then, is true now of our members in every nation. We are to be law-abiding, worthy citizens.

The Lord told them, "I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose."11

And in another verse, the Lord told them that "it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another."12 They were therefore antislavery. This was a very sore spot with the settlers in Missouri.

And so on that day of celebration in 1849, "Elder Phineas Richards came forward in behalf of the twenty-four aged sires, and read their loyal and patriotic address."13 He spoke of the need for them to teach patriotism to their children and to love and honor freedom. After he briefly recited the perils that they had come through, he said:

"Brethren and friends, we who have lived to three-score years, have beheld the government of the United States in its glory, and know that the outrageous cruelties we have suffered proceeded from a corrupted and degenerate administration, while the pure principles of our boasted Constitution remain unchanged. . . .

". . . As we have inherited the spirit of liberty and the fire of patriotism from our fathers, so let them descend [unchanged] to our posterity."14

One would think that, compelled by force of human nature, the Saints would seek revenge, but something much stronger than human nature prevailed.

The Apostle Paul explained:

"The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. . . .

". . . We have the mind of Christ."15

That Spirit defined those early members of the Church as followers of Christ.

If you can understand a people so long-suffering, so tolerant, so forgiving, so Christian after what they had suffered, you will have unlocked the key to what a Latter-day Saint is. Rather than being consumed with revenge, they were anchored to revelation. Their course was set by the teachings still found today in the Old and the New Testaments, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price.

If you can understand why they would celebrate as they did, you can understand why we have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, in the principles of the gospel.

The Book of Mormon teaches, "We talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins."16

And so today in these strangely perilous times, in the true Church of Jesus Christ17 we teach and live the principles of His gospel.

Three things about that 1849 commemoration were both symbolic and prophetic: first, that the young men carried the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence; next, that each young woman carried the Bible and the Book of Mormon; and finally, that the old men - the Silver Greys - were honored in the parade.

After the program they had a feast at makeshift tables. Several hundred gold-rush travelers and 60 Indians were invited to join them.

Then they went back to work.

President Young had said, "If the people of the United States will let us alone for ten years we will ask no odds of them."18

Eight years to the day after the 1849 celebration, the Saints were in Big Cottonwood Canyon to celebrate another 24th of July. Four horsemen rode in to report that an army 2,500 soldiers strong was on the plains. The army of the United States, commanded by Colonel Albert Sydney Johnston, was ordered by President James Buchanan to crush a nonexistent Mormon rebellion.

The Saints broke camp and headed for home to prepare their defenses. Rather than flee, this time President Young declared, "We have transgressed no law, and we have no occasion to do so, neither do we intend to; but as for any nation's coming to destroy this people, God Almighty being my helper, they cannot come here."19

My great-grandparents buried a child on the trail from Far West, when they were driven to Nauvoo, and another at Winter Quarters, when they were driven west.

Another great-grandmother, a teenager, was pushing a handcart along the south banks of the Platte River. They sang:

We'll find the place which God for us prepared, Far away in the West, Where none shall come to hurt or make afraid; There the Saints will be blessed.20

Across the river they could see the sun glinting on the weapons of the soldiers of the army.21

In St. Louis my great-grandmother bought a little enameled pin of the American flag. She wore it on her dress for the rest of her life.

Neither mobbings nor the army could turn the Saints aside from what they knew to be true. A settlement was negotiated, and the Utah War (later called Buchanan's Blunder) was over.

We are guided by the same revelations and led by a prophet. When the Prophet Joseph Smith died, another took his place. The order of succession continues today.

Six months ago at general conference, Thomas S. Monson was sustained as the 16th President of the Church, just five months before his 81st birthday. He succeeded President Gordon B. Hinckley, who died in his 98th year.

The senior leaders of the Church will virtually always be seasoned by decades of preparation.

President Monson is ideally suited for the challenges of our day. He is sustained by two counselors and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles - all prophets, seers, and revelators.

That same Lucifer who was cast out of our Father's presence is still at work. He, with the angels who followed him, will trouble the work of the Lord and destroy it if he can.

But we will stay on course. We will anchor ourselves as families and as a church to these principles and ordinances. Whatever tests lie ahead, and they will be many, we must remain faithful and true.

I bear witness of God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, that They live, that Thomas S. Monson is called of God by prophecy.

"The standard of truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing."22 Today the sun never sets on congregations of the Latter-day Saints. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Notes 1. See 2 Timothy 3:1-7.

2. Articles of Faith 1:3.

3. D&C 121:1-2.

4. See D&C 101:86-88.

5. History of the Church, 3:175.

6. Martin Van Buren, quoted in Eliza R. Snow Smith, Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow (1884), 77.

7. Quoted in Biography, 152-53.

8. See Biography, 95-107.

9. D&C 76:13.

10. Articles of Faith 1:12.

11. D&C 101:80.

12. D&C 101:79.

13. Biography, 100.

14. Phineas Richards, in Biography, 102-4.

15. 1 Corinthians 2:14, 16.

16. 2 Nephi 25:26.

17. See D&C 1:30.

18. Brigham Young, "Remarks," Deseret News, Sept. 23, 1857, 228.

19. Deseret News, Sept. 23, 1857, 228.

20. "Come, Come, Ye Saints," Hymns, no. 30.

21. See "By Handcart to Utah: The Account of C. C. A. Christensen," Nebraska History, winter 1985, 342.

22. History of the Church, 4:540.