General Conference Odyssey: priesthood session, October 6, 2007
Raising the Bar
L. Tom Perry, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
At the October 2007 priesthood session Elder Perry talked about high jumping, and how his son, Lee, pursued the sport in his youth. He practiced jumping over a bar set at the same height-the height required to qualify for a state track competition. He became good enough to clear it every time. But then Elder Perry suggested raising the bar higher, and when Lee asked why, he was told that if he didn’t challenge himself, he would never know his own potential. “Lee became a better high jumper because he was not content with just clearing the minimum standard. He learned that even if it meant missing, he wanted to keep raising the bar to become the best high jumper he was capable of becoming.”
The minimum standard for missionary service had been raised five years earlier, and as high jumping includes a bar to clear it provides an easy analogy for worthiness and preparation as a missionary. “In every high-jumping competition there is a minimum height at which the competition starts. The high jumper cannot ask to start at a lower height. In the same way, you should not expect the standards to be lowered to allow you to serve a mission.”
Elder Perry also made an observation that was starting to become an issue for my generation, but which I suspect will be an issue for every future generation of prospective missionaries:
“More and more, young people are isolating themselves from others by playing video games; wearing headphones; and interacting through cell phones, e-mail, text messaging, and so on instead of in person. Much of missionary work involves relating face-to-face with people, and unless you set the bar higher in the development of your social skills, you will find yourself underprepared. Let me offer a simple suggestion: get a job that involves interacting with people.”
Rather than just a blanket condemnation of video games, what we have here is concern over self-imposed isolation from real people, which has become increasingly easy to do as our world becomes increasingly connected to online venues.
Do It Now
Donald L. Hallstrom, Quorum of the Seventy
Elder Hallstrom also told a story about a son of his, whose elementary school class once collected favorite family recipes from each student to put in a class cookbook. His son knew it would be easy to get a recipe from his mom and decided to put it off until the last minute. But when the last minute came he had forgotten about the assignment. Another student offered him a second recipe he had brought with him, which the Hallstrom boy handed in as his own.
When the cookbook was revealed, the Hallstrom family was surprised to find that their favorite family recipe was for “Bacardi Rum Cake.” Brother Hallstrom had recently been called as a stake president after previously serving as a bishop; needless to say, such a recipe did not represent them well.
“Many of us place ourselves in circumstances far more consequential than embarrassment because of our procrastination to become fully converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ. We know what is right, but we delay full spiritual involvement because of laziness, fear, rationalization, or lack of faith. We convince ourselves that ‘someday I’m going to do it.’ However, for many ‘someday’ never comes, and even for others who eventually do make a change, there is an irretrievable loss of progress and surely regression.”
He also repeated a quote from President Kimball: “One of the most serious human defects in all ages is procrastination, an unwillingness to accept personal responsibilities now.... Many have allowed themselves to be diverted and have become ... addicts to mental and spiritual indolence and to the pursuit of worldly pleasure.”
There was another amusing anecdote:
“Many of us want the simple way-the process that will not require serious work and sacrifice. Well, I once thought I found it. Driving in the back of a verdant valley above the city of Honolulu, I looked up, and there it was-Easy Street! As I was dreaming of the life-changing benefits of my discovery, I took out my camera to record the blissful moment. As I looked through the viewfinder, however, my focus literally and figuratively became clear. A large yellow sign returned me to reality-Easy Street was a dead end!”
That story was relevant to me upon hearing it in that session because there was an Easy Street a few blocks away from where I was then living, and it was also a dead end. (I had even read a story in the local paper some time beforehand about some nearby busybodies who wanted the street’s name changed, either because it might imply easy morals for the people living there, or offer a false idea of how easy it was to live there. To this day, that street is still called Easy Street.)
All that said, we are warned, “Ironically, in time, procrastination produces a heavy burden laced with guilt and a hollow lack of satisfaction. Temporal and, even more importantly, spiritual goals will not be achieved by procrastination.”
Blessed Are All the Pure in Heart
L. Whitney Clayton, Quorum of the Seventy
This being a priesthood session, a talk about the problems of pornography was not surprising, and the problem isn’t limited to images shown on screens or the printed page. As Elder Clayton pointed out, King David’s downfall in the Old Testament began when he was neglecting what he should have been doing and looking at a woman he should not have been seeing.
“Along with losing the Spirit, pornography users also lose perspective and proportion. Like King David, they try to conceal their sin, forgetting that nothing is hidden from the Lord. Real consequences start to accumulate as self-respect ebbs away, sweet relationships sour, marriages wither, and innocent victims begin to pile up. Finding that what they have been viewing no longer satisfies, they experiment with more extreme images. They slowly grow addicted even if they don’t know it or they deny it, and like David’s, their behavior deteriorates as their moral standards disintegrate.
“As popular culture across the world degenerates, sleaze increasingly saturates the media, entertainment, advertising, and the Internet. But popularity according to the world’s prevailing norms is a very perilous scale to use to measure what’s right or even what’s not dangerous. A movie or television show may be well known and well liked by millions of viewers and nevertheless portray images and conduct that are pornographic. If something in a movie ‘isn’t too bad,’ that automatically means that it isn’t too good either. Thus, the fact that others watch movies or open Web sites that aren’t appropriate is no excuse for us. Priesthood holders’ lives should emulate the standards of the Savior and His Church, not the standards of the world.”
In the years since this talk was given I’ve found it most curious that some are persuaded that morality is determined by popularity or legality. This especially came to the fore in 2015 after same-sex marriage became legal in the United States, with an accompanying shift in public opinion on the matter-and an assumption expressed by some that the Church would begin sanctioning such unions. The fact is, right is right and wrong is wrong, regardless of how many people or laws say otherwise.
Today Is the Time
Walter F. González, Presidency of the Seventy
In his capacity as a general authority Elder González had been assigned to Peru just a few days before an earthquake hit the region that destroyed 52,000 homes and killed more than 500, including nine Latter-day Saints. He remarked on how well local Church leaders had responded to the disaster. They had been organized effectively to meet the needs of their people, and motivated to do so through the principles of the gospel.
“We don’t know when or how earthquakes will hit us. They likely won’t be literal shakings of the earth, as happened in Peru, but rather quakes of temptations, sin, or trials, such as unemployment or serious sickness. Today is the time to prepare for when that type of quake comes. Today is the time to prepare-not during the crisis. What are we doing today to engraven in our souls the gospel principles that will uphold us in times of adversity?”
God Helps the Faithful Priesthood Holder
Henry B. Eyring, Second Counselor in the First Presidency
In his first conference talk as a member of the First Presidency, President Eyring spoke about how one can overcome feelings of inadequacy in challenging callings and assignments.
Three points were given. “First, the assurance will come from a memory of times Heavenly Father has helped you through dangers and difficulties.”
The second point was something the Spirit had told him in response to a prayer he had offered regarding his own inadequacies: “Forget yourself-start praying about the people you are to serve.”
The third was simply “go to work.”
President Eyring also taught,
“The scriptures sometimes speak of people’s hearts being softened, but more often the words describing the state we seek for ourselves and for those we serve are a ‘broken heart.’ This may help us accept that our call to serve and the need for the repentance we need and seek will not be easy. And it helps us understand better why testimony needs to go down into the hearts of our people. Faith that Jesus Christ atoned for their sins has to go down into the heart-a broken heart.”
He also shared an anecdote from his younger years:
“You can decide-and you must-to change what you say even when you can’t control what others say. But I know from my own experience that even in such a terrible situation you can count on God’s help. Years ago I was an air force officer serving for two years in an office with a marine colonel, an army colonel, and a grizzled navy commander. They had learned to speak in war and in peace in a way which offended me, and I know it repelled the Holy Ghost. I was at the time serving as a district missionary, trying in the evenings to go out to find people and teach them under the influence of the Holy Ghost. It was very hard. I was only a lieutenant. They were very senior to me. I had no way of changing their language. But I prayed for help. I don’t know how God did it, but in time their language changed. Slowly the profanity disappeared and then the vulgarity. Only when they drank liquor did it come back, but that was in the evenings, so I could excuse myself for missionary work.
“You can have memories like that to sustain your faith when life puts you in difficult places. God helps the faithful priesthood holder who decides to see and say no evil, even in a wicked world. It will not be easy. It never is.”
I’ve had my own experiences with people moderating their language around me. Not everyone does that around me, but it does happen.
A Royal Priesthood
Thomas S. Monson, First Counselor in the First Presidency
From President Monson we are told,
“One writer said that the door of history turns on small hinges, and so do people’s lives. If we were to apply that maxim to our lives, we could say that we are the result of many small decisions. In effect, we are the product of our choices. We must develop the capacity to recall the past, to evaluate the present, and to look into the future in order to accomplish in our lives what the Lord would have us do.”
A common theme throughout most of the talks in this session is the importance of doing things without delay (in other words, not procrastinating). “It’s in the doing, not just the thinking, that we accomplish our goals. If we constantly put our goals off, we will never see them fulfilled.”
He also shared a little story that illustrated to me how much things can change during a lifetime.
“Just last year I decided to see how many residential dwellings were still standing from the period between 1950 and 1955 when I served as bishop of that same area. I drove slowly around each of the blocks that once comprised the ward. I was surprised to observe in my search that of all the houses and apartment buildings where our 1,080 members had lived, only three dwellings were still standing. At one of those houses, the grass was overgrown, the trees unpruned, and I found no one was living there. Of the other two houses remaining, one was boarded up and unoccupied, and the other housed some sort of a modest business office.
“I parked my car, turned off the ignition, and just sat there for a long while. I could picture in my mind each house, each apartment building, each member who lived there. While the homes and the buildings were gone, the memories were still very vivid concerning the families who resided in each dwelling.”
Many of the things that are important in the moment won’t last very long. Even buildings don’t last without efforts made to preserve them. But memories linger on and give meaning to things that no one in the present can see. We owe it to ourselves to create memories of thing that are worth remembering.
Slow to Anger
Gordon B. Hinckley, President of the Church
President Hinckley ended the session with a warning against anger, stating, “Anger is the mother of a whole brood of evil actions.”
He also shared this humorous story:
“Once a man who had been slandered by a newspaper came to Edward Everett asking what to do about it. Said Everett, ‘Do nothing! Half the people who bought the paper never saw the article. Half of those who saw it, did not read it. Half of those who read it, did not understand it. Half of those who understood it, did not believe it. Half of those who believed it are of no account anyway.’
“So many of us make a great fuss of matters of small consequence. We are so easily offended. Happy is the man who can brush aside the offending remarks of another and go on his way.”
History mostly remembers Everett as the man who spoke for two hours at Gettysburg before Abraham Lincoln gave his more famous two-minute speech. He had been asked to speak for that amount of time, and was regarded as the finest orator in America at the time. And as he points out here, most slights are soon forgotten-at least by those who aren’t affected by them.
President Hinckley also pointed out,
“Anger may be justified in some circumstances. The scriptures tell us that Jesus drove the moneychangers from the temple, saying, ‘My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.’
“But even this was spoken more as a rebuke than as an outburst of uncontrolled anger.”
The difficult thing about anger is that it is so difficult to control; our minds lose their abilities for rational thought while angry, leading to words and actions that we would hesitate to make under other circumstances.
L. Tom Perry, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
At the October 2007 priesthood session Elder Perry talked about high jumping, and how his son, Lee, pursued the sport in his youth. He practiced jumping over a bar set at the same height-the height required to qualify for a state track competition. He became good enough to clear it every time. But then Elder Perry suggested raising the bar higher, and when Lee asked why, he was told that if he didn’t challenge himself, he would never know his own potential. “Lee became a better high jumper because he was not content with just clearing the minimum standard. He learned that even if it meant missing, he wanted to keep raising the bar to become the best high jumper he was capable of becoming.”
The minimum standard for missionary service had been raised five years earlier, and as high jumping includes a bar to clear it provides an easy analogy for worthiness and preparation as a missionary. “In every high-jumping competition there is a minimum height at which the competition starts. The high jumper cannot ask to start at a lower height. In the same way, you should not expect the standards to be lowered to allow you to serve a mission.”
Elder Perry also made an observation that was starting to become an issue for my generation, but which I suspect will be an issue for every future generation of prospective missionaries:
“More and more, young people are isolating themselves from others by playing video games; wearing headphones; and interacting through cell phones, e-mail, text messaging, and so on instead of in person. Much of missionary work involves relating face-to-face with people, and unless you set the bar higher in the development of your social skills, you will find yourself underprepared. Let me offer a simple suggestion: get a job that involves interacting with people.”
Rather than just a blanket condemnation of video games, what we have here is concern over self-imposed isolation from real people, which has become increasingly easy to do as our world becomes increasingly connected to online venues.
Do It Now
Donald L. Hallstrom, Quorum of the Seventy
Elder Hallstrom also told a story about a son of his, whose elementary school class once collected favorite family recipes from each student to put in a class cookbook. His son knew it would be easy to get a recipe from his mom and decided to put it off until the last minute. But when the last minute came he had forgotten about the assignment. Another student offered him a second recipe he had brought with him, which the Hallstrom boy handed in as his own.
When the cookbook was revealed, the Hallstrom family was surprised to find that their favorite family recipe was for “Bacardi Rum Cake.” Brother Hallstrom had recently been called as a stake president after previously serving as a bishop; needless to say, such a recipe did not represent them well.
“Many of us place ourselves in circumstances far more consequential than embarrassment because of our procrastination to become fully converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ. We know what is right, but we delay full spiritual involvement because of laziness, fear, rationalization, or lack of faith. We convince ourselves that ‘someday I’m going to do it.’ However, for many ‘someday’ never comes, and even for others who eventually do make a change, there is an irretrievable loss of progress and surely regression.”
He also repeated a quote from President Kimball: “One of the most serious human defects in all ages is procrastination, an unwillingness to accept personal responsibilities now.... Many have allowed themselves to be diverted and have become ... addicts to mental and spiritual indolence and to the pursuit of worldly pleasure.”
There was another amusing anecdote:
“Many of us want the simple way-the process that will not require serious work and sacrifice. Well, I once thought I found it. Driving in the back of a verdant valley above the city of Honolulu, I looked up, and there it was-Easy Street! As I was dreaming of the life-changing benefits of my discovery, I took out my camera to record the blissful moment. As I looked through the viewfinder, however, my focus literally and figuratively became clear. A large yellow sign returned me to reality-Easy Street was a dead end!”
That story was relevant to me upon hearing it in that session because there was an Easy Street a few blocks away from where I was then living, and it was also a dead end. (I had even read a story in the local paper some time beforehand about some nearby busybodies who wanted the street’s name changed, either because it might imply easy morals for the people living there, or offer a false idea of how easy it was to live there. To this day, that street is still called Easy Street.)
All that said, we are warned, “Ironically, in time, procrastination produces a heavy burden laced with guilt and a hollow lack of satisfaction. Temporal and, even more importantly, spiritual goals will not be achieved by procrastination.”
Blessed Are All the Pure in Heart
L. Whitney Clayton, Quorum of the Seventy
This being a priesthood session, a talk about the problems of pornography was not surprising, and the problem isn’t limited to images shown on screens or the printed page. As Elder Clayton pointed out, King David’s downfall in the Old Testament began when he was neglecting what he should have been doing and looking at a woman he should not have been seeing.
“Along with losing the Spirit, pornography users also lose perspective and proportion. Like King David, they try to conceal their sin, forgetting that nothing is hidden from the Lord. Real consequences start to accumulate as self-respect ebbs away, sweet relationships sour, marriages wither, and innocent victims begin to pile up. Finding that what they have been viewing no longer satisfies, they experiment with more extreme images. They slowly grow addicted even if they don’t know it or they deny it, and like David’s, their behavior deteriorates as their moral standards disintegrate.
“As popular culture across the world degenerates, sleaze increasingly saturates the media, entertainment, advertising, and the Internet. But popularity according to the world’s prevailing norms is a very perilous scale to use to measure what’s right or even what’s not dangerous. A movie or television show may be well known and well liked by millions of viewers and nevertheless portray images and conduct that are pornographic. If something in a movie ‘isn’t too bad,’ that automatically means that it isn’t too good either. Thus, the fact that others watch movies or open Web sites that aren’t appropriate is no excuse for us. Priesthood holders’ lives should emulate the standards of the Savior and His Church, not the standards of the world.”
In the years since this talk was given I’ve found it most curious that some are persuaded that morality is determined by popularity or legality. This especially came to the fore in 2015 after same-sex marriage became legal in the United States, with an accompanying shift in public opinion on the matter-and an assumption expressed by some that the Church would begin sanctioning such unions. The fact is, right is right and wrong is wrong, regardless of how many people or laws say otherwise.
Today Is the Time
Walter F. González, Presidency of the Seventy
In his capacity as a general authority Elder González had been assigned to Peru just a few days before an earthquake hit the region that destroyed 52,000 homes and killed more than 500, including nine Latter-day Saints. He remarked on how well local Church leaders had responded to the disaster. They had been organized effectively to meet the needs of their people, and motivated to do so through the principles of the gospel.
“We don’t know when or how earthquakes will hit us. They likely won’t be literal shakings of the earth, as happened in Peru, but rather quakes of temptations, sin, or trials, such as unemployment or serious sickness. Today is the time to prepare for when that type of quake comes. Today is the time to prepare-not during the crisis. What are we doing today to engraven in our souls the gospel principles that will uphold us in times of adversity?”
God Helps the Faithful Priesthood Holder
Henry B. Eyring, Second Counselor in the First Presidency
In his first conference talk as a member of the First Presidency, President Eyring spoke about how one can overcome feelings of inadequacy in challenging callings and assignments.
Three points were given. “First, the assurance will come from a memory of times Heavenly Father has helped you through dangers and difficulties.”
The second point was something the Spirit had told him in response to a prayer he had offered regarding his own inadequacies: “Forget yourself-start praying about the people you are to serve.”
The third was simply “go to work.”
President Eyring also taught,
“The scriptures sometimes speak of people’s hearts being softened, but more often the words describing the state we seek for ourselves and for those we serve are a ‘broken heart.’ This may help us accept that our call to serve and the need for the repentance we need and seek will not be easy. And it helps us understand better why testimony needs to go down into the hearts of our people. Faith that Jesus Christ atoned for their sins has to go down into the heart-a broken heart.”
He also shared an anecdote from his younger years:
“You can decide-and you must-to change what you say even when you can’t control what others say. But I know from my own experience that even in such a terrible situation you can count on God’s help. Years ago I was an air force officer serving for two years in an office with a marine colonel, an army colonel, and a grizzled navy commander. They had learned to speak in war and in peace in a way which offended me, and I know it repelled the Holy Ghost. I was at the time serving as a district missionary, trying in the evenings to go out to find people and teach them under the influence of the Holy Ghost. It was very hard. I was only a lieutenant. They were very senior to me. I had no way of changing their language. But I prayed for help. I don’t know how God did it, but in time their language changed. Slowly the profanity disappeared and then the vulgarity. Only when they drank liquor did it come back, but that was in the evenings, so I could excuse myself for missionary work.
“You can have memories like that to sustain your faith when life puts you in difficult places. God helps the faithful priesthood holder who decides to see and say no evil, even in a wicked world. It will not be easy. It never is.”
I’ve had my own experiences with people moderating their language around me. Not everyone does that around me, but it does happen.
A Royal Priesthood
Thomas S. Monson, First Counselor in the First Presidency
From President Monson we are told,
“One writer said that the door of history turns on small hinges, and so do people’s lives. If we were to apply that maxim to our lives, we could say that we are the result of many small decisions. In effect, we are the product of our choices. We must develop the capacity to recall the past, to evaluate the present, and to look into the future in order to accomplish in our lives what the Lord would have us do.”
A common theme throughout most of the talks in this session is the importance of doing things without delay (in other words, not procrastinating). “It’s in the doing, not just the thinking, that we accomplish our goals. If we constantly put our goals off, we will never see them fulfilled.”
He also shared a little story that illustrated to me how much things can change during a lifetime.
“Just last year I decided to see how many residential dwellings were still standing from the period between 1950 and 1955 when I served as bishop of that same area. I drove slowly around each of the blocks that once comprised the ward. I was surprised to observe in my search that of all the houses and apartment buildings where our 1,080 members had lived, only three dwellings were still standing. At one of those houses, the grass was overgrown, the trees unpruned, and I found no one was living there. Of the other two houses remaining, one was boarded up and unoccupied, and the other housed some sort of a modest business office.
“I parked my car, turned off the ignition, and just sat there for a long while. I could picture in my mind each house, each apartment building, each member who lived there. While the homes and the buildings were gone, the memories were still very vivid concerning the families who resided in each dwelling.”
Many of the things that are important in the moment won’t last very long. Even buildings don’t last without efforts made to preserve them. But memories linger on and give meaning to things that no one in the present can see. We owe it to ourselves to create memories of thing that are worth remembering.
Slow to Anger
Gordon B. Hinckley, President of the Church
President Hinckley ended the session with a warning against anger, stating, “Anger is the mother of a whole brood of evil actions.”
He also shared this humorous story:
“Once a man who had been slandered by a newspaper came to Edward Everett asking what to do about it. Said Everett, ‘Do nothing! Half the people who bought the paper never saw the article. Half of those who saw it, did not read it. Half of those who read it, did not understand it. Half of those who understood it, did not believe it. Half of those who believed it are of no account anyway.’
“So many of us make a great fuss of matters of small consequence. We are so easily offended. Happy is the man who can brush aside the offending remarks of another and go on his way.”
History mostly remembers Everett as the man who spoke for two hours at Gettysburg before Abraham Lincoln gave his more famous two-minute speech. He had been asked to speak for that amount of time, and was regarded as the finest orator in America at the time. And as he points out here, most slights are soon forgotten-at least by those who aren’t affected by them.
President Hinckley also pointed out,
“Anger may be justified in some circumstances. The scriptures tell us that Jesus drove the moneychangers from the temple, saying, ‘My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.’
“But even this was spoken more as a rebuke than as an outburst of uncontrolled anger.”
The difficult thing about anger is that it is so difficult to control; our minds lose their abilities for rational thought while angry, leading to words and actions that we would hesitate to make under other circumstances.