I have been wrestling all week trying to ponder on what to say for a sacrament talk on how agency helps us find joy. I've read lots of amazing things- but I was mostly compiling a big list of quotes and quips and nothing felt fluid or spirit led and I hadn't been able to organize it. Thursday morning I started to feel the crunch knowing that my quiet thinking hours (with kids at school and Roarke at work) were vanishing so I'd better get going on the talk. Then I remembered I'd printed off some notes that Sadie had emailed from a recent conference she'd been able to attend while on her mission where Elder Jeffrey R Holland spoke to the missionaries. I didn't read it thinking it'd be talk material, but I knew reading it would bring the spirit- which is the most important step in trying to put a sacrament talk together. I asked and He delivered. Now I'm going to start praying that I can convey it in a way that is both pleasing to the Lord and meaningful to even just one at church on Sunday. I'll just paste my email to Sadie along with my talk.
I'll start with her Elder Holland notes:
1.Oh wow.. can I just stand up for my talk on Sunday and read your Elder Holland notes.... I don't know how you captured it all so well but it's amazing.... like I feel like I'm there- and as I'm reading it (just stopped at part about Have you considered how we've prepared you and temple blessings-- I just felt chills everywhere and wanted to jump up and shout hurrah and then take a few laps around the neighborhood cheering (okay, maybe the driveway loop)-- so powerful! I can't even imagine how that felt to hear him as a missionary-- I bet when it was over you felt like bursting through the door..... so much light and power.
2. I love this---- "this is Real Life". Same hope, same feeling, same fire! So true. Obviously demands on your time require different things at different phases-- but your heart-- your commitment to the Lord-- that just builds and grows and the focus on the Savior stays central- or should-- no matter the season of life. Excellent reminder!
3. "You are God's investigator- how beautiful is that-- He wants everything for you that you want for your investigators-- to read, to study".... (wait-- I need to shout hurrah and run around the driveway (figuratively) again)
4. I love reading that part about your homecoming talk-- look like Amulek and sound like Joseph Smith! (holy cow, I'm going to be tired from all the figurative running cheering and screaming around the driveway) stretches his wrinkles describing "I want their eyes to be big" hahaha.
5. Hermana Miller, apostle with a little "a" (so awesome!)
6. " I haven't come this far to only come this far" What a cool thought.
7. I was worried about my talk before I read your notes and they have come to me like an answer to my prayers. I love this:
“It has to be hard. There’s opposition all of the time, because that’s the way the atonement works. Our pursuit of salvation can’t be easy because the Savior’s wasn’t easy. We don’t have record of him laughing- I’m not saying he never laughed, only we don’t have record of it- but we do have record of him weeping. You are disciples of Jesus Christ and if you understand that, that means you have to say what he said, go some of the distance He went, feel just a little of what he felt and shed some of the tears He shed. There’s blood, tears, heartache, heartburn, heartbreak, deep concern, occasional discouragement, spiritual help, spiritual experiences, triumphs, victories” (choices-that’s the agency part) “He felt it, so you’re supposed to feel it.” Thank you for taking such detailed notes- It feels like a tender mercy to me to be overwhelmed with so much truth and so much material. Now if I can just organize it in a way that makes sense---
8. I hope you do run into Elder Holland on the street or in a conference sometime and say, "Remember that day in Quito" I love how he can be so powerful and so familiar at the same time in his love and his admonishing.
Okay so this might be redundant for you- but here are my talk notes. I don't know if I am the first or second speaker-- and I need to time this so I can be at 10-12 minutes.
Thank you for your help on this-- and yes- you were a HUGE help. I've been wrestling with it all week and when I sat down to read your notes, it just seemed to come together-- and I pray that I can deliver it in a way that would be pleasing to the Lord and with the spirit. In the meantime, i've got all the kids worried that I am going to share an experience about them while I'm speaking-- hahaha-- that's some good leverage-- maybe I should say that in my talk to say something funny. I'll tell what's hard not to put in my talk is to RAVE about the kind of missionary you are--but I won't- because 1. you wouldn't want me to, #2 I should focus on the Savior during sacrament meeting, #3 everyone already knows how completely awesome you are, 4. plus it's obvious, by your notes from what he said that you are top notch.
Good morning
Introduce (since we have new ward boundaries)
My sweetheart, my 6 miracles....That’s really all you need to know about me.
Topic: Joy
In all my heart, I wish I could stand before you and say I feel JOY to be up here—but you shouldn’t lie in church—you shouldn’t lie anywhere 😉- so I will tell you instead I have enough faith to have prayed to ask Heavenly Father to work through the Spiritt and I know he will bring joy to my heart the minute I sit down. And if I get emotional, and I will- these are happy tears (mostly)
Start off with a story: Hurrah for Israel
SO because our life is so wrapped up in our eldest daughters missionary experiences, and our next in line daughter is almost completed with her mission papers so there’s a lot of missionary buzz at our house.
When the day came for Sadie to go to the airport to head for the MTC, I felt this crazy juxtaposition of feelings—the mortal mama part of me felt like a piece of my heart was being ripped out but the spiritual side of me felt so much peace- which was a real testament to how right it was that this mama bear could feel that.
So we took pictures, we hugged and then it was time for her to walk through security and she turned around and held up her am and shouted… Hurrah for Israel!” At the time I thought this was her best effort to be add some lightness to the situation and be brave – but a few weeks later in our Come Follow ME study, we read about Heber C Kimball and the origin of that phrase and my heart leapt- because I knew what Sadie meant—
the account of Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball leaving their wives, children, and humble homes to journey to Great Britain in response to their mission calls to that faraway land. Heber C. Kimball records the event in these words:
“‘September 14th, … President Brigham Young left his home at Montrose to start on the mission to England. He was so sick that he was unable to go to the Mississippi, a distance of thirty rods, without assistance. After he had crossed the river he rode behind Israel Barlow on his horse to my house, where he continued sick until the 18th. He left his wife sick with a babe only three weeks old, and all of his other children were sick and unable to wait upon each other. Not one soul of them was able to go to the well for a pail of water, and they were without a second suit to their backs, for the mob in Missouri had taken nearly all he had. On the 17th, Sister Mary Ann Young got a boy to carry her up in his wagon to my house, that she might nurse and comfort Brother Brigham to the hour of starting.
“‘September 18th, Charles Hubbard sent his boy with a wagon and span of horses to my house; our trunks were put into the wagon by some brethren; I went to my bed and shook hands with my wife who was then shaking with a chill, having two children lying sick by her side; I embraced her and my children, and bade them farewell. My only well child was little Heber P., and it was with difficulty he could carry a couple of quarts of water at a time to assist in quenching their thirst.
“‘It was with difficulty we got into the wagon, and started down the hill about ten rods; it appeared to me as though my very inmost parts would melt within me at leaving my family in such a condition, as it were almost in the arms of death. I felt as though I could not endure it. I asked the teamster to stop, and said to Brother Brigham, “This is pretty tough, isn’t it; let’s rise up and give them a cheer.” We arose, and swinging our hats three times over our heads, shouted: “Hurrah, hurrah for Israel.” My wife, hearing the noise, arose from her bed and came to the door. She had a smile on her face. They cried out to us: “Goodbye, God bless you!” We returned the compliment, and then told the driver to go ahead. After this I felt a spirit of joy and gratitude, having had the satisfaction of seeing my wife standing upon her feet, instead of leaving her in bed, knowing well that I should not see them again for two or three years’” (Orson F. Whitney, Life of Heber C. Kimball, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1967, pp. 265–66).
I have often wondered how these brethren, as valiant as they were, could do what they did. Truly they were willing to make any sacrifice asked of them to build the kingdom of God. As it says in (Matt. 6:20). They were laying up “treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt” They knew where to find JOY.
I love that.
As I’ve tried to ponder how agency helps me find joy and what that really looks like—I’ve been thinking about what we learn in our Come Follow Me lessons in 2 Nephi 5 where it talks about what the Nephites were doing to “live after a manner of happiness.” Happiness is found in living the gospel. Happiness is found in lifting and supporting others in living the gospel.
I went back to some notes Sadie sent me when just last week, Elder Holland visited Ecuador and took the time to share some counsel with the missionaries that I found really motivating in thinking of this topic today. I kept reading other resources and yet over and over and yet the spirit kept bringing me back to his remarks.
While his comments were directed towards the missionaries- they apply to each of us as we exercise our agency and ultimately find the kind of JOY that the covenant path leads us to. (and I can’t deliver it like Elder Holland- but just imagine him saying it)
“You are God’s investigator. Think of that. Everything you want for your investigator he wants for you- (here’s the recipe for joy) You want them to read and study and pray and repent, and serve, and love—well he wants you to do that. You tell your investigators if you’ve got to leave your family, leave em’. If you’ve got to quit your job to keep the Sabbath day , start looking for a new job. If you’ve got to turn your life over and upside down, trust God”
Do it and find the JOY.
Using our agency to choose hard things isn’t easy. Trusting that the Lord can make more out of our lives than we can isn’t easy. Elder Holland said, “It has to be hard. There’s opposition all of the time, because that’s the way the atonement works. Our pursuit of salvation can’t be easy because the Savior’s wasn’t easy. We don’t have record of him laughing- I’m not saying he never laughed, only we don’t have record of it- but we do have record of him weeping. You are disciples of Jesus Christ and if you understand that, that means you have to say what he said, go some of the distance He went, feel just a little of what he felt and shed some of the tears He shed. There’s blood, tears, heartache, heartburn, heartbreak, deep concern, occasional discouragement, spiritual help, spiritual experiences, triumphs, victories” (choices-that’s the agency part) “He felt it, so you’re supposed to feel it.”
President George Q. Cannon said this about how God has prepared you and me and our children for the tests we will face: “There is not one of us but what God’s love has been expended upon. There is not one of us that He has not cared for and caressed. There is not one of us that He has not desired to save, and that He has not devised means to save. There is not one of us that He has not given His angels charge concerning. We may be insignificant and contemptible in our own eyes, and in the eyes of others, but the truth remains that we are the children of God, and that He has actually given His angels—invisible beings of power and might—charge concerning us, and they watch over us and have us in their keeping.” We need this assurance and we can depend on it
You know that children’s song going on a lion hunt? I recently heard the whole Woolstenhulme family sing it—because it’s one of Verla’s favorites- In that song (don’t worry, I won’t sing) your lion hunt takes you to the obstacles and you say, can’t go under it, can’t go around it, can’t go over it- I guess I’ll go through it… and then you do- through the mud, through the tall grass, into the house, to the back of the cave—our agency leads us THROUGH. This is our time of testing and proving. And our understanding of God’s plan and our ability to recognize the spirit and act on its promptings are the things that lead us to our LION- our lasting joy.
Elder Holland closed with the insight that as the older (and wiser) he’s gotten, the more he “sees the Lord’s reverence for agency. Satan cannot force you and God, will not. You’ll get what you want, or if you’ll let Him, maybe something better.”
When the Lord was handing out talents he skipped me on the singing one. That’s okay. I am perfectly happy to attempt to sing- not to be heard but to praise him. I have always had a favorite hymn. That’s an interesting question to ask you family later today- Do you know what your family members favorite Hymn is? You should know- because you’ll feel an added measure of love for them everything it’s sung.
Well, mine is- Where can I turn for Peace. That Hymn is a great teacher.
One of the lines says: “He answers quietly, reaches my reachings. In my Gethsemane, Savior and friend.” I recently read an insight on this hymn that asked: How is He always there to reach our reachings?
Because He never leaves our side.
He is in our Gethsemane..our weakest moment.
But also in our dishes. And our laundry. And in our basketball game. And our business meeting. He’s in all our choices and all our consequences.
But also in our dishes. And our laundry. And in our basketball game. And our business meeting. He’s in all our choices and all our consequences.
I’ve heard described as the ultimate senior companion. Always there by our side. Imagine our JOY if we could treat every moment of our lives and every conversation we have like we were the junior companion in the situation—and Christ is always there ready to teach us” And the beautiful thing is that HE then gives us our agency to see what we’ll do with it.
Close with my testimony that I know the gospel of Jesus Christ is a well spring of JOY. It contains every single thing we need to sustain us, to quench us, to lift us, to help us lift each other, to lead us back to our God who loved us so very much that He gave His only begotten Son. I love him with all my heart. I am humbled to think that he trusts me enough to give me agency-and I trust in the JOY that He promises, and offers so freely to each of us.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
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