Elder Robert D. Hales: Coming to Ourselves: The Sacrament, the Temple, and Sacrifice in Service

So the Saturday afternoon session is the one I listened as I drove around doing errands. Stopping and running into a store during a hymn. However, I really liked this talk. The following things are comments that I am reflecting on and I am sharing my thoughts of them at this time.

Church members should remember that they are renewing the covenant they made at baptism. “For the sacrament to be a spiritually cleansing experience each week, we need to prepare ourselves before coming to sacrament meeting,” he said. “We do this by deliberately leaving behind our daily work and recreation, and letting go of worldly thoughts and concerns. As we do we make room in our minds and hearts for the Holy Ghost.

• I try I really do try to leave my worldly thoughts and concerns behind when I go to church and partake of the sacrament. I also try to do this when I work at the temple on Thursday nights; and it is so much easier there than on Sundays. With church for some reason no matter how early I get up and plan I manage to get distracted and I am running late for church. However, with my new calling of doing the program I think that will help.

Worthiness to hold a temple recommend gives Church members the strength to keep their temple covenants, he explained. “How do we personally gain that strength? We strive to obtain a testimony of Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, the reality of the Atonement, and the truthfulness of the Prophet Joseph Smith and the Restoration. We sustain our leaders, treat our families with kindness, stand as a witness of the Lord’s true Church, attend our Church meetings, honor our covenants, fulfill parental obligations, and live a virtuous life. You may say, that sounds like just being a faithful Latter-day Saint. You are right. The standard for temple recommend holders is not too high for us to achieve.”

• Wow do I need to work on this one A LOT. I have no problem with parental obligations but living a virtuous life? I am probably being hard on myself but I think that I struggle with this one. Why? It is probably more of an insecurity of where I am in life or better said who I am. OK this sounds bad so let me tear down a wall or chip away at it. I lack self confidence. When someone gives me constructive criticism I take it to heart and I try to improve on it. However, there are many areas in my life where I lack self confidence so if something is said and it falls in one of those categories I lack self confidence; it makes me oh so more insecure. In the past year I had a friend tell me I had virtue and I was taken back by the comment. I never imagined that this person thought that way from me. It stood out more to me because this is someone that I think highly of so while I took it and accepted it as a compliment I had a hard time believing that this individual saw me as having virtue.

So maybe my summaries of conference and my thoughts are a little out there but you know they are mine and after all look at the name of my blog.