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Welcome to Closer to Christ Through Conference. We're two friends who love Jesus and His gospel, sharing our own approach to conference.

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So today we're going to talk about Elder Alexander Duschku's talk, which was Pillars and Rays.

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We loved this talk so much. I think you should take it from here, Amy-- or at least start for us.

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What was the thing that stood out the most to you in this talk?

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So, what really stood out to me was literally, I think it was the second sentence he started with.

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It said, the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ began with an explosion of light and truth.

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And the reason this really caught my attention was because the prayer that I went into conference with,

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like the whole conference, right? I went in saying, "Heavenly Father, I'm ready for further light and knowledge."

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And I have never said that in a prayer before. I just felt prompted to say it.

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So I said, you know, "Please bless me with what my capacity now is. I'm ready for a download if you have it."

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Please send seeds or glimpses of what I'm to do, meaning like next in my life. What's next for me?

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What's in my next season? I'll write them down and I'll work them through over the year.

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So I think the reason that this really resonated with me is because the Pillars, yeah, the verbiage of it.

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And I just really felt like there was something that the Lord was saying, Amy, there's something here for you.

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Look at it. So for me, a day at a time, a drop at a time, my body expands, my spirit, my intellect expands,

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and I'm literally making room to hold what I learned.

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The lessons that I've learned through the Holy Ghost and the ones I've learned little by little have had the time and space necessary to become a part of me.

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So at that point, these are all hard won lessons that I will never forget and nobody can take them from me.

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This is like true conversion in my mind. It happens one day at a time according to what we can receive and what we can hold.

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OK, can I ask a follow up question? Absolutely. Did this feel like, did you catch that the first passing through?

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No. So you just said, I need to come back to this. The inclining was to this was for you.

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Absolutely. You loved the talk in the moment. I did.

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And then you didn't really get like specific points of what that means for you, what you need to do. Right?

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Right. It was so interesting because this talk, as I went back and looked, I just felt like I kept hearing light, light, light.

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And I was just like, I felt the electricity going through my body. I was like, this is so good.

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He mentioned that word a few times in the talk. He did. 35 times he said it.

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So, yes, that was very, that was very impactful for me.

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And you're right, though, Abby, it was on my second pass that I was able to look at it and really, really feel and learn what was for me.

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I'm going to not hopefully not cut you off, but just along those thoughts, when he ended this talk, he was talking about some of the rays in his own life that he experienced.

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So good. And like somebody just saying, oh, that experience that that's kind of interesting, that's kind of interesting.

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But for him in a general conference talk, he would choose four or five key points in his life that he considers raise that create the pillar of his testimony.

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Pretty simple things like some healing, a certain calling that he received.

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They're not huge things, but they mean everything to him.

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Or else he wouldn't have verbalized it. And when he spoke in that moment, I in the moment of the talk, like my head did the tingly thing that it does when I'm like filling the spirit.

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It's this weird thing. But I was like, yes, I've had I've had a similar experience in my own way about that.

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And so I was kind of pulling some some of those moments in my life.

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Not identical to his, but ones that I could say also meant that much to me when I look at them in retrospect, retrospect, right?

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That's what it is. I'm terrible at journaling. I'd say you're way better at it than I am.

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I've just learned recently, though, we all have our processes, but I find a lot of power when I stop and I jot things down and put them into like one concise form.

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So I was also thinking it's not like that often that we think I mean, you can get up on a fast and testimony meeting and bear your testimony about things.

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And as you're verbalizing them, you're saying you're you're committing out of your mouth the things that your spirit believes to be true.

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Does that seem like an accurate explanation? Or like you're writing a talk for church or you're preparing a lesson. And so you have to put all of this information into one place.

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And as you present that, then you're saying this is something that I have a testimony in.

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Another scenario is maybe somebody's losing their faith in something or or stepping away from the church.

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And so they're very verbal about it. And they say, I'm leaving the church for this reason.

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And so the list, whatever reason or reasons that they have. And that's kind of more recently where I've been assessing my own raise that are linked to the pillar of my testimony.

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I say, is that what is that what I believe? Or does it cause me to reflect and say, I don't believe that to be true.

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That doesn't resonate with me because of this personal experience that I have had myself.

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That's so good. So my question for you, Abby, is this.

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So when you're asking, you're asking yourself, that's introspection. And then is there ever a point where you go to the Lord and ask him like for a second voice?

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Or is it just you feel that what is your process look like?

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I want to believe I love the faith that my parents brought me up in.

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And it was their testimony for a time. But I wanted it. I always had a desire for it to be my testimony.

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And, you know, I would hear like the missionaries, they would I would hear different experiences.

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I would I would hear through the ears that I was listening with, I would hear people testify of pillars.

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And I would say, I really haven't had a pillar. So do I not know that the church is true myself?

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Right. And I strongly desire to know for myself.

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I would say I was like 15 or 16 years old before I knew that the church was true.

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And I and I pinpointed back to that date because I remember typing a letter to like a friend that was in school. His parents were going through a divorce.

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And so I was kind of typing my beliefs on internal families and, you know, the other core pieces of my testimony.

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And that all of these hard things that were going on in his life could be made right because of the atonement of Jesus Christ.

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And as I'm typing it, I just started sobbing because I was like, I know that to be true.

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And so it kind of felt like a pillar moment to me.

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But when I realize this talk and some different life experience, I realized that really it was rays upon rays that were coming down when I type it into that letter.

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And I say that is that is when I came to know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was the restored gospel on the earth today.

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And so now in my later years of life, as I'm watching people navigate changes and they're coming across things and it's shaking their testimony.

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I can totally feel for them like whatever they need to do in their life to to balance the things that they they perceive to be true and balance out with their testimony.

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Sometimes that causes them to step away from from the church.

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But as they're doing that and they're being very vocal about it, I do stop and I appreciate the pain that they're going through to make these decisions.

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But I'm like, it's today and I'm still I'm still in and I'm not leaving.

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Right. Because of the the rays that I've had.

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I haven't ever had a pillar. If I'm being honest, Abby, I love the story that you just shared.

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I have to say, I feel like I had a front row seat of 16 year old Abby sitting there and typing a letter and then all of these things coming to your heart into your mind.

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I just have to ask you. So the age that you picture my Coke bottle glasses and my like lightly permed hair and also what's that stuff you spray and it would make the hair like orange?

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Sun in Sun in. That's that's the image. If you got that, you nailed it.

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OK, I didn't get any of that. But now I even have that. Yeah, you've got that.

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So 16 year old Abby, if you could, knowing what you do now, like with all of the, let's say the gathering of the rays that you have now, what could you say to 16 year old Abby?

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I always felt like I felt like I was so old when I got my testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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But like now that I'm this age, I'm like, that was young and it was just the right time for me because it was just as I'm jumping off, almost ready to leave home, be out on my own.

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And I would say that was such a good start to a testimony.

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I was reminded of some words in a blessing I received once that that my testimony is yet young, but continue to feed it and let it grow.

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And I would say I didn't use that as a singular experience.

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I didn't say I've got a testimony and that's good enough and I can always go back to that.

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I have stretched that testimony. I've tested that testimony. That's such as the word test. Right. That's the that's the point of it.

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I haven't just took I just haven't accepted that as the end all be all for me.

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I I put it to the test regularly.

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There are different life experiences that come my way or different assaults on my testimony.

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And so I question it regularly and add to it as I can.

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And if it feels like it's waning, then I work to strengthen it.

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It wasn't just that moment. And I'm calling that good. And I don't need another one again.

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Love that. Love it. And for your 16 year old self, if I heard what you were saying, you could say you're not behind.

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But you're doing great. Like you said, I thought I received my testimony at such an old age.

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OK, every 16 year old does feel like they're way far along in life. But now looking back, having a testimony at 16 or receiving and really understanding, that's awesome.

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Well, if I backtrack, even from that letter, I remember kneeling in prayer one night.

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I had to have been a junior or senior. My parents were like away overnight.

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And so it would have just been me and my two younger sisters at home.

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And I was saying a prayer and saying my gratitude for eternal families.

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And I got a little emotional in that moment because in that particular snippet of time, I was responsible for my siblings and their care.

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And my parents were away. I had some siblings at college, maybe on a mission because the timeline lines up that I probably had a brother on a mission, a sister at college.

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My parents were away. And so even though we weren't together as a whole, that I could really feel what it felt like to not be with my entire family under one roof in one time.

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And that I can say, oh, I do really believe families can be together forever. Now, my vision of forever families,

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it's broadened significantly with my own marriage and my own children. And the tent just keeps getting bigger.

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And the ancestors that I have that I felt their presence to.

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So my short, my little, my small testimony of eternal families has expanded to a bigger vision of eternal families and a much bigger, even in my later years of life with the temple work.

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So good gathering of Israel, all of it. I love that so much. I feel like I've talked way too much.

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I don't what, what do you have to share something? Did any, any quotes that you love from the talk?

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So I love when he said one of the great truths of the restoration is that the heavens are open, that we too can receive light and knowledge from on high.

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I testify this is true. That was so profound to me as well. We do, we do get to have the heavens are open and we are definitely entitled to the same revelation.

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Don't you think that's such a, it's a departure, but where he had a starting to think about Joseph Smith,

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do you think that it was common at that time for people to receive revelation on their own behalf?

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Who knows? I don't think it was common. I think that each pastor kind of had their own,

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their own following and their own interpretation of the Bible. Absolutely.

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And so Joseph being young 14 year old boy and reading the words in James and knowing that he could say a prayer and ask for himself.

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I think he was a, he was a departure from, from some of the norm.

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Well, and people before him that were questioning, you know, what pastors and, and the, the conforming to exact Christianity at that time,

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they were getting burned at the stake. Trying to get the Bible into people's hands was causing them to be put to death.

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Right. So I think a lot of people were probably fearful at that time to explore the idea of receiving revelation for themselves.

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So interesting. Yes. Just looking back at like the social environment of the time makes you appreciate how scary that could have been for him.

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It was kind of spoon fed to them. And it was like, this is what you got to believe. This is how interpret it. And you need to believe that also.

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Yeah, that's totally true. I love that quote as well. One quick thing I would, would say,

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we talk about Joseph and we talk about his experience in the grove and we talk about that pillar of light that he experienced.

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But if we backtrack, it says the forces of darkness gets so intense that Joseph thinks he's going to die,

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but he exerts all his powers to call upon God to deliver him out of the power of his enemy, which has seized upon him.

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And then a pillar of light brighter than the sun gradually descends upon him. One personage appears and then another.

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So the story goes and that I believe to be true. The pillar came, but it counterbalanced the extreme darkness that he was feeling.

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And so for me, it was an opportunity to say, yeah, he did get that pillar, but he was coming out of an extreme darkness.

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And so it needed to counterbalance it. So my own life, what does that look like? I'm not going through particularly challenging things.

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Then maybe a ray is enough to fill that counterbalance of like what measure of God's light that I need in that moment.

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Absolutely. But when you do hear conversion stories and they are grand and they're miraculous, it's only fair because some of these conversion stories are leading these people that are making this decision to enter the covenant path.

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Maybe their family is going to abandon them. Maybe they are not going to have a social network that they need.

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Maybe the thing that they're preparing for is going to be so hard that it's only deserving that they had something a little bit more great and grand to to know that they had a testimony that was worth.

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Worth the sacrifice. Right. That totally makes sense. I love that.

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I feel like you should take it. Just that the heavens are open and we're entitled to revelation for ourselves and for our own sphere of stewardship.

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I'm not going to get revelation for the guy next to me, you know, who's my neighbor or for my ward or for the church.

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But I absolutely am going to get as I pray and I'm asking questions, I'm going to get revelation for myself, my household, my land and animals and my children.

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And that's really one of the patterns of God. And I love that.

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So stewardship is the word that we're referencing. Do you ask that in a question like this is great information.

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Who is this for? Do we always assume it's for ourself or have you asked a question?

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What can I do for my children? And then the answer that comes naturally for your children.

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For me, I identify the stewardship first and then I'm praying about that specific thing.

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So like, let's say I live here on land and I'm saying, you know, I've noticed a problem with the animals.

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Is it best that we put them all in this area or that area or I'm noticing something with my kids.

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So I identify what stewardship it is. And that has come from years of me not being clear on what the stewardship was.

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But now that I've established that relationship, then I can go quickly and formulate my question for Heavenly Father.

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It makes me more confident in the revelation that I'm getting if I know who it was for.

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And it's great if I've asked the question in advance of the revelation that I'm seeking for who that's going to be for.

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Was this his words? I've copied and pasted this in my notes section and it said, that's the Lord's typical pattern, ray upon ray.

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Is that me or is that in the talk? I loved it. I was like, I would have written that because I'm passionate about that idea.

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Sometimes we're overwhelmed if we were to see the big picture like he does and know where we're going to get to with these certain things that he's going to put in our lives to help us to learn and to grow.

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But we see that end. We would think, how am I even going to get there?

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And I think a lot of us would stall out and not even take one step forward because it seems like such a daunting task.

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But in His mercy and grace, He gives us the things that we need in the moment we need them. And once we have met that step, then it's time for the next one.

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Absolutely. I'm totally thinking that heavenly thought, like what comes to my mind as you're saying that, heavenly Father knows when we need a pillar and heavenly Father knows when we need a ray.

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Absolutely. I could testify of that.

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Let's wrap it up. We'll see you next time.

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See you next time.