Welcome to Closer to Christ through Conference. We're two friends sharing our own approach
to conference. Today we're going to talk about Jesus Christ as the center of our lives,
and Elder Jose L. Alonso of the Seventy gave this talk. Welcome, welcome. We're happy
you're here.
We're so glad you're here. What a great talk.
It was so good, wasn't it? Abby, so do you have any, like what was your takeaway quote
or scripture that you'd want to share from this? What stood out to you?
I'm going to quote him directly. I'm going to open by just reading some of his own words.
Elder Alonso talks about how, and I quote, our darkest hours and highest trials have
been addressed through the love of Jesus Christ. Through His infinite Atonement, we are offered
a gift of hope, healing, and the assurance of His enduring presence in our lives.
So good.
It's such a good reminder, and it's a good reminder, especially when we're not in the
middle of the trial. Like it's kind of like something you pack in your memory, in your
mind, in your heart, in a good time, so that when the dark time comes, when the darkest
hours and the darkest trials, the highest trials come, that we have that assurance.
Yes, and that reservoir.
He also says, when we encounter difficulties, we tend to concentrate on the obstacle. Our
challenges are tangible and command our attention, yet the principle of surmounting them lies
in our focus. So that word, I'm going to cut to a quote that he shares in his talk by President
Russell M. Nelson in a talk that he wrote called Joy and Spiritual Survival. The quote
he shares is, when the focus of our lives is on God's plan of salvation and Jesus Christ
and His gospel, we can feel joy regardless of what is happening, or not happening, in
our lives. Joy comes from and because of Him.
So true.
So by placing Christ at the core of our thoughts and deeds, we align ourselves with His outlook
and His strength. I love that every time that that talk is quoted by Elder Nelson, I'm taken
back to a time when I taught at a women's conference and that was the talk to reference,
and it gave me a chance to reflect upon, let's see, I was probably five years into motherhood
at that point, which means two kids at CF.
Wow.
And I was done. I had finished my family because I had said two kids at CF, that was my agreement
to the Lord.
Right. You were quote done.
I was done.
Now you have five.
I have five. Don't get rid of your baby stuff if you think you're done. That's a good way
to have more babies. It was such a blessing. That might come up on the awesomeness of letting
Christ's atonement make everything right and that my limitations on the Lord, He met them,
He superseded them, He gave me way more in abundance than I could ever ask for in that
particular part of my life. So this resonates with me because I'm like, yes, when I have
allowed Jesus Christ to be part of that trial or that hard time, it has not fixed the problem,
but it has made fixing the problem seem faster, easier, more manageable.
Even doable. Right.
Your life is free of trial and sorrow, right?
It is.
Yeah, right.
Fancy free.
I want to ask a question. What struggle do you want to acknowledge that you've experienced
in your life that you've made Christ the center of?
So today I want to talk about one of the aspects of cancer. So when I was first diagnosed,
I had this amazing neighbor that was elderly, and neighbor Judy brought over this book.
And I had never heard of it before. It is actually from Dr. Siegel. And the whole premise
of it is that he's an oncology surgeon. And the whole premise was that he noticed that
the patients who viewed their treatments as healing rather than poison saw much higher
rates of recovery. And everything that he did, he really, from the music that he listened
to and allowed in the OR to allowing a patient to have a window with an outside view, all
of these things. As I was reading the book, I recognized that he was creating an atmosphere
for healing. Yeah. And he also taught his patients to do the same. So I took that, you
know, being newly diagnosed, I took that and I was like, okay, this is what I'm going to
do. I am going to have every treatment that I do. That's any pill I take, any tincture,
any T, any IVs and infusions and all of these things. I am going to take that and I am going
to envision in my mind that Jesus Christ is touching it, that treatment, and he's sanctifying
it for my good. And so that's what I did with every single treatment. And if I forgot
during the day, like if my mind got cloudy or I was just in too much pain, then that
night I would review the day and, you know, see in my mind's eye all of the treatments
that I went through. And again, I would just see the hand, you know, Christ's healing hand
touching in and healing me in the process. So…
So did neighbor Judy come before even like one treatment, one opportunity for healing
even presented itself?
Before I even started, before I even decided on what my treatments were going to be. Yeah,
she was like there the next day. She's since passed and she's my little angel. I love
her.
I love you, Judy. Thanks for keeping Amy here with us.
So you know, when I'm thinking about like at night or during the day, whenever it was
that I would in my mind's eye, I would do the finger of the Lord sanctifying these treatments.
It brings to mind, but you know, one of the quotes that you shared is that through Christ's
atonement, it offers hope, healing, and the assurance of his constant enduring presence
in our lives. And he reminds us that this is truly available to anyone who reaches for
him. So I love that. That was the way that I brought the atonement into my everyday life.
Super valuable, especially battling cancer. And I mean, how many years are we post that?
This weekend was five years since I started treatment.
Oh, I don't love anniversaries like that.
And four years since I was done.
Well, that's good. That's a good one.
That's a good anniversary.
And I'm still here. That's even better.
It is better. Sometimes, sometimes cancer treatments don't go that way.
I know.
But I've seen people testify as they're battling cancer. I've seen them still make Christ the
center of the treatment. And he's also sanctified those treatments.
The outcome isn't like longer immortality. But I've seen the blessing of what their trials
and tribulations with still having joy as their Jesus Christ and having joy in their
situation.
Absolutely, regardless of the outcome.
Regardless of the outcome, testifying of their Savior, like what a powerful witness to your
last breath.
Yeah. And testifying that He carried you through regardless. His mission wasn't to save us
from every sad thing that happens. It was to walk with us through it.
Isn't that nice? Because they used the quote about yoking ourselves. I've thought about
that. We've had like different conversations about that. But His invitation to us is to
come unto Him, take on His yoke. And my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And I always
think like when I think of the things that Jesus Christ covenanted to do and executed,
that isn't actually easy. That's probably the last word that I would use to do it.
And when I think that we're allowed to... Yokes are such fascinating things. It does
make the load equal to bear. And I know that He's already able and willing to carry so
much more than I am. So, it's not... In my mind, it's not an equal yoking, but He doesn't
care that it's not equal.
No.
He promised that the yoke would make it equal.
Right.
The yoke being His atonement.
Yeah. And you know what I love at the end of this paragraph right here is where it says,
ye shall find rest. Honestly, anyone who's in the middle of a really hard challenge and
struggle and trial, you're thinking to yourself, how is this ever classified as rest? You know?
And it's a different focus. It's probably an eternal perspective, but it's a different
kind of rest. What would you say about that, Abby?
I wanted to say there were so many pieces of His... When I read it back through, He's
got such a beautiful accent, and it was beautiful to hear Him testify, but I'm kind of a visual
person. And so, seeing things in print make a little bit difference for me.
With the clarity too.
Yeah. And it helps me to stop and pause, and I can write things in the margins. And so,
when I was passing through this on my read through, there were so many little pieces
that I'm like, that nods back to something else we've already delved into. So obviously,
I thought back to Elder Bednar, be still and know that I'm God.
Right.
We already deeply went into what it can feel like to be still, not a physical movement,
but just a general feeling of really allowing the Savior to be the one that kind of holds
you in the chaos, holds you while the chaos is surrounding you to feel like you're in
the most gentle of motions.
Yes. So then the rest...
We're resting.
... would kind of be like a spiritual rest, not necessarily physical.
Right. And I think that's what He wants to promise us, that it's like, no, I can't take...
You've committed to coming down here, it's going to come with its trials and challenges,
it's the way that I can grow you the best, but the growth that I'm trying to demonstrate
to you is what it feels like to allow me to be that buffer.
I love that.
It's true.
I don't know, I already said I'm a visual person, but I thought a lot about Christ as
the center of our lives.
That's a choice.
We make Him the center of our lives, or I was thinking, I haven't really landed on my
answer to this, but what does it look like if He's just to the left of center or to the
right of center?
It can look a lot of different ways.
Right.
None are more good.
It's just like...
It makes me think, I couldn't really put my finger on what does it look like when He isn't
at the center.
I haven't fully stopped and processed what that looks like, but I do know when perfect
days happen and when He's the center of my day...
Or your intention.
Yeah, because we're talking lives, that's a lot such a spectrum.
So yes, when my intention for the day is focused on Jesus Christ, that I prioritize the day
and the things that I'm going to get done based on what's going to bring me the most
growth, those days end.
And I'm like, that felt like a great day.
That day really, I felt like that day was as successful as it possibly could be versus
days that I let other things take the priority and let's say those aren't my Christ-centered
days.
Well, it's interesting that you say that too, because if we just take it one day at a time
and we have the intention to let Him be the center of it, maybe it didn't go perfectly.
Maybe there are a lot of things that they helped us to grow, but they weren't necessarily
like the most exciting things that we did.
But in that way, again, I feel like He reaches out and He sanctifies everything to our good.
At the end of the day, when we're reflecting on it and we process like, I didn't love how
that conversation with my kid went, and we kind of replay that back and we say how you
would do it if it was different.
Do over.
And then you really get a chance to put that into practice.
That's where we see the accumulation of positive Christ-centered days cumulates to Christ-centered
weeks and months and years.
And what do we talk about all the time?
Line upon line or small drops or doing small things repeatedly and often can change the
course of a life.
I love that.
He talked about, He went into so many cool scripture stories.
This man, I don't know why he's so good at all the scripture stories.
I know, he was very good.
But remember, remember, it is upon the rock of our Redeemer who is Christ, the Son of
God, that ye must build your foundation.
So again, nod to Elder Bednars.
He didn't know what he was going to talk about, but then he says it in his own way.
And this time, it wasn't like, oh, he's the rock.
I am the foundation.
I choose what I'm going to put it on.
Again, just like awesome memories of all the things that I've thought on since Elder Bednars
story and as we've studied it and brought it back to our remembrance.
This is kind of off the path, but Matthew 14, he talks about John, his dear friend,
John has passed and he kind of just wanted to be alone.
But of course, nobody's going to leave him in his own grieving.
And they're hungry and food's pretty far off.
And they need to be spoken to.
He's going to feed the crowd with very few things.
Loaves and fishes, five loaves and two fishes.
I have a loaves and fishes story.
Love it.
Tell me.
You know that youth activity?
Yes, the lasagna.
You've got the lasagna.
Did I tell you that?
No.
Oh my goodness.
The youth committee decides we're going to have, they say like 25 kids.
I'm like, there's 13 of you in this room, basically, and there's going to be 25 kids
that show up to this activity.
So I'm like, that's under shot.
So let's say 50 kids, then it's all the laurels and priests, it's a stake activity.
So then I'm planning on feeding the adults that come put their time in.
It's a dinner.
And so I think like probably 70.
And then I probably did some church math and thought, no, I don't want anybody to go hungry.
Maybe I'm maybe would have enough for 90 like backup planet.
But but really, I think the number was like 70.
So like I calculated how many pans these lasagnas would feed.
I found I made made them all up.
I asked friends to cook them.
The night comes and I started with an appetizer had some like bruschetta and some like Alfredo
something and then we had some like Italian sodas that was going to occupy time.
I think we set up like eight chairs of eight.
That's 64.
Okay, that was that was planning on 50.
But then having 14 extra seats, so nobody felt like oh, there wasn't room for them.
Right.
Oh, my goodness, the crowds just start coming in.
If you offer food to youth, that is a missionary tool.
Apparently, I think the final count was like 150.
Oh, my gosh, you know how we have two stakes.
That's more than double.
I know this is Tuesday night and like was definitely our like our stakes thing.
But like, hey, friend from X steak, which this other steak, not X steak, but the the
steak next door, yes, they're inviting people in like they pull out more chairs and they're
doing this thing.
I'm like, well, lasagna.
That's like something you plan in advance, right?
It's cooked in advance like it was portioned for just so many.
And all of the the men were kind of out like kind of work like helping the crowd, setting
up more tables.
And that so the priest leaders or whatever, whatever they're called, the bishops in charge,
but whatever their men are called.
And the women's side, like the young women's president, I pretty much had every representative
of the young women's presidency there in the kitchen.
And they're looking at me and they're like, what should we do?
And the steak and women's president, she was gone.
So she delegated to a counselor.
So I was like, you're the boss.
Like you tell me what you want from me.
It's like, so I wasn't like taking her reins because my job was just to cook the food based
on this number the youth council gave me.
So anyway, we go in the kitchen.
I'm like, we're stalling with appetizers.
We're stalling with drinks.
And we're going to figure out this thing.
And I said, I have I have no way to I can't I can't manufacture food out of thin air.
Like what we have is what we have.
This is what we have.
And literally I said, let's say a prayer.
So we blessed the food.
Abby, I kid you not.
We had extra at the end of the day.
It was my lasagna back.
No, we did.
We did have one mom.
We hadn't we had to make some gluten free options.
And so I was I was like, I'm going to be sending like six pieces of gluten free stuff out and
like nine pieces of the lasagna back to the home of the gluten free family because like
all of them need that.
But we were using like everything.
And then I was able to follow up the kids and like, were you starving?
Like, no, it was so good.
We ate whatever.
But I mean, we had those olive garden salads.
We mixed that up or whatever.
And I was just like, use your best judgment.
This is how many plates we're going to be shooting for.
And then I did kind of whip up some side things.
I had some extra spaghetti noodles, had some extra Alfredo sauce from the appetizer thing.
And we're kind of worse.
You did, Abby.
But it was terrifying.
And like, I was emotional, like in tears.
And then to think because the laurels leader, the young women's leaders, they were like,
that was incredible.
And I was like, that wasn't me.
And that wasn't you.
That was feeding the 5,000 in 2024 for me.
And so I loved that.
I loved when he was hitting like one awesome scripture story to the next.
And I'm like, yeah, I could testify of that.
Like that was a bit of a trial for me.
Yeah.
In the moment.
But then on the flip side, like what a testimony growth that he feeds the 5,000, the 150.
The 150.
The hungry youth instead of 70.
In our day, like it is at the end of the day, if the kids are hungry, it's like that big
of a deal.
But in my heart, like, I don't like people to go hungry.
I know you.
Food's so important to me.
And you are very, very meticulous and calculated.
So that is awesome.
That is a hard one lesson.
No one's taken that from you.
And I'm pretty sure the adults went home hungry that night.
But maybe in the feeding the 5,000, there were some men that offered their food to their
women and children.
And in that way, like, you know, maybe their bellies were full, even if their mouths hadn't
been fed.
I don't know.
That's just kind of a side thought.
Because the law of the Atonement, it does work to fill in whatever gaps are necessary.
Absolutely does.
There was food left over, so I hope that they did take something.
Any, do you feel like we covered what we were hoping to cover in this?
I do.
I'm hoping that as you reflect on this, whether you listen back or you read this one back,
that you stop and you think how Christ made all of these stories just that much sweeter
and how the Atonement make, you know, Alma healing like this.
He's wracked with torment from his sins.
Or the woman at the well, she comes to him and he offers her like the living water.
There's just one story after the next.
Maybe one will resonate more with you than the feeding the 5,000.
But I'm hoping that as you're reflecting back on some of the stories that he brings up,
or as you think back to, as he referenced Elder President Nelson's talk on joy and spiritual
survival, that you know that each of those stories is intended to help you think, how
did Jesus Christ make this story just that much better?
Absolutely.
I do love that with all the different aspects and parts that he shows.
You are very easily able to see yourself in that story, and I think that's why he shares
so many of them.
In closing, I loved his quote that said adopting this Christ-centric perspective empowers us
with the fortitude and insight to turn our trials into victories.
And then I love this part because he says it reminds us that with the Savior, what seems
like a major problem can become a pathway to greater spiritual progress.
And I do know that with my cancer story and other stories like that, it truly became the
pathway to greater spiritual progress.
And some things that have happened in my life, we have referred to it as before this happened
and after, because it's just a different person and you're not the person you were before
because you invited Christ into your story.
I love that.
I know we're kind of at the time that we want to be at, but you had an accident where you
were burned pretty severely with the chili situation.
Now a couple years ago, my daughter, she was like doing a chore for our family.
We have nebulizers that we sterilize for the cystic fibrosis treatment and she pulls it
off of the stove top, it's boiling water.
And the next thing I hear is just like the most blood-curdling scream.
And so the handle came off and just like the hot water just came, just pouring down her
feet, the tops of her feet were like literally just burned off.
And that was challenging.
That was the worst.
I have picture memories of the progress of what it looked like in the moment or whatever,
but I didn't really know what to do with it.
I wanted to get out of immediate pain and didn't know, we're in a little valley and
I'm not exactly sure what wound care would look like here and what we could do.
And I knew that she's so anxious, like rushing to the emergency room, like, was that the
right thing?
So we took her to prayer, my husband gave her a blessing and we asked that, we appreciated
her body alerting her to pain, but we were like, wanted her body to know she's out of
immediate danger.
If you can calm the pain down for her because we are aware that the pain's great, right?
It tells you something's wrong, we got you out of the immediate danger.
They needed to cool the wound down, just pouring, pouring, pouring cold water on it and bringing
the heat out of it.
But I don't know, she had something that was Saturday night and she ends up going to church
the next day, but she couldn't wear shoes.
At 9am and gave a talk.
Is that what she had something?
I know she did.
I happened to be in primary.
Yeah, you did.
That's how I saw it.
It was such a blessing because I'm like, I don't know what the next step is, but I was
kind of like, what's the next thing?
I said, are you feeling like you can do church or whatever?
And she's like, yeah, I've got this talk and I'll go.
So we go and in that primary presidency was Amy, who's had severe burns and knows we don't
care for that.
And then Kathy was there and she was like, hey, you've got this certain salve.
Do you have that?
I'm like, I don't have it in abundance, but it's something that I'm pretty passionate
about.
It's something that I would want.
But I was kind of as the mom, maybe not the most like, I was just kind of frantic in the
situation.
I didn't know what the next thing was, but Heavenly Father's like, well, Kathy and Amy
know the answer.
So if she gets to church, then the right people will be.
So then you reached out to me and then you were able to use your traumatic experience
from wound care stuff and get me the right materials and then show me the process of
what it looks like to involve Heaven with the process of what's the next best treatment
for her?
Are we deriding the skin?
Are we wrapping this?
Are we putting the sootment on?
That was special.
And I'm able to go to those pictures now without like trauma and looking at them and show this
particular daughter and say, you know, look at how you healed and look how we involved
the Savior in this really hard thing.
And so it's not like a terrible bad memory.
It's more, it's not a fond memory, but it's a learning experience.
It was.
So thank you for your trauma that you were able to share with me to help us with our
trauma.
And I can see that, you know, all things can be made.
Sanctified.
That's perfect.
So I don't know, let's wrap it up.
Yeah, we'll just put the questions in.
Yep.
We'll type them up.
We'll type up the questions.
I do.
I hope that that helps you guys.
I hope that you have a chance to look at those, but just so that it's also in verbal in case
you don't see them in the show notes.
How does it look for you to invite Christ's atonement into your daily life?
How's that making a difference for you?
And maybe how can you acknowledge your struggle and look to Christ in the midst of them?
And that's kind of the question that I asked Amy to open into her cancer story.
We know you all have your own stories.
We know you all have your own learning experiences and things that have been difficult hours,
difficult trials, difficult things that have been put in your life.
But we do know that through Jesus Christ and His infinite atonement that you too can experience
the hope, healing, and assurance of what He's done for us.
Love that, Abby.
Thanks for being with us as we strive to be closer to Christ.
Catch you next time.
Have a good one.