Welcome to Closer to Christ through General Conference, where two friends who love Jesus Christ share our own approach to studying the most recent General Conference talks.
This is Abbey and Amy. Let's jump into it.
Today we get to discuss the talk titled, This is My Gospel, This is My Church by Elder Dale G. Renlin, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
Did you feel so smart learning about dynamite in this talk?
I loved it.
It like totally got my ears because I'm like, I know nothing about this stuff.
And so he in a very concise way explained to us how we're talking about to some different components of a compound, how volatile nitroglycerin was.
Right.
And how is it in a dark room.
Yes. So the Nobel Prize came about as they started doing research to say this thing is so powerful and amazing, but it is so volatile we can't work with it the way that it is.
So when two or more separate elements are combined to produce the desired effect that we're looking for, he talked about how it didn't all come at once.
And so he talked about the evolution for the process of creating this dynamite. And ultimately we're talking about nitroglycerin and Kieselger or diatomaceous earth.
When you take the components, the volatile component out of nitroglycerin, that's what you're left with.
Right.
Something basically so abundant that it's basically worthless.
That's good. I'm glad it's abundant.
Yeah, because there are uses for it.
Right.
So what did you think about this talk? What did you think about this talk?
So at the beginning, I just had to die laughing because I use food grade diatomaceous earth for everything on the farm, not in our home.
You know, like I don't put on our food or anything, but I sprinkled on the backs of the animals to avoid ticks and fleas.
We use it to absorb dog messes in the barn.
It neutralizes odors so well, like it's unreal and kills fly larvae.
I mean, in the stalls, just the list goes on and on.
Anyway, as we were listening to the talk, I just made some lemon raspberry ricotta muffins and I hadn't made them before.
There was talk amongst my kids.
Everyone loved them. They said they were fantastic, but they were talking amongst my kids of a secret ingredient I used.
And I think they were referring to ricotta.
Like my husband doesn't like the thought of having a cheese inside a muffin.
He did. And so that's why there was talk.
I'm like, I'm like, this is so Italian.
Like there's ricotta and yogurt and everything, all the baked goods.
It's not weird for them. Right. Anyways.
And then my son, who's 18, just started laughing and he goes, I know what the secret ingredient was in mom's muffins.
It was Kieselger.
It's been so useful around the farm. She's cooking with it now.
Anyway, I love that he already had the word. I hadn't gotten the word in my mouth yet. Kieselger.
I can't say it.
He had it. I was like, Adam, you're good.
Anyways, here the spiritual compound elder, Brennan is referring to is he says in a similar way, the combination of the gospel.
So my combination was truly the lemon and raspberry just works so well together.
But the combination of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provides powerful and transformative benefits for us.
This is one that I was like, so impressed with it. Like it touched me when I was first listening to it.
I think that whole the whole first session of conference was like, oh my goodness, that was so amazing.
But I made myself a little note.
I just said ordinance with the Savior's power or priesthood is dynamite.
And I love that he makes the point that they are.
We can isolate them as two separate things, but they just don't work.
The same. The power is lacking when we when we separate one from the other.
And so it was maybe a little bit too much for me right in the moment.
I wrote this little note down and I'm like, that bears another lesson because I myself, I was impressed to know there's something in here.
There's some modification I'm going to need to make in my life.
And the answer is in that talk. Right.
And so it's so nice to just like what you're saying is you mentally bookmarked it.
You enjoyed it with your family. You went to work. Dynamite was enough for me.
But what did what did he have for me?
Did you find that to be true? Did you find more when you did second pass?
So, I mean, I was the same way I was listening to it.
I was like, this is a great talk. Like, I really enjoyed it.
I loved it. I was like, man, that was that was dynamite.
Anyways, but I've got to say in my second pass, I felt gently corrected.
We talked about this in our last podcast. If there's a correction that needs to happen, the spirit during conference or from the messages, the spirit will do it in a gentle way.
And this is what happened to me. It's been about 10 years, I think, or so where I started saying, like, let's say I was bearing my testimony in sacrament meeting, that I was grateful to have the gospel of Jesus Christ in my life rather than say I was grateful to be a member of the church.
And you were saying that you made this change mentally as a positive thing that we're like, it's not the gospel.
It seems nebulous to me, but I couldn't put my finger on that.
So I'm not sure if it was just me or if others felt it, too.
But two things I feel like were at play for the reason that I changed that in my mind was, number one, some of us were confusing, quote, the church with more of what we'd call church culture now.
Although this means different things to different people, church culture totally means different things, different people.
I think we can all agree that its connotation is usually negative.
Number two, I must have recognized on a certain level that just saying, quote, the church left out a critical component and the word felt empty to me or the phrase.
It was the name of Jesus Christ, which is what and who brings the church, this church, its authority and power.
So I'm so grateful that President Nelson clarified this for us.
I can't believe it's been six years already, kind of dying about that. But in October of 2018, he said this.
He reminded us first of what the name of the church is not.
It is not a name change. It is not rebranding. He's so good.
It is not cosmetic. It is not a whim. And it is not inconsequential.
Like this is a big deal. And then he reminded us what it is.
Instead, it is a correction in the name of the church, which again, I felt this correction from the spirit saying, hey, Amy, there's more to look at here.
Let's study this. If we as a people and as individuals are to have access to the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ, this is President Nelson's words after he changed or after he reinstated or corrected the name of the church to heal us,
cleanse us, strengthen us and magnify us. And ultimately to exalt us, we must clearly acknowledge him, meaning Jesus Christ, as the source of that power.
We can begin by calling his church by the name he declared or decreed.
Again, I'm grateful for such clear teachings from our prophet.
It's been six years now, like I said, which I cannot believe that.
And we're pretty much used to the change. You know, some every once in a while, I'll say it a little slower.
I normally do because I do talk fast, but we're two conferences ago.
That was a subtle rebuke that when we want to say the complete name of the church, but that we rosary, yeah, it's like now.
And so I love this. I love this line upon line and helping us as we continue to grow because they wouldn't know six years ago that we might zoom through the full name of the church.
But two years ago they did. And so they're helping us with that. Just I appreciate that. I appreciate the words of the of the apostles and the and the women who also speak.
So Elder Renlund said it this way, because like you said, we built upon it two years ago and now we're building upon this again with this compound.
Elder Renlund said it like this, just as dynamite without nitroglycerin is unremarkable, the Savior's Church is special only if it is built on his gospel.
Without the Savior's gospel and the authority to administer the ordinances thereof, the church isn't exceptional.
I love that. So in my mind, he like put this compound together like in my mind, it will not ever be in it will not be inseparable.
Like it is forever together. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Bound. It wasn't there before for me, I guess. I don't know why, but I'm glad it is now.
Not that it wasn't there for you. Two parts of a compound that can be super powerful if woven together.
And understood better, right? Yeah, can magnify the power that is felt.
It's true. Unless you're keeping them separate in separate states. That's true.
That you think that there's one life that is living in the church.
And I just did like air quotes around that. Like that means something to you. Like, I'm in the church. Gotcha.
And then the other body of people that are like, I'm, you know, Jesus Christ. I'm the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's my jam.
However, they're operating the church. I'm separate from that because isn't that interesting?
I'm doing what I'm living in, you know, the gospel of Jesus Christ. And he's trying to say,
if there's an imbalance between the two, it's a fallacy of men. Yes.
It's always meant to be integrated. That the Church of Jesus Christ is the mechanism by which we deliver the gospel of Jesus Christ.
So it's not like super complicated, but it feels like there's, it feels complicated.
What feels complicated? This idea of keeping, not making them maybe in separate bubbles like they are.
So break it down as simply as you can. The Church of Jesus Christ is what?
I love this. So the Church of Jesus Christ is the divinely authorized framework where we teach, learn, and live the gospel of Jesus Christ.
So love that. It's kind of like a skeleton with just like the muscles and the skin without the skeleton, it would just be a blob, right?
But it's all together and there's that structure and framework so that it can be the best it can be.
As you're speaking, I'm thinking we've made some modifications to how church itself is run.
Like the bishops responsibilities are taken, like some of that heavy burden is shoulder by both the Relief Society president and the Elder's Quorum president
and how adults manage and then the bishops time goes towards the youth.
And I just want to say that was a new change that wasn't 50 years ago that that was the process and the way that things were doing to our church versus three hours.
So what I guess I'm saying is like modifications to how church is delivered can adapt and change as needs arise, as the church grows for whatever,
as inspiration comes, as we get better at delivering the gospel of Jesus Christ within the confines of a church system.
Love that.
I don't want to say confines, but what I guess I'm saying is framework is what he is.
Let's use that one. It didn't escape my knowledge.
Like I'm astounded that if I go to church in Germany, I go to just like I pop into a ward in Germany, I pop into a ward in Hawaii, I pop into a ward in Idaho.
I can pretty well expect the way things are going to run.
If I happen to belong to the first congressional Baptist Church of the something something in Star Valley.
If I happen to be on vacation, there's like a zero to there's no chance that I'm going to be able to find my congregation of people around the world.
Yeah, probably not.
So really, like I'm limited by my experience. It's really based on like being in that congregation that I'm at.
I think it's a beautiful thing that myself, my family, we can expect that this church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the way his gospel is ministered, even though culturally it might look a little bit different.
Right. And the experiences people share and things like that, which makes it beautiful.
That at the heart of it, the gospel of Jesus Christ is there and that we're all growing closer to him. And I literally could pick any continent in the world. Right.
Yeah.
Not Antarctica, probably. Right. Normal places where people live.
Penguins.
I can find a place and I can expect to learn more about Jesus Christ and that I wouldn't have to be like, well, that's kind of what we believe.
Yeah, I love that.
It's a beautiful framework and I do like how the information is. Yeah, it's.
We're growing at such a rapid pace. There has to be.
There has to be a mechanism for delivery that matches. Order. Order is a good way to say it. For the most power to be appreciated from it.
So what else is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to you or what did you get from the talk about that?
So yeah, Elder Renlund shared a few different things. So the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints enables access to God's power because it is authorized by him both to teach the doctrine of Christ and then also to offer the Gospels saving and exalting ordinances.
So again, the hand in hand doctrine of Christ, the exalting and saving ordinances.
The Savior refers to it as my church because he commissioned it to accomplish his purposes. Love that too. Preaching his gospel, offering his ordinances, covenants and making it possible for his power to justify and sanctify us.
I love that. Justify being made right and sanctify or straight. Justify is straight, right? And sanctify to make us holy.
Without his church, there's no authority, no preaching of revealed truth in his name, no ordinances or covenants. We've heard that now three times.
No manifestation of the power of godliness, no transformation into who God wants us to become, and God's plan for his children is set at not.
The church in this dispensation is integral to his plan.
That's a lot of things.
I think it's a big reason why we've been promised that this dispensation of fullness of time won't ever leave.
The church of Christ has been established in every dispensation of time.
But as it grows, somewhere in there, we lose the structure and the order of things, and then people are kind of doing their own thing wherever they are.
Unchecked a little bit. We're talking snail mail to communicate to each other, and who knows about communication barrier issues.
In this day and age, this same message was written, whatever language it's written in, translated into however many languages we can translate into now,
and delivered to all of our brothers and sisters around the world to see the words of his living apostles and the prophet within a week, probably.
I think most of you guys as our friends have had access to these talks within at least a week of their delivery.
Whereas in primitive church, it would have gone on a slow boat and missionary efforts around, and maybe it would have been transcribed a few different times,
and you'd get pieces and parts of even the early missionaries of the church that have a few leaflets of different doctrine and covenants things as new things are coming out.
Literally, when changes or updates are made, we get the information about as fast as you can imagine.
Right. Even primitive for me, when I was a kid, we'd wait until November and May to see it.
In conference being printed in the end sign.
Yeah, in the end sign. It was so exciting. It was like, we got this, and that was always around the house and stuff.
But yeah, a couple days or having it audio that next day is just amazing. I love it.
It's such a blessing to us.
Maybe we've already touched on it, right.
Maybe we list a few reasons why we need the framework of a church for the gospel to reach its absolute highest potential.
Okay, so this is exactly what you were saying, Abby. The gospel is perfect, but a divinely commissioned church is required to preach it, maintain its purity.
That's a good way to say it. Maintain the purity instead of there are so many different things, different ways it could go, right?
And administer its sacred ordinances with the Savior's power and with his authority.
We've seen this happen in the Dark Ages and the apostasy and every other state.
Every other dispensation.
Though the gospel was initially revealed in his purity, the interpretation and application of that gospel gradually took on, and I love this, took on a form of godliness.
So it was similar, but the purity was gone, right?
And that lacked power because the divinely authorized framework was absent.
So again, I feel like I don't know if you've ever done Photoshop.
There are probably a bunch of different applications that do this or apps that do this.
But when you're working with Photoshop and you're let's say you have a picture or whatever, you have like graphics.
I love this one.
Should we call it a filter?
It's not a filter. What something you could enable is it's like snap to that's what it's called.
And you literally you could take forever trying to just center this just right this picture.
But if you are in snap, quote, snap to mode, it just goes right there.
I feel like every time Elder Renlan is talking about the different things with the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I feel like I'm in snap to mode and it's like forever is forever like stuck together like it's in my mind now.
It's in my heart and they're inseparable.
Snap to.
Do you feel like you had an opportunity to share like the key moment of this talk?
You know what? There were so much good stuff in there.
I mean, it was really kind of difficult for me to to look at all the information and just grab like the key key piece.
This is what I felt it was.
I mean, I felt this very, very strongly.
He says Elder Renlan says these words, the core of the gospel that the church teaches is that Jesus Christ bore our griefs, carried our sorrows.
He had laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He endured the cross.
He broke the bands of death, ascended into heaven.
And I mean, if you think about what the gospel of Jesus Christ is, it literally is the good word that Jesus did what he said he'd do.
Right. And now it's going into the specifics.
And then I love this part part.
He ascended into heaven and sat down on the right hand of God to claim of the father his rights of mercy.
So he claimed being redeemer for us and being our intermediary.
Thank you. Yes. Intermediary. You saw what my hand was doing.
The Savior did all this because he loved his father.
So here's the first and second commandment again.
He did all of this because he, number one, loves his father.
And number two, he loves us.
He's already paid the infinite price so he can claim again.
There's that word.
All those who have faith in him and advocate for them, for us.
Jesus Christ wants nothing more than for us to repent and come unto him so that he can justify and sanctify us.
In this desire, he is relentless and unwavering.
And then I love this part, Abby.
He said, again, this is what says Jesus Christ is not just another prophet like some who've lived on this earth thought he was, or he's just not another person.
He is the central figure in all of time.
It says Jesus Christ didn't simply sympathize with our imperfections and lament over our condemnation in consequence of sin.
That's another person would have done.
But he's not a person.
He is God.
He is our Savior.
No, he went beyond that, infinitely beyond that, and restored his church to enable access to his power.
So again, I love that that that was an act of love that we get to take part of.
The whole time I've been alive on this earth, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been restored on this earth.
So to me, to you, it's an everyday thing.
It's part of our lives.
I just love that we are actually recipients of Heavenly Fathers and Jesus Christ love that they restored to enable access to his power.
We have that.
I always think how lucky we are, and I always try to put myself in the shoes of early saints that did not have access to.
They didn't have the same access to the doctrines, the scriptures in their hands.
Justin, come follow me this week.
We were studying the words that Jesus Christ spoke to the people of the Americas.
He quoted Isaiah, he quoted Malachi, and he emphasized the point of how important scripture was.
Yeah.
And I don't know.
I don't know why my mind just went there.
It had a point in my mind.
My mind went there too, Abby.
But the fact is that he understands that they don't have all the pieces and parts of that.
It's like we need to record those. I've given those to all of my children of other lands.
That's what he was saying.
And he was like, I'm seeing that you're missing some of those things.
So he gave those pieces and parts of scriptures that had been lost over time.
And for us as members of the church with the restoration that took place with the Prophet Joseph Smith, we have the Book of Mormon in our hands, and we have the doctrines that are there.
We have access to church history files.
We have the evolution of...
We have access to everything in our apps.
And you'll see the other side of that coin is people that have access to so much information, then they're like, look what the church has been trying to hide from us.
Well, the internet just barely came out.
Like if you wanted to go to a library in the archives, you lived across the ocean and you wanted to fly over there and dig in that and find it.
It was there.
Good for you.
Like power to you, but like everything that they have access to that they can corroborate like usually three times, they're looking for like three sources to validate some claim.
It goes into their church history archives, their records.
They want you to be able to find it.
So, you know, to put it on them that things are...
Well, the church is wrong in this way because of A, B, or C.
You know, that's the disadvantage of having so much information in our hands.
Then it's our responsibility to have to dig into that and to look for these truths that are there.
And I always want to look at it through the mindset of what would I have done if I had experienced, you know, as polygamy was coming on or as issues with the priesthood as it was...
Can I say blacks in the priesthood?
I don't know if that's inappropriate to say, but like that's what they tag it under or things about Heavenly Mother.
These... the First Vision, the accounts of the First Vision, that all of those things can be reconciled for me individually because of the resources that are at my own fingertips if it's a question that I have for myself that I want to dig into.
Not despite of.
Not despite of the church.
Not them hiding something.
It's my responsibility to know what questions that I have and to look into those.
For sure.
I'm always looking at it with the mindset that I do know that the church is structured to bring us closer to Jesus Christ and for him to provide us with an opportunity to, like you said, enable the most access to his power in our lives.
And to know how to do that.
And our prophet, President Nelson, has said, we need women who know how to access the power of God in their lives.
I mean, there are so many things.
I look at things through that lens as well of like, if I have a question about anything, even if it's something in my own life that I'm like, is this totally in line?
Like, where does this fall?
I can always look to scripture.
I can look to conference talks like President Nelson said, use it as a litmus test for what is true and what is not.
So yeah, it's just so wonderful that it is... it truly is at our fingertips.
We have all the information that we need and then to have a second witness and ask Heavenly Father if this is correct, you know, the things I found.
My thoughts feel more jumbled than I really intend for them to be because I've been thinking since you started about, you know, church culture or as people say, the church.
Right.
And how it means different things to different people.
It does mean different things.
Like, I do recognize that whatever ears hear this, they're going to be like, well, they do this in the church and the church looks like this for me or I feel this way about...
I can't even guess the myriad of thoughts that are crossing through your mind.
I guess I'm just suggesting as an action item, if you feel a disconnect between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Gospel of Jesus Christ,
like you see them as two different bodies that you ask yourself what is causing that hiccup. What can we do individually to put those things together to make the dynamite...
In the snap too.
In the snap too, that we can find the power in unifying those.
Because I'm pretty sure it was his talk that I was like, we are an amazing charitable organization.
We do so many good things as a church.
And I honestly have said many different ways, you could probably listen back on a few different podcasts that I've said, even if this church wasn't the Church of Jesus Christ,
if it was just an organization that functioned the way that it did, it had the Relief Society, it had the youth programs, it had charitable arms, it required tithes, the word of wisdom means something to me.
Okay, so I'm just talking about different components in this, if it was separate from being tied into Jesus Christ and commandments that we've been given and trying to be like a roadway to bring us closer to him.
So if it was removed from him, I think I would still want to be part of it.
Because I think that it's been a great way to raise my children in a vessel, to grow, you know, myself in the way that I want to grow.
Right, it's a good thing.
It's a good thing now because I do believe that it is restored gospel of Jesus Christ and that he is in charge and that this church is full of him.
It is the Church of Jesus Christ.
It's just that power is explosive.
I love it.
So true.
But I can appreciate that there could be a disconnect for people on those two things.
And like you and I were both reminded in this talk, like we have some work to do to make sure that they're definitely in line.
They're in snap to that they're right over that they're lying over each other, that it's not like a Venn diagram and that some of the things we like about the church and some of the things we like about the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And it's a different it's a varying amount of circle.
What we think overlaps.
Ideally, we can get to the point where it's one in the same.
Yes, because that's what snap to is you don't separate them again unless you click that you're separating them like you know there are two things but they never move again.
And that's not a Venn diagram so I do like that that visual.
Like if you were to be if you were to say like women aren't heard in the church if that if that's your stance, be a woman that's heard.
Love that.
I can't think of like another thing right off the top of my head but like that's, that's the thing that you're hearing people chime in about pretty lately, if there's something that's really shaking you about church history.
Study that on your own with good resources, not not the nasty not the anti evangelist preacher that knows so much about your faith that you don't it's like telling you what research you should be looking at to have your opinion.
Find find more valuable stuff that you can reconcile what happened in the past with where we are.
But in the present day.
There's so many things.
I guess that's why this was like a second past talk for sure that it's like what deep Yeah what piece in part it's just simple at the.
At the very front of it but I know that there's like a lot more depth to it as each as individually have to kind of go into it.
I do you have anything to say in closing, you know, in closing, I would just say this.
Like you were saying for an action item, the type of person that I am I'm always looking for like the compound that's gonna like Heavenly Father what do I need to mix like what two or three things do I need to be doing to see results that will just like.
Get me like light years ahead of where I am right now I'm always looking for those things I know that President Nelson has before he's told us nothing quite darn it.
What is it nothing quite reaches the heavens like exact OB has like four things so whenever someone presents to me especially someone who I trust and I can always you know check.
I can always ask Heavenly Father Heavenly Father is this a true thing but I trust elder Renland and he's telling me that there's this divine compound so for an action item I I don't even have a question to ask anymore he's already given it to me so I can just say Heavenly Father.
Help me to bring together to mess together the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with the gospel of Jesus Christ like you were saying so I just feel like we're already one step ahead of the game it's not even a question anymore it's just not to yeah how do you put it together.
And the last thing I would say is he just reminds us that the combination of the two Churches Christ of Latter-day Saints and the gospel of Jesus Christ are powerful and transformative to the degree that we bring them into our lives sorry he didn't say that I said this to the degree that we bring him into our lives he said they're transformative and powerful they can be transformative and powerful on the shelf but if we bring him into it when we bring him into our lives that's when they change us.
Other than being totally obsessed with the symbolic or the explanation of dynamite.
Yes.
As the two separate entities the compounds that can be come together.
I do like that the word Venn diagram came to mind here because it's so different from thinking of two separate entities and then as we work towards reconciling those two things until they're in that snap to mode.
They do they do exist as a diagram.
At whatever point that we're at we have to ask ourselves what things aren't meshing what things are overlapping what things do reconcile what are the center of the circle.
Yes.
Recognize where you're at on that spectrum and then what are those outlier things like what do you love about what you interpret as the gospel of Jesus Christ versus what you see as church.
I'm going to have to use the word culture.
Yeah.
On the other side of it.
Right.
To truly to rightly understand what it is.
Yeah.
It's really good.
It's a great discussion Abby.
Thank you so much for being here today.
And thank you to our listeners for being here.
We love you guys.
Have a great week.
Catch you next time.