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 study His Hands Ready to Help Us by Elder Juan Pablo Villar of the 70.
His talk starts out with the story of literally being in over his head when he followed his
two older brothers to swim on the coast in Chile and play in the ocean.
He recalls the waves being much bigger than he anticipated, and he dragged them down under
the water.
The biggest thing is that he looked at the brothers and they were doing well in the waves.
And so he assumed, oh, they're doing it fine.
I can do it fine, even though he was half their size.
Sometimes we don't realize what our size is until it's too late.
That's a good point.
So these waves come crashing, they drag him down, not once, but twice.
His older brother reaches out his hand and he helped him.
You know, he was flailing.
He was probably not going to make it.
So I was thinking of the question, pondering on this.
I wonder if we've each had an experience where we felt in over our own heads, our own personal
experience.
We just weren't equal to the task.
We've watched somebody navigating it, doing well at it, and we just think, oh, they're
doing it.
I can do that too.
Or I want what they have.
Meaning like the experiences, you know?
So has that ever happened in your life?
Have you tried to enter into a task that maybe you weren't yet equal to the experience yet?
Absolutely, all the time.
So I'm going to share this story.
It's with my oldest sister.
She's nine years older than me.
So with almost a decade between us, she's more experienced and further along in life
than me.
At the same time, I've always looked up to her, both of my sisters.
I've been able to see how they do life and handle tough situations in every stage of
life.
About 15 years ago, my family went to visit my oldest sister who lived out of state.
I still had littles and her youngest is the age of my oldest child.
Her youngest is the age of yours?
So just to give a reference, right?
Yeah, 10 years.
That's enough time to raise a family.
Yes.
So looking into her house and the feeling there, the best way to describe it was it
was more elevated feeling than my home had.
I was still in the weeds, the toddler chaos and whatnot.
And this felt a little more thought out and more calm.
And if I had a word for it, more celestial.
I had a wonderful visit and I remember thinking I wasn't quite ready for that kind of commitment
to a more exalted life at the time.
I drove back home to my state with my family and I kept those things in my heart.
That's over 10 years.
Happy or sad?
Hearted.
Happy.
Okay, good.
It was great.
Like you were like, I don't have this feeling in my home.
It's not where I was like, I aspire to that and there's a season.
That's how I felt.
You know, that's very mature.
Well, that's how it was.
Fast forward 10 years, my kids were grown a little bit more.
We had the opportunity to move to her state.
I remember kneeling on my bedroom floor asking Heavenly Father that if he allowed me to live
in her state, I would love to learn what she was learning.
My youngest was going to kindergarten, which gave me more time at that time.
She was a family history social media missionary and she was teaching at Roots Tech.
The way I felt when she shared experiences and stories filled my heart and I wanted that
spirit and those blessings in my life.
I did end up moving to her state just five minutes from her house.
That was so amazing.
We attended the temple together regularly.
I caught the fire of family history work and worked little by little to learn about my
ancestors and feel that they're real people.
I learned to take family names to the temple and I too was called to be a family history
social media missionary as one of her companions and then taught two years at Roots Tech.
All of this was a big stretch for me.
I'd never been a public speaker.
It scared me to death to get up on that stage, but I felt prompted and I did it.
You know the saying, there's no growth in your comfort zone and there's no comfort
in your growth zone.
My point in telling this story is that sometimes we're in over our heads and it's in the best
way.
Blessings are coming, lessons are being learned and progress is still being made.
It can be a challenge because we are out of our comfort zone.
So sometimes our challenges aren't the worst.
They're just growing pains.
Other times it is deep and dark challenges and the trials really are the hardest kind.
Abby, I was thinking to myself, if I could close my eyes and point to each of our listeners
out there, I bet that they are facing challenges, really, really hard ones.
Elder Villar Villar reminds us that those malicious waves could jostle us from side
to side, but do not forget who has power over those waves and fact over all things.
That is our Savior Jesus Christ.
He has the power to help us out of every miserable condition or adverse situation as we reach
out to Him in faith.
He will always be there.
And in His time, He will be ready and willing to grasp our hand and pull us out to safety.
It makes me think back to His beginning thing and picturing a little boy in the waves and
trying to aspire to be doing what the brothers are doing.
And I would say if this were my kids in the situation, my little kid was being tossed
in the waves.
We actually did.
We did go to the beach on a crazy day and where we thought safety zone was wasn't really
the case.
And we kind of got rough and tumbled with some of the waves.
But depending on the age and their abilities, I was comfortable with them being a little
bit deeper.
But my eyes were on the situation.
So I'm thinking of this parallel that it's like our father with the scope of vision that
he has in the view.
He's going to let us enter some of those waves that we don't have the capacity to do.
It wasn't the brother's responsibility to be looking after him for this little thing,
but luckily they were.
And I would say in what I'm thinking of particularly is church calling to have us filling in over
our heads.
Oh gosh, right.
This was a church calling.
Like I was a missionary, had a tag in everything.
You're never going to come fully equipped to do these things.
Like if it was going to be a growing opportunity, he's going to have to pick something that
you're not naturally inclined to be good at so that you can grow that spiritual gift.
And so that you know who it was that helped you grow.
I guess what I'm seeing the brothers in this situation as is counselors.
Or mentors.
Or they're the president and you're a counselor.
You're like whatever that really symbiotic relationship that you're doing for the same
purpose and you all kind of have your pieces and parts.
And when you kind of feel like, holy cow, I'm drowning.
And you reach for that help.
Like we're talking about reaching to the savior and helping him.
You should feel overwhelmed by these things so that you have an opportunity to feel what
it feels like to be rescued and pulled up by the savior.
I think that's the best chance of growing.
Any other comments on that cute little story?
Scary but turned out good so it's cute.
So we're going to move to the next point he makes.
He said, if we think celestial, we will recognize Jesus Christ as a flawless example of ministry.
So true.
As we serve others, we can rely on guidance and inspiration of the Holy Ghost to discern
what kind of help is needed.
Whether it's temporal or emotional comfort, food, aid in daily tasks, spiritual guidance
to help others in their journey to prepare, make and honor sacred countenance.
So there's a whole list.
What a neat opportunity to learn something about discernment for our own parts.
If you have this lens and you're looking out and other people need you to stop and assess
the situation and say, what could I do to help them that will be of the best use and
need and help?
Without overstepping and taking their opportunity to grow.
Like am I doing the calling?
Am I doing a calling for you because you don't really want to grow in the calling?
You don't want to try?
I would always rather kind of assess the situation and then as little overstepping as possibly
can do.
Make them feel the pride and like they've accomplished that with the Savior.
Maybe he used my hands to kind of help further it or like maybe help him break it down into
bite-sized pieces.
I don't know.
Ministering opportunities when you're thinking, how can I reach out to them?
There's challenges in your neighborhood and you recognize the family's going through something
hard that you're going to say, what's the best thing that I can do here without taking
opportunities away from them to grow in this way?
I love that.
That's so good, Abby.
And I love it too.
It just says the inspiration like as you have ideas and as you counsel, the Holy Ghost is
going to help you with inspiration, help you to discern what type of help is needed.
That's the biggest thing.
Maybe you've already answered the question that's coming to me, but it's like, have you
ever had a time when you just didn't know what to do to help, where to start, what to
do?
I totally felt that before.
I felt like you have like a paralyzed feeling.
You don't know how to move forward.
I actually thought of a couple of troubleshooting ideas for ministering.
This could be for the first idea is there are times earlier, mostly earlier in life
when we might not think we have any value to add, or you have decision fatigue and you
just don't know where to start.
So I would, I just had this thought, find one thing you can do, make cookies, make bread,
make granola.
Maybe you clean bathrooms or do laundry.
Choose it and then decide that this is the way that you add value and then ask in prayer
if that's something that you could do that day for your ministering sisters or a friend
in need.
And one of them is funny that the one cleaning bathrooms, like I just noticed when I was
going through cancer and I lived in Utah, the women in my release society taught me
so much about service because it was like each one of them just knew what they had to
offer.
One of them came in and just let herself in and just clean my bathrooms.
Someone else let herself in and she just folded laundry and moved it over.
It was like they knew themselves and it was like watching.
I didn't really watch it because I was in bed, but as I heard and as I texted with them,
it was like I had a front row seat to this beautiful, like well-oiled machine because
women had discernment and asked in prayer and the Holy Ghost helped them.
The second truck-
That ties back to the last talk that we just talked about.
Right.
Extensions of our family or our wards being families or stakes being families.
Totally.
Somebody wasn't like, okay, Amy's your ministering sister and you go in there and you get her
laundry done, you cook for her and you do this.
They all came in with their little piece and part that they could help with and all got
to help fill some satisfaction in the relief that it gave you in your time when you felt
like you were drowning.
It was truly miraculous.
Truly miraculous.
Honestly, if we're thinking of ourselves, sisters, who doesn't have time to walk into
someone's house, change their laundry over, fold what was in the dryer and leave.
Do you know what I mean?
It's beautiful, but we all know what it feels like when you forget.
I'm going to share my address right now.
Maybe you don't know, but I know what it feels like when you forget your wash in the beginning
of the day.
It throws the whole day off because everything's behind.
Do you know what I mean?
Just those small things.
The second troubleshooting idea is what if you're burned out or feel gun shy because
of a past experience?
What if you felt guided by the spirit, but then things don't end up the way you thought
they would?
My advice, take a deep breath and start over again and recommit yourself.
It's okay to go back to the Lord and ask him to help you see the situation clearly.
Did I make a mistake?
Did I hear you correctly?
What would be the next best step at this moment?
Because learning to listen to the spirit and then acting as a talent or a spiritual gift,
it takes practice.
Sometimes this means trial and error.
In fact, for me, it always means that, but I promise that a pattern will begin to emerge
as you practice this and you will start to make more right moves than mistakes.
You will grow into the spirit of revelation and you will recognize the spirit when it
moves you.
Like Elder Villar said, the Holy Ghost will help you discern.
You will begin to learn and recognize that you are not responsible for the outcome of
your impression.
God doesn't judge you for the result.
What you are responsible for is that you act when and in what way the Lord impresses on
your heart and mind.
I love that.
Did you notice this part?
Elder Villar teaches us that if we think celestial, we will realize that our Savior will be there
as many times as necessary to provide help if we want to learn, change, overcome, cope
or succeed in whatever will bring true and everlasting happiness in our lives.
So the word that's coming to my mind is finite.
It's not like you only get 10 help me's.
There's no limit.
It is in fact infinite, the help that he can offer us in any given situation and we have
to just opt in, invite him and believe that that's true.
Because as humans, we kind of do have like a threshold.
I've asked him too many times.
Or I'm done.
I'd be so annoyed at myself at this point, but that's not the case.
So what extends out to you in that quote that I just shared?
You know, when you read the if you want to learn, it totally reminds me of Elder Bednar's
from last conference, how he talked about if we will talk about all the things that
would happen if we will.
So for me again, it's the ever present agency.
It's always at the heart of our progression.
And as we choose to move forward, the Savior is there with help every time.
Like you just said, the finite thing is not a thing.
It's infinite.
Our life may be filled with missed opportunities.
Sometimes people say lost opportunities.
In my mind, it's missed opportunities because with God, nothing is lost.
He can bring back around those opportunities.
They may look different, but those will bring growth and blessings and prosperity.
If we want to learn, change, overcome, cope, or succeed in whatever will bring true and
everlasting happiness in our lives.
Right.
That's the caveat.
Totally.
Like it's not going to be, he's not going to reach out and help us if it's something
that's not worth our time.
He honors our agency too much.
It's not going to bring happiness into our lives.
Oh, right.
We might feel like upstream with no help in those endeavors that we're pursuing that don't
bring us closer to him.
We're not celestial things.
Totally.
That's fair.
Yeah, it is fair.
Right.
The second thing that came was in footnote eight, in the talk show notes, sorry, in the
talk.
I know it's so good.
Why were you impressed to go there?
To truly, because I was just like, what else does he have to say about this?
Because it really stuck out.
When I saw it, it was like, there's something here.
So I loved it.
To truly understand happiness, we need to understand the role of blessings in our lives.
The definition of blessings helps to clarify this concept.
A blessing is to confer divine favor upon someone.
Anything contributing to true happiness, well-being or prosperity is a blessing.
So I just think that we see it more rightly when we understand that that really is worth
our time.
Yeah, I'm going to have to take a moment here to let that sink in.
Give me a second.
A blessing is to confer divine favor upon someone.
I'm trying to sort that out.
We feel the most blessed when we aid in somebody else receiving his favor or is that for yourself
too?
It says someone.
I think it's us blessing someone.
That's what I'm thinking too.
Like administering, serving.
That's what I think he's saying.
I do think that's true too.
Not like I've done this thing for myself all year.
I am more invested in a prayer on behalf of somebody else.
I know you are.
Well, no, I mean, that's everybody.
That's not me bragging.
No, I'm saying like whenever I've asked you, what can I pray for you?
And you say, this person's having a challenge or this person and I pray for them too.
Yeah, but there's probably somebody out there that recognizes my challenges before me and
they're having the same prayer.
That's true.
What do you have for closing?
Any more thoughts?
So yeah, you know what?
I just love this part.
He talks.
So essentially the whole title of the talk is about his hands, right?
He talks about hands through the whole thing, whether it's our hands in serving, whether
it's Jesus Christ's hands, whether it's his brother's hand in helping to save him.
The most important is this.
The scriptures immortalize the symbol and significance of the Savior's hands.
And then he paints this picture so beautifully.
In his atoning sacrifice, his hands were pierced by nails to affix him to the cross.
After his resurrection, he appeared to his disciples in a perfect body, but the prints
in his hands remain as a reminder of his infinite sacrifice.
His hand will always be there for us, even if we cannot see it or feel it at first, because
he was chosen by our heavenly Father to be our Savior, the Redeemer of all humankind.
I'd invite people to look at the art that we use for the episodes.
We bought this off of a senior in high school last year.
Yes, you did.
And that one, if you spend some time looking at it, is just a beautiful depiction of his
bruised and battered hands that remind us of the atonement, the great and infinite atonement
that he did perform for us and that daily we can tap into the blessings that he's offering
to us.
I love that, Abby.
Because it's a picture that goes both ways.
It is definitely person reaching into his hands.
Yes, it is.
That's our challenge and our action item to you is to reach his reaching.
Love that.
Thank you so much for being here with us today.
We will see you next time.