Welcome to Closer to Christ, the General Conference, where two friends who love Jesus share our
own approach to studying the most recent General Conference talks.
This is Abbey and Amy.
Let's jump into it.
We are so excited to share with you today the talk done by Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf
titled, Nourish the Roots and the Branches Will Grow.
So I'll start out by summarizing a story that he shared of a chapel that he used to enjoy
as a young boy.
He said it had an organ that had to be pumped and he would often help pump it so the congregation
could sing.
And when he was at the organ, he had a perfect view of this beautiful stained glass window
depicting our Savior Jesus Christ and another of Joseph Smith and the Sacred Grove.
And he said the chapel is now gone.
It's made its way for new apartment buildings.
And while he was saddened about the building's removal, he thought more deeply on what is
enduring rather than temporary.
He said this, the covenant connection I forged with my Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son
has stayed with me long after the chapel was dismantled and the stained glass windows were
lost.
Heaven and earth shall pass away, Jesus said, but my words shall not pass away.
What did you love from this talk the most?
I first I love that story.
I thought it was so sweet the way he told it.
And then I feel like this is like the central part.
One of the most important things we can learn in this life is the difference between what
is eternal and what is not.
Once we understand that everything changes, our relationships, the choices we make, the
way we treat people.
Knowing what is central and what is not is key to growing a testimony of Jesus Christ
and His church.
Abby, why do you feel like it's more important or most important to know what is eternal
and what is not?
I mean, you summed it up so well right there.
Everything changes in our relationships and the thing we're thinking.
It helps us put off the natural man because we're thinking of more of the long lasting
effects that we're going to have on the world.
Do I want to try to approach this with more love, patience, tenderness, or I'm going to
jump to the anger, the emotions I'm feeling right in that moment.
Do I want to let those simmer down because these, I'm thinking of relationships when
they're lasting, they're meant to be eternal.
I love that.
So it tempers.
That's so great.
What do you feel like, what do you think he's talking about when he's talking about the
roots and what he's talking about with the branches?
So Jesus Christ and his atoning sacrifice is the root of our testimony.
All other things are branches.
And you've probably heard this quote before he used this.
Joseph Smith said it this way, the fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony
of the apostles and prophets concerning Jesus Christ, that he died, was buried and rose
again the third day and ascended into heaven and all other things which pertain to our
religion are only appendages to it.
That just speak to our very last podcast on keeping things of the doctrine of Christ simple.
Can you go on a tangent and speculate on all of the things after this life, aside from
the very few things we solidly know about it?
For sure.
You can go in any direction, but what's the most important thing to really give root to
our basic fundamental principles?
Love it.
As they're spoken by the apostles and prophets and then we come to our own knowledge as the
Holy Ghost testifies on those things.
So let's talk about roots a little bit more.
How are we going to strengthen those roots so that the branches then can grow, that we
can learn more things, that we can add to our testimony?
Love it.
Elder Uchtdorf gave some really, really great feedback on this.
He said, if you are uncertain about a particular doctrine or practice or element of church
history, seek clarity with faith in Jesus Christ.
And then he says this, seek to understand his sacrifice for you, his love for you, his
will for you.
Follow him in humility.
The branches of your testimony will draw strength from your deepening faith in heavenly father
and his beloved son.
And then I really like that he shares some practical ways of going about this.
He says, if you want a stronger testimony, the Book of Mormon focus on its witness of
Jesus Christ.
Notice how the Book of Mormon testifies of him, what it teaches about him and how it
invites and inspires you to come unto him.
I will say that I have heard different, you know, different things about where the Book
of Mormon took place, and he talked about this a little bit.
He's saying, you know, more important than where it may have taken place, like where
Jerusalem is or whatever, what's most important is the testimony of Jesus Christ in those
pages.
That's the root.
He said, if you're seeking a more-
You could spend a lifetime on trying to pinpoint where the exact instances in the Book of Mormon
took place.
What did it do for your testimony of Jesus Christ at the end of that day?
Right.
If you see it as a hobby, that's one thing.
If you're seeing it as a lifelong pursuit-
The only way I'm going to believe it is if I can know exactly where the locations are.
Two separate things there, right?
If you're seeking a more meaningful experience in church, in meetings or in the temple, try
looking for the Savior in the sacred ordinances we receive there.
Find the Lord in his holy house.
And then he said this, Abby, as far as callings go, which I am sure he's felt this multiple
times in his life, just the fact that there is a large portion of his time that goes to
the Lord, that goes to his callings.
He says, if you ever feel burned out or overwhelmed by your church calling, try refocusing your
service on Jesus Christ.
Make it an expression of your love for him.
Great reframing, right?
If you have a hard time loving your calling, just gently suggest that they put you in the
primary.
That's where you know that heavenly Father Jesus Christ love you the most.
Just kidding.
But Amy just got a new calling today.
We're team teachers in primary now.
So fun.
It's going to be the best.
Amy, I'm sure you did consider this as you were listening to this talk.
Probably took a moment to consider your own testimony, the roots of your own testimony.
And I want you to think what your own testimony is based on.
He talked about it and he said, at first we may be drawn to the Savior's gospel in church
because we're impressed by friendly members or kind bishop or the clean looks of a chapel.
And these circumstances are certainly important to grow the church.
But he says, if the roots of our testimony never grow deeper than that, what will happen
when we move to a ward that we meet that's less impressive or less impressive building
with members who aren't so friendly and the bishop says something that offends us?
What's going to happen?
I feel like Abby, he was talking to like every single person with his first story.
Because guess what?
It happens when you move.
You know what I mean?
Because there's the love and all of the relationships that you've left behind it and maybe that's
the way you're feeling.
And he's like, that's not the point.
It's great to have at the beginning.
Like if that is in place, wonderful.
Is it the basis of our testimony?
It's not.
He says, I love the second one that he did, Abby.
He says, doesn't it seem reasonable to hope that if we keep the commandments, we're sealed
in the temple, we'll be blessed with a large happy family with bright, obedient children,
all of whom stay active in the church, serve missions, sing in the ward choir and volunteer
to help clean the meeting house every Saturday morning.
Right?
I actually used to have visions of that and that's definitely not how, as far as the choir
and the helping to clean, not exactly how it worked out.
And then he says this, and I really like this, while he hopes that this will all happen for
each of us, he asks if this hope is something to based our testimony of Jesus Christ on.
And he does say-
Like what's going to happen if those things don't check out?
Right.
How are we going to check ourselves out about where our own testimony stands on?
Do we say, you know, this gospel is true only if every one of my children is obedient their
whole life and stays in the gospel or if they all serve missions or sing the ward choir,
you know, are they if?
Yeah.
And it's interesting you saying that out loud.
It sounds a little bit ludicrous, but I do feel like that probably is a held belief that
may be subconscious or whatever.
Do you know what I mean?
Because then if your children leave or are you all of a sudden thinking, wait a second,
maybe this is maybe it was all not true or whatever.
You know what I mean?
So it's great to ask these questions.
He actually gives us some really great questions for each of us.
He says, ask yourself, is my testimony based on what I hope to happen in my life?
Is it dependent on the actions or attitudes of others?
And then he says this, or is it firmly founded on Jesus Christ, rooted and built up in him,
regardless of life's changing circumstances?
So here we are again talking about what is the root Jesus Christ changing circumstances
that is going to come that is going to go just like that scripture at the beginning
talked about.
Also Abby, you and I have had this conversation many times over the past almost five years.
Can you believe it's almost been five years since I lived here?
I think most people listening now have had experiences when those in our word family
have not acted the way that we would hope.
And maybe there have been times when we've not acted in ways that we had hoped.
What keeps you coming back to church each week?
For me, it started out as my parents' regular habit of taking us to church.
And when I went to college myself, it became my tradition because I didn't have to go.
They weren't there telling me to wake up and go do things.
There wasn't like strings attached like, you know, paying for your college if you go to
church.
There was none of that.
I distinctly remember that first Sunday waking up and going to church when I was on my own.
And it was definitely my own free will and choice.
But the only time I tested it, I just I wasn't like that for my, I wasn't like push my parents'
button about that.
But I went for myself.
And I would say even at that point as a 17 year old starting college, I can't even say
that it was backed in faith necessarily.
I just accepted the gospel as it was and took my parents' word for it and had started to
develop my own testimony.
And I know that that was definitely developing within me at like 15.
But like to know where I'm at now and looking back, I can see my testimony has been building
for all of these years.
Now regardless of my experience at church, it's great.
My experience at church is great.
But even if it wasn't great, I could easily be able to say, that's not the Church of Jesus
Christ.
That's a cultural thing or that was, you know, that was a natural man reaction.
Like this issue that I'm having with that person has nothing to do with my testimony
of Jesus Christ.
And I'm not saying that that's like rock solid, never gonna be changed.
But I'm continually thinking about nourishing those roots because I've lived enough life
to know like if I put that trust and faith in people, people can disappoint.
They're not the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Yep, we're all fallible.
Right.
So he was really good at like hitting those three things, traditions, habits and faith.
There's a difference between the three things.
Traditions he would say are beliefs and practices passed on from one generation to the other.
Like I said, my parents kind of brought me up in that tradition of going.
In the scriptures, the Lord consistently warned the righteous to avoid evil traditions of
men.
It was I, one five, and we should have been like unto our brethren who know nothing concerning
these things because of their traditions of their fathers, which are not correct.
A tradition is something that's handed to you.
You didn't come up with it in most cases.
Like it's learned behavior from the people that came before you.
You do get to decide if you want to carry on that tradition or not.
Like what you said about the church.
Exactly.
You know, certainly when you're in your parents' home, probably it's best to carry on the traditions
that they want.
Some people will kind of stretch the limits on that and kind of test out for themselves.
But like really when you're an adult and you've left house, that's when you get to choose
whether those traditions are coming or not.
And why not?
I mean, it's a great tradition to go to church, right?
Yeah.
It's a great one.
I think so.
The fact is why I think that that's important.
I go regularly.
We take our kids regularly.
It's not like, you know, once a quarter that we're going to show up.
I'm demonstrating to my children that it's not even a question.
We're nine o'clock church now and my little three-year-old is not about having nine o'clock
church.
And so we had done tubbies the night before.
We're kind of like really prepared for it.
I was on my own getting the kids ready and he was kind of like trying to sleep and I'm
trying to get him dressed.
And all I had to say, he's like, where are we going?
I said church.
He's like, oh, church.
And he like peppered right up.
Oh, wow.
They totally mostly sleep during sacrament meeting, which is pretty awesome for me.
But what I'm saying is he's three.
He understands.
He does not understand the days of the week.
He understands what church and Sunday means.
So that's the best that I can do at this stage is to let him know.
Like we're going to consistently demonstrate that and we hope that as tradition that they'll
carry on.
Why don't you share your thoughts on habits from this talk?
I looked up habits and said it's a usual way of behaving, something that a person does
often in a regular and repeated way.
And then I found this and it tends to occur subconsciously.
So because I was like, yeah, it's great to have a habit, let's say of attending church.
And then defined within the psychology realm, it says habit is defined as a phenomenon whereby
behavior is prompted automatically, meaning you don't have to think about it by situational
cues as a result of learned behavior.
And then so we'll see in this light, I actually don't want things pertaining to the gospel
of Jesus Christ to be out of habit.
It tells me it's a learned behavior, almost automatic, much like muscle memory.
Then I looked that up and I loved this.
And I am going somewhere with this muscle memory.
Thank you.
No, despite its name is not about muscle, but it's rather about the brain.
When we learn a new skill or practice a particular movement, the brain creates neural pathways
and connections that control the associated muscle groups.
Then these connections become more efficient, well coordinated and through repetition and
performance of the task with increased accuracy and ease.
After time and practice all parts, it actually takes the brain, the body's muscles and the
nervous system, they all work together and the action becomes automatic.
It's fascinating concept that has intrigued athletes, musicians and professionals across
various fields.
And while it's a great skill, especially if you're one of those, you know, an athlete,
musician or professional, as we want to build in our spiritual lives, if we're seeking to
deepen our connection with Jesus Christ, it's probably not the best use of that.
We want to do actions that require not only our bodies, but incorporate our spirits as
well.
Like we just covered in the Seek Him With All Your Heart talk with Elder Budge.
When we incorporate our spirits into our spiritual practice, we are called to live in a higher
and holier way.
So think about it this way.
President Nelson calls each of us to minister in a higher and holier way.
What did he ask us to do?
He asked us to stop with the checklist, stop with the automation and to put our spirits
to work in this spiritual work.
Essentially, what he asked us to do is do spiritual work with our spirits and our body.
If you think of Heavenly Father, He has a perfected body and He's doing everything with
His spirit and His body.
Um, maybe you agree with what I'm saying and if you don't, I won't be offended for you
speaking up.
But I think it comes in that order of traditions, habits and faith, not by coincidence, because
I don't think there's anything wrong with doing things that our parents bring us up
to do.
I don't either.
And then we asked, do we want to carry on with that?
And then as far as habits go, you can watch athletes or people take on these really difficult
tasks and you, you can just stand in awe thinking that with practice and repetition, how they've
improved the thing that they're doing.
I agree.
And so it's like art with my kids that they don't understand all of the reasons why I'm
having them do something and not going to be church related.
That can be math related or the reading process or handwriting, repetition, practice, improvement,
and we get iteratively better at things that we're doing.
But what we, what I feel like you were saying is that in there is lacking the reason for
them to be motivated by it as much until we get to the point of incorporating the spirits
into the mix and working that next level up.
And the roots, right?
Like, like a mom that wants her kids to be like a concert pianist and they put their
kid at the piano for three hours.
They pro, most likely they don't love sitting at the piano for three hours in that moment.
But at some point they've got the skillset and they've, they, they can play the piano
all of a sudden.
But if at some point they find that they enjoyed themselves, their spirit is involved in the
equation all of a sudden that's when they're masters of their craft.
I'm trying to use other things than just the gospel because like you said, this comes from
like human psychology.
There are things that we do for different reasons, it reaches a different level of consciousness
or whatever.
Yep.
And higher and holier that is being called to the next level, right?
Because it is a beautiful and wonderful thing to do things with muscle memory.
Just watching it, like when you watch the Olympics, I cry during the Olympics because
I'm like, how does a body do that?
How, what did it take them to do that?
I mean, it's just beautiful.
You know what I mean?
Exactly.
I would say too, like a world, a world Olympic athlete, a gold medalist in a sprinting event
could be creamed in if, if, if we threw them all of a sudden, we threw them into a cross
country long distance event.
Oh yeah.
Totally different skill.
If they just loved to run period and then their body could adapt to whatever it'd be
one thing, but like they've created a habit of doing this skillset perfectly by repetition.
Totally good Abby.
So want to spend a little bit more time on that last, that last piece of it, like acting
on faith.
That's how we're going to incorporate our spirits into deepening our testimony.
Yes.
Deepening our roots.
Yes.
I love it.
At the end, Abby, he talked about different things about faith.
So he says, faith is strong when it has deep roots in personal experience, personal commitment
to Jesus Christ, independent of what our traditions or what others may say or do.
Faith is beautiful, beautiful because it persists even when blessings don't come as hoped for.
And then he says, faith endures the trials and the uncertainties of life because it is
firmly rooted in Christ and his doctrine.
And then I love this part.
He just says, we should not expect to understand everything before we act.
That is not faith.
Just like Alma taught, faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things.
If we wait to act until all of our questions are answered, we severely limit the good we
can accomplish and we limit the power of our faith.
Love that part.
You did a good job on this.
What I'm finding interesting as I'm thinking about this talk is that there are parts and
pieces of my testimony that I can stop and reflect on and think, what actions am I doing
my life that are out of habit?
Is it time to take it to the next level and do it for like faith promotion more versus
just doing it because that's what I've always done.
And I don't think that all comes at the same time, all those pieces of work that don't.
You're right.
They're all different components that work together for it.
And I think that's good too.
If you dig up a tree, they don't all have equal length of roots.
If you have a sprinkler system on your lawn or whatever your means for watering and you
were to look, you'd be like, oh, that really watered this part of it.
And that's not a bad thing.
I would say things centered around covenants and the temple, like those go really, really
deep and there could be other areas that I'm like, trust my profits or whatever.
I'm just saying this out loud.
That's not mine.
I'm just giving ideas that you're like, okay, what part can I consider that I really want
to put the effort into doctrine?
Love that, Abby.
So in closing, yes.
He says a testimony is not something that you build once and it stands forever.
Darn it.
I love one and done things, but this is not it.
And it's worth it too.
It's more like a tree that you nourish constantly.
You shall reap the rewards of your faith and your diligence and your patience and long
suffering waiting for the tree to bring forth fruit unto you.
I love his words in saying that this is a marathon and not a short distance thing and
all of the efforts we put into putting Jesus Christ at the root of our lives and of our
testimony.
Everything pays off.
Thanks for being here today.
Catch you on the next one.