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Welcome to closer to Christ through general conference.
Where two friends who love Jesus share our own approach to studying the most recent general conference talks.
This is Abby and Amy. Let's jump into it.
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The words of Christ and the Holy Ghost will lead us to truth.
This is the talk we get to discuss today, which was done by Elder Takashi Wada of the Seventy.
Let's take a few excerpts from his talk. He says,
God is our Father in heaven. We are his spirit children.
We are created after his image. Therefore, each of us, as a child of God, has divine potential to become like him.
By coming to earth, we would leave God's presence, forget our primordial life, receive bodies of flesh and bones,
gain our own experience, and develop faith.
Through his sacrifice, the atonement,
Jesus Christ made it possible for us to be redeemed from our sins and be resurrected and receive eternal life.
And that was a good plan, wasn't it, Amy?
It was.
Let's ask a question. Well, let me ask you a question.
How does the plan of salvation help us reach our divine potential?
I love that you said that was a good plan, because clearly we both thought it was a good plan, which is why we're here.
Yeah. So again, we second that.
You're here too.
We second it. Yes.
You know, when we learn that we're children of God and that he loves us with a perfect love
and wants us to return to live with him and our heavenly mother,
and then we learn that we come to earth and make mistakes along the way and a savior was provided,
that alone brings meaning and substance to our life on earth.
And then as far as divine identity, that's what President Nelson said,
the way you think about who you are affects every decision you will make.
Make no mistake about it. Your potential is divine.
With your diligence seeking, God will give you glimpses of who you may become.
And then when Elder Wada was taking, well, when he was taking the lessons from the missionaries,
they hit a certain point and he wasn't sure he wanted to move forward or how.
He stepped out of the room and as he did, he listened to this prayer that they gave to him or that they said on behalf of him.
He said this about the prayer.
I realized that their prayer in my behalf was a reflection of Heavenly Father and the Savior's love for me.
That love gave me hope.
And afterward I did ask God in faith and with real intent.
When I did, I felt a joyful and peaceful feeling that I was indeed a child of God and that I had a divine potential and destiny.
The plan of salvation sank deep into my heart.
I love that part because then it made it, because he felt that love was real and it was accompanied with the truth.
So, you know, the Holy Ghost witnessed the truth to his heart. He was able to move forward.
The fact that it brought him hope in Jesus Christ is my favorite part.
And because the Holy Ghost taught the truth of a loving God and Savior, Elder Wada was able to move forward with confidence on the covenant path and he was baptized.
Abby, how have the words of Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost brought peace to your life?
I would say the actions of Jesus Christ have brought me peace.
I love thinking of the actions that he's done on behalf of me, on behalf of all of the people of the world that have ever, ever existed.
But, you know, given that opportunity to search out the words, like that could be a really great thing for this talk.
If you had sisters preparing to study this talk and preparing to share about it, you would send out a little thing.
You would say like, you give them a chance in advance, like search the words of Jesus Christ and bring something to share that's brought like that specific piece in your life.
That could spark like such a great conversation.
Absolutely. That's a great idea.
So given that opportunity to for myself, that took me to Matthew 11 verses 28 through 30.
Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
As I study the things that my Savior did in his life, I never come out thinking that his yoke was easy and his burden was light.
I'm always amazed at the things that he did.
And I'm always amazed at the peace that I feel when I do yoke myself with him.
And I am amazed at the way that the weight is taken off of me as we're doing things together.
So I've come to the scripture.
I've realized the blessings of the scripture many times in my life.
That's so good, Abby. I love that.
Here's another one.
Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost, wherefore they speak the words of Christ.
Wherefore I say unto you, feast upon the words of Christ, for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things that you should do.
Second Nephi 32.3.
So if you were given that same invitation, what words would you say, what words of Christ would you say have brought you peace in your own life?
So I was going to share a different story, but you know that last, Abby knows this, our listeners don't know.
Last week we were going to record this episode and my two basset puppies went missing and they are my husband's pride and joy.
They've been almost like service animals to him since his stroke.
And they've just brought a lot of peace or happiness to our lives.
And they've been gone now for a week.
And what was most interesting is, you know, we looked for him and looked for him all last Sunday until it was dark.
And then after a while, you know, we came in and there was nothing else we could do in the dark.
Right. We'd done as much as we could. We got it side by side stuck. We got a snowmobile stuck and rescued.
And an avalanche. So it was not safe to continue.
Yeah, it wasn't smart to do that. So, so at that point we got down as a family and we all prayed and we just asked for at that point, you know, help us find our Duke and Dolly.
And what's interesting to me is that every single one of us in that room felt an overwhelming peace.
There is nothing else. There's no other word you could put with it.
And for me, I just it felt like the peace that surpasses understanding.
I was like, that makes sense to me because my understanding tells me I have two dogs that are out there who might be, you know, taken by an animal and eaten or whatever.
And there would be not a reason to have peace in your heart if that was the the situation.
So that's why I felt like, oh, that's what it feels like when it surpasses understanding.
I didn't know how we all had peace.
And then as the week has progressed, you know, Garrett, a couple of times we went to the temple and in the scriptures, you know, he opened up the scriptures and there were the words, look unto me in every thought, doubt not, fear not.
And just that has also brought a lot of peace to us.
And Abby, I was I was just going to say, you know, the interesting thing is that every person in my family has felt complete peace.
That is undeniable. What's a little bit tricky is that each one of us has kind of assigned our own meaning to what that peace is.
And that's where it gets that word.
That's where it gets a little tricky, like I said, because we're supposed to, you know, the reason we're here is to be on this earth, to have experiences and to what were the words it says, develop faith.
Well, this is one way we develop faith.
We pray, we we listen to our feelings and we move forward and it's kind of hard to share or I shouldn't say hard. It's a little vulnerable to share this story right now because I'm still in the middle of it.
It's not like wrapped up with a bow. I haven't looked back on it and said, oh, this and this and this is what I've learned.
I have a week behind me. We've gone to the temple. I think we went four times this past week, Garrett and I.
We continue to pray and just seek God in every thought. And what we feel like is that they that our dogs are out there and that they'll come back to us.
That's how we feel right now, because if I had if I had to put any word or any word to the feelings I've gotten as I prayed and gone to the temple, there is a peaceful feeling and there's also a hopeful feeling.
So when I put both of those feelings together, I have hope that they'll come back to us. Do I have any idea knowing when? No, I don't.
And we may record this next week or in the weeks coming up and it may end in a different way.
But I would say that it has been a trying thing for my family. And definitely each one of us is learning what it feels like when the spirit speaks to us.
And we've talked a lot about feelings and how we like to assign things because my one of my sons, my oldest son, when he felt the peace, he said, oh, that means Duke and Dolly are dead.
Right. You know what I mean? It could be. We wondered if they were in the avalanche for a time. Exactly.
When they'd be gone 24 hours, he said, everything tells me along with this peace that I have in my heart that they're dead and they're in a better place.
Whereas my husband was like, nope, they're coming back. And I felt peaceful about that. It's just been so interesting. So again, time will tell.
And we'll be able to have this experience in our life and be able to really, I think, know for ourselves what it feels like when the spirit speaks to us and what it feels like when we read the words of Christ.
So I think that's what I feel is hopeful, peaceful, and the words of Christ really bring peace to me every time I read them.
So if I were to ask you to backtrack and consider the story that first came to your mind that you decided not to share, was it one that's come full circle that you know the outcome of?
I had more of a breakthrough on it. Like, it's just awesome. I think you should share it. Are you prepared?
Well, I don't know.
Maybe not. You can say no. You don't have to say yes.
Yeah, no, I will say this. That like, it was just a challenge I had that was consuming my thoughts.
And what came to my mind about it was President Nelson when he talked about how our trials might loom like Mount Everest.
I was like, oh, shoot, this is what I'm doing right now with this challenge. It's just a personal challenge I've been working on.
And so what I decided, when that came to my mind, I looked up the exact wording of this quote.
And this is what it said. Jesus Christ will increase your ability to move the mountains in your life, even though your personal challenges may loom as large as Mount Everest.
And I felt like both the scripture, the words of Christ will tell you all things what you should do, combined with the prophets quotes, because those are the things that came to my mind as I was studying and stuff.
Both those together really created kind of a, what would be the best word for it?
Mantra.
Kind of a mantra, yes. And also something that propelled me forward, like it spiritual momentum, you could call it. Right.
And I felt like I had a breakthrough after that. So what essentially what I came to when I prayed about it, because you know how I just said,
if think in your mind, if something is looming as large as Mount Everest, it means in my mind that I was so close to Mount Everest that it was like blocking out the sun, it was blocking out everything.
That's all I could see. And when I read those quotes, I'm a very visual person. And all of a sudden, like it was still there.
But all of a sudden, like Christ came down in front of it and he was so much brighter.
And the mountain was still there. But at that point, like my perspective changed and it was much smaller.
And that's when I understood, oh, I need to give more attention to Christ than I am to my problem.
And so what I decided was that the best way to put that is that I invited God's perspective in Jesus Christ, redeeming power into my life.
And I decided that I was going to study the atonement of Jesus Christ and give it equal time as I thought about and worked on this challenge,
giving them like, I guess equal air time, you could call it. And since then, I really did yesterday.
This is another nod to that bearing your weapons of rebellion. Like all things are good. It's good that you're working on that challenge.
Yeah, but it work in a different way.
And with some constraints, like with some time constraints, like you're saying I want to move the pendulum forward on this problem,
but I do also recognize I have other things in my life that also do have precedence, not presence, but they all need to be happening simultaneously.
And then, you know, how it says the words of Christ will tell you all things what you should do.
I just love that because I was like, yeah, I did. It said study the atonement more in your life and see what happens.
And I have been. And it's fantastic.
I love this. This feels very action item-y.
So we would ask as an action item, what does it look like for me to apply the words of Christ to my current challenges?
And I would say off of that, you're giving me this idea that as I'm approaching a challenge, I recognize that it's a stumbling block.
It's something that's really holding me up.
If I know that the words of Christ have been provided in a way that they can teach me everything that I need to have,
that if I look under Christ, that all things will be looking to Christ in every action, thought, whatever.
I'm not a great scriptorian, but basically that my eyes can be on Him or that when I'm struggling,
peace, He lives with me, peace I will give to you not as the world give us, but as I give you, not your heart be troubled.
There's like one after the next.
I'm not such a scriptorian that those will just naturally come to me.
I will have to like dig into the scriptures.
But I'm thinking as I'm approaching different challenges that I can ask for help in being directed to the words that would bring me the most comfort of peace in that scenario.
I love that, Abby. I will share this last thing. It was so fantastic.
So I like to look, I like to study in topics, you know, so one of the challenges I'm working with, I decided to look up the topics on, I went into, you know, LDS tools,
and then I clicked on the topic that I wanted. There are 101 conference talks on that.
And as far as I've gone so far, I've been listening since January and I've gone all the way.
Yesterday I hit 2006. That means we're almost 20 years.
So think of it this way. On this specific topic that I've been studying, I have 20 years of insight, of scriptures, of different stories, of quotes from the brethren, all on this one topic.
And I loved it because it really was just so empowering feeling all of this information.
It was kind of like I had 20 years, but it was all before my face as if it were present.
And I was able to adapt it and use it, funnel it into this one problem that I'm working on now.
In 2025.
Yes. And I have to tell you, I remember so specifically some of the talks I've been listening to. I'm like, no way that was not 10 years ago.
And no way that was not 15 years ago. The one I just listened to was from elder Shane Bowen in 2006.
It was the one that he talked about with the landfill, how there were layers and layers and layers of this and it was reclaimed land.
And now there is a temple. It's the Idaho Falls temple is built on that. I totally remember that talk.
But guess what? Now, 19 years later, when I'm listening to it again, having listened to 20 years of almost 20 years of conference talks on this subject, it was fantastic.
Like it had so much more meaning and I was like, oh, I have experience in life now. I have 20 years of experience on this.
And so this totally makes more sense. And so I just hit a major breakthrough yesterday and I was so, so grateful for that.
It felt like a very specific tutoring session just for me and that like I just love I can't say it enough.
I love the fact that we have this all at our fingertips. Any one of us can study what we want to.
It's right there in front of us and it's so easy now. So it just felt like it was almost like an untapped gift that the Lord had for me.
And when I decided to study this and give it just as much worry and thought and study as I was on my problem, that it really has changed.
And I felt it. Garrett, my husband's noticed it. Like there is a change within me and I could not be more grateful for that.
He's giving her a good thumbs up. I love that. I love that you testified of the power that can come as we, if we ask for direction on, you know, where our mind and where our time, where our heart should be focused on.
And he gave you a treasure trove of things to look back on. I would add my testimony to the power that comes in these conference talks as we're getting them firsthand,
as we look back on them over the six months and as we look back on them 20, 30, 40 years in the rear. It's crazy. Any final thoughts, Amy?
Yes. So in closing, he says this, I invite you to have faith in the message Nephi taught us that the words of Christ and the Holy Ghost will direct you to all things what you should do, everything.
This is an incredible gift from God.
That's a wrap. We'll catch you next time. See you next time.