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 Abby and Amy. Let's
jump into it. Today's talk, Our Heavenly Guidance
System by Elder Sergio R. Vargas of the Seventy.
He starts out this talk by speaking about the
beauty of God's creation in his home country
of Chile. He said as he takes it all in, the
beauty of the world, it's easy to see that all
things denote that there is a God. Then he draws
a comparison of the salmon in his home country
of Chile to us as children of God. I quote, Salmon
are born in the source of rivers. At some point
in their lives, they need to swim downriver to
reach the ocean, where they find the nourishment
and conditions necessary for their development.
However, the ocean poses dangers, like predators
and fishermen. If they survive, salmon return
upriver to their birthplace. facing various challenges.
Researchers have found that salmon navigate using
an innate magnetic map, a powerful guidance system,
akin to our own personal GPS, allowing them to
reach their destination with remarkable precision.
We can all return one day to the heavenly home
from where we came, and like the salmon, we have
our own magnetic map, or light of Christ, to
guide us there. Jesus taught his disciples, I
am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh
unto the Father but by me. I love how God can
teach us such simple yet profound truths from
our surroundings. We've talked about this before
with just where we live in nature. There are
so many things to go from that. So many lessons.
From the family proclamation, we read that each
of us is a beloved spirit son or daughter of
heavenly parents. And as such, each has a divine
nature and destiny. In the premortal realm, spirit
sons and daughters knew and worshiped God as
their eternal father. And they also accepted
his plan by which his children could obtain a
physical body. and gain earthly experience to
progress forward and toward perfection and then
ultimately realize their divine destiny as heirs
of eternal life um so then he starts talking
about this about jesus christ he says before
his birth and mortality jesus christ appeared
to moses and he spoke to him on behalf of the
father he told moses he had a great work for
him to do during the meeting the lord called
him my son several times we've talked about this
before and we all know this story very well after
the that experience satan came tempting him saying
moses son of man worship me Abby, what was Moses'
response to this attempt by Satan, the father
of all lies? So Moses responds to the temptation
by shutting him down, you know, to being called
the son of man. He knows his divine nature. And
he says, who art thou? For behold, I am a son
of God. And that truth freed Moses from the attacks
the adversary was trying to put against him.
I love that. I feel like this teaches us and
reminds us of the powerful truth that all truth
comes from God. If it's not truth, it's not from
him. One of the reasons I love to record and
type out priesthood blessings is that when Satan
sends his hooks of mortality, like Elder Vargas
talks about in this, I can read God's truth on
that very subject. And one season of our life,
it felt like my husband would not find a paying
job. When I'd hear Satan's taunting in my mind,
that kind of felt like logic, you know? I would
open my binder of blessings and I would read
the words that God told me about our promised
gainful employment and the monetary blessings
that would follow. Referring to my priesthood
blessings on the subject was my way of saying,
Satan, who art thou? For behold, I am a daughter
of God. And essentially, I care what he says
about the subject. More than you. Not you. And
then I love that he says this. He says, brothers
and sisters, the hooks of mortality are real.
They are often enticing, but they seek only one
target to pull us out of the course of living
waters that lead to the father and eternal life.
He's so good with his stories. He shared a personal
story in this talk. He said, I know how real
the hooks of mortality can be. One Sunday as
a new convert, I was teaching a priesthood class
when an unsettling conversation arose. I struggled
to finish my lesson. I took offense and felt
that I was the victim. Without saying a word,
I headed for the exit with the idea that I would
not return to church for a while. In that very
moment, a concerned priesthood holder stood in
front of me. He lovingly invited me to focus
on Christ and not on the situation we had experienced
in class. As I looked back on the experience
with him, he shared with me that he heard a voice
tell him, go after him. He is important to me.
Love that. We're all important to him. President
Nelson taught that because of our covenant with
God, he will never tire of... his efforts to
help us, and we will never exhaust his merciful
patience with us. So it really leads us to an
action item. I wonder if each of us could just
take a minute and look back and identify a pivotal
moment in our own discipleship and ask, how did
I choose to respond when I was offended at church?
If you haven't been offended at church, you haven't
been going long enough. No, I'm serious. But
like, I know that I've told myself something's
happened. I'm like, man, if I was the type to
get offended, that would have done it right there.
Yes. But, you know, but how did we respond instead?
The Lord, you know, maybe you could recognize
that the Lord sent someone like this concerned
friend to help you in that moment of your spiritual
need. Now that just can add a further testimony
of his love, particularly for you. Yeah. I like,
too, that it says, I mean, it was kind of the
end of the story when he said, as I looked back
on the experience with him, that's when the guy
shared, this is what I heard. And you know what
I mean? It just came full circle at that. I like
that he had enough humility. It wasn't in that
moment. It must have been years later. He's like,
you know what? I was thinking about stepping
away from the church all these years ago. You
got in front of me. And he's like, you know,
in that moment, I was told to stand in front
of you and tell you what you're needed. So I
love that he took the time to ponder because
you're right. It wasn't in that moment. It was
later. He thought, wait a sec. And he talked.
about it with him and then he heard that part
i love that he had the humility to circle back
around and to have that conversation yeah it's
good um just as salmon need to be nourished in
the ocean to grow we also need to nourish ourselves
spiritually to avoid dying by spiritual malnutrition
and then he reminds us that prayer the scriptures
the temple and our regular attendance at sunday
meetings are vital in our spiritual menu Then
he shares that in November of 1956, Ricardo Garcia
entered the waters of baptism in Chile. He was
the first member of the church in his country.
And then one day before he died, he bore his
testimony to his family and his friends. He said,
many years ago, missionaries invited me to be
happy along with my family. I am a happy man.
Tell everyone in Chile. The gospel is happiness.
This first member turned missionary was influential
in Elder Vargas' life and indirectly, whether
they realize it or not, in every member of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints
in Chile since that baptism. We all stand on
the shoulders of those that have gone before
us. And this reminds me of a story of my dad's
maternal grandfather. He's one of these people
in my family and also in the country of Mexico.
He was the first Mexican called to serve a full
-time mission for the church. This was during
the Mexican Revolution of 1910 to 1912. One day
he was on a street corner with his companion
and they were singing in the suite by and by.
A crowd started gathering and they started yelling
at him for singing a Protestant song. when he,
quote, wasn't Christian. Soon they pulled the
police to the corner, and my grandpa found himself
with his companion in a Mexican prison. While
he was there, he wrote the words to this hymn.
He rewrote the words. The next day, this always
cracks me up, Abby, the next day he and his companion
were miraculously released from prison, and this
is the part, that evening they sang on that same
street corner. but now it was a different song
when the crowd gathered and called for them to
return to prison my grandpa let them know it
wasn't the same song the words had changed he
continued to sing god's truth through the lyrics
the spirit had helped him write the night before
And now, just this past week, this hymn has been
sung over 100 years in Spanish. First as Desperida,
and later as Placentero Nos Es Trabajar. And
now it's translated in English and all of the
other languages in the new hymn book. It's 1033,
How Sweet Is Our Joy. And then... I'm going to
jump back to the talk because I feel like the
words that Elder Vargas used for the pioneer
that he was talking about in Chile totally had
the same sentiment for the words of my grandpa.
He says, His first member, or sorry, the first
Mexican missionary, who was my grandpa, he said,
his example of discipleship has blessed generations,
including me. The prophet Joseph Smith taught
that a man filled with love of God is not content
with blessing his family alone, but ranges through
the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human
race. Deep inside each of us, like the salmon,
is that desire to return to our heavenly home.
And Jesus Christ is our heavenly guidance system.
He is the way, and his atoning sacrifice makes
it possible for us to make safe covenants with
God. And I love that he underscores that Jesus
Christ is the heavenly guidance system. So essentially,
that's the title of the talk, right? Right. Jesus
Christ. Yes. He also underlines two ways that
we can remember Jesus or make him part of our
lives. And the first one is that through the
sacrament we take each Sunday. He taught a principle
we've heard before, maybe explained in a different
way than we've heard it before. This is what
I heard. Why do we remember our sins when Jesus
himself said, I ever remember your sins no more?
Jesus' atoning sacrifice allows our sins to be
forgiven to the point that he no longer remembers
them. We may not totally forget our sins as part
of our mortal learning, so we will remember not
to repeat them. I like how he said that. Because
some people will be like, well, I'm not really
sure if I'm forgiven for that thing because I
still remember it. Well, you're going to remember
it. Just shouldn't remember the shame or guilt
or fear that attaches it. You should ideally
get to the point that you remember. I know that
those feelings existed, but I can look back on
that and remember that he's helped me feel peace
about it. I love that. Another question, how
do we take the sacrament in a way that helps
us become new creatures in Christ? So instead
of remembering or hashing out our own sins and
imperfections, thinking maybe we're not worthy
for that offering, for that blessing that we
have of being forgiven, we'll remember him as
we take the sacrament at church every Sunday.
So the question, how do we renew our body and
spirit through the sacrament? He reminds us that
we replace guilt for our own sins with remembering
Jesus and taking his spirit with us. So another
way you might say this is that we lay our sins
on the altar. We ask for a Christlike attribute
to take its place in our spirit and in our body.
I love that, Abby. I really liked how he said
to renew our body and our spirit because it did
make me think like, what's he really saying?
Because I do believe that physically. Like I
believe it literally. You know what I mean? So
I do like that it goes through and he was essentially
saying just, I liked his process. Second is through
the temple. He says we also remember him when
we go to the temple, the house of the Lord. The
temple gives us a deeper knowledge of Jesus Christ
as the center of the covenant that leads us to
eternal life, the greatest of the gifts of God.
He then tells us about his two sons that have
special needs. And he talked about how for him
personally, what the temple is for him is that
when he goes to the house of the Lord, he's able
to find peace and kind of a reprieve. He said
that they're going to need special care for the
rest of their lives. And so I just thought that
was a really good thing. He talked about it as
being an unseen illness and how many people are
struggling with an unseen illness. Do you know
what I mean? I know your two children, when I
look at them, they don't look sick. And yet.
Like their condition occupies most every thought
that I have. Exactly. And the doctor's appointments
that are hours long and in another state, just
all those types of things. You know what I mean?
But someone who didn't know, we're in a small
valley and most people know that. But you know,
it's this kind of aside from this, but the next
talk that we're going to close up the session
with is on worship and something about it. Oh,
it's because I went back to Elder Kieran's talk
from the time before because he kind of happily
references that. Yes, he does. And he talks about
how like the sacrament as a time for renewal,
rejuvenation and stuff maybe doesn't look that
way when you're like wrestling like piles of
little kids on your bench or for those who have
kids with special needs that require like so
much attention, but that he wanted them to remember
that every act of service that they do on behalf
of these, you know, children that are in their
care is worship. amazing so yeah the temple it's
it's special and spiritual and it's kind of like
your own reflective time but also rethinking
like you know everything that that he's doing
in his life is he's caring for these children
that he'll care for you know well into their
adulthood is is maybe one of the mechanisms that
is get is is his heavenly guidance system absolutely
getting him back home making him more christ
-like and Yeah. Helping him get through the weeks
too. Do you have anything else, Abby? No. To
add? Okay. I'm going to end with his testimony
and invitation. He says, I invite all of us today
to center our lives on Jesus Christ and his teachings.
Doing so will help us avoid biting the hooks
of temptation, offense, and self -pity. We will
stand as temples, holy, firm, and constant. We
will weather the storms and we will make it home,
enduring to the end and rejoicing to the end.
In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Thank
you.