Elder Bednar

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

A couple of months ago we learned that an apostle was coing to visit San Diego and that of the fifteen or so Stakes in our area, he had chosen to visit our Stake. Last Sunday we had a special Stake Conference. Sadly mom and I had already bought tickest to St Louis for Charlottes baptism and were scheduled to land Sunday afternoon but we changed our tickets to take a late flight home on Saturday. Actually, it was cheaper to buy two new one way tickets than to modify the cheep tickets we had.

Stake Conference started at 9:00 and we were worried that everyone from the other fourteen stakes would try and get in, so we decided to be there when the doors opened at 7:00. We got there at 6:00 and we were the first ones there. By 6:30 there were already so many people in line that just the people in the line would fill the chapel so we weren’t sad that we got there when we did. Have you ever seen a line of people outside the church waiting to get in?

The conference was amazing. Let me give you a quick summary.

President Gosch called four people out of the audience with no warning. The first was Van Sharp, one of our young men. He did great and he talked about how the spirit is guiding him as he plans for the next four years of his life (mission, college, marriage etc). Then there was a young woman that I don’t know who talked about how God loves us and will be there for us when we need him. The next was Eva Navaro originally from PQ3. She fell off the deep end as a teenager and after hitting rock bottom she is putting her life back together. She did a great job. The last speaker was a little older (our kids generation) who basically said that Christ will never give up on you.

We then heard very short testimonies from Pres Mauseth and Pres Isaccs. I think they were given no notice either.

President Gosch then spoke and gave great messages about remembering who we are and using our time better.

Elder Bednar then got up and spent a few minutes reminding us that President Gosch has the keys for leading our stake and what he says over the pulpit is for our benefit. He emphasised that Pres Gosch wasn’t just filling time while we wait for an Apostle to speak to us but that his message is just as important as any message that Elder Bednar gives us.

He then proceeded to talk for an hour about those two messages shared by Pres Gosch. He mostly talked about remembering who we are and he gave examples out of the scriptures about people who failed because they forgot who they are and people who succeeded because they remembered.

He even pointed out that there is really only one sin, forgetting who you are. If you remember who you are then you will always make the right choice. Satan does everything he can to make us forget who we are.

In the interest of time I won’t repeat all the examples but here are the scriptures he referred to.

2 Samuel 11: 1 – 3 King David should have been with his armies and not hanging out in his apartment watching women bath.

Matt 4: 2 – 11 Satan tempting Christ. The three sins are physical apatites, fame and stuff. Satan tried to make Christ forget who he was by implying, “if you be the Son of God”.

Moses 1: 1 – 16 Satan calls Moses the son of man rather than the son of God.

We can live in a world that is getting increasingly screwy and be of good cheer.

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Temple Square is that 15th most popular tourist attraction in America drawing five million tourist every year.

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