A Talk I Prepared

This is a talk I gave in the Makaha Ward of the Makakilo, Hawaii Stake in January 2004, as a stake Young Single Adult representative

***January 11, 2004 SACRAMENT MEETING NOTES: A Talk
          A couple of days ago I got a call from Bishop Wegesand.  I think he was a little surprised that I was to speak in your ward today and he asked me why.  I, I told him, I think it's President Paet's idea of a joke.  Or at least that's what I thought, when I saw the printout of this year's stake speakers.  I saw the email and straight away called my dad.  He just laughed at me, because he had already seen it.  In a later meeting with President Paet I found out there were not typos.  He had assigned all four of the Stake Single Adult Representatives to speak in 2004 - so here I am.
          I am very honored to be here today and to be speaking with one of my personal heroes, Brother Tiave.  When i was a youth, he was in charge of the youth program.  As I got older, I moved into the singles branch, and Brother Tiave was the 1st Counselor in the Branch Presidency.  Brother Tiave has always been an example of great patience, which anyone who knows his sons can attest to, and great faith, which anyone who knows what he drives can attest to.  And, I am really grateful to be able to accompany him today.  For me, Bother Tiave is a person that stands for his beliefs.
          President Gordon B. Hinckley wrote a book called, Standing for Something.  It outlines different things we should stand for.
           The first thing he talks about is love. He says, "One of the greatest challenges we face in our hurried, self-centered lives is to follow the counsel of the Master, to take the time to make the effort to care for others, to develop and exercise the one quality that would enable us to change the lives of others - what the scriptures call charity . . . . best defined, charity is the pure love exemplified by Jesus Christ.  It embraces kindness, a reaching out to lift and help, the sharing of one's bread if need be."
          Our single adults know a thing or two about bread; or, at least, now they do.  At one of our family home evening nights this past year, we made banana bread that was to be delivered to homes of some non-members and less-active members.  Now, normally when you bake anything, as a rule of thumb the first thing you do is mix the sugar with the butter - and that is the basic mixture.  One of our "bread-making-groups" had different thoughts; they mixed the eggs with the butter and sifted the sugar with the flour.  It was really entertaining to watch them sort of dump everything together, give it a swirl and throw it into a pan.  In the end we they had sort of a lumpy, wad that didn't resemble anything like bread batter.  Aside from that mistake, when we took the bread out of he oven we couldn't tell that one apart from the other two.  So we thought it was alright.  Because of timing, the bread wasn't delivered until a few days later.  I had asked my dad and my brother to visit a different family from the ones they had intended to visit -  which they did.  After that we invited that family over to one of our family home evenings (without all the single adults).  So, I asked the mom how the bread was.  She looked at me for a second, and was kind of deciding to put it nicely, I guess.  Finally she said, "it was horrible!  You couldn't exactly eat it, you kind of had to gnaw at it because it was so hard."  We all laughed and my dad told her the story of our poor, little wayward group.  But that didn't matter to her.  What did matter was her daughter who had considered going in-active and her son who was in-active were able to share a family home evening with us.  The next week they even came to a single-adult family home evening where they could start making friends and feel of the love we had to offer them.
          President Hinckley went on to say, "Love is the only force that can erase the difference between people or bridge the chasms of bitterness. . . . if the world is to be improved, the process of love must make a change in the hearts of humans.  It can do so when we look beyond self to give our love to God and others, and to do so with all our hears, with all our souls, and with all our minds."
          We can stand for love in helping one another and serving one another without taking thought for ourselves.
          Another topic, President Hinckley, wrote on was forgiveness and mercy.  He said, "We have need of forgiveness, mercy and compassion . . . for they are the essence of goodness. . . . Too often, too many people spend their days blaming others, nurturing grudges and planning retribution."
          My most favorite example of forgiveness is the story of the prodigal son.  With all the wrong the youngest son did, his father still forgave him.  This reminds me that whatever wrong I  do or faults I have, I still have the ability to repent.  And because I can repent, I can be forgiven, and because I can be forgiven, I can forgive others.
          We were in a class one day, either Sunday School or Institute or it might have been Family Home Evening, anyway, we were trying to decipher the difference between forgiveness and mercy.  We came to the conclusion that it was  a thought and action situation.  Mercy is the thought and forgiveness is the action.
          President Hinckley went on to say, "The willingness to forgive is a sign of spiritual and emotional maturity. . . . Imagine a world filled with individuals willing both to apologize and to accept an apology."
          We can stand for forgiveness and mercy by being quick to seek forgiveness and to forgive others.
          President Hinckley also talks about gratitude.  He says, "When we walk with gratitude we do not walk with arrogance and conceit and egotism, but rather with a spirit of thanksgiving that is becoming to us and will bless our lives . . . we ought to be grateful, to be thankful, to walk with appreciation and respect for the blessings of life and happiness that we enjoy."
          The holiday season is usually about the time of year when I remember how grateful I am for things.  One of my institute teachers, a few years ago, started a tradition with is students.  He had us go through the alphabet and for each letter write something that started with that letter that we were thankful for.  The real challenge comes as I try to do it year after year.  To try to think of new things that start with the letter "X", and to try to think of specific things I was grateful for in the past year.  But the point was - if you can make it through the entire alphabet then you have at least 26 things to be grateful for, and you must be pretty well off.
          One of the best places to start being grateful is in our prayers.  That is because everything we have is a  blessing from our Father in Heaven.  Being thankful in our prayers is a way we can show our love for our Heavenly Father.  I know that as we truly start to think about and pray about the things we are grateful for - gratitude towards others will become a natural reaction.
          On the topic of gratitude, president Hinckley went on to say, "We ought to express our gratitude daily in countless ways - to each other, to our parents and other family members who have contributed so dramatically to our lives, to friends who have given us the benefit of the doubt again and again, to colleagues and associates who motivate and inspire us to reach higher and do better, to prudent leaders who serve selflessly, and particularly to . . . [God] . . . from Whom all ultimate blessings and goodness flow."
          We can stand for gratitude by showing our thankfulness to our Heavenly Father and to those around us.
          The last thing President Hinckley talked about was faith.  He said, "If there is any one thing that you and I need . . . it is faith - that dynamic, powerful, marvelous element by which, as Paul declared, the very worlds were framed (Heb. 11:3).  I refer not to some ethereal concept but of a practical, pragmatic, working faith - the kind of faith that moves us to get on our knees and plead with the Lord for guidance, and then, having a measure of divine confidence, get on our feet and go to work to help bring the desired results to pass. . . . Could not any of us say that if we had greater faith in God we could do better than we are now doing?  There is no obstacle too great, no challenge too difficult, if we have faith.  With faith we can rise above those negative element in our lives that constantly pull us down."
          The scriptures are full of stories of faith; as are the Ensign, New Era and Friend magazines.  there are a great many published works, produced by the church that detail, describe and define faith.  But all of that has little meaning unless you have faith.  That is because faith, real faith, starts within you.  Faith is what got you out of bed this morning.  Some hope that all of this is true: that the church is true, that there is a living God, that the principles and doctrines we learn about every week are true.  That's where it starts.  Knowing for yourself that hose things are true.  Having that knowledge takes faith.  Faith does not necessarily make life easier but id does provide a calming peace that makes life worth it.  We can stand for faith by building our faith of what we believe in.
          If we can stand for these things: love, forgiveness and mercy, gratitude and faith, I know, we will be blessed.  Revelations 21:3 - gives us a glimpse of those promised blessings, "...behold the tabernacle of God is with me, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.  And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."
          We live in a time of religious freedom.  More religious freedom than any other previous time period and more religious freedom than any other place on Earth.  We do not face direct persecution.  We do not need to fear for our lives because of our beliefs.  We do need to stand up for our beliefs.  Not by being loud.  Not by drawing a lot of unnecessary attention to ourselves.  But, simply by living the commandments of God everyday.  By not fearing the judgments of those around us, and realizing that we are not alone.  Realizing that we have the support of the members of this church.  We have the support and the love of the leaders of our church  And, we have the love of our Father in Heaven and His son, Jesus Christ.
          I know this church is true.  I know that we can stand up for our beliefs.  Although, I know, it will not be easy it will be possible.  I know that if we do stand up for our beliefs we will be greatly blessed.  Imagine the world described in Revelations 21, a world without pain or death or tears.  That is a promise I look forward to.  It is something I can work towards.
          I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.