Good Morning Brothers and Sisters!  I hope that you are all doing well.  My study this week took me down several paths and I hope that your study was meaningful to you.  I believe that this week’s lesson was meant to help give us time to reflect on our lives and take inventory of the things that we need to correct.  I hope that you were able to find time to peacefully reflect on the promptings that the spirit taught you.  I know that finding quiet time is a hard thing to come by these days.   

In 4 weeks, we will have the privilege of participating in General Conference.  This event excites me, for one because it is an event that will actually happen when it was originally scheduled.  General Conference will continue to be held in a little different manner than I would like, but we will have the opportunity to hear from our prophet and leaders.  I have never in my life been so grateful for a prophet than I am today.  I know that there are things that I would like to have the Prophet tell us (ex. The exact moment that this pandemic will end and life will return to “normal”).  Past experience will tell me that the prophet probably won’t answer this question.  Instead, I will hear messages that I have heard before, but they will inspire me in a different way where my testimony will be strengthened and I will be at peace.  During General Conference, we might be given instruction on updates to church callings, curriculum or policy.  We might hear things that are hard for us to accept because we have always done something a certain way.  We might confuse policy changes as changes to doctrine and get confused on the reason for the change.  In any event, we should follow the prophet.  We should pray for the Spirit to touch our hearts.  We should pray for additional understanding. 

I found a few quotes this week about prophets that I would like to share:

Ezra Taft Benson: “The prophet will not necessarily be popular with the world or the worldly.  As a prophet reveals truth, it divides the people.  The honest in heart heed his words, but the unrighteous either ignore the prophet or fight him.  When the prophet points out the sins of the world, the worldly, rather than repent of their sins, either want to close the mouth of the prophet ore else act as if the prophet doesn’t exist.  Popularity is never a test of truth.  Many a prophet has been killed or cast out.  As we come closer to the Lord’s second coming, you can expect that as the people of the world become more wicked, the prophet will be less popular with them.”

Ezra Taft Benson: “How we respond to the words of a living prophet when he tells us what we need to know, but would rather not hear, is a test of our faithfulness.”

Henry B Eyring: “When we reject the counsel which comes from God, we do not choose to be independent of outside influence.  We choose another influence.  We reject the protection of a perfectly loving, all-powerful, all-knowing Father in Heaven, whose whole purpose, as that of His Beloved Son, is to give us eternal life, to give us all that He has, and to bring us home again in families to the arms of His Love.  In rejecting His counsel, we choose the influence of another power, whose purpose is to make us miserable and whose motive is hatred.  We have moral agency as a gift of God.  Rather than the right to choose to be free of influence, it is the inalienable right to submit ourselves to whoever of those powers we choose.”

The Story of Samuel the Lamanite is extremely pertinent to our day.  We find this story in the Book of Mormon after years of intense battles between the Nephites and the Lamanites.  Satan has stirred up the hearts of both peoples to the extent that there are many who do not believe the teachings of the prophets.  However, we find that there is a group of Lamanites that repented of their sins and gave up their weapons of war (see Hel 15:4-10) and are following the commandments.  They have been “steadfast” and honor their covenants “circumspectly” (which means vigilantly) and strive with “unwearied diligence” to teach their families the truth.  

We too find ourselves in a world that is in a similar battle between light and darkness.   It is easy to be confused with what is truth.  There are secret combinations and Gadianton Robbers everywhere.  We have been blessed with a living Prophet on the earth to warn us of such dangers.  The prophet will call us to repentance and lovingly teach us how to find safety.  We have been blessed to be able to make covenants.  Honoring these covenants will keep us safe from the adversary.  Like the Lamanites, we may need to teach members of our families who had been previously taught the gospel how to live the gospel.      

Samuel’s message to the Nephites confirmed what Nephi had taught the Nephites many years previous.  Nephi and Samuel prophesied that the Savior of the World would be born.  Hel 16:14 – Is it no wonder that “angels did appear unto men, wise men, and did declare unto them glad tidings of great joy”?  And how did the people react to Samuel’s teaching?  Hel 16:12, “And there was but little alteration in the affairs of the people”. 

As we hear the messages of the prophets in the upcoming weeks, I hope that our lives will not remain unaltered.  I hope that we will delight in the “Glad Tidings of Great Joy” that Jesus is the Christ.  That Jesus came to earth and died for our sins and that if we believe in and follow Jesus Christ, through “His Merits” (Hel 14:13) we will be forgiven. 

Following the Prophet and heeding his counsel will help us avoid the caution that is given in Hel 13:38 “But behold your days of probation are past, ye have procrastinated the day of your salvation until it is everlastingly too late, and your destruction is made sure; yea, for ye have sought all the days of your lives for that which ye could not obtain; and ye have sought for happiness in doing iniquity, which thing is contrary to the nature of that righteousness which is in our great and Eternal Head.” 

The words of the prophets will come to pass and it is exciting to be able to see some of those things happen in our own lifetime.  Keep up with your reading!  3^rd Nephi is truly the best rainbow after the storm. 

Sister Rooley