I gave a talk in church today. A sister came up to me after church and said "I hope you have written down all that you shared today and you had better share that with all your children and extended family." Therefore, I decided to post my talk on my blog to share with my family.
I have been asked to speak on the topic of conversion.
I was given the talk Be Ye
Converted By Bonnie L.
Oscarson newly called Young Women General President and this was a talk given
by her at the October 2013 General Conference.
Her title: True
conversion occurs as you continue to act upon the doctrines you know are true
and keep the commandments, day after day, month after month.
I don’t know about you, but I remember conference talks by
the stories that are told. If I can
recall the story then I can usually remember what the meat of their talk was
about.
In Sister Oscarson’s talk you may remember the conversion
story that she shared. Agnes Hoggan and
her husband joined the church in Scotland in 1861. Suffering great persecution in their
homeland, they immigrated to America with their children. Several years later, Agnes became a widow
with eight children to support. Her
12-year old daughter, Isabelle, was lucky enough to find employment as a
servant to a wealthy, non-lds family.
Isabelle lived in their large home and helped look after
their younger children. In exchange for
her services, a small wage was paid each week to her mother. Isabelle was soon accepted as a member of the
family and began to enjoy many of the same privileges of being wealthy. This
continued for four years, until the family for whom Isabelle worked was
transferred to another state. They had
grown so fond of Isabelle that they approached her mother, Agnes, and asked for
permission to legally adopt her. They
promised they would provide her with a good education, see that she married
well, and make her an heir to their estate with their own children. They would also continue to make payments to
Agnes.
This struggling widow and mother had a hard decision to
make, But she did not hesitate for a moment.
Here are the words of her granddaughter, written many years later. “If her love had not compelled her to say no,
she had an even better reason – she had come all the way from Scotland and had
gone through tribulations and trials for the Gospel, and she did not intend to
let a child of hers lose what she had come so far to gain”.
This mother’s testimony and conversion to Gospel covenants
did not allow her to trade her daughter’s membership in the church for worldly
promises.
Sister Oscarson teaches us “The decisions which you are
called upon to make on a daily, or even hourly basis have eternal
consequences. The decisions you make in
your daily life will determine what happens to you later.
THEN COMES HER INVITATION:
“If you do not yet have a firmly rooted testimony and conviction that
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Kingdom of God on the
earth, now is the time to do what it take to gain that conviction.
“True conversion is more than merely having a knowledge of
gospel principles and implies even more than just having a testimony of those
principles. Being truly converted means
we are acting upon what we believe
and allowing it to create “a mighty
change in us”.
When you hear what it means to be truly converted, do you
ask yourself “Am I truly converted?”
“If
I am supposed to act on what I believe, what exactly do I believe?"
"Or rather
should we ask ourselves in Whom do I believe and do I trust Him enough to allow
Him to make changes in my life that will ultimately change who I become?”
“Do I want to be MORE than I am right now?”
These are all questions that I asked myself weekly even
daily at times.
Conversion includes a conscious decision to give up one’s
former ways to accept and conform to the Will of God. This isn’t merely a change in our behavior it
is a change in our very nature. Complete conversion comes after many trials and
much testing.
Conversion comes as a result of righteous efforts to follow
the Savior and become a disciple of Christ.
The first step on the pathway to discipleship requires us to
make a choice. Either we can remain in
the place where we are, or we can become something more. This choice requires great courage. I am reminded of Alma, who experienced a
change of heart after listening to the testimony of Abinadi. After pleading with the king to save Abinadi,
Alma fled for his life. In that instant everything changes. He had come to know the Lord, and through
that personal experience he came to understand that he was meant for more. That knowledge led to a journey that changed
the course of his life. From Alma we
learn that the first step toward discipleship is to make a conscious choice to
know the Lord, believe that through Him we can become more.
I remember coming to a crossroad in my life and I had to
make a choice.
There have been times when I’ve been very unhappy with my
life. Although my life is full of many
good things, I was disappointed and disillusioned with what wasn’t
happening in my life. I was
frustrated and resentful which caused me to be angry or depressed most of the
time. Desiring an outcome for our lives
but doing nothing about it results in discouragement and disappointment.
Despite efforts to fill my days and nights with service to
my family, the church and community there was an ache for something more. I was going through the motions in every
aspect of my life rather than really living and believing there was something
more I could be.
For me, it came down to recognizing my alternatives. Things could stay as they were. I had to ask myself, “how is that working for
me?” We have to remember what our loving
Father in Heaven’s plan is for us. He
doesn’t want us to live in fear, pain and frustration. No, He wants us to experience joy and
happiness in this life.
The other alternative I had was that things could get worse
and separation would be necessary. I
didn’t like how I behaved at home. I was
hurting the people I loved the most.
When thoughts of separation would enter my mind, they were overcome by a
memory of the covenants I made in the temple and I did not want to be
responsible for breaking the eternal family covenant. So separation was not an option for me.
So the only other alternative was to change myself. The desire to learn and the ability to apply
healthy behavior was necessary. But, I
didn’t know where to start.
There was a scripture that kept coming to my mind. It’s found in Matthew 11:28
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and
I will give you rest.
29 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.
30 For my yoke is
easy, and my burden is light.
Christ’s voice had been beckoning me. I was just too prideful and too stubborn to
submit. I had been “doing” the gospel, and “doing” my
family and “doing” my marriage without much inspiration or feeling. I had been so busy DOING righteous things
that I had failed to BECOME righteous.
Eventually, I gave it up.
I realized I could no longer “do” everything and “be” everything for
everyone. I laid down that yoke of
perfect “doing” with a broken heart, realizing that I had failed.
We each face breaking points that humble us. Ideally, those breaking points will draw us
to our knees with a willingness to make changes in our lives. My vulnerability brought me to my knees.
At this time of my life I really asked myself, “so where is
God?” “Is He even there?” I finally decided to pray to find out, “God,
are you there?”
No answer came! I
wasn’t feeling any sense of the Holy Ghost.
NO bright lights, no burning feelings, nothing. I got up off my knees feeling foolish and
defeated. I had learned to deal with feelings
of being punished by God, but this felt different. This was abandonment. It was a very humbling experience to feel so
utterly alone.
Several days later, a friend of mine invited me to attend an
institute class with her. I learned
firsthand that when we are humble, contrite and broken hearted, we are
teachable. I felt every lesson was meant
for me. I was hearing the same gospel
principles that I’d heard all my life, but this time it was different. This time I was receiving it. I was feeling the Holy Ghost testifying of
the truthfulness of what I was hearing.
I learned a great deal about the Savior.
And I realized that I really didn’t know Him nor did I have a personal
relationship with Him.
I remember having discussions on the subject of Faith in
Christ. We were asked the question, “How
can we increase our faith in Christ?” The comments from the group were leaning
towards “keep the commandments” and “reading the scriptures”, which are true
faith builders, but to me at the time suggested that Christ is only involved in
our lives when we’re relatively perfect, which I wasn’t even close.
Yet, I soon came to know that Christ isn’t in our lives to
just minister to the whole, and the saved, but to those who are struggling and
lost and at a loss as to how to proceed forward.
To have faith in Christ we must first understand who Christ
is, and where He is. I don’t mean, that
he is in heaven. I mean, where He is in the barren fields of our own lives - our day to day
existence. We cannot have faith in
something that is nonexistent or not active in their lives. If you don’t know how Christ interacts with
you, what His voice sounds like, how to receive answers to your prayers, or
even how He answers them, then just having a concept of Christ will not be profoundly life changing, and you
have very little to make your faith operate.
When you realize that Christ is the literal source of all
truth, and that you hear His voice constantly in your life – first as your
conscience, then further on as the powerful workings of the Holy Ghost, then
you suddenly know where Christ is, what He’s doing, and how to become a
disciple.
When you become aware and accept that this little voice of
truth that has been niggling at you all your life is actually your Savior
attempting to direct you into salvation, then you have in a very real way,
“Come Unto Christ.”
I will never forget the feeling I had when the teacher bore
testimony that Heavenly Father knew me personally and loved me
personally. I started to recognize that
this was a new and living God. I had, up
until that point, believed in my father’s God, my mother’s God and my husband’s
God.
I knew I needed to gain my own individual personal testimony
of the one and only true God and make Him mine.
Thus began the process of allowing God in His mercy to
shatter the false images I had created of Him in my subconscious mind. And it has been a process; an ongoing and
continual process because I’m still learning and gaining knowledge about God,
the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ and how He speaks to me through the Holy
Ghost.
You might be asking, “Why didn’t Heavenly Father answer me
the nights I prayed asking Him if He was there?
If He had, would I have ever studied, prayed, served, and
learned as much as I have? If He had, I
would have went on believing He was the same God I had falsely created Him to
be. He had to disconnect me from my idols and shatter the false image so I could learn who He truly is.
When we make this transition of giving up our false gods for
the True God, we experience a change of identity.
I had up to that point believed I had to earn His love, earn His attention and earn
His approval. No, that’s not true. Now I am learning
of His perfect love, acceptance and approval of me.
Brad Wilcox said in his book Continuous Conversion and I completely agree, “True conversion
occurs when we stop trying to earn heaven and start trying to learn it.
God’s delays are not always denials. He tests our faith, but by doing so He
educates it. A God who asks nothing of
us is making nothing of us, and that is not the case. He created us to become like Him.”
My goal is to become like Christ. I learn how to become like Christ by reading
my scriptures, attending church, praying and doing good works. I know when we hear those lists of “to dos”
and we’re not doing them perfectly, it’s hard not to get discouraged and be
tempted to give up. Just remember, Heavenly
Father doesn’t judge us by what we have done or haven’t done like they balance
on a scale. I believe Heavenly Father
cherishes us for what He created us to BECOME and what we’ve learned along the
journey to get there.
Over the course of several years, I have learned to take
upon myself Christ’s yoke through obeying His voice, and I have learned to
serve Him instead of myself and anyone else.
And guess what? He tells me to get up each morning and go to
work, just as before. But now I go in
His name, with His guidance, and it is a joy instead of drudgery.
I don’t remotely claim to be perfect in anything – only striving
obedience, or as obedient as my ongoing weaknesses and imperfections allow.
The Kingdom of God in Heaven is not a prize for the perfect,
but the home of all who are willing to be perfected.
We are ALL favored children of a living, loving Heavenly
Father. We don’t EARN His favoritism by
reading our scriptures, praying and serving.
By willingly and actively doing those things we LEARN just how favored
we, the covenanted promised children already are.
The Lord has provided tangible ways for us to be connected
to Him each day. The Scriptures are one
of those ways. It’s not enough to merely
breeze through the scriptures and check scripture study off our daily list, we must read with the intent to do
something about what we learn.
Membership in His church alone doesn’t make us Disciples of
Christ. Discipleship is a personal quest
and relationship with Jesus Christ and the Father developed through desire,
obedience, and hungering and thirsting after them. Membership surrounds us with truths, but it
doesn’t make us receive them. To
actually “receive the truth” we must seek it out through diligent study, prayer
and obedience.
Christ leaves it to us
to answer his invitation to come to Him with all our hearts. But as our awareness of his reality increases
– when we live the law of his covenant – I testify to you that we can
experience the peaceful, healing influence of His Spirit. Christ “pours out his spirit” on us insofar as
we are willing to receive it.
It is my experience that in the act of service, in the act
of fulfilling our duty, this is where the greater light and knowledge comes.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only
true and living church on the earth. It
is not the only place where truth or Christ or faith or hope is found. It is just the greatest of such places. It holds the authority and the priesthood keys
and is the only place that does. It has
within its doctrine, ordinances and structure everything that is necessary for
every blessing mankind can see in mortality or in eternity. We have a prophet selected by the Savior
Himself. This church has it all.
If you happen to be somebody who wonders; if you happen to
be somebody who is experiencing doubt about the church or about the gospel or
even about yourself; THIS IS YOUR
HOME! You belong here with us, and you
are badly wanted.
I venture to say, that I think our bishopric desires a
community of saints who are probing, who are discovering and who are testing
their faith. If you are finding doubts
or asking questions, this is a safe and appropriate place to do that.
I have certainly been in your shoes, doubting and
questioning. Yet, I decided a long time
ago to live my life as if the gospel was true.
Here is the kicker: that in the
course of serving my family and fulfilling my church responsibilities,
knowledge has in fact come. The witness
I sought has arrived. Yet it has never
come on my terms and never come to me on my timetable. For me it has come in ways I can barely
describe, and never on command. It simply came as a natural sequence of obedience.
I know with my whole heart that there is a living God in
Heaven. He is the Father of every soul
who has ever or will ever come to earth.
I believe He is nearer than we imagine and He wants us to love Him with
everything we have.
I know He sent His son, Jesus Christ, as a token of His love
and as THE WAY to return to live in His presence.
The Savior is my strength.
I have experienced both His redeeming power and His enabling power. I can testify that these powers are real and
available to you.
I love the Holy Scriptures.
They are anchors to my soul. They
are healing. They are powerful. I thank those who gave everything they had so
that I could hold them in my hands and read their inspired words. They mean so much to me.
I know that Jesus Christ will come again to this earth. I look forward to that day and devote my life
to being a disciple of Him.
I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
