“‘This Is My Gospel’—’This Is My Church'”

Posted on by Mitch Peterson

Last updated on January 7th, 2025 at 09:55 pm

General Conference Applied

S4 E14 – Sunday, January 5, 2025 | “‘This Is My Gospel’—’This Is My Church’” by Elder Dale G. Renlund; October 2024 General Conference

Listen on Amazon Music | Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify

Podcast Episode Social Media Posts

  • Facebook | Instagram

Podcast Episode Outline

Introduction

“The combination of the gospel of Jesus Christ and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”:

  • “For centuries, black powder was the most powerful explosive available. It could launch cannon balls, but it wasn’t effective for most mining and road construction projects. It was just too weak to shatter rock.

    “In 1846 an Italian chemist named Ascanio Sobrero synthesized a new explosive, nitroglycerin. This oily fluid was at least a thousand times more powerful than black powder. It could easily shatter rock. Unfortunately, nitroglycerin was unstable. If you dropped it from a small height, it’d blow up. If it got too hot, it’d blow up. If it got too cold, it’d blow up. Even placed in a cool, dark room and left alone, it’d eventually blow up. Most countries banned its transportation, and many banned its manufacture.

    “In 1860 a Swedish scientist named Alfred Nobel began trying to stabilize nitroglycerin. After seven years of experimentation, he achieved his goal by absorbing nitroglycerin into a nearly worthless substance known as diatomaceous earth, or kieselguhr. Kieselguhr is a porous rock that can be crumbled into a fine powder. When mixed with nitroglycerin, kieselguhr absorbs the nitroglycerin, and the resultant paste can be shaped into ‘sticks.’ In this form, nitroglycerin was much more stable. It could be safely stored, transported, and used with undiminished explosive power. Nobel named the combination of nitroglycerin and kieselguhr ‘dynamite.’

    “Dynamite changed the world. It also made Nobel wealthy. Without a stabilizer, nitroglycerin was just too hazardous to be commercially valuable, as Ascanio Sobrero found out. By itself, as I mentioned, kieselguhr was of little value. But the combination of the two components made dynamite transformative and precious.

    “In a similar way, the combination of the gospel of Jesus Christ and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provides powerful and transformative benefits for us. The gospel is perfect, but a divinely commissioned church is required to preach it, maintain its purity, and administer its sacred ordinances with the Savior’s power and authority.”

Bio

  • “Dale G. Renlund was named to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on October 3, 2015.

    “Dale G. Renlund was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, in November 1952. He married Ruth Lybbert in 1977. They are the parents of one daughter.

    “He has served in numerous church callings including full-time missionary in Sweden, stake president, bishop, and Area Seventy.

    “Elder Renlund had served as a General Authority Seventy since April 2009 prior to being named to the Quorum of the Twelve. He previously served in the presidency of the Africa Southeast Area.

    “After receiving B.A. and M.D. degrees from the University of Utah, Elder Renlund received further medical and research training at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He was a Professor of Medicine at the University of Utah and the Medical Director of the Utah Transplantation Affiliated Hospitals (UTAH) Cardiac Transplant Program.”
  • This was Elder Renlund’s 21st general conference address. Here are his five most recent addresses:

What is the speaker inviting me to do, and how might I consider taking action?

Invitations

1: “I invite you to commit yourself more fully to the Savior, His gospel, and His Church.”

  • Become a more devoted disciple of Jesus Christ by sharing His gospel and diligently serving in His Church.
  • Christlike Attribute: “I strive to live in accordance with the laws and principles of the gospel. (Doctrine and Covenants 41:5)” (Obedience)
  • Action:
    1. Throughout my life, each time I am extended a calling to serve, I will accept the calling and magnify it, no matter how inadequate I may feel.
      • “The access to God’s covenantal power and His covenantal love is through His Church. The combination of the Savior’s gospel and His Church transforms our lives. It transformed my maternal grandparents. My grandfather Oskar Andersson worked in a shipyard on Högmarsö, an island in the Stockholm archipelago. His wife, Albertina, and their children lived on the Swedish mainland. Once every two weeks, on Saturday, Oskar rowed his boat home for the weekend before returning to Högmarsö on Sunday evening. One day, while on Högmarsö, he heard two American missionaries preach the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Oskar felt that what he heard was pure truth, and he was filled with unspeakable joy.

        “The next time he returned home, Oskar excitedly told Albertina all about the missionaries. He explained that he believed what they taught. He asked her to read the pamphlets they had given him, and he told her that he didn’t think that any of their future children should be baptized as infants. Albertina was furious and threw the pamphlets on the rubbish heap. Not much was said between them before Oskar returned to work on Sunday evening.

        “As soon as he was gone, Albertina retrieved those pamphlets. She carefully compared their doctrine with the teachings in her well-worn Bible. She was astonished to feel that what she read was true. The next time Oskar returned home, he received a warm welcome, as did the copy of the Book of Mormon he brought with him. Albertina eagerly read, again comparing the doctrine to that in her Bible. Like Oskar, she recognized pure truth and was filled with unspeakable joy.

        “Oskar, Albertina, and their children moved to Högmarsö to be close to the few Church members there. A week after Oskar and Albertina were baptized in 1916, Oskar was called to be the group leader on Högmarsö. Like many converts, Oskar and Albertina faced criticism because of their new faith. Local farmers refused to sell them milk, so Oskar rowed across the fjord every day to purchase milk from a more tolerant farmer.

        “Yet during the ensuing years, Church membership on Högmarsö increased, in part because of Albertina’s powerful testimony and burning missionary zeal. When the group became a branch, Oskar was called as the branch president.

        “Members of that Högmarsö branch revered that island. This was their Waters of Mormon. This was where they came to a knowledge of their Redeemer.

        “Over the years, as they kept their baptismal covenant, Oskar and Albertina were transformed by the power of Jesus Christ. They longed to make more covenants and receive their temple blessings. To obtain those blessings, they permanently emigrated from their home in Sweden to Salt Lake City in 1949. Oskar had served as the leader of the members on Högmarsö for 33 years.

        “The combination of nitroglycerin and kieselguhr made dynamite valuable; the combination of the gospel of Jesus Christ and His Church is beyond price. Oskar and Albertina heard about the restored gospel because a prophet of God had called, assigned, and sent missionaries to Sweden. By divine commission, missionaries taught the doctrine of Christ and by priesthood authority baptized Oskar and Albertina. As members, Oskar and Albertina continued learning, developing, and serving others. They became Latter-day Saints because they kept the covenants they made.

        “The Savior refers to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as ‘my church’ because He commissioned it to accomplish His purposes—preaching His gospel, offering His ordinances and covenants, and making it possible for His power to justify and sanctify us. Without His Church, there is no authority, no preaching of revealed truths in His name, no ordinances or covenants, no manifestation of the power of godliness, no transformation into who God wants us to become, and God’s plan for His children is set at naught. The Church in this dispensation is integral to His plan.”
      • Sister Donna Packer Passes Away | March 6, 2022: “Motivated by a love of children and a clear vision of their identity as children of God, Donna spent 30 years of continuous service in the Primary organization.”
      • What Do We Mean When We Say the Church Is True? | Elder J. Devn Cornish | June 2024 Liahona: “The truths of the gospel do not require the defense and loyalty of the Saints to maintain them. They are true in and of themselves. But belief in general can become so vague as to have neither motivating nor saving power, and near-infidels can claim adherence (see James 2:19–20). By contrast, a conviction that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true and guided by the Lord leads one to attend meetings, pay tithes and offerings, serve in callings, receive ordinances, and keep the associated covenants. With clear belief and conviction come clear and compelling commitments. In other words, once we know it is true, we become morally obligated to act like it’s true.”
      • Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance | Angela Duckworth: “Grit is about holding the same top-level goal for a very long time…

        “The research reveals the psychological assets that mature paragons of grit have in common. There are four… And they tend to develop, over the years, in a particular order.

        “First comes interest. Passion begins with intrinsically enjoying what you do…

        “Next comes the capacity to practice. One form of perseverance is the daily discipline of trying to do things better than we did yesterday. So, after you’ve discovered and developed interest in a particular area, you must devote yourself to the sort of focused, full-hearted, challenge-exceeding skill practice that leads to mastery…

        “Third is purpose. What ripens passion is the conviction that your work matters. For most people, interest without purpose is nearly impossible to sustain for a lifetime. It is therefore imperative that you identify your work as both personally interesting and, at the same time, integrally connected to the well-being of others…

        “And, finally, hope. Hope is a rising-to-the-occasion kind of perseverance. In this book, I discuss it after interest, practice, and purpose—but hope does not define the last stage of grit. It defines every stage. From the very beginning to the very end, it is inestimably important to learn to keep going even when things are difficult, even when we have doubts. At various points, in big ways and small, we get knocked down. If we stay down, grit loses. If we get up, grit prevails.”

Take Action

How will you take action on the invitations extended in this General Conference address?

Conclusion

As we conclude this episode, I have some important information. Show notes for this and all other episodes can be found on my website, mitchellryanpeterson.com. On my website, you will also find my weekly What? Eye. Read. 💡 newsletter.

In my newsletter, I share the best thing I heard, saw, and read during the past week, as well as the best idea I developed. If you are wondering how you can help me: if you could subscribe to, rate, and review the podcast as well as share it with others, I would appreciate it. And please also sign up for my newsletter at mitchellryanpeterson.com.

You can also follow me on Instagram and Facebook where I share additional General Conference related content. The links to my social media accounts are in the podcast episode details for each podcast episode. Lastly, please remember that General Conference Applied is meant to be a supplement for your review of General Conference Addresses.

I promise that you will get more out of each General Conference Applied episode when you study the General Conference address first. Thank you for joining me in this effort to become doers of the word and to take action on general conference invitations.

Tags

Conversion | Covenants | Gospel | Jesus Christ | Ordinances | Priesthood Power

Additional Content

Previous Podcast Episode (“Days Never to Be Forgotten” by Elder Gary E. Stevenson)

Next Podcast Episode (“Holiness to the Lord in Everyday Life” by Elder Gerrit W. Gong)

All Podcast Episodes

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial