"Be One with Christ" - Mitch Peterson

Last updated on June 16th, 2024 at 12:12 am

General Conference Applied

S3 E7 – Sunday, June 2, 2024 | “Be One with Christ” by Elder Quentin L. Cook; April 2024 General Conference

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Podcast Episode Outline

Introduction

Doctrine: Commandments: “Commandments are the laws and requirements that God gives to mankind. When we keep the commandments, we manifest our love for the Lord and receive blessings from Him (see Leviticus 26:3–12; John 14:15; Mosiah 2:41). We are commanded to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind and to have Christlike love for others (see Matthew 22:36–39; John 13:34–35).

Principle: Freedom to Choose: “When we choose to live according to God’s plan for us, our agency is strengthened. Right choices increase our power to make more right choices.

“As we obey each of our Father’s commandments, we grow in wisdom and strength of character. Our faith increases. We find it easier to make right choices.”

Christlike Attribute: Charity and Love: “As you pray for the gift of charity, you will be less inclined to dwell on negative feelings such as anger or envy. You will become less likely to judge or criticize others. You will have more desire to try to understand them and their points of view. You will become more patient and try to help people when they are struggling or discouraged. (See Moroni 7:45.)

“Charity, like faith, leads to action. You strengthen it as you serve others and give of yourself.”

Insights

Powerful Story: “I have felt deeply about the Atonement of Jesus Christ since I was quite young, but the reality of the Savior’s Atonement came home to me when I was 25. I had just graduated from Stanford Law School and was studying for the California bar exam. My mother called and said that my grandfather Crozier Kimball, who lived in Utah, was dying. She said if I wanted to see him, I had better come home. My grandfather was 86 and very ill. I had a wonderful visit. He was so pleased to see me and share his testimony with me.

“When Crozier was just three years old, his father, David Patten Kimball, died at age 44. Crozier hoped that his father and his grandfather Heber C. Kimball would approve of his life and feel he had been true to his heritage.

“My grandfather’s primary counsel to me was to avoid any sense of entitlement or privilege because of these faithful ancestors. He told me my focus should be on the Savior and the Savior’s Atonement. He said we are all children of a loving Heavenly Father. Regardless of who our earthly ancestors are, each of us will report to the Savior on how well we kept His commandments.

“Grandpa referred to the Savior as the ‘Keeper of the Gate,’ a reference to 2 Nephi 9:41. He told me he hoped he had been sufficiently repentant to qualify for the Savior’s mercy.

“I was deeply touched. I knew he had been a righteous man. He was a patriarch and served several missions. He taught me that no one can return to God by good works alone without the benefit of the Savior’s Atonement. I can remember to this day the great love and appreciation Grandpa had for the Savior and His Atonement.

“In 2019 during an assignment in Jerusalem, I visited an upper room which may have been near the site where the Savior washed His Apostles’ feet prior to His Crucifixion. I was spiritually touched and thought of how He commanded His Apostles to love one another.

“I recalled the Savior’s pleading Intercessory Prayer in our behalf. This prayer occurred in literally the closing hours of His mortal life as recorded in the Gospel of John.

“This prayer was directed to followers of Christ, including all of us. In the Savior’s petition to His Father, He pleaded ‘that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.’ The Savior then continues, ‘And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one.’ Oneness is what Christ prayed for prior to His betrayal and Crucifixion. Oneness with Christ and our Heavenly Father can be obtained through the Savior’s Atonement.

“The Lord’s saving mercy is not dependent on lineage, education, economic status, or race. It is based on being one with Christ and His commandments.”

The Dutch Potato Project

“After World War II, Saints in the Netherlands faced the difficult challenge of rebuilding their lives. German occupation had damaged infrastructure, and food was scarce in some regions. Many branches of the Church were deeply divided, as some members had cooperated with German occupiers and others had resisted. In 1947 mission president Cornelius Zappey and other local Church leaders organized a welfare project to address food shortages and to restore goodwill among Church members.

“The Dutch Saints acquired seed potatoes and planted them in patches of dormant land. Praying for the Lord’s blessing, they cultivated the crop, and by the end of summer they were anticipating an ample harvest.

“While the crop matured, Walter Stover, president of the East German Mission, visited Zappey and told him of the plight of the Saints in Germany. The war had been devastating on all Germans, who now faced the approaching winter without sufficient food supplies. Zappey resolved to donate the potatoes to the German Saints but was unsure if the Dutch Saints could be persuaded to give their crop to their former enemies.

“Initially, members were shocked. ‘We couldn’t believe it,’ recalled Truus Allert. ‘How can they tell us that we had planted potatoes for them [the Germans]?’ President Zappey and his counselor Pieter Vlam visited the branches and urged them to remember that the German Saints were their brothers and sisters. Though many were reluctant at first, the Dutch Saints prepared the harvested potatoes for shipment to Germany.

“At the border, an official tried to prevent Zappey from leaving the country with such a large shipment of food. After Zappey told him the story of the Saints’ sacrifice, the official relented, and the potatoes were delivered to the Saints in Germany. ‘We were shown so much kindness and so much love,’ remembered Ruth Wittwer, a recipient. ‘It gave me hope for a better future.’

“In 1948, as reconstruction continued in both countries, the Dutch Saints offered a second potato harvest to their German brothers and sisters and added a large shipment of pickled herring, a Dutch staple. These acts of kindness helped Saints in both the Netherlands and Germany to recover from the effects of war and to restore unity and trust among European Saints.”

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

Invitations

1: “Given our ‘likeness’ before God, it makes little sense to emphasize our differences. Some have wrongly encouraged us ‘to imagine people to be much more different from ourselves and from each other than they actually are. [Some] take real but small differences and magnify them into chasms.'”

All In Podcast: Bonnie H. Cordon: Letting Him Direct Thy Paths, May 29, 2024: “Outside of the interview you’ll hear here, Sister Bonnie Cordon, former Young Women General President and current President of Southern Virginia University, gave me some advice that I will cherish and continue to ponder in the days to come. She pointed out that in Proverbs 3, verses 5 and 6, it says, ‘trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding, in all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths.’ Plural paths. She encouraged me to trust that the Lord will always have more for us to do as we entrust our paths to him.”
- We may look different, talk different, think different, and take different paths, but our ultimate goal is to return to the same place to be with the same People. That’s something we can rally around!
“The Invention of Yesterday” by Tamim Ansary: “People started enslaving people as soon as there were people to enslave. The Romans built an empire on it. The Rouse got rich selling Slavs to Muslims. Throughout most of history, codes of virtue governing how people ought to treat one another usually only applied to members of the group in question. Such codes kept the inner world in order, but didn’t apply to dealings with the outside. The codes saw nothing wrong with enslaving the other. The question was only: how to define the ‘other.’ How much otherness made a stranger fair game for enslavement? …

“Anyone making that money needed to feel that capturing humans and working them to death didn’t necessarily mean they were bad people. How could these be parts of the same conceptual constellation? Racism provided the bridge. The race-based slave trade was the Minotaur chained in the basement of the European colonization of the Americas. The people feasting upstairs did their best to ignore its muffled roars and go on with their dinners. …

“This is a striking development given that scientifically speaking there is no such thing as race. Yes, people inherit characteristics from their parents, and people who regularly intermarry form gene pools that intensify certain traits making one group look distinctly different from another. But, ‘regularly intermarry’ is the key phrase here. This is a pattern enforced by social norms, and reinforced by geography. If any two groups identified as different races were transported to a single island and intermarried randomly for a few generations, there would be no distinguishing one from the other. On this, biologists are virtually unanimous.” (see General Conference Applied season 2 episode 22 for additional insights on unity)

2: “In this extremely competitive world, there is a constant effort to excel. Striving to be the best we can be is a righteous and worthwhile endeavor. It is consistent with the Lord’s doctrine. Efforts to diminish or deprecate others or create barriers to their success are contrary to the Lord’s doctrine. We cannot blame circumstances or others for a decision to act contrary to God’s commandments.”

Survivor season 46 – Kenzie comforted Ben when he had multiple panic attacks in the middle of the night. She knew that Ben was her competitor, but he’s also a human being and her friend.
“The Infinite Game” by Simon Sinek: “If there are at least two players, a game exists. And there are two kinds of games: finite games and infinite games.

“Finite games are played by known players. They have fixed rules. And there is an agreed-upon objective that, when reached, ends the game. Football, for example, is a finite game. …

“Infinite games, in contrast, are played by known and unknown players. There are no exact or agreed-upon rules. Though there may be conventions or laws that govern how the players conduct themselves, within those broad boundaries, the players can operate however they want. And if they choose to break with convention, they can. …

“My understanding of these two types of games comes from the master himself, Professor James P. Carse, who penned a little treatise called Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility in 1986. It was Carse’s book that first got me thinking beyond winning and losing, beyond ties and stalemates. The more I looked at our world through Carse’s lens of finite and infinite games, the more I started to see infinite games all around us, games with no finish lines and no winners. There is no such thing as coming in first in marriage or friendship, for example. Though school may be finite, there is no such thing as winning education. We can beat out other candidates for a job or promotion, but no one is ever crowned the winner of careers. Though nations may compete on a global scale with other nations for land, influence or economic advantage, there is no such thing as winning global politics. No matter how successful we are in life, when we die, none of us will be declared the winner of life. And there is certainly no such thing as winning business. All these things are journeys, not events.

“However, if we listen to the language of so many of our leaders today, it’s as if they don’t know the game in which they are playing. They talk constantly about ‘winning’. They obsess about ‘beating their competition’. They announce to the world that they are ‘the best’. They state that their vision is to ‘be number one’. Except that in games without finish lines, all of these things are impossible.”
“The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics” by Daniel James Brown: “There is a thing that sometimes happens in rowing that is hard to achieve and hard to define. Many crews, even winning crews, never really find it. Others find it but can’t sustain it. It’s called ‘swing’. It only happens when all eight oarsmen are rowing in such perfect unison that no single action by any one is out of synch with those of all the others. It’s not just that the oars enter and leave the water at precisely the same instant. Sixteen arms must begin to pull, sixteen knees must begin to fold and unfold, eight bodies must begin to slide forward and backward, eight backs must bend and straighten all at once. Each minute action – each subtle turning of wrists – must be mirrored exactly by each oarsman, from one end of the boat to the other. Only then will the boat continue to run, unchecked, fluidly and gracefully between pulls of the oars. Only then will it feel as if the boat is a part of each of them, moving as if on its own. Only then does pain entirely give way to exultation. Rowing then becomes a kind of perfect language. Poetry, that’s what a good swing feels like. …

“[Pocock] suggested that Joe think of a well-rowed race as a symphony, and himself as just one player in the orchestra. If one fellow in an orchestra was playing out of tune, or playing at a different tempo, the whole piece would naturally be ruined. That’s the way it was with rowing. What mattered more than how hard a man rowed was how well everything he did in the boat harmonized with what the other fellows were doing. And a man couldn’t harmonize with his crewmates unless he opened his heart to them. He had to care about his crew. It wasn’t just the rowing but his crewmates that he had to give himself up to, even if it meant getting his feelings hurt. …

“He told Joe to be careful not to miss his chance. He reminded him that he’d already learned to row past pain, past exhaustion, past the voice that told him it couldn’t be done. That meant he had an opportunity to do things most men would never have a chance to do. And he concluded with a remark that Joe would never forget. ‘Joe, when you really start trusting those other boys, you will feel a power at work within you that is far beyond anything you’ve ever imagined. Sometimes, you will feel as if you have rowed right off the planet and are rowing among the stars.’ …

“For Joe, who had spent the last six years doggedly making his own way in the world, who had forged his identity on stoic self-reliance, nothing was more frightening than allowing himself to depend on others. People let you down. People leave you behind. Depending on people, trusting them – it’s what gets you hurt. But trust seemed to be at the heart of what Pocock was asking. Harmonize with the other fellows, Pocock said. There was a kind of absolute truth in that, something he needed to come to terms with.”

3: “In today’s world, it is easy to focus on material and occupational success. Some lose sight of eternal principles and choices that have eternal significance. We would be wise to follow President Russell M. Nelson’s counsel to ‘think celestial.'”

“Choosing Glory” by Dr. Lili De Hoyos Anderson: “The trap of terrestrial stress ensnares many good people. Such people may accomplish significant temporal good, but ultimately, they get lost in the ‘thick of thin things’. The problem for these ‘honorable men of the earth’ (D&C 76:75) is that although they may be largely free of telestial stress and obedient to basic commandments, they are so busy with terrestrial concerns that they do not ever move into the spiritual wilderness and get about the true business of life. It’s tragic that by concentrating so much on performing good works, we may prevent ourselves from ever beginning the essential saving works. We can get caught up in the urgent at the expense of the vital. Many temporal tasks have deadlines attached: ‘If I do not put gas in the car, I’ll be in trouble’; ‘If I do not pay this bill on time, I’ll be in trouble’; ‘If I do not get the Christmas shopping done, I’ll be in trouble.’ Too often these urgent tasks get in the way of the vital ones, which generally have no clear deadlines attached. If we don’t study the scriptures today, the house won’t fall down. If we don’t have a bonding family time this week, we’ll get by. If we don’t have meaningful prayer and learn to receive revelation – well, maybe we can work that in next week. We get caught, again, putting things that matter most at the mercy of things that ultimately matter much less.”
James Clear, May 23, 2024, 3-2-1 Newsletter: How to be great, the power of cold emails, and the dangers of working late: “Software engineer David Clarke on priorities: ’20 years from now, the only people who will remember that you worked late are your kids.'”

4: “The most significant choices can be made by almost everyone regardless of talents, abilities, opportunities, or economic circumstances. An emphasis on putting family choices first is essential.”

“Life Balance: A Moving Target“, August 2020 New Era, David Dickson: “Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was once asked how to keep home life, work life, and family life in balance. His answer was probably unexpected.

“‘You can’t,’ he said. ‘So don’t worry about it.’

“After a short chuckle, Elder Bednar offered some clarification. ‘Balance is a false notion,’ he taught. ‘You can only do one thing at one time.’

“He then compared balancing various areas of our lives to an acrobat’s spinning multiple plates on the ends of sticks. Each plate requires regular spinning so that it won’t wobble and fall.

“‘Can [the acrobat] get all the plates spinning at exactly the same speed at exactly the same time?’ Elder Bednar asked. ‘Nope. One is always closer to spinning off.’

“‘That’s life,’ Elder Bednar continued. He explained how each of us must keep our various plates in the air by giving them attention as needed.

“He also included a caution: ‘It’s probably the case that you cannot spin 17 plates. With the help of the Holy Ghost … we can identify the two, three, or four most important plates that always need to be spinning.’

“If your life feels chaotic and over-scheduled, consider that caution from an Apostle. You might need to reduce the number of plates you’re trying to keep in motion.”
“Please understand I am not advocating less interest in education or occupation. What I am saying is that when efforts relating to education and occupation are elevated above the family or being one with Christ, the unintended consequences can be significantly adverse.” -Elder Cook
These ‘consequences’ are not just spiritual. When the family disintegrates, economies and nations disintegrate.

5: “We should strive to include others in our circle of oneness. If we are to follow President Russell M. Nelson’s admonition to gather scattered Israel on both sides of the veil, we need to include others in our circle of oneness.”

followHim Podcast – Mosiah 18-24 – Dr. Melissa Inouye: “When we do missionary work, we’re like, ‘Go out there and convert the whole world and bring them all in.’ We kind of have this idea that … the missionaries will go out there and find a bunch of people, and then those people will all be kind of just like us. They’ll all be like the Church that we recognize. But actually, when missionaries go out into the world there are a ton of different kinds of people, different political views, cultural views, views on honesty, views on marriage, views on charismatic experiences, like whether angels or spirits appear to people nowadays and so on, so much difference. And then people come into the Church, they come in as they are. We are then in a covenant to bear their burdens. Also, if anyone can think of someone in their local congregation that they find hard to get along with, you don’t have to say it out loud or anything, but just imagine someone in your neighborhood congregation who’s hard to get along with, and then imagine how that is on a worldwide scale. So many other personalities that are really hard to get along with, just in terms of where we come from and what our different expectations are. … In order to understand people, to mourn with them, you have to know them. And to comfort people, you have to have love in your heart to give to them for comfort.”
Develop meaningful relationships with those of other religions and faith traditions.
“Our Hearts Knit as One“, October 2008 General Conference, President Henry B. Eyring: “There are principles we are following as a people which are leading to greater unity.

“One of those principles is revelation. Revelation is the only way we can know how to follow the will of the Lord together. It requires light from above. The Holy Ghost will testify to our hearts, and the hearts of those gathered around with us, what He would have us do. And it is by keeping His commandments that we can have our hearts knit together as one.

“A second principle to guide our progress to become one is to be humble. Pride is the great enemy of unity. You have seen and felt its terrible effects. Just days ago I watched as two people—good people—began with a mild disagreement. It started as a discussion of what was true but became a contest about who was right. Voices became gradually louder. Faces became a little more flushed. Instead of talking about the issue, people began talking about themselves, giving evidence why their view, given their great ability and background, was more likely to be right.

“You would have felt alarm as I did. We have seen the life-destroying effects of such tragic conflict. You and I know people who left the fellowship of the Saints over injured pride.

“Happily I am seeing more and more skillful peacemakers who calm troubled waters before harm is done. You could be one of those peacemakers, whether you are in the conflict or an observer.

“One way I have seen it done is to search for anything on which we agree. To be that peacemaker, you need to have the simple faith that as children of God, with all our differences, it is likely that in a strong position we take, there will be elements of truth. The great peacemaker, the restorer of unity, is the one who finds a way to help people see the truth they share. That truth they share is always greater and more important to them than their differences. You can help yourself and others to see that common ground if you ask for help from God and then act. He will answer your prayer to help restore peace, as He has mine.

“That same principle applies as we build unity with people who are from vastly different backgrounds. The children of God have more in common than they have differences. And even the differences can be seen as an opportunity. God will help us see a difference in someone else not as a source of irritation but as a contribution. The Lord can help you see and value what another person brings which you lack. More than once the Lord has helped me see His kindness in giving me association with someone whose difference from me was just the help I needed. That has been the Lord’s way of adding something I lacked to serve Him better.

“That leads to another principle of unity. It is to speak well of each other. Think of the last time you were asked what you thought about how someone else was doing in your family or in the Church. It happened to me more than once in the past week. Now, there are times we must judge others. Sometimes we are required to pronounce such judgments. But more often we can make a choice. For instance, suppose someone asks you what you think of the new bishop.

“As we get better and better at forging unity, we will think of a scripture when we hear that question: ‘And now, my brethren, seeing that ye know the light by which ye may judge, which light is the light of Christ, see that ye do not judge wrongfully; for with that same judgment which ye judge ye shall also be judged.’

“Realizing that you see others in an imperfect light will make you likely to be a little more generous in what you say. In addition to that scripture, you might remember your mother saying—mine did—’If you can’t say anything good about a person, don’t say anything at all.’

“That will help you look for what is best in the bishop’s performance and character. The Savior, as your loving judge, will surely do that as He judges your performance and mine. The scripture and what you heard from your mother may well lead you to describe what is best in the bishop’s performance and his good intent. I can promise you a feeling of peace and joy when you speak generously of others in the Light of Christ. You will feel, for instance, unity with that bishop and with the person who asked your opinion, not because the bishop is perfect or because the person asking you shares your generous evaluation. It will be because the Lord will let you feel His appreciation for choosing to step away from the possibility of sowing seeds of disunity.

“We must follow that same principle as the Lord gathers more and more people who are not like us. What will become more obvious to us is that the Atonement brings the same changes in all of us. We become disciples who are meek, loving, easy to be entreated, and at the same time fearless and faithful in all things. We still live in different countries, but we come into the Church through a process that changes us.”
“The Peace of Christ Abolishes Enmity“, October 2021 General Conference, Elder Dale G. Renlund: “After the Savior’s visit to the Americas, the people were unified; ‘there was no contention in all the land.’ Do you think that the people were unified because they were all the same, or because they had no differences of opinion? I doubt it. Instead, contention and enmity disappeared because they placed their discipleship of the Savior above all else. Their differences paled in comparison to their shared love of the Savior, and they were united as ‘heirs to the kingdom of God.’ The result was that ‘there could not be a happier people … who had been created by the hand of God.’

“Unity requires effort. It develops when we cultivate the love of God in our hearts and we focus on our eternal destiny. We are united by our common, primary identity as children of God and our commitment to the truths of the restored gospel. In turn, our love of God and our discipleship of Jesus Christ generate genuine concern for others. We value the kaleidoscope of others’ characteristics, perspectives, and talents. If we are unable to place our discipleship to Jesus Christ above personal interests and viewpoints, we should reexamine our priorities and change.

“We might be inclined to say, ‘Of course we can have unity—if only you would agree with me!’ A better approach is to ask, ‘What can I do to foster unity? How can I respond to help this person draw closer to Christ? What can I do to lessen contention and to build a compassionate and caring Church community?’

“When love of Christ envelops our lives, we approach disagreements with meekness, patience, and kindness. We worry less about our own sensitivities and more about our neighbor’s. We ‘seek to moderate and unify.’ We do not engage in ‘doubtful disputations,’ judge those with whom we disagree, or try to cause them to stumble. Instead, we assume that those with whom we disagree are doing the best they can with the life experiences they have.

“My wife practiced law for over 20 years. As an attorney, she often worked with others who explicitly advocated opposing views. But she learned to disagree without being rude or angry. She might say to opposing counsel, ‘I can see we are not going to agree on this issue. I like you. I respect your opinion. I hope you can offer me the same courtesy.’ Often this allowed for mutual respect and even friendship despite differences.

“Even former enemies can become united in their discipleship of the Savior. In 2006, I attended the dedication of the Helsinki Finland Temple to honor my father and grandparents, who had been early converts to the Church in Finland. Finns, including my father, had dreamed of a temple in Finland for decades. At the time, the temple district would encompass Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, and Russia.

“At the dedication, I learned something surprising. The first day of general operation had been set aside for Russian members to perform temple ordinances. It is difficult to explain just how astonishing this was. Russia and Finland had fought many wars over the centuries. My father distrusted and disliked not only Russia but all Russians. He had expressed such feelings passionately, and his feelings were typical of Finnish enmity toward Russia. He had memorized epic poems that chronicled 19th-century warfare between Finns and Russians. His experiences during World War II, when Finland and Russia were again antagonists, did nothing to change his opinions.

“A year before the dedication of the Helsinki Finland Temple, the temple committee, consisting exclusively of Finnish members, met to discuss plans for the dedication. During the meeting, someone observed that Russian Saints would be traveling several days to attend the dedication and might hope to receive their temple blessings before returning home. The committee chairman, Brother Sven Eklund, suggested that the Finns could wait a little longer, that Russians could be the first members to perform temple ordinances in the temple. All committee members agreed. Faithful Latter-day Saint Finns delayed their temple blessings to accommodate Russian Saints.

“The Area President who was present at that temple committee meeting, Elder Dennis B. Neuenschwander, later wrote: ‘I have never been prouder of the Finns than I was at this moment. Finland’s difficult history with its eastern neighbor … and their excitement of finally having [a temple] constructed on their own soil were put aside. Permitting the Russians to enter the temple first [was] a statement of love and sacrifice.’

“When I reported this kindness to my father, his heart melted and he wept, a very rare occurrence for that stoic Finn. From that time until his death three years later, he never expressed another negative sentiment about Russia. Inspired by the example of his fellow Finns, my father chose to place his discipleship of Jesus Christ above all other considerations. The Finns were no less Finnish; the Russians were no less Russian; neither group abandoned their culture, history, or experiences to banish enmity. They did not need to. Instead, they chose to make their discipleship of Jesus Christ their primary consideration.

“If they can do it, so can we. We can bring our heritage, culture, and experiences to the Church of Jesus Christ. Samuel did not shy away from his heritage as a Lamanite, nor did Mormon shy away from his as a Nephite. But each put his discipleship of the Savior first.

“If we are not one, we are not His. My invitation is to be valiant in putting our love of God and discipleship of the Savior above all other considerations. Let us uphold the covenant inherent in our discipleship—the covenant to be one.”
President Russell M. Nelson, June 1, 2024, Instagram Post: “I am soon approaching my 100th birthday. One of the places where the Savior used the number 100 in the scriptures was the parable of the lost sheep. Though 99 of his flock were safely by his side, the shepherd went in search of the 1 who was lost.

“At age 99, I have no need of physical gifts. But one spiritual offering that would brighten my life is for each of us to reach out to ‘the one’ in our lives who may be feeling lost or alone.

“Over the coming months I invite you to consider prayerfully: who do you know who may be discouraged? Who might you need to reconcile with or ask for forgiveness? Has one name been on your mind lately, though you haven’t quite known why? As you bring these questions to the Lord, He will inspire you to know how you can reach out and lift one who needs help.

“What a beautiful example the Savior has shown us – that through each of us ministering to just one within our reach, we can spread the love of Jesus Christ throughout the world.”

Take Action

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

Additional Content

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