On a Wednesday morning last month I pull my hot cereal from the microwave and sit at the table. In front of me are the conference Ensign and the Book of Mormon my son had bound for me on his mission in Romania. Until the children come to visit these are always open on the table. I look at the two. “Which today, Father?” “The Ensign,” the Spirit says. I pull the Ensign near my bowl as the cereal cools and flip through it until I’m told to stop. “The Healing Ointment of Forgiveness.” It seems an innocent enough talk. But it puts me on a path of pondering, praying, and repenting for several weeks.
I made a personal covenant with the Lord a few years ago to read each conference Ensign before the next conference. As much as I enjoy conference, my experience with reading the talks, underlining, and scribbling in the margins, has sent me on many journeys.
About a year ago a conference talk prompted me on a journey to understand my two wayward children. “How could they leave the Church? How could they choose a direction so opposed to what I feel is true?” But I’m nervous and so I ask, “Do I want to go down this path? Will it shake my testimony?” No, it won’t. It’s not for everyone, but I am to walk this path a few miles.
At the end of those miles, a couple months later, after deep pondering, studying, and learning, I arrive. I’m in their shoes. I understand my dear children. I know with certainty how the teachings of the world make sense and comfort them. I feel how they can be good, even with their choices. I know how those in the spacious building think, and how right they feel.
On my mission in Québec we baptized a young man. He gave me a license plate he had had made for me. I was without words. It was so personal and appreciated.
Over the years the words at the bottom of the plate have prodded me. “Je me souviens.” “I remember.” Since my journey with my children it now hangs on my wall. As I stood in my children’s shoes and looked at my testimony in one hand and what I’d learned about my children in the other, the Spirit said, “Remember!” And I remember. I DO remember‼ I remember in my teens in sacrament meeting asking, “Do I know this is all true?” The Spirit shouted, “You have always known. You just haven’t recognized it and you didn’t ask.” I remember in a bishopric meeting being told clearly to call Sister Davis as Primary president after just learning a week earlier that she hated Primary, then extending the call in her living room and her response, “I knew yesterday this call was coming before you even came. I accept.” I remember sitting on the front pew in Sacrament meeting six years ago, opening the scriptures at random when I was feeling the lowest in my life, and “happening” upon the words “your sins are forgiven you,” the only words that years earlier I had underlined on that page, just so in this moment I could read them—I broke into tears. I remember in the temple when I felt those beyond the veil, and when “chance” encounters repeated themselves so frequently I couldn’t doubt the Lord’s hand. I remember placing my hands on Nathan’s head to ordain him an elder, and the Spirit pouring words into my mouth.
“I will not, I cannot, desert to his foes; That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I’ll never, no never, I’ll never, no never, I’ll never, no never, no never forsake!”
My dear brothers. I commend the conference Ensign to you. It is the word of God. It will send you on your own journeys.
Brother Carl