Feel free to post your comments and thoughts of the April 2006 General Conference here:
General Conference Open Thread
38 thoughts on “General Conference Open Thread”
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Thought-provoking commentary on life, politics, religion and social issues.
I liked Elder Hales’ comment on how once we have repented, we should avoid the shame that comes through focusing on sins for which we have repented. I know I have often still felt regret and despair for past sins despite having already repented for (and even confessing) them.
Which is exactly what Satan wants–for us to be miserable like he is. If he can convince us that we cannot be better, cannot improve, cannot use the Atonement in our lives, then he has created more misery in this world. He has won a small victory in the sense that one more person is miserable like he.
Elder Eyring brings up an interesting a point when he says that becoming like a child is similar to becoming like Jesus. Anyone who has/had young children know that they have a pure faith, willing to submit to the will of those in whom they have great trust. Similarly, Jesus had a pure faith and was always willing to submit to the will of the Father.
Quoting President Hinckley, President Monson states:
I do not think President Hinckley was referring to only financial impoverishment.
I cannot remember the last time President Hinckley as president did not close the opening session of conference. I hope he is saving his strength for some dang good counsel tonight.
President Hinckley looks older than I ever remember seeing him in a conference
I think it’s due to the fact that they didn’t get all the cancer during his procedure.
There have been rumours that his family have flown in for conference in great numbers and are in fact sitting in a defacto death-watch.
I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if this were his last general conference.
It looks like the Church has a new managing director of its auditing department.
Re: Elder Bednar’s remarks
Where did the idea come from that all the covenants made at sacrament are the same made at baptism? I am not aware, for example, of anywhere in the scriptures which states that we covenant to remember Jesus always as part of being baptised.
Toward Elder Bednar’s remarks, he quoted Joseph Smith:
It is interesting to consider how the fruits of the Spirit, which seem so mild, can be responsible for the building of the kingdom.
Elder Wolfgang H. Paul mentioned that this life is a test, using Abraham 3:25 as a reference. Is this a universal purpose? It would seem that some die without ever being able to make accountable choices.
Elder Nelson said that the Lord declared that marriage is defined as marriage between one man and one woman. He left out the part about the 60 year exception when it was defined as one man and multiple women (or one woman and multiple men) in the Church.
I thought it interesting that Elder Holland discussed how important personal experience is in us being disciples of Christ; more important than programmes, history or others’ experiences.
I had been wondering as well about President Hinkley.
Apparently- He will be here in October.
I loved the “personal vein”. I think one of the most beloved aspects of President Hinkley is his personal way of sharing himself with us.
It is the same “vein” for me, as Sister Beck. She is one of the most down to earth person I have ever met. When traveling to the Leadership openhouse they have in Salt Lake prior to conference, I was just amazed with the confident, warmth and love expressed by Sister Beck and the whole presidency.
I am grateful for the experience of these leaders. Such guidence and wisdom in their words, thoughts and more importantly, their examples and actions.
I just love our Prophet…hoping we wouldn’t take his testimony as an obituary…LOL…we had a good chuckle. I felt his testimony stronger than I ever had before and my whole family sat still for every word of it.
K.
I really enjoyed Elder Scott’s story of his daughter choosing to serve a mission. I hope it gives encouragement to more young women to serve missions.
I found Elder Wood’s talk interesting. Particularly, I found the usage of wording between Babylon and Zion cultures. When talking about Babylon’s influence on clothing, music, morals, etc, he used the word “culture”, but when he spoke of Zion’s influence on the same things, he used the term “standards”.
I think his actual words were “between a man and a woman,” which doesn’t carry the same connotation of numerical limitation. But let’s proceed on the basis of one man/one woman anyway: Every polygamous marriage during the period you mention was a marriage between one man and one woman. For example, Brigham Young had several different marriages. Each of them was between him (one man) and one woman. Nothing in Elder Nelson’s remarks, even if we accept the wording you gave, creates a limit on simulateity of one man/one woman marriages (although, obviously, we have the Prophet’s explicit instructions not to engage in more than one such union at a time).
Elder Nelson’s description does, however, rule out man-to-man or woman-to-woman marriages.
Oy vey…that’s supposed to be “simultaneity,” not “simulateity.” Apparently it’s a tricky word for my fingers to type. :(
It was definitely one man and one woman. I made the comment right after he said it. Either way, I do not think his statement was a comment against same gender marriage only.
Well I can’t comment on Sunday afternoon sessions as Air Canada didn’t have the session in flight!! How rude but I would like to comment on a couple of the speakers. First I want to mention about something that happened right at the beginning of Sat. morning session.
I am the Primary President in our ward and for those of you not familiar with the program, the general primary presidency send out a sacrament meeting presentation format out to everyone in the fall for the following year. In there there are usually several songs they want the children to hear.
One of the songs this year is a hymn not a song out of the children’s songbook. It is a song for people to sing TO children not the other way around. I did not want to use and had told my music director and my councilors we would not do it. I spoke to our ward music director and said we would use it for that day’s congregational hymn instead. She was the one that stated about primary learning at least one new hymn a year (Which I knew but was conveniently forgetting. SO I said well fine we can learn ONE verse and then the adults can sing it.
Just before GC began hubby asked me to offer the morning prayer. I prayed that our hearts would be touched by the speakers and that something from each talk would affect a part of us that was dealing with a particular issue in this time of our lives.
President Faust goes up and stated the choir would sing the opening song. Wouldn’t you guess it was the EXACT song I did not want to have to learn. I started to laugh and my husband asks what was so funny. I told him and then looked to the ceiling and said OK OK I get it we will learn the WHOLE song. :)
But my favorite talk of the ones I heard (Sat morning, afternoon and Sunday morning) Robert Hales: Choose the right (fitting as that is Primary’s theme); choose to accept you are a child of God (again working with PM), that your life belongs to Him; Choose to have experiences with God; choose to renew your covenants with Him (Sacrament, temple etc; and choose to accept the Atonement… He forgave all your sins now you forgive yourself (something I haven’t done).
I didn’t get anything from Pres. Burton.
Sister Beck: We’re protected and empowered by our endowments as an eternal family. This sentence really impacted strongly on me and will be formulating a plan with hubby for helping our children.
Elder Erying: You need to fear the consequences of bad choices to help you resist temptations. You need to think before you do something of standing in front of Christ on Judgement Day and what you want to do at that moment will it make you stand proud in front of Him or make you want to shrink. I also got if our lives are so busy we may be too busy to be hearing that still small voice speaking to us. Something else he said that caught my attention was love the ones you serve and the ones you serve with. It made me think about times I have “bad-mouthed” our bishop because they have been “slow” to get moving on something the should have done.
President Monson: When we remain true and faithful we will remain protected.
Boyd k. Packer: Nothing registered
David Bednar: Missed half of his talk cause Kim kept going on and on about how young he looked for his age hehehe. I did get when we become closer to the Holy Ghost we will become closer to the Holy Ghost. I know that sounds like a typo but he went to say that when we are actively listening to that still small voice we hear it more.
David Evans:
If you want to be happy then forget yourself and work in the service of the Lord.
Wolfgang Paul: If we did not have free agency we would not be able to show Heavenly Father that we can and will follow His commandments.
Russell Nelson: nothing
President Faust: nothing
Jeffrey Holland:
When you walk where Christ walks then He will walk with you. . Change what we can change, Thank God that we are able to change and Thank Christ that we can change. Forgive the rest. (it became obvious to me that I have NOT be forgiving myself for things in the past as I kept hearing the same things). The soul that comes unto Christ and does what he should will find support and comfort from Christ. He knows the way because He is the way. BE NOT AFRAID JUST BELIEVE
Early Tingey and Sister Pingree nothing much
President Hinckley: well I missed most of his talk and couldn’t seem to stop crying… I will miss him as much as I still miss President Kimball. I could really feel the Spirit around him… I could sense how great a man this Prophet was and how many people he has touched over the years.
Kim: I checked the address, and you’re right; the wording was “one man and one woman.”
However, there still isn’t a real conflict between this teaching and the former practice of polygamy. Each of Jacob’s four simultaneous marriages was a union between one man and one woman.
I believe it was someone else going on about how young he looked. :)
The act? Yes. But we cannot forget the fact that in a polygynous relationship a man is married to more than one woman; in other words, between one man and more than one woman.
Hey I was wondering how everyone took it when the prophet said the following on Saturday:
What does this say about Brigham Young?
Each and every one of the marriages in such a relationship fits the description Elder Nelson gave: No matter how many wives a man has, each of his marriages—not just each marriage ceremony but each marriage relationship, too—is between one man and one woman.
Hey Rick; Brigham Young lived in a different time period.
In the time of Christ something similar happened. Christ referred to a Canaanite woman as a “dog”. (Matt 15:23-28) Based on your idea “What does this say about Brigham Young? ” … Do you see how far this can go? Could it be possible that “All truth is independent in that asphere in which God has placed it…” could also be that people of any time period should not be held to the values and truths of a different time period?
Joseph Smith has been critisized for his record keeping based on the record keeping standards of today. But in his time they did not have the same standards we do today.
In his forged letter, Mark Hoffman referred to the “White Salamander” that was seen in the box Joseph took the plates out of. While the letter was a forgery, the reference to a “white salamander” was based on a real, early 19th century phrase. In our day we think of a white salamander as a lizard. In Joseph’s day a white Salamander was a term discribing an angelic visitation.
Holding anyone person or group to the standards of a different period is not a good idea.
Oh yeah, I forgot that racism is time-dependent.
Give me a break.
BY was a bigot. Period.
To say anything else is to excuse the behaviour.
Nope. Sorry. Mr. Young gets the same treatment as every other slave owning white and delightsome racist.
If you want to compare events from 3000 years ago with events less than 200 ago that’s fine but don’t argue context.
The context in which Young denigrates the negroe is quite clear.
Since you’re so familiar with that page of the Journal of Discourses, you may want to read:
or maybe:
BY’s position is quite clear.
Rick;
Perhaps you should read things a bit deeper before you condemn someone?
See #29
…and Brigham condemned himself.
You are arguing a point that extends to the point that everyone in history has to be held to our values of today. This means that we can tear through the mud all of the names from history that we might have something against. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, as did Alexander Hamilton. So we can, in spite of their efforts to give us a free government, ruin their names. Once again; they are not to be held to the values they didn’t know of.
Christ died also for those that did not have the law. They are not held responsible for a law they did not have. This is the mercy and love of Christ. Who are we to hold someone to something that Christ has paid the price for.
“BY was a bigot. Period.” So What name will you call Christ for calling the Canaanite woman a dog? Same rule same result, unless you think that you can choose and pick who is judged harshly and who is not?
Rick you are coming across as an anti Mormon (whether in the church or not) who has already made up your mind and nothing that anyone says will ever change your closed mind. You are right and everyone else is wrong!
All I can say is Enjoy your hateful attitude.
The values have and always will exist.
Jefferson was a racist, as was Hamilton.
Christ was a sexist, if he meant it literally.
The bigger question is, why do you put some people on pedestals?
I don’t care if it wasn’t the way it was done ‘back then’.
Besides, Young (and the church for that matter) held fast to racist viewpoints well after the rest of the western world had begun their enlightenment.
Did you read the book about Luke? The Book is titled The Son of Ham meaning Noah’s son Ham(who married a canaanite) I think I am going to take his word for it. (He is black) He states that he never knew of racism from the LDS church or it’s leaders. He goes back to the churches history and talks about the churches teachings. He states that the teachings of the LDS church in history do not segregate blacks and never have. While it is true that the blacks were not able to hold the priesthood, he states the reason for that.
Aside from the instances you mention, which am not disagreeing with or discounting, I am sure that Luke knows what he is talking about.
“The bigger question is, why do you put some people on pedestals?” The only person I out on a pedestal is the Savior Jesus Christ. I look at others from history and try to evaluate their statements with an open mind.
I think if we look past what the publications have written, we can see that the actions of the church (and its’ membership) have definitively been racist. Young was just one of the most vocal of these proponents of institutionalized racism.