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Covenant Path
Covenant Path
The English word covenant comes from the Latin word convenire "come together, unite; be suitable, agree," from com- "together" (see com-) + venire "to come." It struck me how closely this resembles the title of our church course of study, "Come, Follow Me," and how imortant the word has become in our general conversation. Equally important, I think, is a correct idea of the blessings and responsibilities that come with it. I can hear it in most conference talks and in most devotional addresses now...maybe it's a feature in all of them right along and I just haven't been listening closely enough. My understandng is that if, in ancient times, I received a gift, that gift would have been given with the impression that I was obliged in some way to the giver. I have read that, in the original Greek renditions of the scriptures, the gift (charis) was accompanied by faithfulness (pistis), not just faith alone. If read in this way, the doctrine that many of our new members grew up with, the one that says salvation comes by faith alone, is challenged by the doctrine of reciprocal faithfulness with which we who have studied the scriptures of the restoration are more comfortable. Of course the ordinances of the temple are accompanied by covenants. We know that the word endowment has a special meaning for us related to covenants; it is a gift given to each of us by God - a roadmap of how to "walk together" with Jesus. If I have such a gift, that is, if I am successful in getting it through my covenant faithfulness, I will have reason to hope that I will be one to whom the Lord will say "...thy confidence will wax strong in the presence of God, and the doctrines of the priesthood will distil upon thy soul forever." (D&C 121:45).
Sister Yee, second coucilor in the General Relief Society Presidency, recently spoke at a BYU devotional about the importance of covenants. Her talk "Our Covenant Relationship with God: A Wellspring of Relief" highlights ways in which living in a covenant relationship with the Lord can enable us to go "from grace to grace" line upon line, precept upon precept as we seek to acquire the best gifts, relying on his enabling and enobling power. Sister Yee counsels "We don’t need to navigate this life alone, and we weren’t meant to. We can choose to find relief in partnering with the Lord through our covenants."
At the center of her remarks is this quote from President Nelson: The temple lies at the center of strengthening our faith and spiritual fortitude because the Savior and His doctrine are the very heart of the temple. Everything taught in the temple, through instruction and through the Spirit, increases our understanding of Jesus Christ. His essential ordinances bind us to Him through sacred priesthood covenants. Then, as we keep our covenants, He endows us with His healing, strengthening power.3 And oh, how we will need His power in the days ahead. "The Temple and Your Spiritual Foundation, Liahona, November 2021."
Video of Sister Yee's talk is below
Meeting Jesus in the Temple
Meeting Jesus in the Temple
Covenants are essentail to any apprehension of the meaing of the temple. Elder Allen D. Haynie, of the Seventy, taught about "Meeting Jesus in the House of the Lord" in another BYU devotional. I am so glad that these are taped for those of us who aren't able to be there with the faithful BYU students! There is such great doctrine to discover there, such comforting tender mercies of the Spirit: Gratefully, even though we are imperfect, we are invited as His guests into His House. He extends this invitation to us again and again, and if we accept it, it will—as promised by President Russell M. Nelson—bless our lives “in ways nothing else can.”
Elder Haynie lists 5 ways to improve a temple experience, introduced by this thought: Please know that the Lord loves you for your faithfulness in coming to His house, even if you have not yet had the experience for which you have hoped, fasted, and prayed. You are in many ways like Adam when the angel asked him: “Why dost thou offer sacrifices unto the Lord? And Adam said unto him: I know not, save the Lord commanded me.”29 Because of Adam’s continued obedience, the Lord instructed the angel to teach Adam why he was commanded to offer sacrifice.30 I believe that the Lord will treat you in a similar fashion, including sending angels if necessary to teach you. The Lord was serious when He promised “that all people who shall enter upon the threshold of the Lord’s house may feel [His] power, and . . . acknowledge that . . . it is [His] house.”
1) Study the scriptures about the temple.
For those who are seeking to understand and connect with temple ordinances in a more meaningful way, spend more time reading the scriptures that talk about the temple and temple ordinances. If you do, you will be amazed what the Lord will reveal to you.
2) Sacrifice your sins on the altars of the temple.
...repentance is essential to temple revelation and temple revelation is essential to the change that we all should experience from meeting Jesus in the temple....The two covenant moments, that of the sacrament and the temple, are inextricably connected. Both point us toward the Savior and His atoning sacrifice. ...If we listen to the Spirit as we partake of the sacrament, it will whisper to our spirits what it is that we need to change to benefit more fully from our time in the temple.
3) Seek the spirit to understand what the Lord is trying to teach you through symbols. The beautiful symbolic aspects of temple ordinances can help us understand and feel the literal power of godliness inherent in those ordinances. They are not of recent vintage but rather were “ordained and prepared [by the Lord] before the foundation of the world.” ...If we invite the Spirit into our hearts and minds, I testify that we will discover that the ritual and symbolic aspects of the temple ordinances are in fact very familiar to us...
4) Seek Jesus while participating in temple ordinances. He is why we come to the temple. He is who our Father in Heaven desires us to meet in the temple. He is at the center of every symbol, every ordinance, every covenant, and every hoped-for blessing in the temple. Seeking Jesus in the temple enables us to understand why we are in the temple and why we should return.
[Also, get some sleep before you go!]
Elder Haynie concluded his remarks with the admonition to faithfully honor and wear the temple garment. President Nelson recently taught something very profound about the temple garment that he gave me permission to share with you:
Your garment is symbolic of the veil [of the temple]; the veil is symbolic of the Lord Jesus Christ. So when you put on your garment, you may feel that you are truly putting upon yourself the very sacred symbol of the Lord Jesus Christ—His life, His ministry, and His mission, which was to atone for every daughter and son of God.61
In the second book of Enoch, The Lord said to Michael, “Take Enoch, and extract (him) from the earthly clothing. And anoint him with the delightful oil, and put (him) into the clothes of glory.” And Michael extracted me from my clothes. He anointed me with the delightful oil. . . . And I gazed at all of myself, and I had become like one of the glorious ones.69
That is the hope I have for all of you. In the temple you can become “like one of the glorious ones.”
The video and full text is available at https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/allen-d-haynie/meeting-jesus-in-the-house-of-the-lord/
The Family History Activity Report is available through Leader and Clerk Resouces. Please help bishops to understand the report and to use it in connection with the Ward Temple and Family History Plan. Metrics in the report can help support efforts to attain goals specified in the plan.
Four Generations
Four Generations
What are the reasons behind the direction for each member to have a four-generation chart of his genealogy?
This limited chart helps you focus on things that you probably know. It includes you, your parents, your grandparents, and your great-grandparents. That is a total of fifteen possible entries. It's likely that you have information about these people that are pertinent to the requirements of a genealogy chart, such as: full names, birth dates and locations, marriage dates and locations, and, when events dictate, death and burial dates and locations.
In a 2014 general conference talk, Elder Quentin L. Cook said, “In the worldwide membership of the Church, fifty-one percent of adults currently do not have both parents in the Family Tree section of the Church’s FamilySearch Internet site. Sixty-five percent of adults do not have all four grandparents listed.” All these years later, is there still work to be done? I think the FHAR indicates that yes, there is.
Each name on the chart represents a real person, each of whom has a divine right to accept saving and exalting ordinances. President Howard W. Hunter testified: “The dead are anxiously waiting for the Latter-day Saints to search out their names and then go into the temples to officiate in their behalf, that they may be liberated from their prison house in the spirit world. All of us should find joy in this magnificent labor of love” (“A Temple-Motivated People,” Ensign, Feb. 1995, 5).
Revelation and inspiration are available to those who are involved in this work. President James E. Faust (1920–2007) of the First Presidency explained: “The process of finding our ancestors one by one can be challenging but also exciting and rewarding. We often feel spiritual guidance as we go to the sources that identify them. Because this is a very spiritual work, we can expect help from the other side of the veil. We feel a pull from our relatives who are waiting for us to find them so their ordinance work can be done” (in Conference Report, Oct. 2003, 59; or Ensign, Nov. 2003, 55).
According to President Woodruff, "We have been called as Saviors upon Mount Zion, while the kingdom has been the Lord’s. These are glorious principles. To be saved ourselves, and to save our fellowmen, what a glorious thing! What is gold and silver; what are the riches of this world? They all perish with the using. We pass away and leave them. But if we have eternal life, if we keep the faith and overcome, we shall rejoice when we go upon the other side of the veil. I rejoice in all these things. There is hardly any principle the Lord has revealed that I have rejoiced more in than in the redemption of our dead; that we will have our fathers, our mothers, our wives and our children with us in the family organization, in the morning of the first resurrection and in the Celestial Kingdom. These are grand principles. They are worth every sacrifice." (Wilford Woodruff, Deseret Weekly, August 30, 1890, 308.)
Renovation
Renovation
Do you want a bit of info about the renovation? Sister Wilkinson gave a recent update on the progress.
Brother Sattler's volunteer calendar is available here for those of you who field questions about service opportunities during the renovation period.
Statistical analysis of words contained in general conference talks
Statistical analysis of words contained in general conference talks
Brethren, here is another tool for creating and organizing talks. A sample page from the website is below, but this is the overview from the site home page:
This website allows you to quickly and easily search talks from General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). This corpus (or collection of texts) contains 25 million words in 11,000+ talks from 1851 to October 2023.
The purpose of this site is not to browse through a list of talks and then read the whole talk (for example, talks from 1870 or 1925 or 1980). Rather, this site allows you to do powerful searches to look at changes over time -- the frequency of words and phrases, word meaning and usage, lists of all words used much more in one period than another, words and phrases used more frequently by one General Authority than others, and much more.
Click on any of the links in the search form to the left for context-sensitive help. You might pay special attention to the comparisons between decades and virtual corpora, which allow you to create personalized collections of talks (e.g. by speaker)
RootsTech and FamilySearchNews
RootsTech and FamilySearchNews
Register for RootsTech 2024! Sessions from Febr 9 - March 2.
200+ online sessions are available for every level of expertise. Lots of good information, ideas, techniques, and support for priesthood leaders. If you haven't taken advantage of this impressive content before now, please consider it this year! The first keynote speaker will be Lynne M. Jackson, great-great-grandaughter of Dredd Scott, litigant in the famous pre-civil war supreme court case.
FamilySearch has launched a new initiative to digitally preserve and make accessible records of peoples whose history was entwined with the Ottoman Empire.
The announcement came as FamilySearch representatives participated in the International Council of Archives’ ICA Congress in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on Oct. 9–13, according to a news release.
During the event, FamilySearch specialists assisted guests from 140 countries worldwide to learn creative ways to explore their family heritage and roots. More than 3,300 participants attended the congress. Church News, 3 Nov 2023.
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