Hello.
I gave a talk in Stake Conference today.
It pretty much rocked.
I wrote it yesterday.... but to be fair, I've been thinking about it for a long time.
But that wasn't all I did. I also conducted the music in the new member meeting and sang in the choir (even though I'd never PRACTICED the songs with the choir).
Like a boss.
By the way, if you've never been to the new member meeting before, I totally recommend it. It's a great little, personal kind of meeting, everyone has cool stories and is happy to be there, and you totally get status. They reserve the first two rows for you, and make references to how great the meeting was for the rest of the day. It's an elite group. Cool stuff.
It was kind-of confusing to facilitate where on the stand I was going to sit (finding the happy medium between "choir girl" and "youth speaker"). I ended up on the first row of the choir, sitting next to Sister Owens. That was fun.
They never have programs, so I made sure to quickly jot down the order of speakers so that I would know when to speak.
When I got up there, I said this. Almost exactly.
Stake Conference, 10/21/12
Speaking in Stake Conference is certainly a new kind of
experience, and I wasn’t totally sure how to prepare a talk for so many people,
and fill up a certain amount of time. Using our recent General Conference as a
guide, I found some pointers on how to format a talk. Use personal experiences.
They fill up time and can always be made to appear relevant. Quote scripture
mastery and include lyrics to hymns or Primary songs. Quote and reference other
talks, and if at all possible, make an analogy using airplanes. I’m not
promising to do all of these things, but if you bear with me I promise that
it’ll all make sense in the end, and hopefully you can get something out of
it.
In the Early months of 2009, my family and I had the wonderful
opportunity to attend the Open house of the Draper Utah temple. It was
estimated that over a million people would be able to tour the temple as part
of its open house. As wonderful as we knew this chance would be, we knew it
wouldn’t be easy either. We had to wake up very early, drive to a Chapel, park
there, and then board a bus that would take us to the Temple. My little sister
Melissa, four years old at the time, wasn’t thrilled to be woken so early from
her sleep. She didn’t want to get dressed, she didn’t want to have her hair
combed, and she didn’t want to go. After a bit of a struggle, we were finally
on the bus. A little too late, we realized that Melissa wasn’t wearing any
shoes. There was snow on the ground, so we had to carry little Melissa around
as we walked the grounds to the temple. Understandably, she was very fussy. I
fully expected her to be in bad temper for the remainder of the trip.
In my journal, I gave
details about the beauty of the temple. I noted the Chandeliers that sparkled
brilliantly at every angle, the pattern of the rug in the bride’s room, the
sego lily [motif] that was incorporated in everything, the beautiful murals,
and the heavy plastic on the ground to protect the beautiful carpet.”In my
journal, I was most attentive to the beautiful things that go into the building
of a temple of God.
In the Saturday Afternoon session of the most recent General
Conference, Scott D Whiting spoke about the renovations preceding the
re-dedication of the Laie, Hawaii temple. He talked about a tour that he took
with a few other key people to review the progress and quality of the
renovation work done there. For Elder Walker, Executive Director of the Temple
Department, no small flaw went unnoticed. Walls that were “gritty” were to be re-sanded
and buffed. A Stained-glass window with a Geometric pattern was set to be
re-placed because of a small square that was 3/8ths of an inch crooked. The
contractor was to see that these needs were met.
My four year old sister surprised me that day, by being
Quiet, thoughtful, and reverent, for the entire time that we were in the
temple. She took a long time in each of the rooms we visited. She stuck with my
mom and as they walked through the temple, they carefully compared each room to
the pictures in the brochure. At some point near the end of the tour, Melissa
pointed to a room pictured in the brochure and said, “I haven’t met this room
yet.”
From that simple sentence, I knew that Melissa had understood the deeper
meaning of the temple better than I had. While I was cataloging the beauty of
the items, I was “seeing” each of the rooms. My four-year-old sister was
“meeting” them. I think that she knew that there was far more to this place
then the beautiful things that decorated it. Although she couldn’t begin to
understand what each of these rooms was for, she knew that each was a sacred
place.
When Scott D. Whiting returned to see the completed Temple,
he learned that the contractor had indeed corrected the two mistakes pointed
out in the previous visit. Even though the “gritty” walls were now covered with
beautiful wallpaper, they had been
re-sanded and buffed. Even though a large potted plant now stood in front of
that window, the window had been
replaced. He wondered why this work had been done, only to be covered up, and
with few people ever to know or notice the imperfections. Brother Whiting found
his answer in the words present on the outside of the renovated Hawaii temple.
“Holiness to the Lord, House of the Lord.”
In the words of the primary song, “I love to see the
Temple,” sacred ideas are spelled out in beautiful simplicity. “For the Temple
is a House of God, a place of love and beauty.” Each Temple is first and
foremost, a house of God (which is what my sister had noticed). The beauty of
the temple (which is what I focused on) is a reflection of our best efforts to
build a place worthy to house the spirit of the Lord. In his talk, Scott D.
Whiting also said, “I learned that even though mortal eyes and hands may never
see or feel a defect, the Lord knows the level of our efforts and whether we
have done our very best. The same is true of our own personal efforts to live a
life worthy of the blessings of the temple. Gratefully, the temple
standard that we are asked to meet is not that of perfection, although we
are striving for it, but rather that we are keeping the commandments and doing
our best to live as disciples of Jesus Christ. It is my prayer that we will all
endeavor to live a life worthy of the blessings of the temple by doing our
best, by making the necessary improvements and eliminating flaws and
imperfections so that the Spirit of God may always dwell in us.”
And now, I’ll wrap it all together. Being prepared to enter
the temple isn’t always easy; sometimes you’ll have a challenge, like Melissa’s
initial resistance and missing shoes. Sometimes we meet drawbacks, like a
crooked square in a stained glass window. We need to put forth our best efforts
to correct our mistakes, like the contractor in the Laie Hawaii temple. Then we
will be able to see our polished efforts, like how I saw the beauty of the
Draper Utah temple. If we do all of this we will also be prepared to “meet” the
temple, like little Melissa did, knowing that we have done our best to be
worthy to enter the house of the Lord.
The song “I love to see the Temple.” It continues, “I’ll
prepare myself while I am young, this is my sacred duty.”
Brothers and Sisters, I know that personal temple preparation is indeed our sacred
duty. We must always strive to live in a way that we will always be worthy of a
Temple Recommend. We must all do our best to live in a manner so that we will
be welcomed into the house of the Lord.
And with this I close my talk. In the name of Jesus Christ,
Amen.
My talk was roughly 6.5 minutes. Yes. I typed out every word, and read it. I didn't have to, but the wording was so good when I wrote it out that I just kept writing. And there it is. It makes it really easy for Aria and Ari, who couldn't come.
I wrote in a few jokes (instead of talking about how I was called.) I expected people to laugh when I referenced Airplanes, but they laughed a LOT. I had to cut them off to continue my talk. Score. I came off all calm and corrected (so I've heard), but my hands where mangling a paperclip that someone had left on the stand.
After my talk, the other youth speaker was a kid named Diego who talked about leaving on his mission next week, and how to prepare for a mission.
The last speaker was a visiting general authority, Brother Keel. He mentioned Diego and I, talking about how we were going to be great in the mission field and gave him hope for the "new generation."
That's pretty cool.
It sounds really conceited, but I know when what I write is good. I knew that this was good.
After the meeting, people I knew (and didn't) from the stake seemed to come at me from everywhere. I made Sister Jackson and Sister Dunsmore cry. I gave out a lot of hugs and received a ton of hugs. I must have said "Thank you" a hundred times. Bishop Ballard finally made his way over to me. He said he was really proud of me... and said that it was because of him that I was chosen to speak. In a stake conference meeting, they asked what youth speakers would do an excellent job. "You were at the top of my list," he said. "There was one other girl they considered, but you won out. And you did great." I really love Bishop Ballard, and to have my former Bishop tell me this was really special.
Now I can truly say that speaking in Stake Conference was a good experience.
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