So Andy and I did our last talks in St Austell ward last Sunday. Although my talk wasn't great (and I'm always glad when they are over) it was from the heart. So I have chosen to start this blog with a copy of my leaving talk....
(Please excuse grammar, punctuation and spelling! its always been a weakness of mine)!
Good morning Brothers and sisters,
Please forgive me if my talk is very ‘scripted’ today but
this is my last talk in St Austell ward and there were things I wanted to say
and that I didn’t want to forget or leave out.
Without meaning to sound morbid, I was thinking: ‘If I were
dying what would I want to tell my children?’
First of all I would want them to know how very much I love them so
deeply, they mean everything to me and I want them to know how much I adore
them. The second thing I would want to
leave them with is my faith. And this is
what I would like to leave you with today: my love, I love you all so much, I have
loved being in St Austell ward, you have all shown me so much kindness and love
and I love you. So I would like to leave
you all with my love and with my faith.
In the scriptures there is an account of the dialogue
between Ammon and King Lamoni. I would
like to share with you my answers to the questions Ammon poses to King Lamoni:
(alma 18:24)
“Believest thou that there is a God?’
It is my desire to let you know today that I do know there
is a God, that He is our kind father who lives in Heaven, that He loves us and
watches over us as any loving parent tenderly watches over their beloved and
precious children. He knows all things
from the very beginning and He knows us, the very thoughts and intents of our
hearts.
“Believest thou that this great spirit, who is God, created
all things which are in heaven and in the earth?”
Yes, I do believe and it is my faith that God created this
world upon which we live. However long
those seven time periods took, it was by his hand that this world came to be. The heavens were also created and prepared by
God and is the place where He dwells and all his Holy Angels also.
From the Heavens He watches over us intently, His gaze riveted
upon you and upon me as we experience and endure time in mortality with all of
it’s joys and blessings as well as sorrows and heartaches. Father in Heaven knows us so well, so
personally because by his hand were we created, both our spirit body and our
mortal physical body. When the world was
created by God, it was created for us, the sons and daughters of God, who lived
with him as spirit children before we came to earth and received physical bodies. Our bodies were formed in the likeness of our
father in Heaven and just as we inherit characteristics from our earthly
parents we have inherited physical and spiritual characteristics from our
heavenly father. Because of this, we
have a portion of His spirit in us and we can receive knowledge and strength
through him as we exercise our faith and desires to know Him, our Heavenly
Father.
Just as we can exercise our physical bodies to make our
muscles strong, we can exercise our spiritual muscles and our faith in God and His
Son Jesus Christ can grow strong too, and we an receive strength, knowledge and
understanding in our day to day living.
This earth was not created at random or as an
experiment. The creation was a carefully
prepared plan for our progress and potential for eternal happiness in eternal
families – as families are central to the creators’ plan of happiness. Father in heaven knows all things from the
beginning. One of the fundamental
principles governing all of creation is the principle of freedom of choice. Although Adam and Eve were given commandments
and told what they should or shouldn’t do, they were also blessed with this gift of
choice – to choose for themselves whether to obey or not. Father in heaven knew that after a time they
would make a choice which would have consequences including being able to
procreate, having lost their state of innocence and thus the human family
began. But also came the consequence of
falling from the presence of God, which spiritual and physical separation introduced
death, pain and suffering into this world.
We became lost and fallen. But Father
in heaven had already prepared a way for us to overcome the effects of the
fall. A saviour was provided. Gods first born in the spirit and only begotten
in the flesh, a perfect and innocent child –
John 3:16
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten
son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting
life.”
There is much to say about Jesus Christ the son of God,
about His love for God and his infinite love for us. Volume after volume has been written about
him and his life and his sacrifice, his miracles, death and resurrection. As I have studied and continue to learn about
him and to learn from him, this I can say; He is my light, he is my strength,
my very truest friend. I may stumble
many times in my life and maybe my determination may dim but as of this day I
bear you my faith that Jesus Christ loves me and he loves you, that Jesus
Christ is the saviour of the world, the messiah, redeemer, master and
king. As a child I remember lines to a
song which sang…’take my life and let it be consecrated lord to thee’. I felt that then and I feel it know and it is
my greatest desire to be loyal to my saviour and dedicate my life to him.
Earlier this week I overheard Lucy and Sam playing pokemon
and I heard Lucy say “I will give you all my good card if you will give me that
card”! The sentiment of being willing to
give up so much for something else of value to you reminded me of the words
spoken by Lamoni’s father (in the scriptures) as he learnt about God
Alma 22:18
“o God, Aaron has told me that there is a God; and if there
is a God and if thou are God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me? And I will
give away all my sins to know thee…”
President Monson, our previous prophet said:
“that which we believe is a very important matter, weigh carefully
your responsibility to search for truth”
In our search for truth we have come to know that God is our
heavenly Father and that His son Jesus Christ is our Saviour and that they both
love us with an infinite love. In them
we can find peace. We have also learnt
that they have provided us with so much help along life’s rocky road. Prophets are the Lords servants whom he
speaks to so that they can share his messages and commandments with us.
From the beginning God sent prophets among the children of
men. Adam, Enoch, Abraham, Moses, Elijah
and Isaiah – to name a few. Then in time
He even sent His own son. The words of
prophets and our saviour are recorded and have become ‘scripture’. The bible is scripture, as are all the words
of Gods’ prophets.
There is a promise in the scriptures, I will read it to you:
Moroni 10:4-5
‘And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you
that ye would ask God, the eternal father, in the name of Christ, if these
things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart with real intent,
having faith in Christ, He will manifest the truth of it unto you by the power
of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of
the Holly Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.’
After Jesus Christ organised His church on the earth, with
apostles and bishops and all the organisation and order that is reflected in His
very creations throughout the universe.
Jesus then fulfilled His mortal mission, sacrificing His life to save
us, breaking the bands of death and taking up His body again, being the first
that would be resurrected, His body and spirit to be reunited again, never to
be separated – and because He has been resurrected, we will be too.
After teaching His apostles what to do and how to run His
church, they were eventually all killed and although that was not the end of
Christianity, it was the end of the line of priesthood authority. Whilst good men and women struggled on, the
priesthood authority was not found upon the earth any longer and the world was
plunged into what many refer to as ‘the dark ages’.
This too was anticipated by God and a plan was prepared to
restore that which had been lost.
One of the happiest times in my life has been sharing this
message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.
As a family we have been so blessed to share it with a number of our friends
who haven’t heard about it before. We
have experienced no greater joy than having our friends and the sister
missionaries in our home teaching the truths of the message of the restored
gospel of Jesus Christ. The spirit has
been so strong, the joy immeasurable. I
would not say it has been without opposition – the adversary is as predictable
as clockwork – but God is more powerful and when we are on the Lords errand we
are entitled to His help.
The Lord prepared a way to have His priesthood authority and
all His doctrine and organisation (that existed at the time he set it up during
His mortal ministry in and around Jerusalem) restored again, in its
fulness. This occurred early in the
spring of 1820 through a 14 year old farm boy with little education or means in
life. Yet he would, by miracle after
miracle, become an instrument in the hands of God. Whenever I have read or shared his account of
the ‘first vision’ the Holy Ghost has borne witness to me in my heart and mind
that this is true. We were blessed last
year – early in the spring of 2018 – to visit the site where this event took
place. We all felt the spirit of the
Lord there in that sacred place but we don’t have to visit the site to know
that the following account is true. I
would like to read it to you now and leave you with my faith that I know for
myself by the Holy Spirit of the Lord that has witnessed to my heart with great
force, that this account from Joseph Smith is true…
‘sometime in the second year after our removal to Manchester,
there was in the place where we lived an unusual excitement on the subject of religion….great
multitudes united themselves to the different religious parties, which created
no small stir and division among the people,…I was at this time in my fifteenth
year…During this time of great excitement my mind was called up to serious
reflection and great uneasiness….so great were the confusion and strife among
the different denominations, that it was impossible for a person young as I was,
and so unacquainted with men and things, to come to any certain conclusion who
was right and who was wrong….In the midst of this war of words and tumult of opinions,
I often said to myself: what is to be
done? Who of all these parties are
right?...While I was labouring under the extreme difficulties caused by the
contests of these parties of religionists, I was one day reading the Epistle of
James, first chapter and fifth verse, which reads: If any of you lack wisdom,
let him ask God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it
shall be given him.
Never did any passage of scripture come with more power to
the heart of man than this did at this time to mine. It seemed to enter with great force into
every feeling of my heart. I reflected
on it again and again, knowing that if any person needed wisdom from God, I did….
At length I came to the conclusion that I must either remain
in darkness and confusion, or else I must do as James directs, that is, ask of
God….
So in accordance with this, my determination to ask of God,
I retired to the woods to make the attempt.
It was on the morning of a beautiful, clear day, early in the spring of
eighteen hundred and twenty…After I had retired to the place I had previously
designed to go, having looked around me and finding myself alone, I kneeled
down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I
was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an
astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not
speak. Thick darkness gathered around me
and it seemed to me for time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction. But, exerting all my powers to call upon God
to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at
the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to
destruction – not to an imaginary ruin but to the power of some actual being
from the unseen world, who had such marvellous power as I had never before felt
in any being – just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light
exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended
gradually until it fell upon me. It no
sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me
bound. When the light rested upon me I
saw two personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing
above me in the air. One of them spake
unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other – ‘This is my beloved
son. Hear Him!’
My object in going to inquire of the lord was to know which
of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be
able to speak, than I asked the personages who stood above me in the light,
which of all the sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my
heart that all were wrong) – and which I should join. I was answered that I must join none of them…’
This was the turning of the key that unlocked the last
dispensation of prophets upon the earth before the second coming of our saviour
Jesus Christ, which is still yet to come.
Through Joseph Smith the Lord then restored the Holy priesthood authority
to act in Gods name and to restore ordinances that seal us as families in Holy
Temples for eternity.
Now I have shard much of my faith and testimony with you
today, I just have a few words from another latter-day prophet (President
Monson) that I would like to share…
“It has been said that history turns on small hinges and so
do peoples lives. Our lives depend upon
the decisions we make for decisions determine destiny”
President Monson asks us to consider some questions:
What shall be my faith?
In what shall I believe?
What shall be my adherence to my faith?
How shall I truly live in accordance to my faith?
He shares a poem:
‘One ship drives east and one ship drives west, with the
self-same winds that blow.
It’s the set of the sails and not the gales, that bid them
the way that they go;
Like the waves of the sea are the waves of fate, as we
journey along through life,
It’s the set of the soul that determines the goal, and not
the calm nor the strife.
He asks the question; Which way will you sail?
President Monson then advises us…
“We should put our confidence and trust in Heavenly
Father. Each one of us should have the
responsibility to find out for him or herself just whether or not this gospel
of Jesus Christ is true. Read the book
of Mormon and bible, put the teachings to the test and then we shall know of
the doctrine. For the promise is that if
we do so we will know if it is of men or of God. That decision…What shall I believe, will have
far reaching consequences.”
I have shared with
you today some of my faith. If you are
not sure about your faith or if you have a desire to be closer to God and
receive his help in your life, whether you have been in the faith 4 hours or 40
years or whether you are thinking about the role of God in your life for the
first time, the call of the saviour is ‘come unto me’. I promise that there is greater joy awaiting
you than you can possibly imagine, the way to obtain it is simple. Can I recommend to you that you make an
appointment with the sister missionaries today!
- to meet with them, they are called by God to teach and have made great
personal sacrifice to do so. They have a
special spirit with them and they teach with authority from on high. They will help you and your family find the
path to not just greater peace and happiness but to THE greatest peace and
happiness.
Now, my time is up and I’ve said nothing about Colombia!
What I would like to say is that we have been guided by
heaven to make this move. The lord has
taught us what we must do through promptings as we have read the scriptures,
through answers to prayers, through revelation, dreams, priesthood blessings, patriarchal
blessings, impressions whist in the holy temple, through conference talks and
miracles.
I’ve had people say ‘I couldn’t do what you are doing’ but I
want to say – you could!
Whatever it is the lord has for you to do, you can do it!
Chrissy 12 months ago, couldn’t have done this but when we
turn our lives over to the Lord he will help us banish fear and increase in
faith and He will make you equal to the tasks ahead of you. Truly Jesus is a God of miracles.
I want to follow Him, I want to go where he wants me to go
and do what he wants me to do.
I love Him and I love you. In
the name of Jesus Christ Amen.
