Thanks for joining me in studying and applying the inspired counsel of living prophets from this most recent general conference. I look forward to learning and sharing together as we each “resolve to do a little better” in our guided climb to come closer to our Heavenly Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Review and study the entire talk: “Daughters in the Covenant” by President Henry B. Eyring, April 2014.
Here are some of my favorite points and questions to ponder. Please share your insights and applications in the comment section:
1. “The path…that we must take on our journey back to our Heavenly Father….is marked by sacred covenants with God. I will talk with you about the joy of making and keeping those covenants and helping others keep them.”
Nephi described baptism as the “gate by which ye should enter” this path back to our Heavenly Father (see 2 Nephi 31:17-20). Alma invited his followers to enter into this covenant of baptism saying: “And now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life–Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you? And now when the people had heard these words, they clapped their hands for joy, and exclaimed: This is the desire of our hearts” (Mosiah 18:8-11).
What is the desire of your heart? Consider the joy you felt in making a covenant with God? Describe the joy you felt in keeping a covenant with God? Ponder the blessings you have received as God has kept His covenant promise to “pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you”?
2. “Heavenly Father smiles on you as well whenever He sees you help a daughter of His move along the covenant path toward eternal life. And He is pleased every time you try to choose the right. He sees not only what you are but also what you may become. You may have had an earthly parent who thought that you could be better than you thought you could be. I had such a mother. What I didn’t know when I was young was that my Heavenly Father, your Heavenly Father, sees greater potential in His children than we or even our earthly mothers see in us. And whenever you move upward on that path toward your potential, it brings Him happiness. And you can feel His approval. He sees that glorious potential in all of His daughters, wherever they are. Now, that puts a great responsibility on each of you.”
What choice have you made recently that pleases your Heavenly Father? What have you done recently to move upward on that path toward your potential? What are you going to do next to move along the covenant path toward eternal life?
3. “While Satan may be attacking sisters at earlier ages, the Lord is lifting sisters to higher and higher levels of spirituality.” President Eyring shared the following examples of things we can do to climb a little higher along the covenant path.
“[Heavenly Father] expects you to treat every person you meet as a child of God. That is the reason He commands us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves and to forgive them. Your feelings of kindness and forgiveness toward others come as your divine inheritance from Him as His daughter. Each person you meet is His loved spiritual child….You are more alike as daughters of God than you are different….[You have] an opportunity to enlarge [the] circle of sisters whom [you] will come to know, admire, and love.”
“Young women are teaching their mothers how to use FamilySearch to find and save ancestors. Some young sisters that I know are choosing to go early in the morning to perform proxy baptisms in temples without any urging beyond the spirit of Elijah.”
“In missions across the earth, sisters are being called to serve as leaders. The Lord created the need for their service by touching the hearts of sisters in greater numbers to serve. More than a few mission presidents have seen the sister missionaries become ever more powerful as proselyters and particularly as nurturing leaders.”
How is the Lord inviting and assisting you to higher levels of spirituality?
4. “You can gain the…ability to enrich your marriage and the capacity to raise noble children by following the examples of great women. Consider Eve, the mother of all living. Elder Russell M. Nelson said this of Eve: ‘We and all mankind are forever blessed because of Eve’s great courage and wisdom. By partaking of the fruit first, she did what needed to be done. Adam was wise enough to do likewise.’
“We don’t know all the help Eve was to Adam and to their family. But we do know of one great gift that she gave, which each of you can also give: she helped her family see the path home when the way ahead seemed hard. ‘And Eve, his wife, heard all these things and was glad, saying: Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient’ (Moses 5:11). You have her example to follow.”By revelation, Eve recognized the way home to God. She knew that the Atonement of Jesus Christ made eternal life possible in families. She was sure, as you can be, that as she kept her covenants with her Heavenly Father, the Redeemer and the Holy Ghost would see her and her family through whatever sorrows and disappointments would come. She knew she could trust in Them.”
How have you been inspired by the example of Eve? How have you been inspired by the example of other covenant keepers?
Review and study additional “Guided Climbs.”
Beautifully outlined and illustrated, Pennie. Thanks for your insights as I’m always searching for ways to strengthen relationships. In a recent lesson, the teacher outlined these same covenant obligations with the “three bears.” Thanks for inspiring me to expand her ideas to how living these covenants can strengthen my relationships:
1. Bear His name — in all our relationships and interactions, we bear His name as we do the things that Jesus would have us do, say the things Jesus would have us say, and act the way Jesus would have us act.
2. Bear one another’s burdens — in all our relationships and interactions we bear one another’s burdens as we mourn with them, comfort them, help them, love them, lighten their loads, and lift them.
3. Bear witness — in all our relationships we bear witness of Christ by our words of testimony and truth and by our actions of obedience and love.
I was studying these verses in Mormon about the “Waters of Mormon” a while ago. I had been wondering about how to build deeper relationships and how to better keep my covenants. In these verses these three words popped out at me: MOURN, COMFORT, and WITNESS.
I had just heard a story in church about a young woman who didn’t know what to say to a friend who had been teased by some other people, who was crying and distraught. The young woman giving the talk said she ‘told her she was sorry, said she didn’t deserve it; that she understood her pain, and then she have her a hug.’ She then said that as she was thinking about it afterward wondering what else she could have done, she felt she could have witnessed to her that Christ understands even if we cannot understand completely.
As I thought about the verses in Mormon about the baptismal covenant, as this girls talk was brought to my memory, I realized these verses hold the key to building our relationships: Mourn, Comfort, and Witness. I was also able to teach my daughter about this pattern, who is about to turn 8 and be baptized.
What a blessing the Book of Mormon is, to help us know how to be happy by keeping our covenants!