Remembering the Love of the Lord

[As a member of my stake High Council, I am occasionally asked to visit another ward or branch in the stake and speak in Sacrament meeting. Today I visited the Urbana Young Single Adult Branch. What follows is the talk that I gave.]

For several months now, our stake goal has focused on recognising and remembering times we have felt the love the Lord in our own lives and in the lives of those around us. As I was preparing for this talk, my first as a member of the High Council, I asked my brother-in-law, Jonas Reger. if there was any particular topic or insight he would like me to address when speaking on this topic. His response was, “Oh, you are talking about that again? We’ve been hearing about that every time someone from the High Council speaks!” This comment caught my attention because I had just been at a High Council meeting where someone said that nobody really remembers what we say when we speak in Sacrament meetings. (As an aside, I did some calculations and estimate that I've heard something in the range of 4,725 talks in Sacrament meetings in my life and I think I remember one.) So now the pressure is on. Can I say something that will a) be memorable, at least for a few days or weeks, and b) not be the same old thing you’ve been hearing for months now? I pray the Spirit will guide my words as I try to do both.

I grew up in Washington, Illinois, a small community about an hour and a half northwest of here. While there were a handful of Latter-day Saint families in my hometown, and I was friends with several of the children my age in those family, the majority of my friends were members of other faith communities. We often shared our religious beliefs with one another. My circle of friends included Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, Baptists, non-denominational Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and atheists. Growing up with such a diverse group of friends helped me to have a better understanding of and appreciation for their religious beliefs while also strengthening my own convictions.

I distinctly remember the evening of October 29, 1999. I was at my friend Melissa’s seventeenth birthday party. Several of us were gathered around a bonfire in her backyard, drinking soda and chatting amiably about whatever random topics of conversation arose. Somehow it came up that my parents had been raised Catholic and that they joined the LDS church in 1977. My friend Meredith turned to me and asked what religion I was. Just as I answered, “Latter-day Saint,” my friend Luke said, “Mormon.” Then my friend Jill said, “Alex is a Mormon” and I replied again that I was a Latter-day Saint. Meredith was confused and asked whether I was a Mormon or a Latter-day Saint, and I explained how Latter-day Saints were given the nickname of Mormons because of our belief in The Book of Mormon.
This led to a question that, to many, that may sound like a golden opportunity to expound on the principles of the Gospel and bear witness of the Restoration: “What do Mormons believe, anyway?” To sixteen-year-old me, though, it was an opportunity to share my faith in Christ with others who also believed in Christ, even if our understanding of how that belief is manifest in our day-to-day lives was different. My friend Emily said that she wanted to bring her youth group to one of our church meetings, which they eventually did. However, none of other my friends who were present, to my knowledge, have ever come to one of our church meetings, met with the missionaries, or read The Book of Mormon. But they did learn that I have a deep love of my Saviour and a desire to serve Him to the best of my ability. It has been nearly 20 years since that day and, while I doubt Meredith, Melissa, Luke, Emily, or anyone else there remembers that conversation, it has stuck with me.

Jump ahead two years. I was a freshman here at the University of Illinois, living in Scott Hall, one of the Champaign Area Residence Halls on campus. My roommate was, unfortunately, one of the most unpleasant people I have ever known in my life, and so I avoided our room as much as possible. A guy who lived across the hall, Mike, though, became, if not a friend, at least a friendly acquaintance. We would often chat in his room in the evenings. I learned that he aspired to become a Lutheran minister and he knew that I was a Latter-day Saint. We had several pleasant conversations about our faiths and then one day he gave me a print out of some questions he had about Mormonism.

To this day, I don’t remember what any of the questions actually were. I remember that Mike seemed sincerely interested in asking me about them. Sadly, these were not questions about my faith. Instead, they were attacks on the early history of the church, on the authenticity of The Book of Mormon, and on the character of the early Saints. In short, it was a list of anti-Mormon dreck meant to question my convictions.

I had initially intended on responding to every question on that page. I wanted Mike to know that there were perfectly good explanations for every attack, for every question. I worried over it for several days, to the point that it began to consume me. A few days after this, I had gone to my evening Institute class, where we were studying The Book of Mormon. I remember leaving and wondering why I felt so strongly that in the truthfulness of the Gospel, of the Restoration, of the Scriptures, but I couldn’t answer Mike’s questions. These questions tumbled through my mind as I walked home.

Then, as I was walking down Wright Street toward the Main Library, a sudden thought came to me: I had already received a witness of the Gospel. I had felt the Spirit whisper to my heart and my mind that the things I had been taught in my childhood were true. If I had felt that witness once, twice, three times, then why was I suddenly wondering if any of it was real? I took the paper out of my bag, crumbled up in a ball, and threw it in the trash can next to the bus stop. Mike never asked me about those questions and I never brought them up. We continued to have our friendly chats from time to time, but the school year came to an end, we parted ways, and I never saw or heard from him again. Just as with my conversation with Melissa when I was fifteen, I doubt that Mike even remembers me, let alone the time he handed me a list of anti-Mormon questions seventeen years ago. But I remember.

Remembering is an interesting thing. It is a frequent charge we are given in the Scriptures. According to my search of the online topic index of the Scriptures, the word appears 167 times in the Old Testament, 36 times in the New Testament, 157 in The Book of Mormon, and 45 times in the Doctrine & Covenants and The Pearl of Great Price. The Lord has commanded us to remember over 400 times. What does it mean to remember? While the dictionary defines it as being able to bring to one’s awareness, I think it is much more than that. Just as listening is more than just hearing, but thinking about what is heard, so, too, is remembering more than just recalling. Remembering is a contemplation of those things that have been brought back to one’s awareness. Many of us were taught in Primary as children to search, ponder, and pray about the Scriptures; I would suggest that we ought to search, ponder, and pray about those things which we are commanded to remember. With this in mind, listen to the words of Helaman, an ancient prophet who lived in the Americas over 2,000 years ago, as he gave his final counsel to his sons, Nephi and Lehi, as recorded in the fifth chapter of the Book of Helaman in The Book of Mormon:

Behold, my sons, I desire that ye should remember to keep the commandments of God; and I would that ye should declare unto the people these words. Behold, I have given unto you the names of our first parents who came out of the land of Jerusalem; and this I have done that when you remember your names ye may remember them; and when ye remember them ye may remember their works; and when ye remember their works ye may know how that it is said, and also written, that they were good...

O remember, remember, my sons, the words which king Benjamin spake unto his people; yea, remember that there is no other way nor means whereby man can be saved, only through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, who shall come; yea, remember that he cometh to redeem the world.

And remember also the words which Amulek spake unto Zeezrom, in the city of Ammonihah; for he said unto him that the Lord surely should come to redeem his people, but that he should not come to redeem them in their sins, but to redeem them from their sins…

And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty stormshall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall. (Helaman 5:6, 9-10, 12, emphasis added)

Helman commanded his sons to remember thirteen times. And what did he want them to remember? The faith of their fathers and the redemption that comes only in and through Jesus Christ.

Brothers and sisters, have you built your foundation upon the rock of our Redeemer? Is your faith in Him or is it in those around you? Do you have a testimony in and of God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost? Have you read and pondered the Scriptures and asked if their words are true? Have you sought a personal witness that this church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the “only true and living church upon the face of the earth with which the Lord is well pleased”? (See Doctrine and Covenants, 1:30.) Strengthened and supported by this faith, have you been able to withstand the blows of the devil, standing steadfast and immovable in Christ, the Lord Omnipotent? (See Mosiah 5:15.)

Perhaps some of you are listening to me now and thinking, “Of course, Brother Valencic! I have never doubted, never questioned, never waivered!” I feel confident, however, that many, if not all, of you have had experiences like mine, when something has been presented to you that made you question and doubt whether any of it was ever real, if even for a moment. Please know that this does not make you unworthy of God’s love or His blessings. I testify that your Heavenly Father is not disappointed in or angry with you when you waiver. He knows that we walk by faith and not by sight (see 2 Corinthians 5:7). He also knows that it is through the trial of faith that we pass through the refiner’s fire and emerge stronger than ever.

Let me close with one other scripture, this from the 6th section of the Doctrine & Covenants, verses 22-23. Here Oliver Cowdery, scribe for the Prophet Joseph Smith, Second Elder of the church, and one of the Three Witnesses of The Book of Mormon, had been questioning his calling and his testimony, despite all he had seen and witnessed, including angelic ministrations. Here is what the Lord said to him:

Verily, verily, I say unto you, if you desire a further witness, cast your mind upon the night that you cried unto me in your heart, that you might know concerning the truth of these things.

Did I not speak peace to your mind concerning the matter? What greater witness can you have than from God?

When you find yourself doubting, I challenge you to do as Oliver Cowdery did and cast your mind upon the times in the past when you have felt the Lord speak peace to your mind. Grasp hold of those things as you plead with the Lord to help you. Turn to your Branch President, to your Stake President. They and their counselors love you, they pray for you, and they have been called of God to serve and help you. I testify that I know that our Heavenly Father loves us, that He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to show us the way back to His presence, and that He has given us prophets and apostles in our day to guide us. Search the Scriptures, pray often, and trust in the Lord your God with all your heart, acknowledging Him in all thy ways (see Proverbs 3:5-6). As you do these things, I bear my witness that you will be better able to both recognise and remember times you have felt the love of the Lord in your life. I so testify in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.