Farewell talk
Good morning brothers and sisters. Usually at this time the closing speaker thanks an individual or group for a moving musical number. How blessed am I that I get to thank everyone. I’d also like to thank the speakers that have gone on before for bringing the spirit to this meeting, and im going to try to keep it here… most of the time. Today I was asked to speak of sharing the gospel.
Why is it important to share the gospel? The first thing that came to my mind was a seminary scripture mastery D&C 18:10 “remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of god” this lead me to a quote from President Uchtdorf in the last session of General Conference where he said “this is a paradox of man: compared to god man is nothing; yet we are everything to God.” Since we are all gods children and the worth of our souls is great and matters much to him then how much more do those who have not heard the good news of the gospel matter to him. This is why we must share what we know to be true.
It is impossible to be truly converted to the gospel and not have a strong desire to share it with others. In the Book of Mormon we see many examples of after someone is truly converted to the gospel they have strong desire to rush and share this message. The first that I thought of was the story of Alma the younger. He went about doing much harm to the church and its members, after repenting during a long period of unconsciousness that most of us won’t necessarily have to go through to become converted the first thing he did when he “came to” was start to praise god and teach those around the power of the Atonement and repentance. A few chapters later we come to one of my personal favorite stories, Ammon and King Lamoni. Ammon was one of the sons of Mosiah the king and went around with Alma the younger during both the time before he changed his ways and also after. Ammon had repented and had such a desire to share the gospel that he and his brothers ventured into the land of the Lamanites, the people they had been at war with for the past few hundred years, to bring them the gospel. Alma ventured into the land of Ishmael and ended up becoming a slave to King Lamoni. After putting on a feat of strength through the lords power were he took on a large group of men of angry men alone Ammon was summoned to the king. While there Ammon proceeded to teach the king that he was not the Great Spirit that the king had heard of but was a messenger and servant for that Great Spirit who is God. He taught him and King Lamoni was so overcome with the spirit he also became unconscious for two days, but when he awoke much like unto Alma he began to preach and to teach to those around him.
To be true converts we need to have the “Courage to Stand” as is stated in Joshua 1:9 to share this good news. This scripture and idea of having courage to stand is especially important to me because it was our EFY theme for the year that me and my best friend Zack Hansen went. At this time Zack had not been baptized, but because of the testimonies born and the spirit at EFY from all the other young men and women around us Zack had the courage to stand and accept the gospel and its principles and standards in a world that looks down on one for doing so.
At times it will be hard and as President Monson said in the last Priesthood Session of General Conference “Dare to be a Mormon; Dare to stand alone. Dare to have a purpose firm; Dare to make it known.” This quote really brought home to me the importance of sharing the gospel fearlessly.
So since sharing the gospel is so important how can we do it? This summer I had the opportunity to go skydiving down in Las Vegas with some of my friends. They are probably laughing because on the way home I said “I am totally talking about this in my talk in a couple months!” now at the time I was planning on using it to describe the power of prayer or how one can use faith, because I was full of both that day especially on the plane ride up. After receiving my topic “sharing the gospel” I wasn’t sure if I would be able to fit it in anymore because I couldn’t come up with anything to say that related. Then a few days before I was thinking back on the trip and how exciting it was and the joy it brought and how good it felt and how happy we all were and I remembered that me and Dylan Lamb went first and we landed and the first thing we did was go over to each other and have a quick little moment… and then we quickly rushed to the rest of our friends and just explained to them how great it was and how happy we were and expressed our feelings to them and how excited we were for them to experience this for themselves, and when we got home later that night it was the same story with our friends and family. This is much like bearing testimony to someone who hasn’t experienced something you have. Bearing testimony is the biggest part of sharing the gospel. The best way to bear ones testimony is with the spirit (D&C 42: 14) because without it you cant teach.
This summer me and some friends had the opportunity to spend a week on a house boat at Lake Powell. One night we were tubing and Sherene Carter our “lake mom” told us it was time to get heading back but Jordan, Jason, and I were dinking around in the water. From where she was she could see that a storm was coming so she said again guys lets go and we started to head back slowly to the tube because we didn’t sense the urgency. Having her there was much like having the spirit prompt you to do something and if you are slow to follow the promptings there are usually consequences. So since we didn’t come back as fast as we should as soon as we got to the house boat the storm started and the wind was so violent it ripped the anchors on the house boat out of the ground and slammed the boat into the beach. We arrived literally seconds to late. This was a good lesson to me in following the promptings of the spirit because even though everything ended up being ok it could have been better if we would have been a little quicker in following a prompting.
So what can we do now to share the gospel? I’d like to first address the young men kind of like Elder Holland did in the last priesthood session so im gonna get in your face a little much like a coach would, just enough to singe your eyebrows and tell you that you cant play for both teams. This isn’t high school anymore boys were you’ve got reversible jerseys on you have got to live in a way that the spirit can be with you at all times. We all make mistakes we are human but its what we do after we make them that seperates the men from the boys or better yet the missionaries from the boys. “Pray always that you may come off conquerer yea that ye may conquer satan,” (D&C 10:5) truer words cant be said. Prayer is such an important part in keeping the spirit with you throughout the day and through the tough times.
Now something that everyone can do is to talk about the gospel online. As Elder Ballard said “Now may I ask that you join the conversation by participating on the Internet to share the gospel and to explain in simple and clear terms the message of the restoration.” Examples of ways we can do so are Mormon.org where you can set up a personal profile to tell people who don’t know our beliefs or want to simply learn more in your own words how “us mormons” live and how we are normal people and we don’t have horns and we aren’t polygamists or whatever you want to talk about pertaining to the gospel or what its like being a latter-day saint. Other ways are blogs were you can talk about your daily lives or social media sites like Twitter and Facebook were you can post a favorite scripture and hope someone sees it and maybe likes it too?
Alright before I move on to the next part of my talk I'm going to give a bit of a warning. I grew up with Neil Adams and Rick Cleaveland as scout and young mens leaders and if you have ever heard either of them talk to more than ten people for longer than a few minutes it takes a while because they soon become “overcome with the spirit” so if I start to cry just know that its not my fault its theirs. Also I would like to ask a favor of the audience that if you happen to start to cry… mom… please put your head down and pretend your asleep because if you don’t I will definitely start to cry and we don’t want that.
I know that God loves me and blesses me everyday (as I start to cry) oh gosh so much for that. I know he loves me because he has given me all of you to help me become the man I am today. I am so blessed to have all of you everyone here loves me or came with someone who does love and that’s cool too haha. I know that god sends his missionaries where they are needed and I know that me and my friends who have recently got our calls or left are so blessed because the prophet sends us were god wants us to go and has someone waiting to hear something that we have to say. I know that sharing the gospel is so important and we all have a big part to play in doing it. I know that the atonement is true and really happened and can work for me as much as I need it and I am blessed for that. And I love this gospel and this church and all of you and I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen,
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