Stop Trying? Really?

 “You’re Number One today, so you can stop trying.” That was the greeting I received yesterday in the brothers dressing room at the Mount Timpanogos Temple from one of the ordinance workers who was assigning the lockers. (I got assigned to locker F-1). I went there for an endowment session with my daughter Emily, then later we went to her home so she could trim my silver locks.

That greeting has stayed trapped at the frontal lobe of my brain for the last twenty-four hours. I haven’t been able to shake its implications since I heard it.

Of course, he was simply using an analogy (if that’s what it was), but I can’t help wondering if we ever reach a point in our eternal progression where we “can stop trying.”

Since it’s timely, and the World Series starts tonight (it’s October 25, 2024), think about what’s going through the brains of the players on the field for the Dodgers and the Yankees. Each won their respective NLCS and ALCS championships as the Number One teams in their respective National and American Leagues, but don’t think for one minute that anyone on that field tonight is thinking their work is done. Each is still trying to win the World Series, because finishing second just isn’t an option.

And that’s true across the board in every sport. Being Number One is always the goal, and nothing less will satisfy. 

I can’t help reflecting on why we learn so little about the Telestial and the Terrestrial Kingdoms in the scriptures. Instead, our Father in Heaven reveals A LOT about Celestial Glory, particularly the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom. Why? Because He’s interested in showering upon us ALL that He has upon conditions of repentance. Nothing less will satisfy His hopes for each of us.

It’s why President Russell M. Nelson seems so fixated upon the temples these days. He is preparing a kingdom of mortal people for the Celestial glory that awaits the faithful in these latter days. He teaches about the atonement of Jesus Christ as the key to obtaining those glorious blessings. The Savior died for us in a voluntary sacrifice for our sins, and when we repent of our sins He saves us and qualifies us for eternal life. President Nelson is ignoring EVERYTHING else. If he were a gambling man, we would say he is “ALL IN” on his bet on the Savior. 

He invites us to keep trying to obtain eternal life. I can’t imagine him ever saying to any of us, “You’re Number One now, so quit trying.” I envision him as Number One among us mortals, certainly, but do I think President Nelson is done trying? He’s 100 years old now, and he continues trying to expand our faith, our vision for the future and our eternal prospects. And I suspect he will continue doing so until he draws his last breath on this planet.

Yesterday I was drawn to the story of Amulek. I reflected on this prophet’s life as I read in the Book of Mormon in the chapel while I was waiting for the session to begin. He became Alma’s missionary companion (start reading about him in Alma 8). An angel stopped Amulek along the road one day, and instructed him to return to his home where he would meet a prophet of God who was hungry and needed Amulek’s sustenance. He was told Alma would bless him and his whole posterity if he would be obedient.

Amulek proved to be a blessing for Alma, and together they had much success among an extremely wicked population of the city of Ammonihah in those days, not unlike what we are witnessing in the world today. They kept trying, nevertheless, even though the record gives little doubt Alma was rejected - the scripture states they “reviled him, and spit upon him, and caused that he should be cast out of their city” - so he was abused and imprisoned for his efforts. Alma had given up the position of chief judge among the people so he could become a full-time missionary. Because he no longer held the “title” he was rejected by his tormentors, but still he kept trying to bring as many souls to Christ as he could.

And that’s just one example from scripture - there are scores more. 

I will be forever grateful to living prophets among whom I have lived. I have a testimony of the priesthood authority and the power that goes with it if we are true and faithful. 

Just this week I witnessed it in my brother, who was initially diagnosed with acute occlusions in two of his heart arteries and was scheduled for an installation of stents. He asked for a priesthood blessing from his two brothers and his son-in-law. He asked me to be voice, but I was merely a conduit to the heavenly throne of our Father in Heaven. 

An angiogram is a scan that uses X-rays, CT scans, or MRIs to examine blood vessels and blood flow in the body. A contrast dye is injected into a blood vessel to make the blood vessels visible on the scan. When my brother's angiogram was performed, the doctors were surprised by the finding. The occlusions, instead of being in the 90% category as originally diagnosed, were found to be in the 20-30% range and did not qualify for insertion of stents. The minimum threshold protocol calls for 50% occlusion. What’s the explanation for such a wide dichotomy on the findings?

My brother was blessed by priesthood power. He will be the first to tell you he received a miracle from his Heavenly Father. If he continues to be mindful of his ongoing genetic tendency toward heart disease and takes precautions, his life will be extended. His faith in God will also be a companion to his medical care taking.

These principles I have written about this morning are real, and they are as efficacious in our year of 2024 as they were in the year 62 B.C. when Amulek and Alma were trying to bless their people with the gifts of the gospel.

I love each of you, and I encourage you to never stop trying in all your righteous endeavors. Heavenly Father is the epitome of good in our lives, and is the True Number One in our universe. 

He will never stop trying to bless us with everything that is good for our blessing and the blessing of those we serve. It’s what He does, and He has always done it. So must we as His emissaries across the globe wherever we are called to go and minister.

Like Amulek, if we remain true and faithful our entire posterity will be blessed.

"Few, If Any. . ."

I’m awake this morning at 6:00 a.m., still basking in the afterglow of our shared sealing session last night in the Orem Temple. My dear friend Hank Nelson, along with his wife Kristy who was seated at the sealing desk in the office, conducted the session at my request. 

It was a heavenly outing for me, exactly what I prayed it would be. We had 19 of our family members, including Harold and Catherine, acting as proxies for 44 of our deceased ancestors. We sealed couples and children to parents. It was a happy time for all who attended, and some silent tears were shed in acknowledgement of the rich outpouring of the spirit that attended us. I noted every teardrop that fell in quiet reverence.

I will add that I also noted son-in-law Clark’s temple shoes, originally owned by President Harold B. Lee, then by me, now by Clark, and I pondered anew where those shoes have been and what they have surely seen. He first wore them when he was a newly-sustained Apostle in 1941 on April 10th. Their tattered and well-worn appearance testified anew to me of the true calling of living prophets. To qualify for ownership of those shoes one must be a proper size 9, and Clark and I both qualified.

Our session went a little late, since we were the last group to occupy a sealing room last night. We exited the temple in darkness, but a group of young adult young women snapped this picture for us as a treasured memory. 

There are those who have asserted over the years in the Church that we don’t really know whether or not the departed spirits of our family members will accept the proxy work we do in the temples, but I have a different view. 

I remembered this following statement last night, and suggested it to daughter Dianne as we rode down the elevator after the session had concluded, then I checked the reference this morning:

President Wilford W. Woodruff

“’All who have died without a knowledge of this Gospel, who would have received it if they had been permitted to tarry, shall be heirs of the celestial kingdom of God; also all that shall die henceforth without a knowledge of it, who would have received it with all their hearts, shall be heirs of that kingdom, for I, the Lord, will judge all men according to their works, according to the desire of their hearts.’ [D&C 137:7–9.] So it will be with your fathers. There will be very few, if any, who will not accept the Gospel. … The fathers of this people will embrace the Gospel.” (Millennial Star, May 28, 1894, 339–40, emphasis mine).

Brigham and Wilford in St. George Temple

At the time, President Wilford W. Woodruff had lived to witness the construction of the first four temples in Utah, and dedicated the magnificent Salt Lake Temple that took 40 years to build. He and President Brigham Young had worked in tandem in St. George to fulfill the Prophet Joseph’s request to arrange the temple ceremonies more accurately, and that is exactly what they did.

“President Young has said to us, and it is verily so, if the dead could they would speak in language loud as ten thousand thunders, calling upon the servants of God to rise up and build Temples, magnify their calling and redeem their dead.” (Deseret News: Semi-Weekly, March 26, 1878, 1).

“If [we] knew and understood the feelings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, and those of his brethren associated with him, and the feelings of the millions of the human family who are shut up in their prison houses, we would not tire. … We would labor for the redemption of our dead.” (Deseret News: Semi-Weekly, October 26, 1880, 1).

“The eyes of the heavens are over us; the eyes of God himself, the eyes of every Prophet and Apostle in the spirit world, are watching you, watching this Priesthood, to see what they are doing and what they are going to do. It is of far more importance than we realize and comprehend. Let us awake to the ordinances of the House of God and do our duty, that we may be justified.”  (In Conference Report, October 1897, 47).

Think for a moment how powerful Wilford Woodruff’s statement is that there would be few, if any, of our deceased ancestors who will not accept the fulness of the gospel in the spirit world. 

Those, for example, who rejected the Book of Mormon in this mortal life will surely be attending a class somewhere in the spirit world taught by the Lamanites and the Nephites and all the other “ites” mentioned in the record. Imagine the surprise on the faces of those recalcitrant spirits who hear their firsthand testimonies in the spirit world and ask yourself how they could possibly resist any longer. 

I am a great believer that repentance and progress occurs in the spirit world. We certainly believe people can change here in mortality because we have witnessed it. So why not believe people can and do change in the spirit world? I KNOW they do.

President Russell M. Nelson

It’s why our living prophet today, President Russell M. Nelson, now nearing this 100th birthday on September 9th, is the very embodiment of the leadership President Woodruff foresaw in the building of temples worldwide. And we are living witnesses of the fulfillment of the prophecies of President Woodruff.

“Eternal progression” is a concept that is often misunderstood, more so in years gone by than it is today. I have always valued the perspective of Brigham Young on this topic:

“Instead of pleading with the Lord to bestow more upon you, plead with yourselves to have confidence in yourselves, to have integrity in yourselves, and know when to speak and what to speak, what to reveal, and how to carry yourselves and walk before the Lord. And just as fast as you prove to him that you will preserve everything secret that ought to be — that you will deal out to your neighbors all which you ought, and no more, and learn how to dispense your knowledge to your families, friends, neighbors, and brethren, the Lord will bestow upon you, and give to you, and bestow upon you, until finally he will say to you, ‘You shall never fall; your salvation is sealed unto you; you are sealed up unto eternal life and salvation, through your integrity.’” (Discourses of Brigham Young, 93).  

I have assurances borne to me by the Holy Ghost that we are in the correct path leading to exaltation and eternal life in the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom. I can never hear those inspired words of the temple sealings without my whole soul reaching out to my Heavenly Father and longing for the fulfillment promised in those sacred ordinances. 

Patsy Goates

I pondered all night last night what Patsy must have surely been feeling as she witnessed her posterity doing that sacred service. I’ll bet she was certainly assisting “at the veil” and hugged and kissed each one we served. Her spirit filled me with that assurance as I laid my head on my pillow later.

Thank you, each one of you in my posterity, who participated. We have done our small part in reaching out to the “ones” who President Nelson invited us to search out and bless with the promises of eternal life. Do not despair or lose faith in family members who may not yet have accepted the gospel. Remember these promises permeate every stage of our existence and hope on without reservation or doubt. These are BIG ideas, truly, and they require BIG and CONTINUING faith in their fulfillment. 

Our forefathers for whom we serve in the temples are the seminal trees from which we sprang - they are the roots and we are the branches. Those roots will flourish when nurtured and groomed with the message of the fulness of the gospel in the spirit world. 

I love you all now and eternally. We will never be separated in this life or the next because of our faith and our faithfulness. We are bound together by sacred and enduring covenants, the keys to which are held by living Apostles and Prophets.

I Can Tell You What Your Final Judgment Looks Like

I shared what follows with my family earlier this week. One daughter responded that she thought it was the best thing I had ever written. It was high praise coming from one whose opinion matters a lot to me. So I will be bold this morning and pass it along to the world comprised of my faithful readers.

I wrote last week, I reminded them, about having equal access to the Savior's atonement regardless of how "big" a sinner we might have been. The argument was raised by one of their friends that only those who had sinned, left the Church, then returned, could possibly appreciate and value the atonement. The premise was the biggest sinners love the Savior most. 

On the heels of that personal missive to them, I offer this post in logical sequence. It is prompted by the report I read and watched of a Q&A session with Elder David A. Bednar among the saints in Chile where he was ministering last week:

He boldly and simply declared, “You don’t have to die to find out where you’ll go on the day of judgment.” I hope you will enjoy watching that brief clip cited above.

President M. Russell Ballard

Then on Monday morning I opened the Google browser to see the report of the death of President M. Russell Ballard. He was 95 years young, a valiant servant of the Lord to the moment he drew his last breath. His October 2023 General Conference address, spoken without any written text in front of him because he could no longer read the teleprompter, gave us all the sense of a final benediction in his simple, plain and powerful witness of the Restoration. He is a direct descendant of Hyrum Smith, and he always bore a powerful testimony of the Prophet Joseph. 

His death now opens another vacancy in the Quorum of the Twelve. A new junior member will be named in due time by President Russell M. Nelson, and everyone else will move up one seat in seniority, making Elder Jeffrey R. Holland the new acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve if precedent is followed. 

None of these things is surprising to us, since the kingdom of God on the earth today is well-ordered, predictable and in harmony with divine guidance. Under the direction of a loving and powerful living prophet, the work is accelerating at a rapid pace. 

Temples are dotting the earth. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has 335 temples in various stages of announcement, construction, dedication and full-time use. Imagine when that number goes to 3,000 temples and beyond! Some of the younger members of our family will live to see the day and it will be glorious!

Which brings me back to the topic of the day. If you love the Lord and His Church, and you love living the gospel, you will inherit the highest degree of the Celestial glory in your final judgment. There are details like entering into the new and everlasting covenant of marriage, but that broad sentence will suffice for our purposes today. 

If you love gathering each week at your home ward for sacrament and other meetings and mingling with the saints, you will be thinking celestial, as President Nelson has encouraged you to do. 

If you love reading and studying the scriptures and the words of the living prophets, there can be little doubt that you would love spending eternity with those prophets and you will! 

If you love your family members and are constantly looking for ways to bless their lives and the lives of others within your sphere of influence because it brings you such joy here, then think of those blessed acts of charity for an eternity up ahead, and you will have a glimpse of life in the Celestial Kingdom.

On the other hand, if living the gospel in this life is simply too much, or seems hard to do and you are more comfortable with skipping your meetings and being with other like-minded people in your telestial world here and now, then God isn’t going to force any of His children into a life in the resurrection that makes them uncomfortable. Yes, He wants every one of His children to return home to Him and live eternal life with Him, but He will never compel us even in the slightest way against our will. We get to choose our own path. What a plan! Indeed, it is the plan of happiness and we will all be happy with what we choose.

He extends the covenant path to us through His prophets and through the collective experiences of all the prophets who have recorded their teachings in the scriptures, but if it’s just too much to do, there isn’t the least bit of compulsion in His plan. He honors everyone’s choices, whatever they may be. 

There may be a compelling reason this topic appeals to me right now. That reason is there is nothing I would rather do than live life eternally with my cherished companion of mortality (only a “nanosecond” in eternity). That’s what I choose, and that is what I am living for each day that remains. 

I went to the temple last Friday in Ogden with daughter Allie, then we had lunch together. It was a heavenly outing. 

Ogden Temple

I went to tithing settlement Sunday with our new bishop, Brent Edmunds. The numbers aren’t really very exciting like they were once when I was earning income, but the total doesn’t really matter as much as the intent in my heart to do good. We rejoiced together in that interview. 

Our sacrament meeting featured a report of their mission by Brent’s parents, Steve and Liz. It was heavenly to hear their testimonies over the pulpit. I thought as I listened to them, “These are the kinds of people I want to associate with in the future of the spirit world and the resurrection.” 

It’s what motivates me now - to be like them and to be with them. It’s what my final judgment will look like, and it’s not a mystery to me anymore. I can see it up ahead, just over that next horizon. It’s the culmination of everything I have lived for, hoped for and longed for. It’s where I am most comfortable, and that vision includes all of you as my family!

I can’t imagine being in company with anyone I love more than you. I know who you are. I know from whence you came, one at a time as you entered mortality. Now look at how our posterity has multiplied because of your faithfulness! 

I know Patsy and I linked arms with God who created your spirits as we created your bodies, and in each case you brought us so much joy as you came into this world. I can only imagine the joy that Patsy must have surely experienced as she went through the veil of death and was welcomed into the embrace of her Savior. (2 Nephi 9:41). It’s where she always wanted to be, and I desire nothing less for myself.

I want to be with her and with all of you. It’s what I choose freely and without any compulsion whatsoever. I love God and His Son. They are my best friends because I know Them. I love the gospel Christ taught and lived by example for each of us. 

I love the thought of my paltry few dollars paid in tithing that are joining with billions of other dollars  spreading comfort and relief all around the world. 

I love the temple ordinances, again offered freely to all God’s children, securing to all who claim those supernal blessings for themselves the promise of eternal life. 

Isn’t it curious that we know so little about the glory of the Terrestrial and the Telestial kingdoms? I have always felt that is because all the revelations point us instead to the Celestial Kingdom. 

There is hope, always and forever, that all of us will choose whatever suits us best, and that it will be life with Patsy and our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ. 

Brigham Young

President Brigham Young (1801–77) spoke of the extent of the Savior’s efforts to save mankind: “This is the plan of salvation. Jesus will never cease his work until all are brought up to the enjoyment of a kingdom in the mansions of his Father, where there are many kingdoms and many glories, to suit the works and faithfulness of all men that have lived on the earth. Some will obey the celestial law and receive of its glory, some will abide the terrestrial and some the telestial.” (Discourses of Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe [1954], 56, emphasis mine).

The "covenant path" is not hard. Instead, it is a path highlighted by generous promises. I love those promises, and I know each of you will find them as compelling as I do. Repentance is the key to understanding how to obtain them. We don’t have to be perfect, we simply need to do our best and repent when we fall short. It isn’t hard to understand at all. Christ lived the only perfect life and His perfection rescues each of us when we repent.

The final judgment is right in front of you for choosing today. You don’t have to wait until you die to know exactly what it will be, because you are choosing it every day here and now. I love you. Choose well.