Rededication of the Ogden Utah Temple, A Testimony

This has been a great month so far. It began with a private tour of the new exhibit, "Foundations of Faith," at the Church History Library, which opened to the public recently. You can take the virtual tour here. Elder Steven E. (for Erastus) Snow, Church Historian and a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy, is also the home teacher to Julianna H. Hewlett, our beloved mother and grandmother. He is always so attentive, the model home teacher if there ever were one. He made the offer to Julie for a private tour of the exhibit, and we were the lucky invitees.

Elder Steven E. Snow

Elder Snow and his staff welcomed us the same afternoon the general presidencies of the Church's auxiliary organizations were also there for a private tour. They told us the General Authorities had visited earlier in the day. We were escorted through many of the Library's back rooms, and several Church artifacts were shown to us. It was a thrill to hold in our hands the canes Brigham Young once used, the more famous one being the one he planted in the ground on the very spot where he declared, "Here we will build a temple to our Lord."

Among other objects we were shown was an original Book of Mormon and a valuable and rare gold pocket watch Joseph Smith gave to Eliza R. Snow, a watch so ornate and delicately crafted with floral designs that no one would mistake its owner had to be a woman.

We also handled other pages of the original manuscript from which Oliver Cowdery wrote the translation of The Book of Mormon as the words flowed from Joseph. Only about 25 percent of that original manuscript survived after it was recovered from the damp cornerstone of the Nauvoo House many years later. In the handwriting of Oliver Cowdery, we read together: "I will go and do the things which the Lord has commanded for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he hath commanded them." (1 Nephi 3:7). These pages are carefully preserved in protective coverings like the page on display in the exhibit on the main floor of the Library. It is possible to know and feel the truth without seeing and touching, but I can bear my witness that the more of our senses that are involved only heightens the almost electric and tangible witness one receives.

I asked Sister Snow, who was with us, what of all the things her husband has shown her in the Library are her most treasured memories. Without hesitation, and with some obvious emotion, her reply was, "The sacred manuscript pages of the Book of Mormon." Many years ago, when President Harold B. Lee was living, he provided a similar experience to us as his family, and I have never forgotten the feelings I had then of viewing and carefully touching those pages. My answer was the same as hers.

It was a supernal thrill to gently turn the pages of an original Wilford Woodruff journal (one of many he kept during his lifetime). It was amazing to see the exquisite penmanship and the intricate artwork he meticulously crafted within the pages of his journal. Seldom a day passed during his lifetime with the Prophet Joseph when he did not record an entry detailing what the Prophet had said that day. We are indebted to him as a Church for preserving the Prophet's teachings in his journal.

Last weekend, the second event of note this month was being in the first stake conference under the direction of our new stake presidency. They are inspired men of God, and they walk the talk. Our new stake president asked us to pray for missionary opportunities, and within forty-eight hours of doing so we were blessed with the chance to entertain a dear associate from Mexico with whom I am acquainted in my work. He came to our home for dinner, spent the night, and we had breakfast together with him before returning to the city.



Our home is filled with pictures of our family, and artwork reflecting our love of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's hard to avoid asking the obvious questions associated with those evidences of our faith. And Francisco asked. We shared our testimonies, we answered many questions, and toward the end of the evening Patsy remembered we had a Spanish language copy of The Book of Mormon that has resided in our home since son Steve returned from his mission to Mexico. We gave it to him, and encouraged him to read it. He said he would.

President Harold B. Lee (l),
President Joseph Fielding Smith (c),
President Nathan Eldon Tanner (r)

Today was the rededication of the Ogden Utah Temple. Here's a wonderful aerial video of the new temple. Forty-two years ago in January, 1972, we were present in the celestial room of the original Ogden Temple when it was dedicated. At the time, the First Presidency consisted of Joseph Fielding Smith, Harold B. Lee, and Nathan Eldon Tanner. We were in close proximity in those cloistered confines, and something unusual was happening during the proceedings. There was a large chandelier in the celestial room that was slowly rotating with the air circulating from the HVAC system. The crystal droplets in the chandelier were causing shadows from the TV lights, and those shadows would cross the faces of the speakers at the podium. It was noticeable to all in attendance in the celestial room and an obvious distraction. However, when all three members of the First Presidency spoke their faces were so luminous there were no shadows whatsoever. Instead, their faces were bathed in a light that overcame the shadows, a fitting symbol to me.

Newly rededicated Ogden Utah Temple

My father captured that day  and the subsequent power of the dedication of the sister temple in Provo, Utah, a few weeks later in his biography about President Lee in these words:

"Following the closing session President Lee's eldest grandson, David Goates, telephoned his grandfather to tell him of his unusual experience. David, his wife, Patsy, and his mother, Helen, all reported having seen a brilliant light at the pulpit whenever the First Presidency members stood to speak in the celestial room of the temple. The light, however, did not envelop the other speakers.

"Three weeks later the companion temple in Provo, Utah, was dedicated. Because of more Church buildings on the campus of nearby Brigham Young University, linked by closed circuit television, an estimated thirty-five thousand or more were in attendance for each of the sessions.

Ogden Utah Temple, 1972

"As at the Ogden Temple dedication, President Lee was the concluding speaker, after which he gave the dedicatory prayer and led the Hosanna Shout. In his sermon, President Lee was impressed to speak of some personal spiritual experiences which unmistakably indicated the nearness to those on the other side of the veil. Elder Alvin R. Dyer testified later that he had seen the deceased President David O. McKay there, along with others whom he couldn't identify. Sister Norma Anderson, wife of Elder Joseph Anderson, Assistant to the Twelve and long-time faithful secretary to the First Presidency, also saw her own mother. President Lee noted in his journal that he was watching the strange look on Sister Anderson's face as she was probably witnessing this visitation.

"Two BYU students seated in one of the large campus buildings told President Lee that many of the Saints were shedding tears when the prayer and the Hosanna Shout were delivered and also during the concluding anthem sung by the choir. The Holy Spirit visited these television-linked buildings with the same power as in the temple proper." (Harold B. Lee: Prophet and Seer, L. Brent Goates, 430).

Odgen Temple Celestial Room

Today, many stake centers in Utah were invited to be part of the dedication during three sessions. However, the broadcast into our stake center was fraught with technical glitches. It was analogous to my first experience where the distractions were obvious to all. Each time a different speaker was announced the video feed would be lost and only the audio was heard, and there were audible groans of disappointment from the audience. What was reminiscent of my experience in the original Ogden Temple dedication was that when President Monson was announced, the video feed cleared up and we had a perfect experience, both audio and video, with President Monson.

It may seem a small coincidence to some, but to me it was significant. You see, when the video feed kept failing, I offered a silent prayer that all would be privileged in the remote stake center where we were located to see and hear President Monson's remarks and his dedicatory prayer. And my little prayer was answered.

President Monson, Elder Kent Richards

When we concluded the Hosanna Shout and began singing "The Spirit of God," my heart was full to overflowing for the gratitude I feel to be living in a day when living prophets are among us and temples now dot the earth among every nation, kindred and tongue. The sun never sets on the temples of our God, an emblem of increasing light and truth as we share the fullness of the gospel with all who will embrace the invitation to come out of a troubling and ever-darker world around us. With this rededication of another temple, we take one step closer to the establishment of ZION in these last days, and the fight against evil continues as the wars and rumors of wars drone on in our ears.

Imagine a place on earth where one can go to find peace in this chaotic world. Imagine where one can go to have your family sealed together by priesthood authority for time and for all eternity. Imagine a place where a name of a loved one can be placed upon an altar in the temple, and the combined faith and prayers of thousands of faithful brothers and sisters can ascend to heaven on their behalf every day. Imagine knowing that all this is possible because there is a God in heaven, there is a Savior, Jesus Christ, who has redeemed all mankind from sin and death upon conditions of repentance and a Holy Ghost who testifies of these truths. Imagine that all you have just read is true and you can partake for the mere asking.

You don't have to imagine it at all, because it is my witness that it is true. And that's very real.

To the Mountain of the Lord's House

Much has been made in recent years of Mormon temple worship. Curiosity is beginning to build in this presidential election season, and will escalate going into November. Some wonder what goes on behind those seemingly secretive walls of Mormon temples. Rumors of grotesque practices like "baptisms for the dead" have people stirred up, even to the point recently of Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel reportedly being "outraged" that he and members of his family were found in the Church's expansive database for proxy temple ordinances.

For the most part, stories like these that make their way into the press repeatedly call for a public apology from the Church. In an attempt to clarify the Church always responds with an education piece on their official website explaining the policies associated with the proxy ordinances performed there for the dead. In the Mormon view there is no intent to anger the relatives of the deceased. In fact, the policy is that only names in one's direct genealogical history may be submitted for the proxy ordinances. In the spirit world after mortality, because our eternal spirit lives on when the body is buried awaiting resurrection, and may not have had a chance for hearing the fulness of the gospel during mortality, the spirits are taught and may exercise their agency in accepting or rejecting the temple ordinances including baptisms, laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, priesthood ordinations, followed by initiatory ordinances of washings and anointings, then endowments and sealings performed on earth in their behalf.

Only those who have previously obtained a current temple recommend and received the temple ordinances for themselves may perform proxy ordinances for others in their families who are deceased. Sometimes the genealogical research to find the names of their ancestors takes years and years to discover. It is a selfless and spiritual work.

President Lorenzo Snow

It was President Lorenzo Snow who opined, "I believe, strongly too, that when the Gospel is preached to the spirits in prison, the success attending that preaching will be far greater than that attending the preaching of our Elders in this life. I believe there will be very few indeed of those spirits who will not gladly receive the Gospel when it is carried to them. The circumstances there will be a thousand times more favorable. . . I believe there will be very few who will not receive the truth." (Brian H. Stuy, ed., Collected Discourses, 5 vols. [Burbank, Calif., and Woodland Hills, Ut.: B.H.S. Publishing, 1987-1992], 3:  . Discourse delivered by President Lorenzo Snow at the Sixty-Fourth Semi-Annual Conference of the Church, held in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Friday morning, October 6, 1893, reported by Arthur Winder).

President Wilford W. Woodruff

President Wilford Woodruff said essentially the same thing: "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." (Ibid., April 8, 1894).

Sometime this month our youngest daughter will complete the circle of life in her generation by going to the Oakland Temple for the first time. She is the last of our children to go to the Mountain of the Lord's House. All her eleven brothers and sisters and their spouses before her have received the ordinances of salvation. Everything we do in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints points one toward the temple and the ordinances administered there. It is always a journey of faith for each soul who comes to the temple. In recognition of her decision to receive her personal ordinances in preparation for her pending mission to Washington D.C. South Mission, I wanted to share with all of the readers of this page what I would say to Merilee if she were here with me to better prepare her for what she will experience behind the temple doors.

Oakland Temple

It is necessary to make this bold statement at the outset: There are very few things we cannot discuss about the temple, since most of what happens there is scriptural and can be obtained in the public records, books, sermons and scriptures published by the Church for all to see. Indeed, every temple before it is dedicated is open to the public for tours and explanatory inspections by anyone who is curious enough to come inside. I love what Elder Neal A. Maxwell used to say, “Through the restitution of all things, God is actually giving away the secrets of the universe!” (That Ye May Believe [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, Inc., 1992] 164), for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. Indeed, we are reminded, "And moreover, I say unto you, that the time shall come when the knowledge of a Savior shall spread throughout every nation, kindred, tongue, and people." (Mosiah 3:20). That time is now.

President Henry B. Eyring

President Henry B. Eyring gave a wonderful Conference talk a few years ago, inviting all to "Come Unto Christ." He called it "the most important invitation we could offer to someone." We see the invitation throughout the scriptures, as in this reference: "Come, my brethren, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters; and he that hath no money, come buy and eat; yea, come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore, do not spend money for that which is of no worth, nor your labor for that which cannot satisfy. Hearken diligently unto me, and remember the words which I have spoken; and come unto the Holy One of Israel, and feast upon that which perisheth not, neither can be corrupted, and let your soul delight in fatness." (2 Nephi 9:50-51).

We are reminded, ". . .ye shall grow in the knowledge of the glory of him that created you, or in the knowledge of that which is just and true." (Mosiah 4:12). And Jacob encouraged us with these words: "O then, my beloved brethren, repent ye, and enter in at the strait gate, and continue in the way which is narrow, until ye shall obtain eternal life. O be wise; what can I say more?" (Jacob 6:11-12). The "strait gate" refers to the ordinances of salvation, first at the edge of the waters of baptism, then eventually at the doors of the temple. We learn all about eternal life when we go to the temple, and our experiences there buttress and flesh out more fully everything we learn in the scriptures. I believe the textbooks for eternal life are the scriptures and the classroom is the temple.

Seat time in the classroom, however, is no substitute for hands on experience and experimentation outside the classroom with the textbooks and living among all the contradictions of mortality that go with the celestial ideals. There are no such things as "cloistered" monasteries in the Church. We live in the world every day. We are buffeted and tested, tried and judged, bruised and broken. It is all part of our mortal probation, but we are shown the road map on our homeward journey. None is excluded. All are invited to make the discoveries necessary to guide them unerringly toward reunion.

Everything we do and learn in the temple points us homeward to God and His Son, Jesus Christ. The temple is all about "reunion," pointing us forward to that day when we regain our patriarchal heritage with God our Father, after being shut out of their presence for a season while we are here on earth in the "testing phase" of our eternal existence. (Abraham 3:24-26).

For reasons of propriety, I will briefly divide the temple ordinances here into three major parts written about and discussed extensively elsewhere.

Initiatory Ordinances

Following baptism, the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost and priesthood ordinations for men, the initial part of the temple ordinance is initiatory in nature and pertains to preparatory symbolic washings and anointings. These preliminary ordinances are a type and shadow of events yet to come when we have fulfilled our covenant duties to preach the gospel and administer its blessings to our fellowmen. (See Ezekiel 3:18-21; Acts 18:5-6; Jacob 1:19; 2:2; Ether 12:38; D&C 88:81-82).

Endowment

The second part endows God’s children with knowledge and spiritual power if we are faithful to keeping our covenants, and it pertains to the four priesthood keys in order to fulfill our covenant duties. Once admitted to the temple both men and women are freely given these keys of understanding, knowledge and wisdom we will need to regain our full fellowship with God.

Sealings

In the third part God’s children enter into sealing ordinances, the first being the conditional sealing ordinance of the new and everlasting covenant of marriage (see D&C 131:2, 19), that we might someday become kings and queens over our own family kingdoms in eternity IF we remain faithful to our temple covenants.

President Boyd K. Packer

President Boyd K. Packer makes it clear that both the man and the woman are involved together in all these sacred ordinances:

Those who tell you that in the kingdom of God a woman’s lot is less than that of the man know nothing of the love, akin to worship, that the worthy man has for his wife. He cannot have his priesthood, not the fulness of it, without her. “For no man,” the Prophet said, “can get the fulness of the priesthood outside the temple of the Lord” (see D&C 131:1-3). And she is there beside him in that sacred place. She is there and shares in all that he receives. Each, individually, receives the washings and anointings, each may be endowed. But he cannot ascend to the highest ordinances -- the sealing ordinances -- without her at his side. (“The Circle of Sisters,” Ensign, November 1980, 111).

Again, the fullness of the temple ordinance pertains to the second Melchizedek Priesthood key. These things are administered freely to worthy men and women and pertain to the spirit of Elijah and Messiah:

"The spirit, power, and calling of Elijah is, that ye have power to hold the key of the revelations, ordinances, oracles, powers and endowments of the FULNESS of the Melchizedek Priesthood and of the kingdom of God on the earth. . ." (TPJS, 337).

"The spirit of Elias is first, Elijah second, and Messiah last. Elias is a forerunner to prepare the way, and the spirit and power of Elijah is to come after, holding the keys of power, building the Temple to the capstone, placing the seals of the Melchizedek Priesthood upon the house of Israel, and making all things ready; then Messiah comes to His Temple, which is last of all." (TPJS, 340).

In summary, each of the four priesthood keys is administered to men and women through the priesthood. Faith is administered through the priesthood, the preparatory gospel is administered through the priesthood, the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, the First Comforter, is administered through the priesthood, and the temple ordinances pertaining to obtaining the blessings of the Second Comforter are administered through the priesthood in the temples.

With Scott Strong years ago, I wrote extensively about the priesthood keys, and have shared it here for anyone who would like a free pdf copy of the book's manuscript.

Salt Lake Temple

 As you prepare to go to the temple, Merilee, recognize that everything you will need to ensure your eternal exaltation in the presence of your Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, is administered to you there, subject of course, to your faithfulness. All the promised blessings are only efficacious IF we keep our covenants. If we do not, we are promised we will be in Satan's power. (Alma 34:34-35).

In my own extended family I have seen examples of each - those who were faithful and those who were not. I know the promises are true for each. I know we can remain faithful and inherit eternal life. I also know we can reject God and come under Satan's power, even to the destruction of our bodies in the flesh. The temple ordinances are designed to help us love, honor and serve God, sanctify our minds and bodies in this life and prepare ourselves for eternal life.

In the Mountain of the Lord's House (Isaiah 2:2) we receive all the promised blessings conditionally, based upon our individual faithfulness.

Living Prophets Among Us

President Thomas S. Monson

Today, as the 181st General Conference convenes, I renew my gratitude for living prophets who live among us. They are gentle giants of love, service, testimony and example. None symbolizes the teachings, life and ministry of Jesus Christ and His example better than President Thomas S. Monson.

President Spencer W. Kimball

The paradox is their power derives from their humility. However, many in the world misunderstand or question their greatness as misplaced idol worship. I always remember President Spencer W. Kimball and other General Authorities long since dead at Conference time. I believe he, like so many, never knew how great he really was. The great ones never do.

If you want to understand what sets them apart, look to their words as they describe themselves. I was remembering an address in the 1978 General Conference this morning when I heard President Eyring mention what a pure example President Monson is of one like the Savior who “went about doing good.”

The value of a living prophet is that often they will help us remember the foundation upon which the living prophets are building today:

Various excuses have been used over the centuries to dismiss these divine messengers. There have been denials because the prophet came from an obscure place. "Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?" (John 1:46). Jesus was also met with the question, "Is not this the carpenter's son?" (Matthew 13:55). By one means or another, the swiftest method of rejection of the holy prophets is to find a pretext, however false or absurd, to dismiss the man so that his message could also be dismissed. . .  Perhaps they judged Paul by the timbre of his voice or by his style of speech, not the truths uttered by him.

We wonder how often hearers first rejected the prophets because they despised them, and finally despised the prophets even more because they had rejected them. . . 

The trouble with rejection because of personal familiarity with the prophets is that the prophets are always somebody's son or somebody's neighbor. They are chosen from among the people, not transported from another planet, dramatic as that would be!

. . . the prophets have always been free from the evil of their times, free to be divine auditors who will still call fraud, fraud; embezzlement, embezzlement; and adultery, adultery. (Ensign, May 1978, 76-77).

President Kimball went on in that same address to note the prophets’ motives are often misunderstood. He then added his personal testimony: "Those prophets I have known are the most loving of men. It is because of their love and integrity that they cannot modify the Lord's message merely to make people feel comfortable. They are too kind to be so cruel. I am so grateful," he added, "that prophets do not crave popularity."

True prophets teach all of the gospel, but choose to emphasize the most relevant at the moment. This morning President Eyring spoke of welfare principles. He did not dwell upon the history of the Church’s welfare plan, interesting as it may be to some, but rather chose to emphasize the application of those tried and true principles in today’s extremities. Our Father in Heaven’s children are suffering in Japan, Somalia, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and elsewhere. We can all do something, President Eyring reminded us, to lift those burdens.

The assault by the world and the worldly on family values is what President Kimball was focused on in 1978 when he was the living prophet, warning long years in advance of the eroding realities prevalent today. His prophetic vision in that April 1978 conference is in evidence when he said, "The home is the seedbed of saints" (Ensign, May 1978, 5). His declaration could easily be classed as scripture on a par with Paul when he warned the saints in Corinth: ". . . my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry." (1 Corinthians 10:14).

President Kimball seemed almost obsessed with idolatry (see "The False Gods We Worship," Ensign, June 1976), during that era of Church history. Rather than seeming prophetic at the time, as he was looking ahead, he seemed mired in some dusty comparison with the past. Only now as we look back upon the fixations of the world and the saints who were idolizing and idealizing the wrong things do we see it more clearly. Is the big home as an object of false worship now seen for what it was then with the U.S. now mired in tens of millions of mortgage foreclosures nationwide? Could the LGBT agenda be classified as anything but idolatry? His prophetic vision can only be fully appreciated now as we look back. And so will it be with today's utterances many years hence.

The living prophets are the first to emphasize having the Saints follow living oracles. I have always cherished this story, when President Wilford Woodruff recalled a meeting in which the Prophet Joseph Smith turned to Brigham Young and said, "Brother Brigham, I want you to take the stand and tell us your views with regard to the written oracles and the written word of God."

In response, Brigham "took the Bible, and laid it down; he took the Book of Mormon, and laid it down; and he took the book of Doctrine and Covenants, and laid it down before him, and he said: 'There is the written word of God to us, concerning the work of God from the beginning of the world, almost, to our day. And now,' said he, 'when compared with the living oracles those books are nothing to me; those books do not convey the word of God direct to us now, as do the words of a Prophet or a man bearing the Holy Priesthood in our day and generation. I would rather have the living oracles than all the writings in the books.'"

When he had finished, the Joseph said to the congregation: "Brother Brigham has told you the word of the Lord, and he has told you the truth." (CR, October 1897, 22-23).

In my mind it is impossible (there’s that absolute word again) to separate the need for living prophets from the living word of God through the scriptures. The words of scriptures become living in the mouths of living prophets.

President Joseph Fielding Smith

President Joseph Fielding Smith, one who loved and cherished the written word, affirmed, "The First Presidency are the living oracles of God and the supreme adjudicators and interpreters of the law of the Church." (Improvement Era, 1966, 978).

Today's First Presidency

When the revelation about the priesthood was announced to the Church and to the world in the spring of 1978, it was signed by all three members of the First Presidency.

Long before he was president of the Church, President Kimball observed in a General Conference filled with speeches by his Brethren, "Did you listen, or do you also build sepulchres for the dead prophets and tombs for those who have passed away long ago and disregard the living ones?"

He went on to say, "I bear testimony also, in all solemnity, that this is the true and living Church and that it is officered by men who are called of God, and it is accepted of the Lord, and that the gospel which it promulgates, by these thousands of missionaries abroad and the other thousands here at home, is the gospel of Jesus Christ which will cure all ills and solve all problems and will exalt all mankind as well as save him." (CR, October 1949, 123-24).

In August 1960, President Kimball wrote again about our tendency to dismiss living prophets among us while embracing the words of the dead ones. Said he: "Even in the Church many are prone to garnish the sepulchres of yesterday's prophets and mentally stone the living ones."

President Kimball then taught us not to parse meanings and precise word usage as an excuse for disabling our discipleship. He observed that President Wilford W. Woodruff had noted the Prophet Joseph Smith often said " 'Thus saith the Lord' almost every day of his life in laying the foundation of this work. But those who followed him have not deemed it always necessary to say 'Thus saith the Lord'; yet they have led the people by the power of the Holy Ghost. . . . He is giving us revelation, and will give us revelation until this scene is wound up."

President Wilford W. Woodruff

President Kimball gave examples of President Woodruff’s references to revelations and the way he characterized them:

"I have had some revelations of late and very important ones to me . . ."
"Since I received that revelation . . . "
"The Lord showed me by vision and revelation . . ."
"He has told me exactly what to do . . ."
" . . . the God of heaven commanded me to do what I did do . . . "
"I went before the Lord and wrote what the Lord told me to write . . ."  (Instructor, August 1960, 257).

The point is, revelation through the living prophets governs the operations of the Church as an institution and guides and instructs the Church members.

President Harold B. Lee

This morning I remembered a story I heard President Harold B. Lee tell about an experience he had with a young serviceman in Korea. The man had borne an impressive testimony about chastity, but President Lee felt impressed to warn him: "Now, my boy, you have made a profound impression upon all of us. You have said that you would rather die than lose your virtue. But remember, the devil has heard you, as we heard you, and if I don't miss my guess, he is going to make you prove that you would give your life before you would lose your virtue. You had better be on guard." (Ensign, July 1972, 102-3).

President Lee's prophetic individual warning to the serviceman in Korea was relevant and on point, as years later they met again at the Los Angeles Temple where the man served as a temple worker. The prompting from a living prophet came at the crucial crossroads in his life. When we give heed to the prophetic counsel at General Conference the direction can be just as specific and pointed for each of us as if given individually to us.

As I have noted before, following the Brethren was a predominant theme in President Lee’s guidance of the Church throughout his life. In the same talk cited above, President Lee observed that someone once said, "That person is not truly converted until he sees the power of God resting upon the leaders of this church, and until it goes down into his heart like fire." President Lee believed this admonition was "absolutely true," adding that "until the members of this church have that conviction that they are being led in the right way, and they have a conviction that these men of God are men who are inspired and have been properly appointed by the hand of God, they are not truly converted."

The key word in all of this is living. In the living Church, members must have living testimonies of the living prophets as well as of the living scriptures and the living God.

President Lee once gave a speech to seminary and institute faculty members on "The Place of the Living Prophet." It became an instant classic in the Mormon lexicon. He observed, much as President Kimball, how proximity and familiarity with the Brethren who are called sometimes get in the way of our willingness to follow their counsel and guidance because “I knew him when. . .”

President Lee was acutely aware of his need to be responsive to the changing circumstances: ". . .had you ever thought that what was contrary to the order of heaven in 1840 might not be contrary to the order of heaven in 1960?" (Address to Seminary and Institute Faculty, Brigham Young University, July 8, 1968).

Often, members of the Church fail to transfer their allegiance and trust to the successor “trustees in trust” when a beloved leader dies. President Lee quoted John Taylor as saying, "The principle of present revelation, then, is the very foundation of our religion." And of the books of scripture President Taylor said,

Those books are good for example, precedent, and investigation, and for developing certain laws and principles. But they do not, they cannot, touch every case required to be adjudicated and set in order. We require a living tree — a living fountain — living intelligence, proceeding from the living priesthood in heaven, through the living priesthood on earth. . . .[did you catch “living” in all that?]

Adam's revelation did not instruct Noah to build his ark; nor did Noah's revelation tell Lot to forsake Sodom; nor did either of these speak of the departure of the children of Israel from Egypt. These all had revelations for themselves, and so had Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Jesus, Peter, Paul, John, and Joseph. And so must we, or we shall make a shipwreck. (John Taylor, The Gospel Kingdom, 34).

President Lee once called ours a time of "sophistication . . . when there are many clever people who are not willing to listen to the humble prophets" because this takes faith and humility. ("Sweet Are the Uses of Adversity," Instructor, June 1965, 217).

I fear that in our age of casualness about nearly everything, we may view the words of the prophets as a buffet table from which we may select only the tender morsels we want most, the ones most suited to our individual palettes. I had to learn we must partake of all the vegetables too, including the spiritual spinach, broccoli and parsnips.

In today’s modern entitlement-drenched economy we would do well to heed this bit of advice from Elder Marvin J. Ashton: "We never give anybody a lift when we give them a free ride."

President Boyd K. Packer

Wisely, in times of economic and temporal hardship, President Boyd K. Packer has suggested we must sometimes just "pick up our handcart and head west." It’s never a good idea to look longingly on the past for very long pining away for what might have been or justifying our present circumstances in the "bad breaks." Lean into the headwind of the future and keep moving forward. 

So on this Conference weekend, let’s rejoice in the here and now, when living prophets stand among us as giant redwoods in the forest of our souls.

Their words are always timely and timeless.