Sorta-liveblogging general conference: Saturday morning session

Welcome, welcome, sabbath morning! Oh, wait.

Anyway, yes, we’ve arrived at the Saturday before the Sunday of general conference, or as i’ve started to call it, the weekend without a weekend. (Seriously, you’re Mormon and you have plans to get anything done around the house or such this weekend? I admire your dogged self-confidence.)

Anyway, as with all of these, i write these in “liveblog” style, which means the first speaker of this session is actually at the bottom of this post, the next speaker is above that, the next is above that, and so on to the last speaker (who appears at the top of the post). This is done so that once the whole conference weekend is past you can to scroll down to the bottom of this first session’s post for the start of the conference, and then scroll up to read through the entire conference chronologically. However, under each speaker, the comments are done top-down chronologically (i.e., the opposite direction), because otherwise i get overly confused.

Which is itself all confusing, but it ends up working okay, really, i promise it does.

And so…

Jeffrey R. Holland, of the quorum of apostles

• [Dieter F. Uchtdorf and Jeffrey R. Holland both in the opening session? What are we going to have to look forward to for the rest of the weekend?]
• The scriptures are there to comfort us, but also to remind us that sometimes we fall a little short.
• Consider the beatitudes: They start with some niceties, but then ask us to do things like not ever be angry, give our substance to the poor, and so on, culminating in a command to be perfect!
• It’s perhaps no surprise that we may feel like we can never live up to what is expected of us, but as children of God, with the promise that we can fulfill all of God’s commands and the possibility of perfection ourselves, we cannot allow ourselves to fall into self-vilification.
• Remember that we live in a telestial—that’s starting with a t, not a c!—world, and “perfection is pending”.
• God is merciful and a peacemaker, which is wonderful, because we all need mercy, and we all need peace.
• Focusing on the perfection of God rather than our own failures does not give us a reason to excuse our own failures, but it should inspire in us a recognition of the perfection of the Lord, and lead us to aspire to the heavenly gift of perfection.
• The grace of Christ offers us not only salvation from sin, sorrow, and death, but also salvation from self-criticism.
• The parable of the two debtors (Luke 7:36–50) is not a story about squabbling servants, it’s a story about our debt and (hopefully) gratitude to God.
• We need to focus on being as perfect and Godlike as we can, avoiding what has been called “toxic perfectionism”—and also be willing to recognize that others, even those who serve in the church (which is, for its members, all of us!), will also not be perfect even as they try to do so.
• Don’t gloat at those who fail, but give your help to anyone who is trying to follow the right way. [I think that was from the end of a quote from Tolstoy, but i’m not certain.]
• “If we persevere, then sometime in eternity our refinement will be perfect and complete, which is the New Testament definition of ‘perfection’.”
• Remember that even Jesus moved from grace to grace, ultimately achieving glory in immortality.

D. Todd Christofferson, of the quorum of apostles

• Jesus said that his followers must “eat his flesh” and “drink his blood”, which is a striking way to describe how thoroughly we must incorporate him into our lives.
• We must follow the Savior’s precepts to receive grace, which leads to a remission of our sins.
• We often think of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ as referring to partaking of the emblems of the sacrament, but it also includes internalizing the qualities of Jesus Christ and becoming more like him.
• We can come to a knowledge of our sins, and that can humble and even shock us, but it needn’t discourage us—it can also give us hope in the atonement.
• The sacrifices we make to keep our covenants and the service we give to others lead us to holiness.
• The early Utah Mormons inscribed “holiness to the Lord” on even seemingly non-religious, mundane items (hammers! doorknobs! drums!), but it was done to reflect the truth that holiness should encompass all of our existence.

John C. Pingree Jr, of the quorums of seventy

• We may ask ourselves whether God has a work for each of us. The answer: Yes.
• Every one of us has a meaningful role to play in the work of God, no matter our background or social status.
• How do we find what God’s work for us is? Focus on others, discover and develop your spiritual gifts, make use of adversity to grow, and ask God what work you are to accomplish.
• All have spiritual gifts; if you don’t know what gifts you have been given, ask God—God knows what blessings you have been given, and how you can use them.
• Take care to not be so preoccupied with things of the world that you’re distracted from the greater work you are to accomplish.
• Do not feel inadequate to accomplish what you’re supposed to, or that your work is unimportant.
• We may be tempted to take credit for the work we accomplish, but we should rather give the glory to God.

Dallin H. Oaks, of the quorum of apostles

• “The world” is often used in the scriptures as a metaphor for opposition to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
• What does it mean to not be “of the world”, or to “forsake the world”?
• We must live with the laws and mores that surround us, but to achieve salvations and exaltation we must make personal choices that match with the requirements that God has set.
• There is always conflict between those who follow the laws of God and those who don’t.
• Mention of “The Family: A Proclamation to the World”, and differences between its precepts as opposed to those in surrounding cultures.
• Interestingly, the things he’s hitting hard on are same-sex marriage [kind of expected, really, particularly given the speaker], cohabitation without marriage [which was mentioned more frequently—though usually indirectly—in general conference in previous decades], and the births of children out of wedlock [again, not really referenced all that frequently recently].
• Some interesting history of the way the Proclamation on the Family was developed.

Bonnie L Oscarson, general president of the young women organization

• We have recently been faced with many natural disasters across the world, and have seen the service that so many have provided in response.
• We need to be willing to lose ourselves in service to others.
• We need to recognize that some of the most significant service we can give aren’t in response to the huge, incredibly visible needs around us, but may be the seemingly “small” needs of those closest to us.
• “Changing the world begins with strengthening your own family.”
• We should keep in mind that church meetings aren’t just about what we get out of them individually—the most important thing we attend on any given day may be the ways we serve and strengthen others there.
• [My teen daughter is being very frustrated at the repeated undertone of this speech that socialization through technology stands in the way of really offering service to those around us. I’m not so much frustrated by it, but i do think it’s kind of a weird note in an otherwise encouraging and useful address.]

Dieter F. Uchtdorf, of the first presidency

• [Starting off with the big dogs!]
• There are animals that have a remarkable ability to travel long distances to find their way to where they’re supposed to go; human beings have a similar innate yearning to go where they’re supposed to go spiritually.
• God knows you in all of your joys and sorrows and weaknesses, and calls to you no matter your history.
• If you hear God’s call, God will speak to you.
• Why should you turn to God? Two reasons: Your life will be better, and God will use you to make the lives of others better.
• Following the Savior will not remove all of our problems, but it will remove the barriers that stand between us and God.
• We may think we have to be more [intelligent, charismatic, anything really] to serve God. This is false; all we need to do is heed the call and serve.
• Some of us may look at faults of some early members of the church and say we’d never have made such mistakes; we can’t say that, because we don’t know what it was like for them and how we would have reacted. What we do know is that God was able to use them, fallible as they were, just as we can be used in our fallibilities.
• Life is not a self-driving car, or an airplane on autopilot—we must each individually commit to follow the Savior, and be willing to swim upstream.

Conducting: Henry B. Eyring, of the first presidency

• They changed the font they use to display the names and offices of speakers onscreen, i think.
• Thomas S. Monson isn’t attending this session.