**Note: This section of my blog is about apostles who have since left us. I post their last three talks given in general conference and write about the patterns and themes that stream through these talks. This gives us the direction this apostle would wish for us to focus on. We can remember the words of those apostles and the tools they have given to us. We can honor their life by changing some small aspect of our life. If you watch all three talks (usually around 15 minutes each), read the summary I write, and then meditate and write something you wish to change in your life, this process will take about an hour. Imagine this as an hour lesson of the last words this apostle wishes to leave with you. Richard G. Scott
November 7, 1928- September 22, 2015
Born in Pocatello, ID
Died in Salt Lake City, UT at the age of 86
Married to Jeanene Watkins, who died in 1995
Children: 7
Education: BS Degree in Mechanical Engineering Jobs: Nuclear Engineering
Church Service:
Mission to Uruguay 1950-1953 (Spanish Language)
Mission President in Argentina 1965-1968
Quorum of the 70: 1977-1988
Ordained to the Quorum of the 12 Apostles October 6, 1988 by Ezra Taft Benson following the death of Marion G. Romney
Here are his last three general conference talks:
October 2013:
April 2014:
October 2014:
The October 2013 talk focuses on the story of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies and the consequences of their covenant to lay down, bury, and never again take up their weapons of war. These consequences included having to watch their young sons go off to war in their place. He says:
It is a fundamental truth that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ we can be cleansed. We can become virtuous and pure. However, sometimes our poor choices leave us with long-term consequences. One of the vital steps to complete repentance is to bear the short- and long-term consequences of our past sins. Their past choices had exposed these Ammonite fathers to a carnal appetite that could again become a point of vulnerability that Satan would attempt to exploit.
He goes on to explain that mercifully the Lord sees weaknesses differently than rebellion. For anyone wishing to repent of sins, develop a stronger moral character, and live a higher level of life, the Savior's atonement is available. He says that the savior has given us tools to make the necessary fortifications in our life much like these fathers built spiritual fortifications to not return to past sins. The tools include:
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Make covenants and receive ordinances for yourself. Then steadily and consistently work to provide ordinances in the temple for your own ancestors.
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Share the gospel with nonmember or less-activefamily members or friends. Sharing these truths can bring a renewed enthusiasm into your life.
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Serve faithfully in all Church callings, especially home teaching and visiting teaching assignments. Don’t be just a 15-minutes-a-month home or visiting teacher. Rather, reach out to each individual member of the family. Get to know them personally. Be a real friend. Through acts of kindness, show them how very much you care for each of them.
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Most important, serve the members of your own family. Make the spiritual development of your spouse and children a very high priority. Be attentive to the things you can do to help each one. Give freely of your time and attention.
In essence, as you fill your time with service, Satan's temptations lose power in your life.
In the April 2014 talk, he speaks of the roles that his Grandma Whittle and his wife Jeanene played in helping him make important decisions in his life such as choosing to become baptized and choosing to serve a full time mission. He then addresses some of the characteristics we must develop if we wish to become the type of person that can positively influence others. For instance, he knew of and could feel their love from the beginning.
Remember, loving them is the powerful foundation for influencing those you want to help. The influence of my Grandmother Whittle and my wife, Jeanene, would have been negligible had I not first known that they loved me and wanted me to have the best in life.
Along with love, you must also trust them. Finally, we must understand intrinsically the Atonement of Jesus Christ. He testifies:
There is no doctrine more fundamental to our work than the Atonement of Jesus Christ. At every appropriate opportunity, testify of the Savior and of the power of His Atoning sacrifice. Use scriptures that teach of Him and why He is the perfect pattern for everyone in life.4 You will need to study diligently. Do not become so absorbed with trivial things that you miss learning the doctrine and teachings of the Lord. With a solid, personal doctrinal foundation, you will be a powerful source for sharing vital truths with others who desperately need them.
Finally, in the October 2014 general conference talk, he speaks of the large need since the fall of Adam and Eve to exercise faith to invite the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ into our lives. The last gift he gave to us at general conference is the gift of four powerful tools to use in our lives.
Prayer:Choose to converse with your Father in Heaven often. Make time every day to share your thoughts and feelings with Him. Tell Him everything that concerns you. He is interested in the most important as well as the most mundane facets of your life. Share with Him your full range of feelings and experiences.
Scripture study: I add my voice with this promise: as you dedicate time every day, personally and with your family, to the study of God’s word, peace will prevail in your life. That peace won’t come from the outside world. It will come from within your home, from within your family, from within your own heart. It will be a gift of the Spirit. It will radiate out from you to influence others in the world around you. You will be doing something very significant to add to the cumulative peace in the world
Family Home Evening: The structure of your evening is not as important as the time invested. The gospel should be taught both formally and informally. Make it a meaningful experience for each member of the family. Family home evening is a precious time to bear testimony in a safe environment; to learn teaching, planning, and organizational skills; to strengthen family bonds; to develop family traditions; to talk to each other; and more important, to have a marvelous time together!
Temple Attendance: While you are in the temple, listen to the words of the ordinances, ponder them, pray about them, and seek to understand their meaning. The temple is one of the best places to come to understand the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Seek Him there. Remember that many more blessings come from providing your own family names in the temple.
What I understand from his last three conference talks and the direction he hopes the world would take is that to be filled with peace and happiness, we must first use the Atonement of Jesus Christ to fortify us from temptations which so easily befall us. We can use the tools of prayer, scripture study, family home evening, and temple attendance to build and exercise faith. As we work to strengthen ourselves, we will develop the courage, love, and trust to then turn outward and in the service and aid of those around us. He concludes with this last powerful sentence for the world:
I testify that as we actively come unto Him, we can endure every temptation, every heartache, every challenge we face, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
In literature, there is a term called Chiasmus which performs a very cool pattern. Google Dictionary defines it in the following way:
chi·as·mus
kīˈazməs/
noun
1.
a rhetorical or literary figure in which words, grammatical constructions, or concepts are repeated in reverse order, in the same or a modified form; e.g. ‘Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.’
What is even cooler than that is that one such chiasmus exists in the Book of Mormon in Alma 36 when Alma (the younger) is recounting the story of his conversion to his son, Helaman. The chiasmus of this chapter can be displayed like this:
1 - ...inasmuch as ye shall keep the commandments of God ye shall prosper in the land. 2 - ...he surely did deliver them in their afflictions 3 - ...whosoever shall put their trust in God shall be supported in their trails... 4-5 - ...if I had not been born of God I should not have known these things... 6 - ...God sent his holy angel to stop us by the way. 10 - ...and it was for the space of three days...I [had not] the use of my limbs 14 - ...the very thought of coming into the presence of my God did rack my soul with inexpressible horror. 16 - ...I was racked, even with the pains of a damned soul. 17 - I remembered...my father prophesy...the coming of one Jesus Christ...to atone for the sins of the world 18 - ...O Jesus...have mercy on me, who am...encircled about by the everlasting chains of death. 19-21 - ...I was harrowed up by the memory of my sins no more... 22 - ...methought I saw...God sitting upon his throne... 23 - ...my limbs did receive their strength again... 24 - ...I have labored without ceasing...that I might bring them to taste of the exceeding joy of which I did taste...and be filled with the Holy Ghost. 26 - ...many have been born of God, and tasted as I have tasted... 27 - ...I have been supported under trials and troubles of every kind...and I do put my trust in him and he will still deliver me 28-29 - ...delivered them out of bondage and captivity... 30 - ...inasmuch as ye shall keep the commandments of God ye shall prosper in the land...
The center of the chiasmus illustrates the most important part, so the fact that Christ and his atonement are central here is very significant.
There was one important moment in my mission when I learned about this concept. Occasionally on the mission general authorities will visit to give special, mission specific training. One such occasion for me was when Elder Kopischke, an apostle from the quorum of the 70, visited my mission. After an inspiring day of training, he allowed a few missionaries to have personal interviews with him. I was one of those lucky few missionaries and in my interview I got to ask him a question, which was: "how can one find balance in life and always manage to remember the things that are most important in the middle of all the static everything in life that is trying to pull for our attention?"
The answer he gave to me came in the form of a beautiful piece of imagery he shared from Revelations 7 in the New Testament of the Bible.
9 After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and akindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and bpalms in their hands;
10 And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.
11 And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four abeasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God,
12 Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.
13 And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?
14 And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came aout of great btribulation, and havecwashed their robes, and made them dwhite in the eblood of thefLamb.
15 Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his atemple: and he that bsitteth on the throne shall cdwell among them.
16 They shall hunger no more, neither athirst any more; neither shall the bsun light on them, nor any heat.
17 For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of awaters: and God shall wipe away all btears from their eyes.
One of the major sections of focus in these verses is in verse 17. "Midst" is an Old English word meaning "middle." So in this image, they are hungering and thirsting no more because the Lamb, or Jesus Christ, is in the middle of their throne and because of that, they receive many precious blessings. The beautiful part about that is that the Christ has perfect balance between all the components that make him who he is; physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional. When we put Christ in the center of our lives, automatically everything in our life becomes more balanced because Christ is perfectly balanced. Perhaps that is why Christ is likewise the center of the chiasmus.
Taking one further step, an additional question could be, "what can I do to make Christ the center of my life?"
Playing off of the theme that Revelations 7:16-17 begins about hunger and thirst, one soon may find the scripture in 3 Nephi 12:6 which says:
Putting some puzzle pieces together, this conclusion may be drawn. As we try to put Christ in the midst of the throne in our life, we are increasingly balanced and our appetites change to hungering and thirsting after righteousness at which point we may be filled with the Holy Ghost. As we seek to go where the spirit is, Christ is able to be central in our life.
77 O God, the Eternal Father, we ask thee in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this bread to the souls of all those who partake in remembrance of the body of thy Son, and witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son, and always remember him and keep his commandments which he has given them; that they may always have his Spirit to be with them. Amen.
One of the words which has always stuck out to me in this verse is: willing. The topical guide gives a beautiful list of words which could be considered synonymous including: agency, desire, purpose, diligence, initiative. Such words point forward to a future event because the will comes before the way. Since this verse is meant as a reminder of the baptismal covenants, this teaches that at baptism we don't yet take upon the name of Christ to the fullest extent. Rather, we continue to prepare ourselves spiritually so that later, in the temple of the Lord, we can literally take upon ourselves the name of Christ.
There are different levels of desire. There is the level such that if someone hands you something on a silver platter you suppose you'll take it. Then there is the type of desire that you'll do anything, change anything, and become anything for a certain cause. Only the latter type will ever bring about the desired outcome because the will can then bring about the way. Conscious desire and consistent effort are the fruits demonstrating that one is willing and, thus, form the bridge between baptism and the temple.
There was a point in the last month of my mission when I finally began to understand the power of being willing. My mission president had returned from the mission president seminar with the solution to the long pondered puzzle of mission presidents: how can we double baptisms. The answer he received from past mission presidents who had actually been able to do just that was the idea of pay-it-forward, or that he would pick one or two companionships to work with. He would do anything and everything within his power to help those missionaries double baptisms in their respective areas. Upon accomplishing that Herculean task, their responsibility would then be to turn around and teach other companionships and eventually the entire mission how to double baptisms. Our mission president concluded by explaining that he didn't even know how to begin the task of choosing who it would be, but if we were interested in doing anything it takes to fill that role, we should text him that day.
When this plan was presented before the Mission Leadership Council, I learned something very important about will. My companion and I were overcome with the spirit. We quickly left when the meeting concluded and when we got out to the car we burst out crying because we knew the power was within us. We were called by a true prophet of God and given the authority to preach the most amazing message in the world, that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored on earth once again! God was on our side and he wanted us to succeed. We had over time allowed ourselves to forget our purpose and we would fill our time with activities that were good and easy instead of hard but better and best. We had let ourselves forget the dreams we had of baptizing when we first opened up our mission call. We had started to become complacent in setting small goals so that we didn't feel like a failure at the end of the day. But that day in the car, we finally caught the vision and we decided together that whether we were chosen or not, we would do absolutely everything within our power to double baptisms in our area with or without the help of the mission president.
That is the moment that I began to learn how important agency is in God's plan. Agency is finally deciding what you actually want out of your life then doing everything in your power to make it happen. It starts with a decision and it solidifies with the consistent daily actions. It is action and progression over time which, after all, is the only way imperfect human beings could ever become a people able to take upon themselves Christ's name! The road may be less traveled, but in the end, it makes all the difference.
One main reason for the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ is to increase faith in the world (Doctrine and Covenants 1:21). However, many people incorrectly believe that faith leads to power directly. Part of this misconception comes because of misunderstanding of the beautiful imagery taught by our Savior such as in Matthew 17: 20. From that scripture, many infer that if one's faith is great enough, mountains may part just as the waters did for Moses. However, this fails to take into account both God's will and also man's actions since "faith without works is dead" (James 2:17-18). Perhaps, the mustard seed scripture would be more well understood if it read as follows, "...if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed [and a shovel, a pick ax, and enough time], ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; an it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you." It's not about a result. It's about doing the impossible with the tools you have.
That brings me to Alma 32:27-29, which teaches about The Faith Cycle, a cycle that shows us what man is in charge of and what God is in charge of. It reads as follows.
27 But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.
28 Now, we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; an when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves-- It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that my word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me
29 Now behold, would not this increase your faith? I say unto you, Yea; nevertheless it hath not grown up to a perfect knowledge.
The color coordinating, then can correlate to the image below:
Man can only control the first half of the faith cycle, also known as the action side; the desire, giving it place, and not casting it out. If we complete our side, God will bless us with the power side of the faith cycle which ends in faith being increased. We control the actions and the Lord will never hold us accountable for what we cannot control. Thus, faith is in what we do. It is in showing God how serious we are.
The beautiful thing is that the faith cycle can be applied to many of our desires in life whether it be language learning, weight loss, or member missionary work.
The first time I really began to apply the faith cycle to myself was when I was on my mission. Some days we would look at our agendas and have no set appointments scheduled for the day. On the mission, that means a day of finding. Before I got a testimony of how important finding was, it was difficult for me to leave with the faith that we'd find a new investigator that day. Of course I'd still go out, but maybe I was a little bit sluggish leaving the house right on time or I'd be super willing to go back in the car to drive to someplace else.
On one such day, I consciously decided to put my faith in the Lord and to go out and find a new investigator. I desired getting this because we desperately needed new people to teach. I gave it place because we went out and did finding activities. The hardest step, then, was to not throw it out. We went through and met some interesting people that day, definitely. We ended up, first of all, in a rich white area (which is not very conducive to finding hispanics in California typically). Then we found a party house of people who needed us but weren't desirous to listen.
Finally, the new missionary I was training received a spiritual prompting to take a left on the last road of the main street in that area. I wanted to teach my new missionary to be able to receive and act on spiritual promptings, so we did it.... and ended up on the most industrial street you've ever seen, a place full of cement buildings and not a single person wandering around to talk to. That is, no one except the fruit stand man on the corner. Since he was the only person we possibly could talk to on that street, my new missionary pulled over the car and jumped out to talk to him. After I took the keys out of the ignition and shut her door, I joined her. He accepted a Book of Mormon that day and promised us he'd read the introduction.
We kept on going back about once a week. For as long as I was in that area, he never did give us his address because his marriage was at a scary spot and he didn't want to do anything to possibly tip the scale in the wrong direction. However, I later heard a story of a dream he had six months before he met us.
In this dream, he looked at his fruit stand and it was practically empty with very little ice. The fruit that was there was rotting and he was depressed, not knowing how he was going to provide for his family. He looked away from his fruitstand and saw, on the sidewalk walking toward him, two angels. He then looked back to his fruitstand and suddenly it was flourishing and he was ready to go sell it all.
That dream that he had six months before prepared him for the day that we met him, a day when we followed a revelation that lead us to a street that probably no other missionary would have found themselves on. That fruitstand man was baptized a few months later and his wife was also listening to the missionaries.
I know that the faith cycle was working on me that day, because I felt an increase in faith that the Lord is preparing people to receive us. This, then, enabled me to continue and have even more desire to find people to teach the next day and my faith continued to augment.
