How to Prepare for the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

 

How to Prepare for Conference

 Links to other articles:

·         Learning from General Conference Messages

·         “5 Steps for Making Conference Stay with You”

·         “Ideas to Prepare to Participate in General Conference”

 

 President Russell M. Nelson, April 2020

The purpose of this and every general conference is to help us to hear Him. We have prayed, and invite you to pray, that the Spirit of the Lord will be with us in such rich abundance that you can hear the messages that the Savior has especially for you—messages that will bring peace to your soul. Messages that will heal your broken heart. Messages that will illuminate your mind. Messages that will help you know what to do as you move ahead through times of turmoil and trial.

President Russell M. Nelson, April 2021

As we listen to the messages that have been carefully prepared by our leaders under the direction of the Holy Ghost, I invite you to pray to identify the debris you should remove from your life so you can become more worthy.

President Russell M. Nelson, October 2021

I invite you to listen for three things during this conference: pure truth, the pure doctrine of Christ, and pure revelation. Pure revelation for the questions in your heart will make this conference rewarding and unforgettable. If you have not yet sought for the ministering of the Holy Ghost to help you hear what the Lord would have you hear during these two days, I invite you to do so now. Please make this conference a time of feasting on messages from the Lord through His servants. Learn how to apply them in your life.

President Henry B. Eyring, Trust in God, Then Go and Do,” Oct. 2010

Your needs are great and varied. Each of you is a unique child of God. God knows you individually. He sends messages of encouragement, correction, and direction fitted to you and to your needs.

 

Elder Anderson, Facebook and Instagram, 2020 and 2022

SEPTEMBER 30, 2020

We are looking forward to #GeneralConference in just a few days. We look forward to being with you. It will be a time of great rejoicing and great revelation, and I promise you that you will get answers you need as you prepare yourself for this important time.

I invite you to prepare yourself for a marvelous general conference with the three suggestions in this video. I express my love and my great happiness at being with you soon.

Let me give you three quick suggestions. First of all, be very prayerful as you go into these next few days. Think about the things that most concern you, you might write them down, then pray to our Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus Christ that answers can be provided. It won’t be so much of what is said as what you feel.

Next, as you attend the conference, don’t be casual in this attendance. Think about it as if you are going to have an interview with a very important person. Get prepared for it. Think about the time. Don’t just come up and down, run into the next room and get some popcorn. This is very serious and can be very helpful to you.

The final thing I would recommend is that as you listen take notes, not so much as you would if you were in a school room, but notes that come into your mind, thoughts, impressions that come.

Then after the conference is over when you go back and read these talks again, read them realizing that the Lord may give you more: more impressions, more important things for your life.

 

Ponder questions you need answers to

 

Elder Bednar, Facebook and Instagram 2022

We are on the eve of another general conference. I’d like to make just one suggestion for you to consider that can greatly increase the impact of this conference in your life. Have questions in your mind and in your heart. As you exercise faith in the Lord as you formulate and consider those questions, and as you actively listen by the power of the Holy Ghost, you will receive the answers that you need.

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “General Conference—No Ordinary Blessing,” Ensign, Sept. 2011

There are messages in each general conference as a gift and a blessing from heaven specifically for our personal life situations. As you prepare for general conference, I invite you to ponder questions you need to have answered. For example, you might yearn for direction and guidance by the Lord regarding challenges you are facing.

 

Answers to your specific prayers may come directly from a particular talk or from a specific phrase. At other times answers may come in a seemingly unrelated word, phrase, or song. A heart filled with gratitude for the blessings of life and an earnest desire to hear and follow the words of counsel will prepare the way for personal revelation

 

Plan to listen with intent and then act

 

President Eyring “Trust in God, Then Go and Do”

You show your trust in [God] when you listen with the intent to learn and repent and then you go and do whatever He asks. If you trust God enough to listen for His message in every sermon, song, and prayer in this conference, you will find it. And if you then go and do what He would have you do, your power to trust Him will grow, and in time you will be overwhelmed with gratitude to find that He has come to trust you.

Review past general conference messages.

 

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

The more we treasure the words of the prophets and apply them, the better we will recognize when we are drifting off course—even if only by a matter of a few degrees.

 

Prepare as the prophets do

 

Elder Robert D. Hales, “Personal Revelation: The Teachings and Examples of the Prophets,” Oct. 2007

We prepare to receive personal revelation as the prophets do, by studying the scriptures, fasting, praying, and building faith. Faith is the key. Prophets receive personal revelations to help them in their own lives and in directing the earthly affairs of the Church. Our responsibility is to seek personal revelations for ourselves and for the responsibilities the Lord has given us. By unwavering faith, we learn for ourselves that “it is by faith that miracles are wrought.”

 

Generally, those miracles will not be physical demonstrations of God’s power—parting of the Red Sea, raising of the dead, breaking down prison walls, or the appearance of heavenly messengers. By design, most miracles are spiritual demonstrations of God’s power—tender mercies gently bestowed through impressions, ideas, feelings of assurance, solutions to problems, strength to meet challenges, and comfort to bear disappointments and sorrow.

 

These miracles come to us as we endure what the scriptures call a “trial of [our] faith.” Sometimes that trial is the time it takes before an answer is received.

 

Identify the doctrine or principle being taught, find invitations to act, and recognize the promised blessings

Learn Elder Bednar’s pattern for studying conference messages —doctrine, invitations, blessings 

https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders-and-ministry/2021-03-25/elder-bednar-patterns-general-conference-messages-invitations-blessings-207576

 

Doctrine taught. Invitations to act. Promised blessings.

Identifying and applying the pattern of those three connected elements can bless individuals as they prepare for, listen to and study messages from Apostles and Prophets given during general conference, said Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

“The basic pattern is to identify the fundamental doctrine or principle that is being taught, find invitations to act related to that doctrine or principle, and then also recognize the promised blessings that will come as we act in accordance with that invitation,” he said.

In an interview leading up to the 191st Annual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Elder Bednar recalled earlier Church presidents — including President Harold B. Lee and President Spencer W. Kimball — teaching that conference messages should serve as an important guide in our lives until the next general conference.

 

 

 

 

Receiving Personal Revelation - Our Impressions Ought to be Indistinguishable from His Promptings

 

Elder Holland on How to Hear Him

I Hear Him by Trusting My Feelings

Another way I “hear Him” is to trust what I feel. I often get asked, “How do I know that what I am feeling is coming from the Lord?” If your searching is honorable and true and clean and noble, trust the feelings that come. I encourage people to act on those feelings and to believe that their instincts can be founded on truth. At that point you do not have to ask, “Did it come from Him?” He will make sure that it doesn’t come from an evil source.

God wants us to be like Him. We mature, and with effort we become more like God. We think more of His thoughts and feel more of His feelings. We are one with Him, and our impressions ought to be indistinguishable from His promptings. That unity is one of the things the Savior prayed for. By striving to live as one with Him, you will be more like God and you will “hear Him” and trust Him, even as you trust your own feelings when praying to Him.

Elder Bednar, Temple and Family History Leadership, Feb. 2021, at 10:18 minutes

Many members of the Church think they have to be consciously aware of receiving revelation. In other words, “I have to receive revelation and I have to know in the moment that I am receiving revelation,” and that’s not always true. If you’ll think about Nephi when he was commanded to return to Jerusalem to obtain the Plates of Brass, he said that he went not knowing beforehand the things that he should do. In other words, he was just doing what he knew he should do. And as he was moving forward to Jerusalem he was guided and inspired, but in the moment, he didn’t really recognize or know that that was happening. So, sometimes we think that we have to gear up, prepare, get ready to receive revelation. If we are living the gospel and keeping the commandments, we’re living in revelation. It’s not a rare event where we have to stop and get ready, but it should be a very natural part of our life all the time. 

Summary of Elder Dallin H. Oaks, “Strengthened by the Atonement of Jesus Christ,”

Elder Dallin H. Oaks, “Strengthened by the Atonement of Jesus Christ,” Oct. 2015

Isaiah 55:9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Strengthened by the Atonement	Other Comments by Pres. Oaks
Because of that same Atonement, our Savior can provide us the strength we need to overcome these mortal challenges. That is my subject today.	Most scriptural accounts of the Atonement concern the Savior’s breaking the bands of death and suffering for our sins.
President James E. Faust taught, “Since the Savior has suffered anything and everything that we could ever feel or experience, He can help the weak to become stronger.”
He therefore knows our struggles, our heartaches, our temptations, and our suffering, for He willingly experienced them all as an essential part of His Atonement. And because of this, His Atonement empowers Him to succor us—to give us the strength to bear it all.	Our Savior experienced and suffered the fulness of all mortal challenges “according to the flesh” so He could know “according to the flesh” how to “succor [which means to give relief or aid to] his people according to their infirmities.”
At the beginning of His ministry, Jesus explained that He was sent “to heal the brokenhearted” (Luke 4:18). The Bible often tells us of His healing people “of their infirmities” (Luke 5:15; 7:21). The Book of Mormon records His healing those “that were afflicted in any manner” (3 Nephi 17:9).
Isaiah taught that the Messiah would bear our “griefs” and our “sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4). Isaiah also taught of His strengthening us: “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee” (Isaiah 41:10).
Speaking of some of his own mortal challenges, the Apostle Paul wrote, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13).
And so we see that because of His Atonement, the Savior has the power to succor—to help—every mortal pain and affliction. Sometimes His power heals an infirmity, but the scriptures and our experiences teach that sometimes He succors or helps by giving us the strength or patience to endure our infirmities.
As the Psalmist declared, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all” (Psalm 34:19). Some addictions are likely to have been caused by sinful behavior. Even when that behavior has been repented of, the addiction may remain. That disabling grip can also be relieved by the decisive strength available from the Savior.	We all have pains and afflictions and infirmities at one time or another. Apart from what we experience because of our sins, mortality is filled with frequent struggles, heartaches, and suffering. Examples: sickness, physical or mental difficulties, the death of a loved one, failure in our personal responsibilities, our family relationships, or our occupations, when a spouse or a child strays from the path of righteousness, feeling of rejection, life has many other challenges, such as unemployment or other reverses in our plans, some are born with physical or mental disabilities, the infirmity of depression is painful or permanently disabling, singleness, addictions.
Who can be succored and strengthened through the Atonement of Jesus Christ? Because of His atoning experience in mortality, our Savior is able to comfort, heal, and strengthen all men and women everywhere, but I believe He does so only for those who seek Him and ask for His help.
As Elder Neal A. Maxwell taught, “Having ‘descended below all things,’ He comprehends, perfectly and personally, the full range of human suffering.” We might even say that having descended beneath it all, He is perfectly positioned to lift us and give us the strength we need to endure our afflictions. We have only to ask.
His Atonement also provides the opportunity to call upon Him who has experienced all of our mortal infirmities to give us the strength to bear the burdens of mortality.	Our Savior’s Atonement does more than assure us of immortality by a universal resurrection and give us the opportunity to be cleansed from sin by repentance and baptism.
Like the good Samaritan, when He finds us wounded at the wayside, He will bind up our wounds and care for us (see Luke 10:34). The healing and strengthening power of Jesus Christ and His Atonement is for all of us who will ask.
I pray that we will all understand the hope and strength of our Savior’s Atonement: the assurance of immortality, the opportunity for eternal life, and the sustaining strength we can receive if only we will ask,

Recent LDS Conference Talks on Grace and the Enabling Power of the Savior's Atonement

I love what I am learning about the enabling power of the Savior's Atonement from the recent conference talks about Grace. 

See also: 

The Atonement: Grace, the Enabling Power of the Atonement, and "In the Strength of the Lord"

The Atonement: The Redeeming and Strengthening Power of the Atonement


President Dieter F. Uchtdorf , “The Gift of Grace,” April 2015

I have tried to understand the Savior’s Atonement with my finite mind, and the only explanation I can come up with is this: God loves us deeply, perfectly, and everlastingly. I cannot even begin to estimate “the breadth, and length, and depth, and height … [of] the love of Christ.”⁷

A powerful expression of that love is what the scriptures often call the grace of God—the divine assistance and endowment of strength by which we grow from the flawed and limited beings we are now into exalted beings of “truth and light, until [we are] glorified in truth and [know] all things.”⁸

First: Grace Unlocks the Gates of Heaven

Even if we were to serve God with our whole souls, it is not enough, for we would still be “unprofitable servants.”¹² We cannot earn our way into heaven; the demands of justice stand as a barrier, which we are powerless to overcome on our own.

But all is not lost. The grace of God is our great and everlasting hope.

But the grace of God does not merely restore us to our previous innocent state. If salvation means only erasing our mistakes and sins, then salvation—as wonderful as it is—does not fulfill the Father’s aspirations for us. His aim is much higher: He wants His sons and daughters to become like Him.

Second: Grace Opens the Windows of Heaven

Another element of God’s grace is the opening of the windows of heaven, through which God pours out blessings of power and strength, enabling us to achieve things that otherwise would be far beyond our reach. It is by God’s amazing grace that His children can overcome the undercurrents and quicksands of the deceiver, rise above sin, and “be perfect[ed] in Christ.”²²

Though we all have weaknesses, we can overcome them. Indeed it is by the grace of God that, if we humble ourselves and have faith, weak things can become strong.²³

Throughout our lives, God’s grace bestows temporal blessings and spiritual gifts that magnify our abilities and enrich our lives. His grace refines us. His grace helps us become our best selves.

Are we like Simon? Are we confident and comfortable in our good deeds, trusting in our own righteousness? Are we perhaps a little impatient with those who are not living up to our standards? Are we on autopilot, going through the motions, attending our meetings, yawning through Gospel Doctrine class, and perhaps checking our cell phones during sacrament service?

Do we understand our indebtedness to Heavenly Father and plead with all our souls for the grace of God?

Salvation cannot be bought with the currency of obedience; it is purchased by the blood of the Son of God.²⁶ Thinking that we can trade our good works for salvation is like buying a plane ticket and then supposing we own the airline. 

Why Then Obey?

If grace is a gift of God, why then is obedience to God’s commandments so important? 

Our obedience to God’s commandments comes as a natural outgrowth of our endless love and gratitude for the goodness of God. This form of genuine love and gratitude will miraculously merge our works with God’s grace. 

Grace is a gift of God, and our desire to be obedient to each of God’s commandments is the reaching out of our mortal hand to receive this sacred gift from our Heavenly Father.

All We Can Do

The prophet Nephi made an important contribution to our understanding of God’s grace when he declared, “We labor diligently … to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.”³¹

However, I wonder if sometimes we misinterpret the phrase “after all we can do.” We must understand that “after” does not equal “because.”

We are not saved “because” of all that we can do. Have any of us done all that we can do? Does God wait until we’ve expended every effort before He will intervene in our lives with His saving grace?

Many people feel discouraged because they constantly fall short. They know firsthand that “the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”³² They raise their voices with Nephi in proclaiming, “My soul grieveth because of mine iniquities.”³³

I am certain Nephi knew that the Savior’s grace allows and enables us to overcome sin.³⁴ This is why Nephi labored so diligently to persuade his children and brethren “to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God.”³⁵

After all, that is what we can do! And that is our task in mortality!

Elder Dallin H. Oaks, “Strengthened by the Atonement of Jesus Christ,” October 2015

He therefore knows our struggles, our heartaches, our temptations, and our suffering, for He willingly experienced them all as an essential part of His Atonement. And because of this, His Atonement empowers Him to succor us—to give us the strength to bear it all.

Isaiah taught that the Messiah would bear our “griefs” and our “sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4). Isaiah also taught of His strengthening us: “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee” (Isaiah 41:10).

We see that because of His Atonement, the Savior has the power to succor—to help—every mortal pain and affliction. Sometimes His power heals an infirmity, but the scriptures and our experiences teach that sometimes He succors or helps by giving us the strength or patience to endure our infirmities.

There are millions of God-fearing people who pray to God to be lifted out of their afflictions. Our Savior has revealed that He “descended below all things” (D&C 88:6). As Elder Neal A. Maxwell taught, “Having ‘descended below all things,’ He comprehends, perfectly and personally, the full range of human suffering.” We might even say that having descended beneath it all, He is perfectly positioned to lift us and give us the strength we need to endure our afflictions. We have only to ask.

I know these things to be true. Our Savior’s Atonement does more than assure us of immortality by a universal resurrection and give us the opportunity to be cleansed from sin by repentance and baptism. His Atonement also provides the opportunity to call upon Him who has experienced all of our mortal infirmities to give us the strength to bear the burdens of mortality. He knows of our anguish, and He is there for us.

Elder D. Todd Christofferson, “The Divine Gift of Repentance,” October 2011

Repentance is the necessary condition, and the grace of Christ is the power by which “mercy can satisfy the demands of justice” (Alma 34:16). Our witness is this:

“We know that justification [or forgiveness of sins] through the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is just and true;

“And we know also, that sanctification [or purification from the effects of sin] through the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is just and true, to all those who love and serve God with all their mights, minds, and strength” (D&C 20:30–31).

It would mock the Savior’s suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross for us to expect that He should transform us into angelic beings with no real effort on our part. Rather, we seek His grace to complement and reward our most diligent efforts (see 2 Nephi 25:23). Perhaps as much as praying for mercy, we should pray for time and opportunity to work and strive and overcome. Surely the Lord smiles upon one who desires to come to judgment worthily, who resolutely labors day by day to replace weakness with strength.

Prophetic Warnings Fulfilled and the Need to Follow the First Presidency

 

Neal A. Maxwell, "Meeting the Challenges of Today," Oct 10, 1978 - BYU Speeches

Excerpts:

Discipleship includes good citizenship; and in this connection, if you are careful students of the statements of the modern prophets, you will have noticed that with rare exceptions—especially when the First Presidency has spoken out—the concerns expressed have been over moral issues, not issues between political parties. The declarations are about principles, not people, and causes, not candidates. 

But make no mistake about it, brothers and sisters; in the months and years ahead, events will require of each member that he or she decide whether or not he or she will follow the First Presidency. Members will find it more difficult to halt longer between two opinions (see 1 Kings 18:21).

President Marion G. Romney said, many years ago, that he had “never hesitated to follow the counsel of the Authorities of the Church even though it crossed my social, professional, or political life” (CR, April 1941, p. 123). This is a hard doctrine, but it is a particularly vital doctrine in a society which is becoming more wicked. In short, brothers and sisters, not being ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ includes not being ashamed of the prophets of Jesus Christ.

We are now entering a period of incredible ironies. Let us cite but one of these ironies which is yet in its subtle stages: we shall see in our time a maximum if indirect effort made to establish irreligion as the state religion. It is actually a new form of paganism that uses the carefully preserved and cultivated freedoms of Western civilization to shrink freedom even as it rejects the value essence of our rich Judeo-Christian heritage.

Your discipleship may see the time come when religious convictions are heavily discounted. M. J. Sobran also observed, “A religious conviction is now a second-class conviction, expected to step deferentially to the back of the secular bus, and not to get uppity about it” (Human Life Review, Summer 1978, p. 58). This new irreligious imperialism seeks to disallow certain of people’s opinions simply because those opinions grow out of religious convictions. Resistance to abortion will soon be seen as primitive. Concern over the institution of the family will be viewed as untrendy and unenlightened.

In its mildest form, irreligion will merely be condescending toward those who hold to traditional Judeo-Christian values. In its more harsh forms, as is always the case with those whose dogmatism is blinding, the secular church will do what it can to reduce the influence of those who still worry over standards such as those in the Ten Commandments. It is always such an easy step from dogmatism to unfair play—especially so when the dogmatists believe themselves to be dealing with primitive people who do not know what is best for them. It is the secular bureaucrat’s burden, you see.

It may well be, as our time comes to “suffer shame for his name” (Acts 5:41), that some of this special stress will grow out of that portion of discipleship which involves citizenship. Remember that, as Nephi and Jacob said, we must learn to endure “the crosses of the world” (2 Nephi 9:18) and yet to despise “the shame of [it]” (Jacob 1:8). To go on clinging to the iron rod in spite of the mockery and scorn that flow at us from the multitudes in that great and spacious building seen by Father Lehi, which is the “pride of the world,” is to disregard the shame of the world (1 Nephi 8:26–27, 33; 11:35–36). Parenthetically, why—really why—do the disbelievers who line that spacious building watch so intently what the believers are doing? Surely there must be other things for the scorners to do—unless, deep within their seeming disinterest, there is interest.

Properly humbled and instructed concerning the great privileges that are ours, we can cope with what seem to be very dark days and difficult developments, because we will have a true perspective about “things as they really are,” and we can see in them a great chance to contribute.

Hymns/Words of Comfort During Times of Deep Trials

I have a few favorite hymns that I retreat to in times of deeper trials. I had never thought through the words of the third hymn below before, but now I have three songs to rely on.

The Touching Story Behind “It Is Well with My Soul.” I have read this story many times, but it still brings me peace. It is one thing to be able to read the words, it is another thing to write them during what he went through!

"It is Well With My Soul"

When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well, with my soul

It is well, With my soul

It is well, it is well with my soul

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul

My sin—oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!—

My sin, not in part but the whole,

Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

 

For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:

If Jordan above me shall roll,

No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life

Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.

 

But, Lord, ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,

The sky, not the grave, is our goal;

Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!

Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul!

 

And Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight,

The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;

The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,

Even so, it is well with my soul.

 

 "How Gentle God's Commands"

My favoritie line: “Why should this anxious load, press down your weary mind?”  

1. How gentle God’s commands!

How kind his precepts are!

Come, cast your burdens on the Lord

And trust his constant care.

2. Beneath his watchful eye,

His Saints securely dwell;

That hand which bears all nature up

Shall guard his children well.

3. Why should this anxious load

Press down your weary mind?

Haste to your Heav’nly Father’s throne

And sweet refreshment find.

4. His goodness stands approved,

Unchanged from day to day;

I’ll drop my burden at his feet

And bear a song away.

 

 Praise to the Lord, the Almighty

 Joyfully

 1. Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation!

O my soul, praise him, for he is thy health and salvation!

Join the great throng,

Psaltery, organ and song,

Sounding in glad adoration!

 

2. Praise to the Lord! Over all things he gloriously reigneth.

Borne as on eagle wings, safely his Saints he sustaineth.

Hast thou not seen

How all thou needest hath been

Granted in what he ordaineth?

 

3. Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper thy way and defend thee.

Surely his goodness and mercy shall ever attend thee.

Ponder anew

What the Almighty can do,

Who with his love doth befriend thee.

 

4. Praise to the Lord! Oh, let all that is in me adore him!

All that hath breath, join with Abraham’s seed to adore him!

Let the “amen”

Sum all our praises again,

Now as we worship before him.

 

Text: Joachim Neander, 1650–1680; trans. by Catherine Winkworth, 1829–1878

Music: From Stralsund Gesangbuch, 1665; arr. by William S. Bennett, 1816–1875, and Otto Goldschmidt, 1829–1907

 

Psalm 150

Psalm 23:6