-VT Interviews will begin next week during Sunday School and Relief Society
-Oct. 26: Primary Halloween Party, 10am in the Church parking lot...decorate your cars for Trunk or Treat
Lesson Review
Teachings of the Presidents of the Church – Lorenzo Snow
President Snow said:
“There is a way to reach every human heart, and it is your business to find the way to the hearts of those to whom you are called.”
In the Saturday morning session of the October 2013 General Conference, President Thomas S. Monson said:
The holy scriptures contain no proclamation more relevant, no responsibility more binding, no instruction more direct than the injunction given by the resurrected Lord as He appeared in Galilee to the eleven disciples. Said He, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”2 The Prophet Joseph Smith declared, “After all that has been said, the greatest and most important duty is to preach the Gospel.”3 Some of you here today will yet remember the words of President David O. McKay, who phrased the familiar “Every member a missionary!”4
To their words I add my own. Now is the time for members and missionaries to come together, to work together, to labor in the Lord’s vineyard to bring souls unto Him. He has prepared the means for us to share the gospel in a multitude of ways, and He will assist us in our labors if we will act in faith to fulfill His work.
Lorenzo Snow was baptized in Kirtland, Ohio, where he studied Hebrew in a class with the Prophet Joseph Smith and other Church leaders. He hoped to someday pursue a “classical education” at a college in the eastern United States. But as he worked toward this goal, he began to feel a pull toward another purpose. He later recalled:
“I received [the truths of the gospel] with an open heart, and I was determined not to rest there…I began to be a little worried in my mind whether, after having received this wonderful knowledge, it was proper for me to remain without testifying in reference to it. “
President Snow debated whether he should pursue an education at an eastern university or to serve a mission. Struggling with his feelings, he asked a trusted friend for advice and the friend told him to get an education, which was the very thing President Snow wanted to hear. Before he commenced with furthering his education, however, he heard the testimonies of several young Elders who had returned from the mission, and “received of the Holy Ghost…the perfect knowledge” of what he should do. President Snow said he “shut up my books [and] laid my Latin and Greek aside.
After making this decision, Lorenzo Snow served a mission in the state of Ohio. Later he served in other missions: Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, England, Italy, the Hawaiian Islands, the northwestern United States and the State of Wyoming.
What sort of sacrifices do people make to go on a mission?
Quotes to ponder
President Snow said:
“Inasmuch as they shall continually seek unto the Lord in humility, having an eye single to His honor and glory, and desiring in their hearts the salvation of the souls of men, and doing all they can to bring about their salvation, they shall have joy beyond expression in their labors in the flesh, and shall at last be made partakers with the Father and the Son of things too great and glorious for morality to conceive or contemplate.”
“Why am I here?...I am here because God has spoken, and raised up a Prophet, throu whom He has restored the fullness of the everlasting Gospel, with all its gifts, powers, ordinances and blessings; with a proclamation to all peoples, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ In the providence of God, I have been called as an ambassador, to bear this message to the nations of the earth, which I realize devolves on me a great responsibility which I cannot discharge without the aid of the Almighty.”
“I have joy even now in contemplating the days of my missionary labors. The feelings produced by these peculiar experiences have become part and parcel of my very being.”
What is our challenge? How might we following President’s Snow’s counsel to help someone be truly happy? How does it apply in the lives of all Church members? What are some different ways we might find to “reach every human heart”?
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