Well, I just had to make a post about this here. Over at Diapers and Divinity, Stephanie has created a Book Club specifically for reading the General Conference talks. Isn't this such a great idea?!? Well, I love the motivation this gives to read each talk and also to learn from what others are discovering from their studies.
Each Sunday Stephanie will post what the new talk is and then you have the whole week to read it and come back to her post, share your thoughts, and read others. You can click on the picture above to read more details. I will also put the button on the side so that the link is always available for future reference.
This week the talk that was chosen is Elder Holland's talk entitled "None Were with Him". What a great talk for the week of Easter. To read her post titled, "General Conference Book Club Week 1: Elder Holland" click HERE.
To watch the video that was created of portions of Elder Holland's talk click HERE.
I hope everyone runs over to join the fun!
4 comments:
Great ideas and thoughts as always.
Thanks for letting me know! :-) I've just added it to my blog reading list...
I just thought I'd share here, the thoughts I shared about Elder Holland's talk over at the Book Club:
1. My first thought is just an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for my Savior and the sense of the very real connection that I have to what He experienced. He was a perfect and powerful being and yet an abandoned, lonely, and betrayed being. He did all things out of love and selflessness and yet even those that loved Him walked away from Him, fled from Him, and slept in His moment of great need.
It makes me wonder how often I am an “unresponsive onlooker” or how often I sleep spiritually and forget my Savior and the Atonement that was performed in my behalf. What a powerful and self-examining talk.
2. This quote really stuck out to me: “I speak of the loneliest journey ever made…I speak of the Savior’s solitary task of shouldering alone the burden of our salvation.” My initial response was one of feeling that I play a role in shouldering or bearing that burden. In a small sense I do. I do have to strive to make good choices, to repent when I falter, and I do have to have faith in Jesus Christ. But something became very clear to me that no matter what I do or don’t do I myself will never do or be enough. I cannot deliver myself from the grasp of physical death. I, alone, cannot recover from the debilitating effects of sin. I cannot rescue myself from my carnal and fallen state. I cannot escape my moments of loneliness and abandonment without “the Savior’s solitary task of shouldering alone the burden of [my] salvation.
What a humbling position we all stand in. We are all at the grace and mercy of our loving Savior and our loving Heavenly Father. We are indeed eternally indebted to Them. That “Jesus held on…[and] pressed on [and for] “the goodness in Him” I am forever grateful.
3. The last thing I’ll share for now is the profound statement and challenge in Elder Holland’s final words, “may we declare ourselves to be more fully disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, not in word only and not only in the flush of comfortable times but in deed and in courage and in faith, including when the path is lonely and when our cross is difficult to bear. This Easter week and always, may we stand by Jesus Christ “at all times and in all things, and in all places that [we] may be in, even until death,”21 for surely that is how He stood by us when it was unto death and when He had to stand entirely and utterly alone.
I know that I have so much to work on to be a better disciple of Christ but I hope that with the powerful spirit and words of this talk I can be reminded that He always stands by me and that I must strive to always stand by Him.
we began something like this in our ward last November. though its in-person and not online, we call it "Conference & Cocoa Night". we've enjoyed it thoroughly, the location rotates amongst attending sisters and there are specific ground rules: you can only bring the assigned general conference talk, your scriptures, you mug for cocoa (or cider), and yourself. these ground rules have helped us curb outer influences and resources that may take away from the Spirit or from the pure doctrine contained within the talk itself. we have it every third tuesday night of the month from 6-8pm which has been nice for the sisters to have a short, spiritual respite from their responsibilities and be fed by the Spirit during the week in addition to on the Sabbath. sometimes the group is only 3 strong, other nights it can be 10 or more. either way it is what the Lord intends it to be, and that truly is filled with the Spirit in such a way that no one comes away unchanged. =)
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