So Much Depends On You

Yesterday, I got back from St. George earlier than I had expected and was able to make it to the last hour of my ward. Elder Haynie, our area 70, was visiting my ward, and he spoke during our combined Priesthood/Relief Society meeting. He wanted to point out 3 new things that were mentioned in this past general conference:

1. Age change for missionaries

2. The way we teach the youth

3. Do your own temple work

As we spoke of these three things, there was a sense of urgency felt, and Elder Haynie said a lot of powerful things...

Age change for missionaries:

We need to better prepare the youth to serve missions because they will serve at a younger age. We need to be better member missionaries and find more people for the missionaries to teach because the missionary force is going to grow a lot. In the San Diego mission, next week they will go from 184 missionaries to 250. He said that currently we have about 56,000 full-time missionaries, and the Church projects we we will have 90,000-100,000 soon. Our responsibility for missionary work went through the roof with this announcement. YSA wards are the units with the greatest expectancy for converts. We need to be able to put those missionaries to work because they will come prepared to teach and baptize. The Church is going to change in the next 15-20 years. 

The way we teach the youth:

Elder Haynie asked if we had heard about the change in how we teach the youth. Few of the YSAs in the room raised their hands. (I had heard because I had seen it online a while ago, I had been in my home ward at the end of 2012 as they talked about it, and Randal was recently called as YM's president, so I've heard him talk about it.) He told us to go online and check it out. We will be the top teachers for the youth. The demands on both teachers of the youth and the youth just went up.

Do your own temple work:

When doing temple work, we need to do our our family line. Name extraction is becoming harder, and we are taught that we need to do temple work for our kindred dead. One of the sealer from the San Diego temple was present and he said that he strongly believes that converts are blessed to be baptized in this life because they have family members in the spirit world who have accepted the gospel and have been waiting for hundreds of years for someone here to do their work.

Before the meeting concluded, Elder Haynie left time for Q&A. He said we will probably seeing more of this in stake conference and other similar settings. The first presidency asked members of the 70 to come to the next meeting with inspired questions. They were told that inspired questions lead to personal revelation. It was very cool to hear that because I have witnessed that many times, and I know that to be true! The time that sticks out the most is when Elder Bednar came to my mission. The entire time he was there, missionaries asked questions, and he answered. He told us that even if we didn't ask a question, we would receive answers to questions as we listened to the spirit speak to us. 

In Elder Haynie's concluding remarks he said, "So much depends on you. If I were you're stake president, I'd load you up. You have so much capacity to do good."

It was a powerful meeting! Our leaders are depending on us. The future of the Church depends on us. We have to step up to the plate and heed what we've been asked to do. I know our leaders are called of God. I know that with the Lord we have the ability to do the great things expected of us at this time as well as the great things that will be expected of us in the future!