Elizabeth Nielson: This is the Prosper Stronger Podcast, a community where LDS women gather to cultivate covenant connections and strive to be devoted disciples of Jesus Christ.
Alright, the next section of Sister Freeman's talk that I want to discuss is just so beautiful and it's something that I didn't pick up the very first time I went through it.
As a matter of fact, I didn't catch it until I think the third time through when I was looking at the structure when I started underlining in color. And that is a lot of times when I pick up pieces that I just don't see when I just listen to it or I read it once or twice. So it's as I get reading more frequently and really putting my hand, my pen to the paper and colored, even. You can go back and listen to my podcast about how I study and just the process and how it helps me. It doesn't mean you have to study that way, but if you need some ideas, you're welcome to go back and listen to that. But for me, pulling out some of the structural pieces of conference talk teaches me so much.
So we have three paragraphs from sister Freeman that are powerful. She says, "His is a mission of condescension, meaning Jesus Christ will meet us where we are as we are." And I know she has taught us this so many times. If you've followed her in her, don't miss this. And in the book, she's written this idea that He will meet us where we are. It's not hers alone, but she loves this idea and she shares it so frequently and we know that He will meet us.
But this is what I love right here. She says, "this is the why of the garden. The cross and the tune, the why." Now in my own training and personal development, coaching, marketing, business, like motivation, even in my instructional design, everything begins with a why everything we do in life begins with a why do we make the choices we make? Why do we take the actions we take? Why are we motivated to do certain things and not other things? Everything begins with a why.
So here she's saying the why behind Jesus Christ and His actions and atonement in the garden, on the cross and in the tomb, the why behind that is because He will meet us where we are. He is doing all of that so that He can meet us where we are. He can meet us when we're broken. He can understand what we're going through. This is the why behind all of those pieces of the atonemEnt. It is so beautiful.
She said, "the Savior was sent to help us overcome." And we know President Nelson taught us about overcoming the world and finding rest through our Savior, Jesus Christ. Go back and look at that talk. So amazing. So amazing. But she goes on, "staying where we are won't bring the deliverance we seek, just as He didn't leave Jacob there in the dirt." When she told the story of Jacob and Jacob's ladder and everything there, "the Lord doesn't intend to leave any of us where we are." And this is true because He loves us. He doesn't want to leave us right where we are. He wants us to progress. He wants us to learn. He wants to grow to become more like Him so that we can be able to live and dwell with Him forever.
That is what He wants. So it's not enough for Him to just say, okay, you're fine. That's all good. No, He has to be able to meet us where we are. And then He has to do the following, which is what she then goes on to say, "His is also a mission of ascension."
So He condescends to come down to meet us where we are. And then because He met us where we are, because of His atonement and because of the love of God, our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, and because of their power, then He will, and these are her quotes, "He will work within us to lift us up to where he is. And in the process enable us to become as He is not just our inferior self, but to actually become as Jesus Christ, Heavenly Father are." and I believe Heavenly Mother that we can become as they are. And Jesus Christ came to lift us.
And this, she says, is the why of the temple. She doesn't elaborate on that. We've had so many teachings about the temple, so many beautiful talks, books, everything. And when we go to the temple, we can feel it. We can learn. We can receive that personal revelation and increased understanding as we go to the temple about the Plan of Salvation, about the love of God, about the atonement of Jesus Christ and about what we are covenanting to do and the choices that we need to make. So as we go to the temple, we learn more about how we can become like Him.
So I love this. This is the why of the temple, the why the temple offers to us these covenants, these powerful, amazing covenants and all the principles, all the ordinances, all those things, those sacred things that we need to be able to enter into His presence again, to be able to dwell with Him and abide with Him forever. This is the why of the temple. It's so beautiful.
And then finally, one of her quotable quotes, the sermon in the sentence, she says, "we must remember it's not the course alone that will exalt us." And I have to admit, sometimes I think it is, I fall into that and I think, oh, I have to do everything. I have to check every box. I have to be perfect. I have to travel this path just exactly right. So sometimes I forget that it's not just the course. And she goes on to say, "it is not the course alone that will exalt us. It's the companion, our Savior."
And we know that no matter what we do, we cannot earn our way into heaven, that we do everything we can to submit our will to Him, to turn our hearts to Him, to make choices that will help us become more like Him and will bring us closer to Him. One of the things that I studied last week was if we want to feel more of God's love, then we must spend more time with Him. We must draw closer to Him. So as we do all of these things, our heart will change and we will become more like Him and we will be able to qualify for the redemptive blessings of the Savior, the power of the Savior, as we repent, as we strive to keep our covenants. It is within His power to save us, to redeem us, to make us perfect. It is up to us to want it and to turn our heart and our thoughts and our actions toward Him. So we have that choice.
She goes on to say, this is the why of covenant relationships because He is perfect. He can lift us. He can guide us. He can help us because of the power of the covenant relationship. We have access to power that we would not have otherwise. We can call down the powers of heaven to help us not only in our own lives, to overcome the challenges and the temptations and the weaknesses and the sorrow.
But we can do the same. We can call on the power of our Savior to help our family members, to help those that we are in covenant relationships with, our husbands, our wives, and our children. They are born in the covenant when we are married in the temple, or they are sealed to us. When we make those covenants in the temple, these covenant relationships are everything.
And our covenant relationship with Jesus Christ is everything. I'm trying to think of a word. It is the most important relationship in my own life situation where I have a spouse who has chosen to turn from his covenants. It is interesting to me how many people encourage and even accuse me of not being committed to my marriage because I don't follow the same choice as my husband.
There was even a group, a whole course, an online group coaching thing that we participated in for just a few weeks and only a few weeks because everything they were teaching was your covenant is with your spouse. You've got to stay in the covenant relationship with your spouse. And they were putting that relationship before the covenant relationship with God.
And I find this to be an interesting deception of the adversary. Yes, I am in a covenant relationship with my spouse. And yes, I am doing everything to keep that covenant relationship with him. But I absolutely will not turn away from my covenant relationship with my Savior and with my Heavenly Father.
Because that relationship is the most important of all relationships ever for eternity. If I turn away from that relationship, if I don't put my effort and energy and heart into that relationship, all other relationships will not last for eternity. There is no hope in my other relationships. It only comes in keeping my covenant relationship with God. That's the only hope for my relationships with my husband, with my children, with my extended family members, my parents, my siblings and everything. If I have any hope of those relationships lasting throughout eternity, that hope lies in keeping my covenant relationship with Heavenly Father in Jesus Christ.
And that is why I will not give up on that relationship. And that is why. I walk the covenant path. That is why I do everything in my power to stay on the covenant path and to bring others to the covenant path, because that is where joy and hope and light and truth, everything that is where everything is possible.
And it breaks my heart when I hear of others who leave because. They want to show love to those that have left. Showing true love is showing them the way back to Christ. That is true love. Showing them the way back to true covenant relationships that last forever when we choose to keep them.
I believe that Sister Freeman understands this wholeheartedly, and I love how she shared about those very faithful Jewish people who go to the Western Wall. Who go in their finest clothing and offer up sacred prayers with all their hearts begging for pleading, for praying for a temple in their midst. I love that they dress and take such care when they go there, and I saw it. You can feel it. This is a sacred place for them. They know the value of covenants.
They may not have the full covenant. They may not have access to it right now in their particular situation, but they know the value. And that's something I've asked myself, how do I value my covenants? How do I treat them? How do I think about them? And that is something that Sister Freeman brings up as well.
And she said when she returned from the Holy Land from these experiences on the Jesus Trail and at the Western Wall. And she found herself listening to these conversations about covenants and about keeping our covenants and staying on the covenant path. And people asking do I really, like, why should I walk the covenant path?
Do I really have to enter a house for making covenants? Why do I wear the Holy Garment? Should I invest in the covenant relationship with the Lord? These were questions that she heard other people saying, and I have heard these as well. And sometimes they're not even questions. You just see the behavior or you see an attitude or you hear stories.
Some of those that break my heart the most are those that go in to the temple and make sacred covenants and instantly, almost instantly remove their holy garment. This, I don't understand. It breaks my heart. And it makes me ask the question, why? What is it we are not understanding? What is it that we are not learning or teaching or seeking to understand about the holy garment that the behavior, such a behavior is becoming commonplace?
When I went to the temple, I knew what was offered there, the covenants or what would bind me to my family forever. And when I put those holy garments on, I knew at that moment, I was promising and committing and covenanting to always wear them. Now, I have to say, I didn't always understand why. I didn't always feel the power, but I can tell you now, after nearly 30 years of wearing the garment, that I would never want to be without it, ever, because of the garment I can access the power of God that has been promised to me through keeping my covenants. Wearing the garment is a symbol to my father that I love Him and that I am willing to follow His law and keep His covenants, that I am willing to do my part and to let Him know that I want to dwell with Him forever.
It is one of the ways I show Him. And it is an outward expression of my inward devotion to my Savior and to my Heavenly Father, to the covenant I have made. And it is an outward expression of my devotion to the relationship that I have with them. The covenant relationship that I entered into with them.
I have had several very sacred experiences and I hope and pray we can all better evaluate and understand why we wear the temple garment and why we should wear it and why it is part of keeping our covenant. And if you want to know more about this, go back and study elder Bednar's talk from October, 2022 "Put on My Garment". This is the one about the wedding feast. And if you look in the footnotes, it will guide you to some other talks and other resources. And I tell you right now, you will come to have a much better understanding of the garment and then greatly enhanced appreciation for it.
I'm also grateful that when my daughter went through the temple and she was able to wear the garment, that one of her first comments to me was, mom, thank you for showing me, thank you for loving your garment, thank you for wearing them appropriately.
I didn't know she was watching, I didn't even know that she was aware. I had tried to teach her, I had tried to show, I didn't realize that she had taken it to heart. And she, at her young age, has such a greater understanding and appreciation for her garments, far more than I did at that age. I'm so grateful.
And I guess it goes back to what Sister Freeman talks about. She said the answer to these questions, the answer to how the world sometimes questions why we do what we do, why we dress the way we dress, why we say and act and behave the way we do, why we attend the temple. Why do we live so that we can be married in the temple, all these things, why do we make these covenants in the temple.
The answer is, and I love this, she says, it depends on what degree of relationship you want to experience with Jesus Christ. And this goes back to what she talked about with Jacob, where he didn't want to just be in a relationship that was an acquaintance. He wanted to be in a covenant, a close covenant relationship with Jesus Christ.
So what kind of relationship do you want with Christ? Do you want Him in your life everyday? Do you want to feel His love everyday? Do you want to feel that you are in His embrace? Do you want to have the power that He offers to us that He can suck us? Do you want to walk side by side with Him? What kind of relationship do you want with Jesus Christ and what kind of relationship are you seeking with Him? As you think about this, think about how much time you're spending with Him. As I'm sure every relationship takes time and the health of that relationship and the strength of that relationship is so often dependent on how much time and good, quality, positive time you spend on that relationship.
I may have mentioned this book before. It's called The Like Switch, and it's really interesting. It's written by a former, now I can't remember if it's an FBI or CIA agent, but he shares how when they wanted to do something, whether it's, we want to try and get, someone to defect, or they want to get like top secret information, just various things. And they wanted to do something. They had a system and it was the system for building a relationship of trust. And it involved several things. It involved proximity. So being close to the person.
And interestingly enough, they would just simply stand. And sometimes they would just be in a place where they knew the person they were trying to influence would walk them everyday. They didn't say anything. They didn't make contact. They just were there in the same space. And then he went on to say some proximity, frequency, so you know, everyday the intensity, and this is when they would actually reach out and how much contact did they have? How much of that contact was contextual around building the relationship, right? Not surface level, but deeper.
Anyway, there's more to it, but just this idea that it isn't just, oh, I think about Christ or I talk about Him. How much are we putting into our relationship with Jesus Christ? Are we giving Him time everyday? And is that time focused? Is it intense? Are we studying His word? How are we doing it? Are we studying a name of Christ everyday? My daughter's doing that for Christmas. For this program, she does for young women to stand up and shine. We see lots of different ways we can do this. Maybe you're in the scriptures. Maybe it's studying a hymn everyday. Maybe one of the sacrament hymns. It could be any number of things. You could be doing it so different than I am doing it. And that is great. But are you doing it? Are you putting time into your relationship with Jesus Christ everyday? And what does that look like? And does it need to be more? Is there something that you could do differently or do better or just intensify what you're doing? You might spend the same time, but maybe the quality of that time will be different.
So I found myself asking that question. How can I increase my relationship with Jesus Christ? Because when she asks this, it depends on what degree of relationship you want to experience with Jesus Christ. I want to experience the best possible relationship I can have with Him while here on earth.
I want it all. I want the best. That relationship is the happiest place on earth. To be in a relationship like that is to be in the happiest place on earth. That is my opinion. That is what I want. I don't want to go for mediocre. I don't want a brief acquaintance. I want a close, loving, committed, trusting I can rely on Him and He can rely on me. I can turn to Him in my sadness and I know He will comfort me, hold me. I love it. I want it all. That is what I want in my relationship.
And I love that she goes on to give us what I call her covenant manifesto, why she keeps her covenants, why she has committed to a covenant relationship with her Savior and with her Heavenly Father. And I just love it. That is a topic for a whole other day because it's so deep and it's so beautiful. And I love the words she uses to describe things like beloved, divinely known, trusted, promised blessings, chosen, called, endowed, sanctified, set apart, all of these beautiful things that she is sealed his, that she's chosen to be steadfast and she is holy.
And then she goes on to say, these are the reasons why she walks the covenant path, why she clings to the promises, why she enters His covenant house, why she wears the holy garment, because she says, I want to live in a committed covenant relationship with Him. And I started then I thought, this is beautiful.
I need to write a statement like this. And so I started writing down why I walk the covenant path and have already shared some of that with you. And I'm still working on mine. I would share it with you, but it's not done. And I know that it will never be fully done. It will always evolve. But one of the reasons that I walk the covenant path is because I love God, I have felt His love. I have experienced His love, and so I know that He knows that I know and I cannot deny it.
Just like Joseph Smith, I do not want to stand before my Savior. I do not want to stand before my Heavenly Father and feel what I would feel if I had to admit to Him that I knew and I didn't. Try my best to walk the covenant path.
I don't want to feel that I want to like John talks about in first John have my heart so that I can stand bold at the day of judgment before Jesus Christ before Heavenly Father boldly stand before them and they will know and I will know that I tried. That I did my best to keep my covenants.
I did my best to turn my heart to them and to keep my heart aligned with them. I also walked the covenant path because I have experienced the blessings and the power and I know that I cannot do this life without it. I need that help. I need the power and the blessings available to me through the covenants, through atonement of Jesus Christ through the Plan of Salvation made possible because of the love of my Savior, because of the love of Heavenly Father.
I know He loves you, and I hope and pray that you will turn to Him, that you will feel His love, and that together with our Savior, we will walk the covenant path. And as we walk, that we will bring others with us and invite them to join us on the journey.
I love this talk. It is beautiful. I love that she lets us know that there is mercy and grace and that as she quotes, or she says, and I quote, remember pace or placement on the path are not as important as progress. We can progress together and we can start by doing what she invites us to do, to ask someone you trust who is on the covenant path to introduce you to the Savior they have come to know.
I have been thinking about this. What would I say? How would I invite others? And if they asked me to introduce them to the Savior I have come to know, what would I say? I hope I've been saying some of this on the podcast. I hope I've been sharing some of the Savior I have come to know with you in this Prosper Stronger podcast.
I believe, and I know, that the Savior lives, and He loves us, and He is here to succor us, to help us, and that He we'll redeem us if we will let Him. If we choose to have a covenant relationship with Him and that there is power in keeping our covenants that will enable Him to also help children and our children's children and our children's children, that those we love and the family members can also have access to His power through our covenants.
Keep your covenant, wear your garment, lean into it and seek to know how we could keep our covenants better by praying and asking and He will guide us and we will be filled with strength and joy and happiness and we will be able to dwell with Him forever.
We will prosper stronger. I know we can do this, and I know He is there for us to help us do it. Thank you for being here. I hope you will keep trying. I'm going to keep trying imperfectly, trusting that the Savior will someday make me perfect. I love you. He loves you. He wants to speak to you. He wants to help you.
Go to ProsperStronger.com. Download the free personal revelation guide. I guarantee as you follow it, you will hear Him and He will share his love with you and you will better be able to walk the covenant path. It is not something that is mine. It is something I simply put together from those who are leading us, His chosen servants. So go and just download it. And I hope. that and feel His love today and always.
Thank you for joining the Prosper Stronger podcast today. We hope that you have felt inspired and empowered. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast and share it with your friends and family.
I also invite you to join me at ProsperStronger.com, where you will find free resources to help you grow and learn, as well as join in our discussions where we go deeper into some of the things that we talk about here on our podcast.
Remember that you are loved and cherished by Heavenly Father who wants you to prosper and thrive. Until next time, may you continue to cultivate covenant connections with God, with others and with yourself, and find strength in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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