Good morning, brothers and sisters. So the joke in our family this week was that I had all the time in the world so I was gonna write the talks and Ben has all the public speaking skills in the family so he's gonna give the talks but lo and behold Im here today so you're all gonna have to bear with me. I'm sorry. But so my husband Ben and I and our daughter Lucy, we moved into the ward about three weeks ago. I don't know, a few weeks ago and we're here for the summer. He's selling pest control and we're here from Orem Utah. And this ward has been awesome. Just want to thank all of you for welcoming us whole heartedly and for helping us feel at home when we're far from home. Thank you to all of you.
And so today, I'm giving my talk on Elder Patrick Kieran's called, "he's risen with healing in his wings, we can be more than conquerors." And so I love how he starts his talk by sharing all these different survival stories about different people overcoming all, odds to survive in these miraculous circumstances where they were stranded on the moon without oxygen or all these other things and I love hearing these survival stories. So I remember he quickly caught my attention and then he changed the course of his talk. And he said that we are all survivors and he said, "You are in the midst of your own desperate attempt to survive a situation that feels very much like a disastrous shipwreck. Or on a promising mission suddenly aborted. Will you ever be rescued? Will you make it through your own survival story? The answer is yes, you can survive. You have in fact, already been rescued. You've already been saved by the one who suffered, the very torment you are suffering and endured the very agony you are enduring. Jesus has overcome the abuses of this world to give you power to not only survive, but one day through him to overcome and even conquer. To completely rise upon the pain, the misery, the anguish and see them replaced by peace. And I love how he said that we can do more than survive. I feel like that's something that we say in this world all the time is like, oh I'm just surviving, I'm not thriving, but I know that our answer to thriving in this life is through our Savior Jesus Christ. It is put in Romans chapter 8. It says that we can become more than conquers through him that love us. We can overcome and nothing can separate us from the love of Jesus Christ. So I love how he uses a phrase, "More than conquerors." And so this week, I've been pondering, what does it mean to be more than conquerors? What does it look like to be more than conquerors? So I turned in the dictionary to the word more. We all know what it means. It means a greater abundance or more of whatever we have. And then a conqueror is an individual who takes control of the situation.
So I love that we are told that we can become more than conquerors. We can have more control over the situations in our lives through our Savior Jesus Christ because of the love that he has for us. So once I answered that question, I was wondering, what does it look like in my life to overcome the injustices, the abuse that we've experienced or the heartache, or the pain that we are currently experiencing, And as I was pondering that question, I decided to give my parents a call. There's a story that I've heard my entire life that I wanted to get some more insight on and the conversation, I had with my parents helped open my eyes and it helped me center back. And remember that it really is through Christ because this week I was searching this talk trying to find like what is this? Great big new thing that he's trying to tell us. And my parents had brought me back to the small and simple things. So I wanted to share this story and share the little lessons that they shared with me. So, back before I was born right after my parents were married they got pregnant a few months later and 20 months into that pregnancy they received some really hard news that the baby didn't have a brain. They were going to deliver the baby and come home with no baby and then a few months later, they got pregnant again and that pregnancy also ended in a miscarriage, but they kept going. And then a few years later, they got pregnant with another baby and they came home with a baby . A beautiful baby boy. His name was Jared and my parents were so happy. My mom kept having these feelings like something's wrong with this baby. I don't know. But the baby doesn't seem right. Every time she'd go to the doctors, the doctor would say "no, he's fine don't worry. Like, you're just being a nervous mother." And one day, this baby turned blue and they rushed this baby to the hospital. And then once they got there, they found that the baby's heart had an abnormality and they would have to quickly do surgery. And that's typically where the story would end. Until a few years ago, my parents shared more of the story with me. And so in the rush to save the baby's life and before they could do the surgery, they had to administer a bunch of medicine to this baby. And in a rush the doctors administered too much medicine to this baby. And this baby boy, he lost his life because of that medical accident. And my parents had never shared this part of the story with me until a few years ago. That little act of theirs to show me how they were healed through Christ that they were not holding on to the bitterness of that Injustice, that was given to them. So, I asked them, "How did you overcome that situation?" And they shared with me that they received peace through prayer. And they felt the love of God through reading their scriptures and that they were lovingly ministered to by all those that were around them. I love how it was just the small and simple things. Just as it was said earlier in Alma Chapter 37, verse 6 and 7 Alma says, now, you may suppose it is foolishness in me; but behold, I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise. And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and salvation of many souls.
I love that he says that by small and simple things, the Lord God does confound the wise. It's those small and simple things in our lives that help us point our souls to Christ and to be healed through him. Christ is always the answer. Christ is always the source of healing in our lives. And that's been promised to us over and over again. And in his talk he shares the different lessons that he has learned through reading the scriptures. He says that in the scriptures we've been promised to fear not the Lord. He knows our sorrows and he will come to deliver us. He will not leave us. His name is upon us and that we have angels, that can have a charge over you, and he will do wonders among us. He's promised that he will walk with us and that we can learn from him and he will give us rest.
I know that we can all have that promise in our lives because we are all children of God And I think it all comes from the covenant relationship that we have with our Savior Jesus Christ. This last week President and Sister Nelson, they gave a devotional to the young adults. If none of you guys have listened to it, I would strongly recommend to go and listen. And there are two or three things that President Nelson invited us to do. But there are two that I wanted to focus on. He talked about how we need to remember who we are. And to remember and know the truth about God and his son in Jesus Christ and what he offered to us. I love that how our prophet is calling us to remember who we are. He talked about how the most important names that he has are the Son of God and son of the covenant. I think those are names that we all need to go back to in our lives when we're struggling to understand who we are and what we stand for. We need to understand that first and foremost we stand for God and that God stands for us. So that is the answer I received to my question this week. How do we become more than conquerors? We become more than conquers, as we remember our Savior Jesus Christ and the relationship that we have with him. So this week, I want to invite you all to become more than conquers through Christ. And to take that time to listen to him and to be healed from him, wherever you're at in your life. That you can receive that healing from him. You know that comes as we spend special and sacred time with our Savior Jesus Christ and whatever that looks like in our lives. Like some people have hours, some people have 5 minutes. But I know that as you take the time to give God time in your life that you can be filled in any circumstance. And I'm so grateful that we have a knowledge of our Savior Jesus Christ. That he understands our pains and afflictions and our sorrows and Im so grateful for that in my life. And I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Men.
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