President Russell M. Nelson and I go way back. He actually spoke to me when I was 21 and since then, I’m pretty much like an eleventh daughter. okay he probably doesn’t remember that pivotal moment when he walked right up to me in front of thousands of missionaries in the mtc and thanked me for being there. But, I’ll never forget his words, and mostly his crystal blue eyes that definitely looked into my soul. I have never before or since seen anything like it. I remember thinking as he spoke to us,…” someday I will marry a man like that”. So when Jeremy starts crying about how hard school is and he just cant do it anymore, I’m going to ask him if he’s done crying, and then I’m going to tell him to get back to work because he is going to change the world! Pesident Nelsons tender experience of operating on those children and his feelings of not being able to save them was a real tear jerker. I just love that man! When he started his talk that felt abnormal from his usual style, I was hooked from the beginning.
Did you hear him pleading with us as women? I mean… wow.
He used this quote from president Kimball, one I’ve heard many times but now has more power and meaning, because he said the time is now!
“Much of the major growth that is coming to the Church in the last days will come because many of the good women of the world (in whom there is often such an inner sense of spirituality) will be drawn to the Church in large numbers. This will happen to the degree that the women of the Church reflect righteousness and articulateness in their lives and to the degree that the women of the Church are seen as distinct and different—in happy ways—from the women of the world.”
I read through president Kimball’s talk and included the very next paragraph because I love it.
“Among the real heroines in the world who will come into the Church are women who are more concerned with being righteous than with being selfish. These real heroines have true humility, which places a higher value on integrity than on visibility. Remember, it is as wrong to do things just to be seen of women as it is to do things to be seen of men. Great women and men are always more anxious to serve than to have dominion.
Thus it will be that female exemplars of the Church will be a significant force in both the numerical and the spiritual growth of the Church in the last days.
No wonder the adversary strives, even now, to prevent this from happening!”
I wrote in bold letters on my notes “what can I do to accomplish my purpose as a woman?” “How can I be distinct and different in happy ways?”
After a few minutes into his talk Dallin says out loud, “this is like mom!” then he sat down to take notes. I looked over at Dallins paper and saw these words……….”We need women like mom.” Seeing those words formed tears in my eyes and warmed my soul.
I smiled and realized God sent angelic children to me who are continually an answer to my prayers.
last night as I lay next to Dallin in his bed so we could have our nighttime talk, I told him I had prayed to know what I could do better in my life, what I was lacking. I sat on my knees for a long time waiting for an answer. I told him I was a little sad because I had not received my answer yet. Right away he replied confidently “well that’s easy you did get an answer! because there isn’t anything else you can do ,you’re already perfect!”
I came to conference seeking an answer to better know my unique purpose. I feel it was taught beautifully in the mouths of three witnesses, elder Holland, president Nelson and Dallin.
I love being a wife, a mother and a woman in this great church!
