Sacrament Meeting Program

Presiding: President Mark James
Conducting: Brother Alan Riker
Opening Hymn: #215 - Ring Out, Wild Bells
Invocation: By Invitation

Ward Business

Sacrament Hymn: #181 - Jesus of Nazareth, Savior and King
Administration of the Sacrament

Ward Business – New Bishopric
Speaker: Brother St. Felix
Speaker: Sister Kim Christensen
Speaker: Bishop Todd Christensen
Speaker: President Mark James

Closing Hymn: #1045 - Jesus Is the Way
Benediction: By Invitation

And Now I See

By Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

So what if the answers to our prayers come in plain or convoluted ways? Are we willing to persevere, to keep trying to live Christ’s gospel no matter how much spit and clay it takes? It may not always be clear to us what is being done or why, and from time to time, we will all feel a little like the senior sister who said, “Lord, how about a blessing that isn’t in disguise?”

Consider the evidence of another truth, this one regarding the holy priesthood. In documenting the organization of the meridian Church, Luke’s first line reads, “Then he called his twelve disciples together, and gave them power and authority,” gifts not granted on the basis of impressive credentials nor determined by tradition or birthright. They are not bestowed by a divinity school or a theological seminary. They are conferred only by the laying on of hands by one who has had authorized hands laid on him in an unbroken sequence back to the source of all divine authority, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And in a church that understands the gift of mercy, wouldn’t it be another marvelous evidence of that church’s truthfulness to see these blessings and covenants go to our deceased kindred, those of our families who have gone before us? Should they be penalized because they did not have access to the gospel or because they were born at a time or in a place when divine ordinances and covenants were not available to them? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has sacred, dedicated houses of the Lord in which merciful, salvific work is being done vicariously every day and night for these deceased, as well as offering worship opportunities and ordinances for the living. To my knowledge, this particular evidence of God’s truth, His universal love for the living and the dead, is not seen elsewhere in the world—except in one church that demonstrates truth in this particular regard: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

My first sight-giving, life-giving encounter with real evidence of truth did not come with anointing clay or in the pool of Siloam. No, the instrument of truth that brought my healing from the Lord came as pages in a book, yes, the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ! The claims about this book have been attacked and dismissed by some unbelievers, the anger often matching the vitriol of those who told the healed man that he could not possibly have experienced what he knew he had experienced.

It has been hurled at me that the means by which this book came to be were impractical, unbelievable, embarrassing, even unholy. Now, that is harsh language from anyone who presumes to know the means by which the book came to be, inasmuch as the only description given about those means is that it was translated “by the gift and power of God.” That’s it. That’s all. In any case, the impact of the Book of Mormon in my life is no less miraculous than was the application of spit and dirt placed on the blind man’s eyes. It has been, for me, a rod of safety for my soul, a transcendent and penetrating light of revelation, an illumination of the path I must walk when mists of darkness come. And surely they have, and surely they will.

And Now I See

Elder Holland teaches that just as the Lord healed a blind man with a mixture of clay, He often uses humble or unusual things to bless and teach us.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland