Dear members of the Quorum,

It’s me again, Bro. Russ. For this month’s Blog, I was looking for something from Conference that spoke about the Holy Ghost. I’ve noticed in my prayers, I call for help from the Holy Ghost more and more, I’ve also noticed that I don’t always receive the promptings or answers I’m looking for. Why did I choose the following talk for answers? Was it that I prayed before starting out, asking for the Holy Ghost to guide me, or was it because it was the second talk and was titled “To Acquire Spiritual Guidance” (by Elder Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles?) There is my question. I know there have been times in my life that I have received promptings from the Holy Ghost. But how do I get more answers? Elder Scott gave a couple of answers.

“President John Taylor wrote: “Joseph Smith, upwards of forty years ago, said to me: ‘Brother Taylor, you have received the Holy Ghost. Now follow the influence of that Spirit, and it will lead you into all truth, until by and by, it will become in you a principle of revelation.’ Then he told me never to arise in the morning without bowing before the Lord, and dedicating myself to him during that day.”

Another,

“I am convinced that there is no simple formula or technique that would immediately allow you to master the ability to be guided by the voice of the Spirit. Our Father expects you to learn how to obtain that divine help by exercising faith in Him and His Holy Son, Jesus Christ. Were you to receive inspired guidance just for the asking, you would become weak and ever more dependent on Them. They know that essential personal growth will come as you struggle to learn how to be led by the Spirit.
What may appear initially to be a daunting task will be much easier to manage over time as you consistently strive to recognize and follow feelings prompted by the Spirit. Your confidence in the direction you receive from the Holy Ghost will also become stronger. I witness that as you gain experience and success in being guided by the Spirit, your confidence in the impressions you feel can become more certain than your dependence on what you see or hear.”

Elder Scott tells of a particular series of events that happened to him that ranged from promptings he received over a period of time. It started with the talk of a Priesthood leader in a Spanish Branch in Mexico City that was very passionate and he strived so hard to make his talk known. Elder Scott felt a prompting and he wrote it down. Later he was listening to a man teaching Sunday School in his own Ward. He felt the teacher was giving a talk more about his knowledge than the subject. Elder Scott received promptings again and wrote them down. He then describes how profound the experience was, and that it continued.

“Impressions of the Spirit can come in response to urgent prayer or unsolicited when needed. Sometimes the Lord reveals truth to you when you are not actively seeking it, such as when you are in danger and do not know it. However, the Lord will not force you to learn. You must exercise your agency to authorize the Spirit to teach you. As you make this a practice in your life, you will be more perceptive to the feelings that come with spiritual guidance. Then, when that guidance comes, sometimes when you least expect it, you will recognize it more easily.”

I have learned from this that it takes much more than just having a problem(s) and asking the Holy Ghost to take my problem(s) away. Rather, ask in reverent prayer, while also living the guiding principles of the Church. So listen for that small voice, and once you have heard it pray and ask if there is more. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Dear Brothers,

Please read this! My monthly addition to the Blog is so strong, and I believe the very reason that I was given this assignment. The subject came from the Sunday afternoon session of the Fall Conference, titled “Safety for the Soul” By Elder Jeffery R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He begins by saying,

“Prophecies regarding the last days often refer to large-scale calamities such as earthquakes or famines or floods. These in turn may be linked to widespread economic or political upheavals of one kind or another.

But there is one kind of latter-day destruction that has always sounded to me more personal than public, more individual than collective—a warning, perhaps more applicable inside the Church than outside it. The Savior warned that in the last days even those of the covenant, the very elect, could be deceived by the enemy of truth. If we think of this as a form of spiritual destruction, it may cast light on another latter-day prophecy. Think of the heart as the figurative center of our faith, the poetic location of our loyalties and our values; then consider Jesus’ declaration that in the last days “men’s hearts [shall fail] them.”

I have personally had doubts through out the years, and have wondered just how this ever growing church, based on the prophecies and writings of Joseph Smith could make so many, in such a short amount of time, believe. I have thought even until recently that I choose to believe because I was born into and raised in the Church, until I took the wrong path for so many years. A few years ago a pack of Elders (6 or 7) descended on me to try to get me back on the right path, I thank you and promise it wasn’t in vain. One thing that has intrigued me over years has been the way that some of those learned men and women who speak at Conference not only astound me with how near perfect they seem. In their looks and in their speech. One time as I came back in my room and was closing the door, I heard a voice telling me to turn and listen. This talk seemed like it was meant just for me, and has changed my behavior since in a great way. The talk that this Blog letter refers to has also made a profound difference on my ability to believe fully the Book of Mormon and that this is the true Church of Jesus Christ. Elder Holland told why he believes and why everyone else should. Here is a short part of his reasons.

“For 179 years this book has been examined and attacked, denied and deconstructed, targeted and torn apart like perhaps no other book in modern religious history—perhaps like no other book in any religious history. And still it stands. Failed theories about its origins have been born and parroted and have died—from Ethan Smith to Solomon Spaulding to deranged paranoid to cunning genius. None of these frankly pathetic answers for this book has ever withstood examination because there is no other answer than the one Joseph gave as its young unlearned translator. In this I stand with my own great-grandfather, who said simply enough, “No wicked man could write such a book as this; and no good man would write it, unless it were true and he were commanded of God to do so.

I testify that one cannot come to full faith in this latter-day work—and thereby find the fullest measure of peace and comfort in these, our times—until he or she embraces the divinity of the Book of Mormon and the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom it testifies. If anyone is foolish enough or misled enough to reject 531 pages of a heretofore unknown text teeming with literary and Semitic complexity without honestly attempting to account for the origin of those pages—especially without accounting for their powerful witness of Jesus Christ and the profound spiritual impact that witness has had on what is now tens of millions of readers—if that is the case, then such a person, elect or otherwise, has been deceived; and if he or she leaves this Church, it must be done by crawling over or under or around the Book of Mormon to make that exit. In that sense the book is what Christ Himself was said to be: “a stone of stumbling, . . . a rock of offence,” a barrier in the path of one who wishes not to believe in this work. Witnesses, even witnesses who were for a time hostile to Joseph, testified to their death that they had seen an angel and had handled the plates. “They have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man,” they declared. “Wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true.”

This is so good! From beginning to end, and will bolster any testimony. It’s short and well worth the time to listen to, watch (that’s best because of the power in his voice,) even read at http://www.lds.org, or read in the Nov. Ensign. Please give this a shot, especially if you are having questions, or if the Dark One tries to deceive you as Elder Holland eludes to in the beginning of his talk.

Merry Christmas, and keep Christ in it. With Love, Bro. Russell Dearden

Edit by Eric: My apologies to Russ and the Elders Quorum for getting this out late. December was quite the interesting month in our house! :-)

Dear Friends and Quorum members,

During the October conference, Elder L. Tom Perry gave a talk in the Sunday morning session entitled The Past Way of Facing the Future. It was a talk on how things were accomplished back in the Church’s infancy by the new members who had nothing to go on but faith and belief. Also about using things from their past to create the Church as it grew and moved and grew and moved again. He spoke of how they came to the Salt Lake Valley and built up a community and church from a desert. Then came to some of the members and asked them to load up and move to another Desert, (Sanpete.) President Heber C Kimball - First Counselor to Brigham Young came to these people shortly and promised them a Temple on a specific hillside. 30 years later, no temple, so the people on April 14th 1879 took it upon themselves to build their Temple and laid the cornerstone. Here’s the cool part:

From Elder Perry’s Talk, “To better understand how the past can provide a better way of facing the future, I would like to share an account from the building of the Manti Temple. Then I want to share what it has taught me about true principles.
Some fine carpenters from Norway who arrived and settled in Manti were given the assignment of building the roof for the temple. They had never built a roof structure before, but they had experience as shipbuilders. They didn’t know how they would design a roof. Then the thought came to them: 'Why don’t we just build a ship? Then, because a well-built ship is solid and secure, if we turn the plans upside down, we’ll have a secure roof.' They set about to plan to construct a ship, and when it was completed, they turned the plan upside down and it became the plan for the roof of the Manti Temple.

In this case they used lessons from their past experience—the principles of shipbuilding—to help them meet the challenge. They correctly reasoned that the same principles they had applied to building a seaworthy vessel would also apply to building a solid roof. For example, both structures needed to be waterproof. The basic integrity of the structure wouldn’t be affected by its orientation—whether right side up or upside down. The most important thing was to have a working knowledge of the basic principles required to erect any structure that was built to last.”

So, when you are trying to bring someone into the knowledge of the Church, or into the Church itself, use the skills you learned in your learning years. Be open like a child who wants to share and everyone told you not now, quit bugging me, and all the while you have this seemingly life altering tale of how God put something in you while you had watched the simple refraction of the sun in a dew drop. Keep in mind the things that you prepared for, then went out and accomplished, with your mission work and yearn again for that feeling of baptizing someone that you helped bring to this wonderful work that is this Church. A feeling many of us don’t now know and may not know.

I believe this to be the true Church of our times and President Monson to be a true living Prophet. May the Lord bless all of you, your families & friends. This is my testimony, in Jesus’ name, Amen. - Brother Russell Dearden