Saturday, February 28, 2009

Dalin H. Oaks in Germany!!

DISCLAIMER! This blog post contains spiritual references and testimony building experiences! Proceed with caution ye gentiles! :) (if you can't sense I'm joking in that sentence....then...get a funny bone. seriously)



Last night was just amazing. The spirit was so intense and the speakers were beautiful. It felt like there were so many things that were just pointed at me. They were FOR ME. I wonder if lots of people are experience the same kinds of things as me, and the Lord was addressing a lot of us, or if he was speaking to ME! Or if someone can listen to the same talk as the next person and they receive what they need to receive. Of course I went looking for a personal revelation and messages and Jen said she enjoyed it and she really liked it, but she didn't really get a personal message or revelation. I told her I was looking and praying for it though, so yeah.

Sister Oaks talked a lot of how to be a single adult and the things we need to do
She said we all need to learn to cook. And then she told the cutest story about how she never learned to cook in her whole life and after she married Pres Oaks, he invited Neal A Maxwell, Truman G. Madsen, and the head of BYU's service center and their wives to dinner. But she had no idea how to cook, so her visiting teacher offered to cook for her. So The dinner was going veryw ell and she brought out the main course, chicken breasts and wild rice and hollandaise sauce and brocolli, etc. and The chicken was ROCK hard. And they couldn't CUT into it and she has no idea what her VT did, but sister maxwell said, How did you cook this chicken? And sister Oaks just kinda non chalantly said, Oh. You know. A little salt, a little pepper. She said the worse part of the whole dinner was nobody laughed.
Haha.
The second thing she said we should do is Respect our feelings and emotions. Feelings and Emotions are blessings from Heavenly Father that lead us back to him. This life isn't where we belong, we're headed somewhere better. Feeling these emotions allow us to ask for heavenly father to help us. They allow us to ask him to lift us up. They bring us closer to him and allow him to help us. This was really personal to me, because I have had to learn to accept my feelings and allow myself to draw to Heavenly father when this happens. Homesickness, angst, apprehension, homesickness, homesickness, frustration. Asking heavenly father to help me draw on those powers of my family and friends and from the blessing that my daddy and brothers and bro in laws gave me has helped me with those emotions.)
She said have your temple reccomend and go there regularly.
She said to keep the commandments. "When we keep the commandments, the Lord gives us a testimony."
She said to use this time to follow and believe in your dreams. "I decided I wanted my life to be beautiful. Use your time wisely. Don't waste your time, but don't over-use your time."
Beware of technology. These kids get into the MTC and they don't know how to interact with people anymore. They are spening so much time on the computer and on video games. They have to teach them to smile. "We're not really trying to baptize iPods."


Elder Oaks was just amazing. He's always, ALWAYS been one of my favorite apostles. I have always loved his talks, I have always loved his words. And he is such a happy, cheerful, funny man. And I love how he laughs at his own jokes. :) Like me. And he just loves her so much. He got up and said, life with sister oaks is never dull. So cute.
He opened with some really cute stories, like when he became a general authority. He was a judge on the high supreme court for Utah, and he loved his job. It was his favorite and it suited him and one of the church leaders asked him how he liked his job and he said, I've died and gone to heaven! And He said, "He thought I had a pretty restricted view of the eternities." haha. Well he finally accepted his calling and he got told by Pres. hinckley (at the time one of the counselors to Pres. Kimball) to go to a stake conference with Pres. Packer. So he asks what he needs to do and pres. packer says, just make sure you bring your scriptures. So Dalin H. Oaks is like, great! All I have to do is watch and learn. This is nice. So the opening song is being sung for a 2 hour priesthood leadership meeting and packer leans over and says, okay. You take the first hour, I'll take the second. And he had 2 verses to figure out what he was going to say for an hour. So he stood up and said everything he knew, then said it again, backwards with different words, and looked at his clock. he had filled 45 minutes and he thought, wow. That's pretty good. So then he sits down and Boyd K Packer gets up, speaks for an hour then looks at his clock, seeing there's still 15 minutes and says, "And Now Elder Oaks will take the rest of the time to finish his assignment."
Funny huh?
He also told a story about James E Faust and how he told Dalin H. Oaks he HAD to go to those famous falls in between brazil and paraguay and Dalin H. Oaks argued that he didn't have time while he was there doing church business and pres. Faust said, "Dalin, Dalin, Dalin. You MUST go see these falls. The good things in this world are not only for the Gentiles." hahahahaha.
He also said that President Faust said, (and it's so funny, because after he shared these stories he said, I don't know really why I shared those with you, they have nothing to do with what we're tlaking about. haha.)
English is the language of Commerce
German is the language of Science
Italian is the Language of Music
French is the language of Love
Spanish is the language of Prayer
And when you pray in Spanish, the Lord answers back in Portuguese. Hahaha.
Yeah. that's president faust.

Anyway, On the more spiritual side, Pres. Oaks said,
The sweetest thing we can have in this life is to know what the Lord wants us to do. In that, there is NEVER pain. There may be frustration and apprehension, but never Pain.

He talked about We need to Have Holy Habits and Righteous Routines.
Holy habits are things that ever member of the church needs to do.
Scripture Study, prayers, meetings, callings, sacrament, tithing.
But as we seek to overcome our weaknesses and sins and some of our old lifestyles, these are not enough. They build a base, a foundation, but then we need to have Righteous Routines to truly become stronger and closer to the Lord.
Righteous Routines are more personal and individual. They are things we do that others don't necessarily need to do. They may include avoiding hanging out with friends who drink if that's something that is a temptation for you. You can create routines in your life to create routines that help you avoid falling into temptation.
Don't be stupid.

D&C 38:42 And go ye out from among the wicked. Save yourselves. Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord. Even so. Amen.
BE YE CLEAN
Men must be clean to bear the vessel of the priesthood.
Through the sacredness of marriage of the Lord are women carrying the vessels of bringing a spirit into this world.

It was an amazing meeting and I was so grateful to be tehre for it. I feel like heavenly father arranged this just for me. :) I'm sure it wasn't that way, but it felt like it! AAHH! THE CHURCH IS SO TRUE!
Also, I got to see sister Mortenson. She's my favorite missionary here! She's from Plain City, loves Bella's, and is friends with Adam Peterson. And I just LOVE her! She and I always just sit and talk at FHE or ANYtime we're around. She'll be getting home about 4 or 5 months after me (depending when I get home) But Man I seriously love her! She makes me wish I was on a mission just so I could be her companion!

1 comment:

ann said...

I love this blog. And I love the title of your blog. And I love you.