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Most families or extended families have someone with mental health challenges of one type or another, so knowing where to turn for help is a blessing and a benefit, said Elder Marlin K. Jensen of the Seventy.
Elder Jensen gave remarks at a dinner of the Mental Health Resource Foundation on Feb. 23 at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. The foundation has created a Website, mentalhealthlibrary.info, as well as producing booklets and guidebooks with information to educate LDS bishops and other leaders and clergy as well as caregivers on most aspects of mental health, including essential steps for addiction recovery.
"There is so much competing for our time and talents and attention ... there is a surplus of everything, including (good) causes," he said. "What is remarkable to me about this group is that you have chosen (mental health), one of the most Christlike things you could do."
Elder Jensen, who is also Church historian and recorder, said that "our ability to care and capacity and our willingness to serve is almost always directly related to our own personal conversion to Jesus Christ, because when we truly come to appreciate what He did for us, the most logical response in the world is to want to give back."
"Since He is not immediate, and His children are, we turn to them as all of you have tonight."
Elder Jensen said that while "our culture in the Church is a wonderful culture, it is difficult to be outside the norm — the young man who doesn't go on a mission, the couple who don't have children, those who may face divorce — there are all kinds of people who don't meet the norm. I often think that it was these worthy people that Jesus spent His life worrying about. Yes, He preached to the masses, but His own personal ministry largely was extended to those who didn't fit the norm of that day and age.
"So thank you, brothers and sisters, for your service to those who need His love and need His care and concern."
Also a speaker at the dinner was Fred M. Riley, commissioner of LDS Family Services, who noted that this Church agency had almost tripled the number of therapeutic hours delivered to Church members in the past five years. It has also added 12 offices internationally and 11 offices in the United States. Also, some 1,000 Church service missionaries are operating the addiction recovery program, the fastest growing program in the agency.
He said the agency is deeply concerned for families and individuals who suffer needlessly because they don't know where to turn.
"Many fervent prayers are offered to our Father in Heaven... for that friend who is pregnant out of wedlock and doesn't know what to to do, or perhaps that sister who has always dreamed of being a mother in Zion ... and then she finds herself unable to bear children and wonders what she's done wrong.... And we see a mother praying for her son who is drug addicted ... a husband who is addicted to pornography ... a prayer offered for a loved one who simply doesn't know how to cope with life because of depression.
"My belief is that every one of those prayers will be answered. Those of you in this foundation who are doing such a great work ... are, and will be, tools in our Father in Heaven's hands, so that when those prayers are answered, some of those prayers will be answered through your efforts."
