Life's anchors: Testimony, devotion
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A testimony along with devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ are the anchors that can keep single adults safe during perilous times, Elder M. Russell Ballard said during a fireside on Sunday, May 18.
In any circumstance, those anchors provide safety, said Elder Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve, encouraging the members of the congregation not to let their lives drift without those anchors.
The fireside in the Salt Lake Tabernacle concluded a weeklong Salt Lake area single adults conference. Elder Dale G. Renlund, Area Seventy, and his wife, Ruth, also spoke briefly.
Elder Ballard began by warmly speaking of some of his ancestors including his grandfathers — Elder Melvin J. Ballard and Elder Hyrum M. Smith — who both served in the Quorum of the Twelve, his great-grandfather — President Joseph F. Smith, and his great-great grandfather — Hyrum Smith, brother of the Prophet Joseph Smith.
To illustrate the trials of the Church's early pioneers, he used journals to recount the stories of his great-grandparents, Henry and Margaret McNeil Ballard.
He read how, after joining the Church in England at age 17, Henry Ballard made his way to Utah. But upon arriving at the mouth of Emigration Canyon, he was ashamed to enter the Salt Lake Valley in his ragged clothes that didn't cover his body. So he waited until dark to approach a nearby house and beg for clothes. His plea was answered and he was able to enter the valley the next day, thankful to the Lord that he reached his future home in safety.
"That's the beginning of the Ballard family in Utah," Elder Ballard said. "No one, I think, came into this valley any humbler or in more challenging circumstances."
Margaret McNeil joined the Church with her family in Scotland. She wrote in her journal of a time when she was a 10-year-old girl and her family was hungry and without food. In front of a small home across a field was a pile of squash, and her mother sent her to beg for some squash for the family to eat. She wrote that the woman who answered the door said, "I knew you were coming. I have been told to give you food." She gave Margaret a fresh loaf of bread and later delivered a cooked meal to the family.
"So when we talk about hardship," Elder Ballard said, "or we talk about challenges, or we talk about where we are in our individual lives as we're working our way through this process of mortality, I personally take a great deal of strength from thinking of those that have gone before us and the price that they were willing to pay to establish the Church."
He called membership in the Church a miracle, stating, "You must not let any burden that you feel like you are personally carrying get in the way of staying focused on the marvelous reality of being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."
Very few people in the world know of the truths of the gospel, Elder Ballard said. But Church members know of Heavenly Father, the Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. They know the purpose of mortal life and the promises of eternity.
He told the single adults that whatever challenges they might face, "do not ever forget who you are. You are sons and daughters of God, our Eternal Father, and He loves you. You can lay any burden that you feel like you are carrying upon the shoulders of the Lord Jesus Christ as you internalize the Atonement and you let that be real in your lives, to know what He did in Gethsemane and what He did on Golgotha for you and for me. Then somehow, some way, the power of heaven gives you the strength to carry on, do the best you can, to move forward, and not to be too concerned about your own personal worries.
"Be like the pioneers if you can. Be thinking how you can make a difference and how you can reach out and touch and bless the lives of others. Because when we are in the service of others, all of a sudden our problems are not the same."
He advised listeners to be aware of the perils of the last days as listed by Paul in 2 Timothy 3:1-7.
He particularly warned of the dangers of the Internet.
"The Internet is a wonderful tool," he said, "but there is a line and that line you must not cross over onto the Devil's side of the Internet. If there are any of you that are here tonight that have done that and allowed yourself to get over looking at pornographic sites and filth and sleaze that's on the Devil's side, then as an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ I call upon you tonight to repent and to stop it, tonight. ...
"Leave the Devil's side alone and amplify the Lord's side."
The scriptures and the words of latter-day prophets and apostles can turn discouragement to the "peace, joy and happiness which you are entitled to have even when your circumstances may not be just what you thought they were going to be and your plans may not have worked out just the way you wanted them to."
After extending love and appreciation to the single adults on behalf of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve, he counseled, "May you be patient and have the courage to go on. And if you have challenges, think about that little 10-year-old begging for food or a 17-year-old boy begging for clothes in order to come into the valley. That will give you the inner strength, the inner power that you need to find peace, joy and happiness during the sojourn of your experience in mortality."
E-mail to: ghill@desnews.com
