Well good morning brothers and sisters! It
truly is a beautiful experience to be standing before so many incredible people.
I feel the love emanating from each and every one of you. I know the Lord loves
you all more than you can comprehend, and right now I can so clearly see your
lights. What an incredible opportunity this is. I want to sincerely thank you
all for being here.
As most of you know, I have been called to
serve as a full-time missionary in Birmingham, Alabama. And I can’t help but
smile when I say that! I am just SO excited. Unlike most other talks given in
sacrament meeting, I was not assigned a topic to speak on. My dad told me to
talk about whatever I felt inspired to do, so I hope and pray I can be a
channel of God’s will. I pray you will feel His love today and that you can
remember these good feelings. With that being said, today I’ve decided to speak
on being your best self.
Being your best self can also be described as
BECOMING LIKE CHRIST, as he was
perfect and came to Earth to show us the way we should live.
This is relevant as our purpose
as missionaries is to “invite others to come unto Christ by helping
them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His
Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and
enduring to the end.”
I personally believe the way we are
able to bring others unto Christ is by showing our love. Henry B. Eyring once said, “If you love [people] because
you feel God’s love for them, they will feel that. If you are meek and humble
because you feel your dependence on God, they will sense that, too.”
If we are truly Christ-like, people
will see our lights and want to know more.
Not to mention this is a commandment given by Christ
himself. After the last supper, the night before Christ would be hung on the
cross, he taught his disciples what we read in John 13:34-35, which states, “A
new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you,
that ye also love one another. 35 By this shall all men know that yea are my
disciples, if ye have loved one to another.”
Christ is the ultimate example of love as he
is full of charity, which is the
“pure love of Christ”. It is the love that Christ has for the children of men
and that the children of men should have for one another. It is the highest,
noblest, and strongest kind of love and the most joyous to the soul. (1 Nephi
11:23)
The prophet Mormon taught: “Charity suffereth long, and is
kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily
provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the
truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth
all things” (Moroni 7:45; see also 1 Corinthians 13:4-7).
All of these are incredible things I could talk about for a
long time. But one line I want to focus on is “seeketh not her own”, or in my
words, selflessness. Christ is the definition of selfless. Even in the midst of
his own trials on earth he was able to reach out and serve others. STORY OF CHRIST AND JOHN "Then the devil leaveth him, and, now Jesus knew
that John was cast into prison, and he sent angels, and, behold, they came and
ministered unto him (John)." Matthew 4:11
I want to share an interesting experience I had this past
week…
I was taking a presentation skills
class offered by my dads company Mandel Communications in Palo Alto. On the
second day we were discussing nervousness and how to combat these fight or flight
emotions, when our wonderful teacher Stacy relayed some advice she had received
years ago. She said her coach told her, “Stacy. Right now the spotlight is
right in your face. You are worried about what you are going to say, how you
will say it, how you will sound, what
you look like, what people will think
of you, etc. You need to turn that
spotlight around. This is not about you. You are here to teach other people.
Forget about yourself and serve.” She said the moment she heard that advice her
life changed. She no longer was focused on herself; rather she was able to
channel her nervous energy to meet the needs of her audience. And this is
exactly how the Savior lived his life. He forgot about himself, loved
unconditionally, and served happily.
As missionaries we are asked to serve God “with all of our
heart, might, mind, and strength.” (D&C 4)
I would like to share an excerpt from C.S. Lewis’s book Mere
Christianity that talks about giving our heart, might, mind, and strength to
God.
“Give me all of you!!! I don’t want so
much of your time, so much of your talents and money, and so much of your work.
I want YOU!!! ALL OF YOU!! I have not come to torment or frustrate the natural
man or woman, but to KILL IT! No half measures will do. I don’t want to only
prune a branch here and a branch there; rather I want the whole tree out! Hand
it over to me, the whole outfit, all of your desires, all of your wants and
wishes and dreams. Turn them ALL over to me, give yourself to me and I will
make of you a new self---in my image. Give me yourself and in exchange I will
give you Myself. My will, shall become your will. My heart, shall become your
heart.”
I love this quote. It teaches us that if we but give our
will to the Lord, we will be guided and directed. As we follow the Saviors
example and allow his atonement to work in our lives, we will steadily acquire
Christ-like attributes. I know when I trust in Gods ways and follow his plans
for me I am infinitely more successful than when I follow my own. He has the
power to make something incredible of us all, if we just give ourselves to him.
This does not mean throw away your personality. In fact, it means just the
opposite. God gave you your talents and quirks for a reason, so he will help
you magnify them. He will help you use your gifts to develop the kingdom of
God. He will help us become our best selves.
I am excited to dedicate my whole self to the Lord these
next 18 months. In my daily life I easily get sucked into only thinking about
myself-what clothes I could buy, what
food I should eat, what time I should go to the beach, the list goes
on and on. We tend to think everything we have is “ours”, but in reality, it
all came from God.
“Nothing you have not given away will ever really be yours.”
Our talents, money, families, friends-they all came from
God. What he doesn’t have is our will, faith, and love. We must forget about
selfish desires and hand them over to the Lord. Just as the Savior did. And if
we do this, we will become our best selves.
My Book of Mormon professor at BYU gave a powerful lesson
that related to this. The world is a busy place and often we lose sight of what
is most important. He told us if we thought we didn’t have enough time to
follow Christ, try giving some more time away. If we didn’t think we had enough
$, we needed to give more away. If we didn’t have enough talents, we need to
give ours away by sharing them.
Even though I have a tremendous amount of work to do in this
category, I have a story to share about when I applied this principle to my
life.
Art Story: I love all types of arts and crafts. Drawing,
watercolor, friendship bracelets, jewelry, nails. I love it all. A few summers
back I got really into making friendship bracelets. Every summer I would try to
do new designs and patterns to develop my skills. As I started to get pretty
good, people started asking for them. Secretly I would get frustrated. They
take a lot of time and energy and I wasn’t going to just waste it on people who
didn’t fully appreciate it! I was selfish. Life went on and I kept progressing
in my artistic skills. One day in art 3 at PCS someone saw me standing in front
of my blank canvas and asked me what I was going to do. I tried to explain it
but no one really got the vision. I started working and people asked me how I
was doing it. I stood in a stupor of thought. I honestly didn’t know. It just
came to me. My hand would literally just move.
At that moment I realized my artistic talent was not mine at
all. It was a precious gift from God. I really began to internalize the fact
that I was nothing, but with Heavenly Father I could do some pretty beautiful
things. Ammon had a similar realization, which we read about in the BoM. Alma
26:12 reads, “Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak;
therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his
strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought
in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.” From that day forward
it became easier and easier for me to share my talent. I realized I was holding
something away from other people that wasn’t even mine to begin with. I stopped
giving myself the credit. I started giving friendship bracelets away and teaching
others how to make them. I started to paint other peoples nails. And that is
when I truly found joy in who I was becoming. I was becoming a better artist through
God and by sharing what he had blessed me with. I can honestly say that I love
teaching other people what I’ve learned and I love painting other
peoples nails. When I do this I feel sincere love for everyone around me, which
makes sense, for when you are “in the service of your fellow men, ye are only
in the service of your God”.
OPTIONAL Now I don’t want you to think that because I’m
standing up here telling you to be like Jesus, that if you follow this advice,
your life will just be rainbows and butterflies from here on out. In fact, the
closer you come to your Savior, the more challenges you will probably face. I
would like to share a story with you based from the scripture…
SILVERSMITH:
Malachi
3:3 in the Old Testament. This is talking about God and how: "He will sit
as a refiner and purifier of silver."
The
story is told about some women in a Bible study who were puzzled by this verse.
They wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God.
One of
the women offered to find out the process of refining silver and get back to
the group at their next Bible Study.
That
week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at
work. She didn't mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her
curiosity about the process of refining silver.
As she
watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it
heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in
the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the
impurities.
The
woman thought about God allowing us to be in fires of life, then she thought
again about the verse that says: "He sits as a refiner and purifier of
silver." She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there
in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined.
The
man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he
had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the
silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed.
The
woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, "How do you
know when the silver is fully refined?"
He smiled at her and
answered, "Oh, that's easy -- when I see my image in it."
* Just as the silversmith
is refining the metal, Christ is heating us up and changing us. He puts us into
the heat of life-he purposefully gives us struggles in order for us to
recognize our need for a cleansing. Through Christ’s atonement we can be made
clean, and all our impurities vanish, just like the metal in the fire. And
Christ knows we are “done” when he can see his image in us. He wants us to
become like him and have his pure love in our countenance. He wants us to be
our best selves. So next time you are in the middle of life’s fire, try to
remember how Christ would react. He would recognize that he was being changed
for the better. He would turn outward and serve.
TESTIMONY & Concluding Thoughts
I would like to share a quick story
about my brother Emmett. Just last year he was in AP World History and one of
his homework assignments was to make flashcards for all the major events and
people in history. Such as, Mayans-500 BC, first written language, etc. I remember
he was sitting at the kitchen table working when he went down the list and read
the name “Jesus”. In a perplexed manner he said, “How in the world am I
supposed to fit Jesus Christ on a 3x5?!?!!!!!” I thought it was the funniest
thing I’d ever heard. But it wasn’t just funny; it made me realize that Jesus
wasn’t just a historical figure to my brother. I realized that Emmett had a
testimony of our Savior and a personal relationship with him. He couldn’t
possibly fathom fitting his true feelings for the Savior on an index card.
This is exactly how I feel. I LOVE MY SAVIOR. He is my best
friend. He suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane and experienced every
heartache, disappointment, confusion, sadness, doubt, fear, and stress I will
ever, ever feel. He knew that if he personally took upon himself the sins of
the world, he would be able to comfort us better. He has been lower than you
will ever be. Trust his love. Trust his wisdom. Trust his power. If you do, you
will become your best self.
There is nothing I want more than for others to understand
that my love and happiness comes from the Savior. I wasn’t sent to my family,
friends, TLCS, PCS, BYU, Santa Cruz, and given countless opportunities for no
reason. As we sang earlier today, “because I have been given much I too must
give”. I know with all my heart that Heavenly Father knows me personally and
knows my potential. He knows what I need in this mortal life to succeed. He
cares about my problems and worries, big and small. If we have faith and sincerity,
he will answer our prayers. The pure joy this gospel brings to my life is
unmatchable. And that’s exactly why I want to serve a mission. I want others to
feel the same pure love, peace, and happiness I get from this gospel.
Christ teaches us in 1 Peter 3:15 to “sanctify the Lord God
in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh
you a reason of the hope that is in you”. I want to be the vessel through which
people can learn of their Savior. I have hope and I need to share it.
Just as my dad tells me he has the “bug” to surf everyday,
he just can’t resist it, that’s how I feel about the gospel. I know it’s true.
I know it’s true just as much as I know I am standing here today. I want y’all
to know I’m not a member of this church because my parents want me to be. I am
here because I have worked hard to find the truth for myself. The Holy Ghost
has taught and reaffirmed the truth of this gospel to me countless times. I
cannot deny what I feel. By actively being engaged in this gospel I’ve found
purpose beyond belief. I’ve come to understand that each individual has a very
specific and beautiful purpose on this earth. I am so excited and sincerely
grateful that my loving Heavenly Father trusts me, an imperfect 19 year old
girl, with his perfect gospel in the last days. I am humbled. The time is now,
and I am worthy. What a blessing.
My
loving Heavenly Father has called me to labor in his fields. I need the people
in Alabama and they need me. I know everything I’ve experienced in life has
helped me get here today. I am thankful for the trials I’ve been given. I have
come to realize Christ has been refining me for 19 years in preparation for
this next chapter in my life. He has helped me progress and is continually
helping me move forward. I am trying to be like Jesus harder and harder everyday.
I have witnessed personal growth in many areas and look forward to what the
Lord has in store for me. I am trying to be the best Ella I can be. When I earnestly
read my scriptures, say sincere prayers, seek out opportunities to serve, and
love through the lens of Christ, I am at peace. I am happy. I am my best self.
·
Priesthood
·
Prophet
·
Joseph Smith
·
BoM
Thank
my family.
Move
forward in faith my friends. With God on our side, we cannot fail. The Lord
loves you and so do I. Please never forget that.
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