Problems solved better and more quickly

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Priesthood Session of the April 1980 Conference. 

Just a couple random thoughts sparked by this week's conference:

Elder Marvin J. Ashton (or "Marv" as he said President Kimball called him, ha ha) told a cool story about visiting the prison with President Kimball. He told how kind and respectful the prophet was to the inmates, and the line that stuck out to me was this one:

Do you have the skill and capacity to be friendly to others when, in your limited vision, they may not seem to deserve it?

Well…do I? Hmm. Working on it. Sometimes it's easier with strangers than with erring children…

I also liked it when Elder Theodore Tuttle quoted some earlier apostles about family history:

[Elder Ballard said] “the spirit and influence of your dead will guide those who are interested in finding those records. If there is anywhere on the earth anything concerning them, you will find it.” And Elder Widtsoe said, “I have the feeling … that those who give themselves with all their might and main to this work receive help from the other side, and not merely in gathering genealogies. Whoever seeks to help those on the other side receives help in return in all the affairs of life.”

Help in all the affairs of life! I want that. And since we're talking about the blessings of temple work, I'll include the quote I read in this week's Sunday School lesson (also from Elder Widtsoe):

“I believe that the busy person … who has his worries and troubles, can solve his problems better and more quickly in the house of the Lord than anywhere else. If he will [do] the temple work for himself and for his dead, he will confer a mighty blessing upon those who have gone before, and … a blessing will come to him, for at the most unexpected moments, in or out of the temple will come to him, as a revelation, the solution of the problems that vex his life. That is the gift that comes to those who enter the temple properly.”

Other posts in this series: 

• Building a Life Story by Nathaniel Givens
• No Amount of Hurt or Embarrassment or Pride by Jan Tolman