This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Morning Session of the October 1989 Conference.
President Oaks isn't the person I usually go to for warm words of comfort (ha ha, no offense to President Oaks who is one of my favorite apostles—it's just that he's usually explaining doctrine or clearing up misconceptions) but he had some in this talk, "Modern Pioneers." It's not really about what you think. He quotes President J. Reuben Clark talking about how in the wagon trains, only a few leaders rode in front and got to see the whole panoramic vision of where they were headed and what came next. But most of the people in the wagon companies were just trudging along, vision obscured by dust, unable to see much beyond what was right in front of them, "worn and tired, footsore, sometimes almost disheartened, borne up by their faith that God loved them, that the Restored Gospel was true, and that the Lord led and directed the brethren out in front.”
President Oaks says that "the purposes of God were accomplished by the unswerving loyalty and backbreaking work of the faithful tens of thousands who pushed on" and compares the general membership of the church to these faithful pioneers.
The section I liked best was this:
Many of our members are struggling valiantly to try to do it all. They support themselves and provide for their families. They strive to carry out the responsibilities of their church callings. They spend many hours transporting their children to numberless church and school activities. They try to be generous with money and time for worthy causes in the community. They strive to improve themselves. They hope, after all of this, to have some little time left for togetherness and recreation.
One sister wrote, “We are having great difficulty [just] trying to cope.” Many could say the same. Yet they do cope. They carry on without complaint, even when they have just cause for complaint. And even when they fall short, the Lord blesses them for their righteous desires, for, as King Benjamin taught, “it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength."
I don't know that I'd say I "carry on without complaint," but otherwise I DO feel that this describes me—trying to fulfill all my responsibilities, feeling like I'm not doing any of them very well, but trying to improve and carry on. I am comforted to know that right now, even when I feel pulled in so many different directions—"even when [I] fall short, the Lord blesses [me] for my righteous desires."
P.S. The other talk you need to read from this session is Elder Haight's! Go read about the experience he had when he thought he was going to die. It's amazing!
Other posts in this series:
Back in the last wagon—by Nathaniel Givens
Women Patriots, Women Pioneers—by Jan Tolman
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