This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Morning Session of the April 1999 Conference.
This week I liked Elder Marlin K. Jensen's talk about friendship.
Like so much of what is worthwhile in life, our needs for friendship are often best met in the home. If our children feel friendship within the family, with each other, and with parents, they will not be desperate for acceptance outside the family. I think one of life’s most satisfying accomplishments for my wife and me is to have lived long enough to see our children become good friends. It’s definitely a miracle that those in our family who in younger years occasionally threatened one another with serious bodily harm now seek out and genuinely enjoy each other’s friendship.
This first quote just made me feel wistful. Will this come true for our children? I honestly don't know. I'm pretty sure some of them will be friends, but will all of them? I know I have to allow for personality differences, proximity, age, life circumstances…but impractical as it may be, my greatest wish would be for ALL of them to be friends, good friends, as adults!
Elder Jensen goes on to talk about making friends outside of our families:
There is a particular challenge we face as Latter-day Saints in establishing and maintaining friendships. Because our commitment to marriage, family, and the Church is so strong, we often feel challenged by constraints of time and energy in reaching out in friendship to others beyond that core group. I experienced this dilemma personally in recent days as I tried to steal a few moments at home to prepare this talk. Twice, friends from my past, whom I love dearly but see only occasionally, dropped in to visit. During what ought to have been choice times of reunion and reminiscence, I ironically found myself growing inwardly impatient for the visits to end so that I could get back to writing my talk about friendship!
I have since felt ashamed. How selfish we can be. How unwilling to be inconvenienced, to give, to bless and be blessed. What kind of parents or neighbors or servants of the Lord Jesus Christ can we be without being a friend? In this information age, is not friendship still the best technology for sharing the truths and way of life we cherish? Is not our reluctance voluntarily to reach out to others in friendship a significant obstacle to helping God accomplish His eternal purposes?
I sometimes feel ashamed about this too. Of course I'm busy, we're all busy, but I want to make sure I'm not too busy to be a friend to the people around me.
And I really like how he said that friendship is the "best technology for sharing truths." I've thought many times how the only people you can ever really influence are the people that you know personally and care about. Arguing on the internet is so contentious and so pointless that sometimes I despair of anyone ever changing! It's so tempting to just cling to your opinion and fight for it no matter what, and I've read that most people do that whenever they read contrary information. But when I hear someone I really admire or love say something that I disagree with, it makes me step back and consider my own conclusions. I love the people in my life who I can trust to expand my vision and give me new ways of thinking about things!
Other posts in this series:
A prophet's testimony—by Rozy
Great talk and great post.
ReplyDeleteOh goodness! I related to that second quote so much! It does often feel that to reach out to a ministering sister or old friend I have to pause everything important I should be doing! And I’ll even feel guilty for the things I didn’t get done while visiting or whatever. But of course that’s so ridiculous. Of course God can use us so much more easily to help people who need help WHEN they need help, if we are maintaining friendships and connection—letting others know they matter, being aware of their goings on, etc.
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