The quiet building up of his kingdom

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Afternoon Session of the April 2001 Conference.

Lots of good talks this week (such as Elder Oaks' talk on Focus and Priorities…it's still so relevant for today!). But I'm going to write about a story I really liked by Elder Bruce D. Porter. Like my dad, Elder Porter went to Harvard for his PhD. His studies took up most of his time, obviously, but one day he got asked to substitute in Primary for two weeks, and he reluctantly agreed. He says,

The appointed day came to teach Primary. That afternoon I was in the university library, absorbed in a book on international politics. The subject I was studying seemed somehow more important than the upcoming Primary class. Consequently, I procrastinated until just 30 minutes before the class was to begin to review the lesson I was to teach. Then I walked from the library down to our ward chapel on the edge of campus. My reluctant attitude must have slowed my steps, for I arrived a few minutes late. As I stepped to the door of the Primary room, the children were just beginning to sing the opening hymn. It was a song I had never heard before, a song whose melody and message touched me deeply:

As I have loved you,

Love one another.

This new commandment:

Love one another.

By this shall men know

Ye are my disciples,

If ye have love

One to another.

As I stood there, transfixed in the doorway, the Spirit bore witness that I was looking at the most important class taking place in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that day.

Back at the university in dozens of classrooms and laboratories, dedicated scholars were pursuing answers to the world’s problems. Yet valuable though such efforts may have been, the university did not and could not hold the ultimate answers to the problems of a troubled world. Here before me was the Lord’s answer: the quiet building up of His kingdom on earth by the teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. What was taking place in Primary that day was a small part of a divinely revealed plan for the salvation of a fallen world.

"The most important class taking place in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that day." I love that so much! Not only because I work in Primary right now (although, it would be so amazing if all the Primary teachers could have that vision!) but also because there are so many times everything about teaching children seems…well…futile! Sometimes I feel like there's no way I can possibly be making a difference or even making an impression on the people in this small sphere around me when there's so little evidence of it. The harvest feels far-off, even impossible, especially when I see around me so many more important people doing more important things. Obviously I believe in the work of motherhood and nurturing children. I know it's important—but it's sometimes hard to FEEL it's important. So it's just cool to see Heavenly Father teaching that truth to even this educated, well-known man who, on the surface, seemed to be doing much more important things with his life than teaching children.