NOTE: Original notes found here. They are editable and can be used by anyone and everyone.

Saturday Morning Session

Opening Hymn: The Morning Breaks – Hymn #1
Conducting: President Dallin H. Oaks – First Counselor in the First Presidency

Hymn: Arise, O God, and Shine – Hymn #265 

• October 2017

Invocation: Elder Robert C. Gay – Presidency of the Seventy 

Hymn: Choose the Right – Hymn #239

• October 2018

Talk: President Russell M. Nelson – President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Welcome Message

Major Themes: Continued growth

Notable Stories: Removing debris during renovation of the SLC Temple

Scriptures: Doctrine & Covenants 13:1

• • The Lord directs the affairs of His church
  • He does his own work and is hastening his work, even during a pandemic
  • Lessons we’ve already known have been rewritten on our hearts. 
  • The strength of this church lies in the efforts and growing testimonies of its members
  • The Lord hastens the work IN HIS OWN TIME
  • His Gospel is an invitation to keep changing and growing
  • The Gospel is a message of joy

• I like that they show a link to the church’s website in the corner in spanish (or whatever languages those are, they’re rotating)

• I see it on the BYUtv app. Did not know it was also on YouTube as well 

• The logo is on the youtube stream but not the website link. Weird that the link is on the BYUTV app and not YouTube. Seems like people watching on BYUTV probably already know the website. 

• At times, each of us will have to remove the old debris in our lives. 
• Pray to know the debris you should remove from your life
• Every small step we take toward being more in-tune with the Savior–to me, that means every positive effort to change–He is happy. What debris do we need to remove from our lives?
• The gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of repentance. “Because of the Savior’s Atonement, His gospel provides an invitation to keep changing, growing and becoming more pure. It is a gospel of hope, of healing and of progress. Thus, the gospel is a message of joy! Our spirits rejoice with every small step forward we take.”
• The strength of the Church lies in the efforts and ever-growing testimonies of its members. Testimonies are best cultivated in the home.

Talk: Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf – Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

God Among Us

Major Themes: Prophets; hope; God knows us

Notable Stories: Family fleeing home during WWII

Scriptures: Matthew 22:37–38

• • They came not to blame, lecture, or shame, only to share the joy and peace they had experienced
  • Time after WWII was dark, and people asked if there was still hope. Missionaries brought light and hope and truth while the world was drowning in hate, bitterness, and fear. 
  • The Gospel message transcends all other agendas and differences
  • God cares about us, even during hours of chaos and confusion
  • He is among us, actively guiding his children
  • God has never forgotten us
  • We can become heirs of God
  • We will live forever, can receive a fulness of joy, and will have the opportunity to inherit the thrones and power of God
  • Heavenly Father has not forgotten us
  • God is among us and is personally involved in our lives. 
  • He invites us to take flight into an unimaginable future of divine happiness
  • At the center of it all is His beloved son and His sacrifice for us
  • Our potential is not about who we are but about who He is.
  • We are not irredeemable or hopeless
  • We should learn from our failures and feel hope
  • Our failures do not have to define us, they can refine us
  • Refinement through repentance
  • God has not doomed His children to stumble through mortality without hope for a bright and eternal future
  • Consider Heavenly Father’s plan of salvation and exaltation, the plan of happiness for His children. He has provided instructions revealing the way back to Him, and at the center of it all is His beloved Son Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice.
  • Line upon line, we will gather light into our souls
  • If we repent, mistakes do not disqualify us. They are part of our progress
  • The Savior always teaches timeless truths, they apply to any age and any circumstance.
  • His message is a message of hope and belonging
  • God has not abandoned His children, He is among us

• Is his repetition of “among us” his strategy to get kids engaged in his talk??? He’s gotta know what he’s doing with that (HA!)

• We should not be surprised that the Lord teaches his core message: Thou, shalt love the Lord thy God. And after he teaches to love thy neighbor.
• Yes, the world is in turmoil. And yes, we have weaknesses. But we do not need to hang our head in despair because we can trust God, we can trust Jesus Christ, and we can accept the gift of His Spirit to guide us
• Seek joy, enlightenment, peace, truth, happiness, the promise of immortality and eternal life
• Trust the Lord.
• We are tasked to encounter God.
• As we set aside pride and approach His throne with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, He will draw near to us.
• No matter your circumstances, open your heart
• God is among us

Talk: Sister Joy D. Jones – Primary General President

Essential Conversations

Major Themes: Teaching children 

Notable Stories: Child falling out of bed; Soldier going through basic training 

Scriptures: N/A

• • To our Heavenly Father, children have never been secondary, they have always been primary.
  • He trusts us to protect and care for them
  • Never hurt them physically or emotionally, even when tensions run high
  • It is our privilege and responsibility to help children “get far enough in” to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and we cannot begin too soon.
  • Children are to be taught by word and example, before and after they become the age of accountability.
  • Becoming like our Savior will not happen randomly
  • Accidental conversion is not a doctrine. Being intentional in loving and teaching will help our children.
  • Have conversations with children about the gospel. These conversations give them a foundation upon which they can build and not fall
  • When we strengthen a child, we strengthen the family
  • Caring conversations can teach children what they believe and why they believe. 
  • We can assist children in recognizing when they are feeling the Spirit and in discerning what actions cause the Spirit to leave
  • “Let’s not allow the convenience of electronic devices to keep us from teaching and listening to our children, and looking into their eyes.”
  • Practice: Act it out and talk it out. 

• For any interested, https://www.thechurchnews.com/ has the title of the talk a few minutes after the speaker finishes if you want to type it in! +1

• Teach, fortify, and prepare your children long before they enter the battlefield of life
• This is a great story to tell kids about why they should hold still during meetings. 
• As children learn and progress, their beliefs will be challenged. But as they are properly equipped, they can grow in faith, courage and confidence — even in the midst of strong opposition. Prepare them now
• Better to sweat in roleplays at home than bleed on the battlefields of life. 
• Never, ever give up on them
• Eternity is the wrong thing to be wrong about. 
• He is always the answer

Talk: Elder Jan E. Newman – Second Counselor in the Sunday School Presidency 

Teaching in the Savior’s Way

Major Themes: Teaching 

Notable Stories: Gift for kindergarten teacher; teacher at Rick’s College; family teaching Come Follow Me over Zoom; playing golf with son

Scriptures: Matthew 25:1–13 

• • Be kind, nap, eat graham crackers and milk. 
  • Melvin Hammond taught doctrine and invited students to learn it on their own. This is teaching in the Savior’s way. 
  • The most important kind of teaching extends beyond the classroom, into a person’s heart and home
  • The purpose of gospel learning is conversion and repentance that extends into heart and home. 
  • The church provides many resources and suggestions for better teaching
    • Learn all you can to learn about Christ. How did he show love? What did followers feel? What did he teach? What did he expect of students? 
    • Teaching the Savior’s Way
  • Home-centered teaching has the potential to unleash the power of families as each family works to remodel their home into a center of Gospel learning, a sanctuary of faith
  • Homes can be sanctuaries of faith

• This does beg the question of how it works in a multi-faith home. (I am the only member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in my home)

• I don’t have experience with this exact situation, but our family’s weekly zoom meetings involve people from a wide variety of faiths. We largely focus on common beliefs and behaviors. Many of the people were raised in the church so there is some common understandings even though many have joined other churches. When I lead discussions and teach I don’t try to win them back to the restored gospel, just focus on basic faith and christianity. And in situations where the people I interact with aren’t religious, I still find ways to share concepts of faith and belief even if I don’t use formal church language or doctrine. Love this!!

• It’s a great question. I think back to my mission days of “Build relationships of trust”. What are the things that are common among the faiths? Focus on that. Maybe each will learn a little something that can help develop love for the Savior and each other.

• Like Nephi, we will be personally tutored by the Spirit while reading and pondering the word of God. 
• Come, Follow Me is the springboard that helps each of us to dive deeply into the living waters of the doctrine of Christ 
• To be life changing the Lord’s teaching must involve our whole soul and be the center of our lives.
• Parable of 10 Virgins: We cannot give away oil. It must be obtained individually, drop by drop.
• Conversion is a personal journey, a journey of gathering
• The responsibility is upon each of us to follow the Master Teacher.
• Parents should provide the best-possible environment for children to earn a testimony.
• Conversion to the Savior must involve the whole soul and should be the focus of the family and the home.
• We can teach [the word of God], we can preach it, we can explain it. We can talk about it, we can describe it, we can even testify of it. But until a person feels the sacred word of God distilled upon his or her soul like the dews from heaven through the power of the Spirit, it will be like looking at a postcard or someone else’s vacation photos.

Hymn: High On The Mountain Top – Hymn #5

• October 2018

Talk: Elder Gary E. Stevenson – Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

Hearts Knit Together

Major Themes: Kindness; love

Notable Stories: Diet study w/ rabbits; primary boy in South Korea; Liberty Jail and the Saints’ stay in Quincy

Scriptures: Matthew 22:36–38; Psalm 23:1

• Take a rabbit with an unhealthy lifestyle and talk to it, give it love and attention, and it will become healthier
  • The relationship makes a difference
• Bunnies in a study had different results even though they underwent the same treatment. Only difference was that the group that was treated kindly by a researcher thrived.
  • Nothing says love better than a controlled experiment 
• Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself
• Kindness is a fundamental, healing gospel principle
• Look for and have your hearts knit together in unity and love
• Goodness can heal hearts, emotionally, spiritually, and even physically
• Primary children
  • You already know what it means to be kind
  • “Be gentle and loving in deed and in thought, for these are the things Jesus taught.” – I’m Trying to be Like Jesus
  • “I chose the right by helping a friend in need”
• Teenagers
  • Making fun of others is bad. Social media and the internet has brought bullying to a new level. 
  • Passively observing or participating in bullying is still wrong. Stop it. 
  • Do all you can to make your communities kinder and safer
  • For young men and young women, as you grow older, making fun of others can evolve very dangerously.
  • Clearly, the adversary is using [cyberbullying] to hurt your generation. 
    • There is no place for this in your cyberspace, neighborhoods, schools, quorums or classes. 
    • Please do all you can to make these places kinder and safer
  • Anxiety, depression, and worse are often the companion of bullying
• Adults
  • Teach Christ-like behavior to the rising generation
  • Narrow minded parents have restricted children from another child because they aren’t members of the church. That is not what the Savior has taught.
  • No member of the Church should allow these kinds of exclusion
• Exclusion leads to division
• What do we do when exposed to unkindness and bullying from others? 
  • Pray for our enemies 
• ‎We have a responsibility to teach behavior similar to that of Jesus Christ
• We have a responsibility to be an example and teach Christlike behavior to those around us. We must not only be kind to those who are like us, but to everyone. Whether in person or online we need to be the example of that behavior
• Choose to hope in Christ
• Share what resources you have, reach out with kindness and care
• As we extend ourselves with kindness, care and compassion, even digitally, we will lift up arms that hang down and will heal hearts
• We too are under the care of a compassionate caregiver
• He knows each one of us by name and has a personal interest in us
• He knows His sheep
• When adversity and affliction is brought upon us by critical, negative — even mean-spirited acts — we can choose to hope in Christ
• We have been heartbroken to hear of recent attacks on people who are Black, Asian, Latino or of any other group. 
• Prejudice, racial tension or violence should never have any place in our neighborhoods, communities or within the church
• On this Holy Easter weekend, I find abiding peace in knowing that ‘the Lord is my shepherd’ and that each of us is known by Him and under His kind watch care.
•  When we confront life’s wind and rainstorms, sickness and injuries, the Lord — our Shepherd, our caregiver — will nourish us with love and kindness. He will heal our hearts and restore our souls

Talk: Elder Gerrit W. Gong – Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

Room in the Inn

Major Themes: Compassion

Notable Stories: Elder Gong receives a visit from his father while in school in France

Scriptures: Isaiah 40:28–31

• • Easter promises we will see our deceased loved ones again. 
  • Stained glass: 
    • Adam and Eve. Born into a world of thorns
    • Parable of good samaritan. Saviors lifts us and heals us
    • Second coming. 
  • Too often we pass to the other side of the road and inflict unkindness upon each other
  • “We prepare for His promised Second Coming as each day we do unto the ‘least of these’  as we would unto Him. 
  • The ‘least of these’ is each of us.”
  • The church should be a refuge for all

• This reminds me of a quote by Abigail Adams: “The church is not a museum for Saints. It is a hospital for sinners.”

• Five things we learn from the parable of the good Samaritan:
  • We come to Christ as we are. 
    • With the foibles and imperfections
  • Make His inn a place of grace and space where each can gather with room for all. 
    • All are equal with no second class groups. 
  • In the inn. Perfection is in Christ, not in the perfectionism of the world. 
    • Unrealistic ‘instaperfect’ perfectionism makes us feel inadequate. 
    • Christ knows everything about us that we don’t want others to know and he still loves us. 
    • The gospel is a gospel of second and third chances. 
  • At the inn. We become part of a gospel community centered in Christ and anchored in restored truths. 
    • Rejoice that God loves his children in different circumstances and backgrounds. 
      • More church members live outside than inside the US and Canada. 
      • Soon, there will be as many members in LATAM than in the US and Canada. Saints in the pioneer corridor will always be a strength. 
  • We rejoice that God loves His children in our different backgrounds and circumstances in every nation kindred, and tongue, there is room for all in His inn
• Though we should help each other, too often we move to the other side of the road
• With compassion, the Good Samaritan stops and binds our wounds with wine and oil.
• Gifts of faith manifest in different ways
• We help ourselves as we help each other. 
• His is a gospel of second and third chances, made possible by His atoning sacrifice
• There is room for all in His inn
• Our standing before the Lord and in His Church is not a matter of marital status, but of our becoming faithful and valiant disciples of Jesus Christ
• The majority of adult Church members are now unmarried, widowed or divorced. 
  • This is a significant change.
  •  It includes more than half our Relief Society sisters and more than half our adult priesthood brothers
• Miracles occur when we care for each other as He would
• Disciples of Jesus Christ come from everywhere, in every shape, size, hue, age — each with talents, righteous desires and immense capacities to bless and serve
• We rejoice that God loves His children in our different backgrounds and circumstances, in every nation, kindred and tongue, with room for all in His inn.
• The Savior’s disciples are all equal – There is no “second class.”

Hymn: Teach Me to Walk in the Light – Hymn #304

• April 2017

Talk: President Henry B. Eyring – Second Counselor in the First Presidency

I Love to See the Temple

Major Themes: Temples

Notable Stories: Visiting temple; premortal life memories

Scriptures: N/A

• On the outside of our temples, we place the words ‘Holiness to the Lord.’
  •  Many know for themselves that those words are true.
  • The temple is a holy place where revelation comes to us easily if our hearts are open to it and we are worthy of it
• Live so that when the call comes, you can walk away easily
  • Story of a house near in-laws and call came from CES to serve elsewhere.
• The Temple is a holy place where we can receive revelation and feel the same peace we had before birth in Heaven…. and the feelings we can feel again if we keep the covenants we make in the Temple
• ‎The Lord’s work in these latter days is of great magnitude, almost beyond the understanding of mortals‎
• Increased desire of increased temple experiences when they are to come in the future.
• The temples of the Lord are holy places‎
• We should all live in such a way that we are ready for the call of the Lord to do as He needs us to do
• Go to the temple worthily so that you can experience the hope, joy, and optimism that the temple brings. 
• We don’t know the details of the connections of families in the spirit world, but we know the spirit of Elijah came and fulfilled the promise of turning the heart of the children to the fathers and the fathers to the children.
• It is in the temple we can receive the reassurance of loving family connections that will continue after death and continue for eternity
  • ‎It is in the temple that we can receive the security of the bonds of eternal families‎
• Grow in desire and determination to be worthy to go into the house of the Lord as often as your circumstances will allow
•  ‎Our eternal happiness depends on doing our best to offer the same lasting happiness to as many of our relatives as possible. ‎
• Those who attend the temple worthily can “see” the Savior “in the sense that He becomes no longer unknown to us” and can receive spiritual teaching about Him.
• I Love to See the Temple 
• Youth who receive a temple recommend to perform proxy baptisms will learn “that the ordinances of the temple always point to the Savior and His Atonement.”
• Try to build desire in the hearts of Heavenly Father’s children to go [to the temple], where they can feel close to Him, and that you will also invite your ancestors to qualify to be with Him and with you forever

Hymn: The Spirit of God – Hymn #2

• October 2015

Benediction: Elder James B. Martino – Quorum of the Seventy

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* Guidelines *

191st Annual General Conference * April 3 – 4, 2020

Saturday AM * Saturday PM * Saturday Evening * Sunday AM * Sunday PM

Listen/Watch/Read

THOUGHTS:

• They have a new format for showing the speaker’s name. Exciting!
• I like the logo in the lower right hand corner (watching on the BYUtv app)
  • Logo is also on YouTube but the link is not. 
• I noticed two themes: 1) Children; 2) kindness. 

TO-DOs:

• Talk with your children about the gospel; roleplay how to make righteous choices
• Strive to be worthy to enter the temple
• Reach out to others with kindness and care