Deepening Our Relationship with God | A Discussion with Elder Gerrit W. Gong and Young Adults – powered by Happy Scribe
Before and after our January worldwide devotional for young adults, I tried something new, something I’ve never done before. To invite conversation about the devotional sister gonging and I zoomed with 100 dioceses and two countries and 14 U.S. states from Hawaii to Florida, Montana to Texas and everywhere in between. We also talked in person about the devotional with the socially dist. room of wiseass come and be part of the conversation. Your personal thoughts and your feelings deepening your relationship with God.
Changing the future now becoming my best me. Hello, how are you doing tonight? Thank you for letting us do this, they want to take a picture with you. Is that OK? We’re doing something we’ve never done before, and that is to have a conversation like this with you around a theme, which is tonight’s devotional. And we just are so grateful and thank you for being willing to be part of this experiment because we’ve never done it before.
I remember I am originally from Zimbabwe, and since then, John Dye a.m., I’m Eddie, I’m from the Big Island and Megan and I’m Thomas. I’m from Wisconsin Madison area. Hello, I’m eight.
I’m from Austin.
I’m from Sandy. I’m Samantha. I’m from Nebraska. I’m like.
And I’m from Guandong. I’m Cameron. I’m from Logan. If you have time to talk to people, you always find out that there’s something remarkable about each person you meet.
I am looking forward to completing my goal to pass my sentence right now.
They tell us that we’re going to be able to play our basketball season still. So that’s something that I’m looking forward to.
I’m looking forward to an internship in the Middle East since it got cancelled last summer. I’m looking forward to going to law school this year, so hopefully I can get it. I’m looking forward to getting sealed. I’m really looking forward to something to go on a mission this year. I’m also hoping this next year to be going on my mission, so hopefully Manushi out there as well.
Jordan, how have you prepared to go?
I’ve been going to a lot of splits with the branch missionaries and just trying to be as best as I can. Being. Those of you who are just back, there are challenges when you come back from a mission. Are you OK with the challenges?
Coming home is certainly difficult, but it’s also going on. A mission is also difficult, and every part of life, I think, has its own challenges. So it’s wonderful to have the gospel to help us. Do any of you ever feel that life is sometimes pretty noisy? And that it’s not always easy to stop and to have it be quiet. What do you do when you want it to be quiet? So one thing that I like to do is I like to have like a special spot they go to, it’s usually outside either like I hike there and then I read my scriptures.
Since the temples are closed, it’s kind of like my own little temple I can go to. I recently got my endowments out last month, and even though I can’t go in the temple, obviously still just like the grounds are peaceful and it helps me to disconnect from the world even though it’s not entering into the temple. I agree, I used to go to the temple, but now I found this may sound silly and simple, but I just turn my phone on, do not disturb.
There’s so many voices telling you what to think about what’s going on that I was like, I just need to turn it off. And so, like, when I look for peace, I just try to turn everything off. President Nelson shared in the way a Hona, he said that if we stay on our knees long enough after we pray, then we’ll be able to hear the word a little bit more. And so just taking a little bit more time to wait and listen and be quiet has been really important for me.
Thank you, Josh, why did you feel or did you think I am I have struggled a lot with, like, lack of hugs and physical affection. And when you talked about God doing this, I just imagined being in circles a hug, but I didn’t know that I needed that much because that’s something that. I don’t really get a lot anymore, and to get it from him and a spiritual warming feeling was very much needed and I loved that there was exposure to a lot of things, young adults, that I truly felt like God was reaching out to the one to so many people.
To tell you about them. Thank you for your message visualisations. Emily, I think he cradles us in The Book of Mormon talks in the arms of safety. I think we have more of that than we know, and I’m glad you felt it tonight. Brian. Emily, thank you so much for sharing. I just wanted to thank you again for sharing that nobody wants to be a project thing so often in my efforts of leadership, Brandt council mission and coordination meetings, whatever, I, I treat people as this object to go into Stav instead of inviting them into the community, into the safe space that you talked about, of sharing and building each other’s faith.
It must be a great leader, Ryan. Try to follow you and and the brethren in the savior now, none of us want to be a project and none of us need to be a project. We can all be part of the community, can’t we? Thank you so much, who else I really enjoyed? Like other like the theme of the devotional to really use our gifts and talents now, and it was in line with, like building relationships that can build out like that, can encourage that, can encourage the future generations.
And for me, like the feeling that I had, as well as someone who joined the church recently, I had a feeling of messaging the person who actually introduced me to the church and just thanking them for what they did in my my life. Yes. So it was really a blessing. I’m so glad that I got to be part of this. It’s such a blessing and the grace of God. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing that. I just started my last semester of college this week, and my father’s blessing talked about being guided in this semester and as a as a good example of people can have a big influence on them. And the one thing that I wrote was that God wants me to help people see how much he loves them through the way that I can treat them and family that I. Befriend them. But I don’t know, I just feel a lot of encouragement and motivation and I really hope that I can do what God wants me to do and that each of us can.
Thank you, Julia. What a great thing to have a blessing, to give you guidance and then to follow it up. There was just a lot of things that. Stood out to me about the love of God and the power that has in our lives and the. Ability, it has to change us and those around us for the better price. And did you have a thought? So I have a friend that I have been thinking a lot about.
She’s a fellow student at school and she’s not a member. And we’ve talked a fair amount about the church. And I just I got a stronger confirmation of just. Don’t fear and sharing, imagine what the future could be if you build that relationship and if that impacts her and her family, it encouraged me even more to be more fearless in sharing and strive to. Build that relationship and help her to understand more and and come closer to God. I love the idea.
Imagine what the future could be and if we imagine what the future could be, that we’re not fearful of anything, are we?
So I just really liked when you talk about. God not expecting too much of us and that we just need to let our light shine right now. I think right now with what’s going on in the world, we kind of feel like a little stagnant, a little bit like we can’t do a lot and knowing that God just needs us to do little things and to be friends with people and to just let our light shine in small ways. I think that really helped me.
And I really appreciated knowing that even if I’m doing something small, like being someone’s friend, it’s really important matters.
There’s nothing small levalley an eternity. Everything’s big production. Not only are you building the relationships, but you’re part of the relationship, so you’re changing as well, and I just found that very powerful. What a great thought, the relationship is changing and so are we. Thank you, Breck’s.
And that kind of goes with the idea of changing the future now. They liked the thought of learning to make the church a more the place where the best judgment in building ourselves to help build those relationships with others. So I just kind of connected those ideas in and really liked them, like the comparisons you made.
I really love something that you had mentioned about Sister Gone. It was when he had said the useful things that we learn that will help shape us later throughout life. And what I was pondering about that, it started making me wonder, like how we can actually know when the right when the useful stuff happens because we don’t actually see the results of it until later throughout life. So no matter what, we’re always supposed to be getting active and putting that faith out there.
So we may be able to use that and help us better ourselves. I love how we can just press for it and have faith and just to get things that we can and our best ability being our best self, and I think a lot of us are for me, like we’re in the social media a lot. And I can bring a lot of negative impact sometimes and then comparing others with ourselves, but just looking at our own, how God sees us and just being the best we can and moving forward, that just really helped me a lot.
What I need to do for this year and just moving forward. I really appreciate that.
One thing that really stood out to me throughout the entire devotional was the aspect of hard work, especially when you’re talking about the law of the harvest and becoming our best selves. I think it’s something that we’re always continually trying to work towards is becoming our best self, because the hard work is what’s going to allow us to become who we need to be. And that experience is what we need at that time. Yes, I wasn’t like the thing that stuck out to me was when you said that we need to collect mentors and you described like different people that could be mentors to us and then describes the savior.
We have lots of names for the savior, but I’ve never thought of a mentor as one of them, that he’s like our mediator and our savior. But you can also be someone who not just a teacher, but a mentor who can walk beside us and give us a personalized one on one feedback of how we can improve and be more like him. So thank you for opening my eyes to that. I think the main thing that has stood out to me has been this what does it mean to truly be still and know that he is God?
It’s also about actively trusting in him. And trusting isn’t just doing nothing either. Trusting in an active thing that we do. And if we truly trust in God, then it will invite us to and motivate us to want to act, to want to change, to want to repent, to want to be better. And so I can leave here today feeling a renewed commitment and a greater desire to truly give more earnest effort and to really be all in and to commit myself to whatever it is that the Lord needs me to do.
And whatever it is that he needs me to be, I will do.
What a great thought that you can be still and be active at the same time. I was just thinking about the relationship between agency and then also revelation, and I know some people that kind of get paralyzed in these decisions and they’re just waiting for essentially the answer. And so I’d love to hear quickly your perspective just on the balance between waiting for revelation and then moving forward with choices and with agency and using. It’s a very important question and a very detailed one, but I’ve always loved the comment.
The pioneers received revelation as the wagon wheels turned. Makes sense. And yes. We do our best each day. We listen very carefully as we go, but as we’re moving. As we heard just a few minutes ago, we can be still and active at the same time, sometimes when we are most open to revelation is when we’re most moving forward or we’re most active. And sometimes we have to stop and sometimes we have to go. And sometimes it’s in the balance of those that the Lord can guide us.
It’s a great question, Tyler.
One thing that I would add, if that’s OK, is sometimes we receive very clear revelation, but that doesn’t mean the problem is solved. When you make I feel like I have a very clear revelation about some important decisions in my life and I, I acted to pursue those decisions, but that didn’t mean that I had all the answers and that everything was easy. Once the answer was there, you have to go back to that source of revelation always for strength and direction to to continue in the path that the Lord really wants you to be on, I think, to some extent.
Fantastic. We have a healthy lead, kindly light. We go with the light, we go with the light, when we go in a light, one step in our for me. So I hope we can and I have a hard time with this, too, and I hope we can all be able to just know that God still love us no matter what goals we are able to accomplish or rather unable to accomplish for now and then be able to just strive on living with happiness and peace.
Thank you, Michael. My wish is that people would recognize themselves as his signature, we are his greatest creations and we can look at the world around us and be in awe of the majesty of it. But it’s hard to see ourselves in that light. And so I wish that people would would see that in themselves and in others. What a great question. Thank you, Senator James Johnson. I have really two short wishes, first is just that we all can see the good that we do and appreciate the what when we are able to serve as God’s hands and as tools for him, that we can we can see the the results.
And secondly, just that we can be certain of the truths and the things that we do know, that we can have that firm faith in Christ to keep him steady as the winds get rougher. Thank you, John. We really need some compassion and some unity and some friendship, so that’s my wish, is to be more unified. I would also agree with Geneva and I would also add to that my wish for every young adult in the world is to find their calling in life and where and how they can contribute, especially during these hard times.
Yeah, you know, I think one wish for me would be for the young adults to be able to see themselves when their divine potential is fulfilled. I think, like for me, that kind of makes a big difference because then I know. What I could be and what I’m working towards and and how important it is. Well, our our hope and our prayer is that each of you will feel in some special way tonight your divine potential. And the fact that the Lord really does cradle you in his love and that that’s true for us together, too, I hope that you felt in some way that by us being able to talk together, we’ve had a time that we could share.
Thank you for for being part. We just extend our love. We extend the Lord’s love. And I hope you’ve you’ve met some new friends. I hope you felt from Hawaii to Tennessee to Florida and everything in between, including Canada, that we’re all in this together and we’re grateful that we could be here with you. And just thank you again. And the Gospels. True. It’s all true. We just thank you in the name of the Lord, even in his name.
Jesus Christ. Amen.
Amen.
Guest Author
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