Paisley: Hey everybody, welcome back Paisley imperfect, and
today we are going to talk about the priesthood and our role
within it. Just a little bit specifically, we're going to
talk about President Nelson's talk titled spiritual treasures
from the 2019 women's session of General Conference, and I'm not
going to pretend to know everything about our role within
the priesthood, but I do feel like we've been learning a lot
more, really, in the last 678, years, and this talk gives us a
really good place to start if we want to learn more. The biggest
thing, in my opinion, is that we are learning how to use the
priesthood without having to bear the priesthood. President
Nelson starts his talk off by telling about a trip that him
and his wife Wendy took to harmony, Pennsylvania. That's
where the priesthood was restored and where Joseph
received a specific revelation for Emma. Uh, we'll get to that
in just a second. First, I want to share these words. They're
from. These words are from a genuine prophet of God. So
please hear them. He says, How I yearn for you speaking to the
sisters again, remember how I yearn for you to understand that
the restoration of the priesthood is just as relevant
to you as a woman as it is to any man. Then he says, Why?
Because the Melchizedek priesthood has been restored
both covenant keeping women and men have access to all the
spiritual blessings of the church if you do a lot of
reading of conference talks, which I do these days, President
Nelson specifically does a really good job of emphasizing
words within his talks. He uses italics to emphasize words
within his talks. Not very many others do that, and not very
often, but President Nelson does it pretty frequently, and in
this case, it's all the spiritual blessings of the
church covenant keeping women and men have access to all the
spiritual blessings of the church. We all have access to
all of these blessings. Yes, there are some things that they
can do that we cannot. Yes, there are also some things that
we can do that they cannot. Please, please, please, please,
remember that equal does not mean the same president Nelson
also says this, The heavens are just as open to women who are
endowed with God's power flowing from their priesthood covenants,
as they are to men who bear the priesthood. It's the covenant.
The covenant is what gives us the power he says, I pray that
truth will register upon each of your hearts, because I believe
it will change your life. Sisters, you have the right to
draw liberally upon the Savior's power to help your families and
others you love. We have the right, that is a very
deliberately chosen word. We as women have the right to draw
liberally upon the Savior's power to help our families and
those we love others we love same thing, not the privilege,
though it very much is one, excuse me, but the right, the
covenants that we make give us the right. And then He even
tells us how to do it, sort of he did. Start off this part by
saying, you won't find this process, the process of drawing
liberally upon the power of the Savior. You won't find this
process spelled out in a manual. The Holy Ghost will be your
personal tutor as you seek to understand what the Lord would
have you know and do. This process is neither quick nor
easy, but it is spiritually invigorating. He says
spiritually invigorating. And I think spiritually exhausting.
And I only think that because, like, when I when I give a talk,
or when I get really passionate about something and really,
really excited about a topic, I excuse me afterwards, it's
almost like a it's almost like a crash. And I just, I get so
spiritually exhausted. So he says, spiritually invigorating,
and I'm like, spiritually exhausting. But. And in other
words, we need to be worthy of the constant companionship of
the Holy Ghost. And because if the Holy Ghost is going to be
our personal tutor as we seek to understand what the Lord would
have us know and do, then we need to be worthy of the
constant companionship of the Holy Ghost and be paying
attention for when he's trying to tell us what to do, tell us
what to do. I don't really like that phrase when he's trying to
help us know the things that we can do to help us use the power
that we've been given. I like that better. He also tells us,
President Nelson also tells us that this personal spiritual
endeavor will bring us joy as we gain understand and use this
power. But as with everything else, there is a warning
associated with setting out on this journey to learn from the
Holy Ghost how to use the Savior's power in our own life.
Here it is. It's kind of a long warning. Part of this endeavor
will require you to put aside many things of this world.
Sometimes we speak almost casually about walking away from
the world with its contention pervasive temptations and false
false philosophies, but truly doing so requires you to examine
your life meticulously and regularly. That takes me back to
that chapter in Alma. I'm just having this thought right now,
but that takes me back to that chapter in Alma that we've
talked about before that has a really good personal interview.
Anyway, President Nelson continues. He says you will need
to say no to some things, even though they may seem harmless
and there's more. He says, there are those who would undermine
your ability to call upon the power of God. There are some who
would have you doubt yourself and minimize your stellar
spiritual capacity as a righteous woman, most certainly
the adversary does not want you to understand the covenant you
made at baptism, or the profound endowment of knowledge and power
you have received or will receive in the temple. The
adversary does not want you to understand the covenants that
you made. He continues, and Satan certainly does not want
you to understand that every time you worthily serve and
worship in the temple, you leave armed with God's power and with
His angels having charge over you. He, for sure, does not want
us to know that. Satan does not want us to know or understand
any of those things, and he works really hard to make sure
that we don't. And frankly, I've heard more women say negative
things about our ability to call upon the Savior's power than I
have men. It's really unfortunate. President Nelson
continues in his warning, he says, Satan and his minions will
constantly contrive roadblocks to prevent you from
understanding the spiritual gifts with which you have been
and can be blessed. Unfortunately, some roadblocks
may be the result of another's misbehavior. In this section, he
specifically calls out husbands, fathers and supposed friends. I
hope it's okay that I add to his to this list, the malicious and
hateful social media influencers who used to have the truth but
have turned away from it. These people create very difficult,
often impossible roadblocks for all of us to overcome because
they are so loud and so irreverent, they're flashy, and
they claim to speak with some authority. But in the midst of
what I've already quoted, because President Nelson likes
to tell us something and then give us hope, and he tells us
something like a warning, like, oh, beware of this, but also
this. He President Nelson is really good about that. So in
the midst of all of the warnings that I just gave you, he also
says this, as you embark upon and continue this lifelong
process of consecrating your life to the Lord, the changes in
your perspective, feelings and spiritual strength will amaze
you. Number one, you're going to notice yourself changing. Number
two, your perspective, your feelings and your spiritual
strength will change for the better. He also says that as we
put aside many things of the world that quote the Holy Ghost,
will prompt you about what is no longer needful, what is no
longer worthy of your time and energy.
Please hear that and feel that and believe that what is no
longer worthy of your time and energy. You are more worthy than
all of those things put together, those things that the
Holy Ghost tells you to set aside or walk away from. Time,
those things are not worthy of you. You are a child of God, and
he has something way better in store for you. President Nelson
says, from the dawning of time, women have been blessed with a
unique moral compass, the ability to distinguish right
from wrong. This gift is enhanced in those who make and
keep covenants, and it diminishes in those who
willfully ignore the commandments of God. Before I
elaborate a little bit on that, please know that he specifically
states that he does not absolve men from God's requirement for
them to also know the difference between right and wrong, but we
aren't focused on other people and how other people are living
the gospel. We are focused on ourselves and how we are living
the gospel of Jesus Christ, what they do, what men and women and
what other people do, that is between them and God. It is our
job to work on ourselves. That's hard. That's hard for me to do
too our unique moral compass is enhanced. So let's go back to
that. Our unique moral compass is enhanced as we make and keep
covenants. We start making covenant covenants when we get
baptized, and we can continue making covenants throughout our
life and then keep them. It sounds like the get so if you
think about that, the ability, the unique moral compass, the
ability to tell the difference between right and wrong, truth
and error, good and evil, sounds a lot like the gift of
discernment. And if you remember back to the first couple of
we've talked a lot about President Nelson's talk, a plea
to my sisters, the power, or the spiritual gift of discernment,
was specifically mentioned in that talk, the gift of
discernment, the ability to discern between truth and error,
right and wrong, good and bad, is something that we can have as
we make and keep sacred covenants. Okay, so now check
this part out. President Nelson says your ability to discern
truth from error, to be society's guardians of morality
is crucial in these latter days, and we depend upon you to teach
others to do likewise. Let me be very clear about this. He says,
if the world loses the moral rectitude of its women, the
world will never recover. So we've heard from President
Kimball in his talk in 1979 that talk called the role of the role
of righteous women. And we've heard from President Nelson and
a plea to my sisters how women will be so critical in the
growth of the church in the latter days, in the gathering of
Israel, the world will not recover if we do not teach
morality, if we don't serve others, if we don't stand up for
what is good and right and true, the world will never recover.
Now, of course, so he gives us the warnings, right? He gives us
the warnings, he gives us the hope, and then he gives us the
promise. He says, My dear sisters, your power will
increase as you serve others, your prayers, fasting, time in
the scriptures, service in the temple and family history work
will open the heavens to you. He continues a little bit later, as
your understanding increases and as you exercise faith in the
Lord and His priesthood, power, your ability to draw upon the
spiritual treasure that the Lord has made available, will
increase, increase power, increase our increased ability
to use to draw upon the Savior's power to help our families and
others that we love will increase as we study our
scriptures, say our prayers, go to church like do all of the
quote, unquote, simple things, right, all of the Primary
answers. And we just keep learning more and more. And more
during every conference on the power of the priesthood and what
our role is within within the priesthood itself, within the
within the church. But we don't have to wait till April to learn
more. President Nelson gave us three different sections in this
talk that we can go study to get started. The first section was
section 25 that is the revelation that was given to
Emma in harmony, Pennsylvania towards the beginning of his
talk. And then further down more towards the end, he gives us two
more sections, Section 84 and section 107 I'll make sure that
all three. Are linked in the description so that you can just
click there if you want to go check them out. Also, I thought
about doing an episode on each one of those three sections, but
every time I think about it, that quote from President Nelson
that I shared earlier comes back into my brain where he said, The
Holy Ghost will be your personal tutor as you seek to understand
what the Lord would have you know and do, I think you're
going to have to study those three sections for yourself and
listen to the Holy Ghost and and see how you can use your
spiritual gifts and abilities to draw upon the Savior's power to
help your family and others that you love. Also remember that
studying at one time, you're going to catch one thing,
studying it two times, you're going to catch two things.
Studying three times, you're going to catch more things, and
you're going to just like reading our patriarchal
blessing, right? It means something different every time,
the more we study these sections in the Doctrine and Covenants,
the more the Holy Ghost will be able to teach us truth, teach us
how we can use the power that we have been endowed with. He uses
that phrase quite a bit in here, the power that we have been
endowed with, and we can use that power individually to bless
our families and others we love. Now just my own word of caution.
Caution is strong my own. Just remember this as you get ready
to start on your own journey to find out what gifts you already
have and which ones you may want, or the ones that you want
to work on, the ones that the Holy Ghost is waiting to teach
you. Please make sure that you are ready to act. There is a
certain level of expectation that as we start asking
questions and we start getting answers, that we will act upon
those answers. If we do not act upon those answers, what is the
point in giving them to us? So please make sure that as you
start on your own journey to find out what your role within
the priesthood is and how you can use the spiritual gifts that
this that our Heavenly Father has given to you, how you can
use those to draw upon the Savior's power and help your
family and others. Please make sure that you are ready to act
upon those promptings and those feelings that you have. I don't
remember who it was that said it now, but was it? Sister
Hinckley, Sister Kimball? It was one of the sisters, one of the
prophets wives. She said, Never let or never dismiss a generous
thought or something like that. Like these thoughts, as silly as
they may seem, are the spirits the Holy Ghost way of teaching
us and helping us learn, line upon line, precept upon precept,
when you sit down and you study these three sections in the
Doctrine and Covenants, assuming that you do and the Holy Ghost
tells you to do something that you think may be silly, make a
phone call, do your ministering, something like that that you
think is like, Okay, well, or why would I call her? I never
talk to her. Don't dismiss it. That's how the Holy Ghost
teaches us. That's how the Holy Ghost will help us to gain the
gifts that we're asking for. That's how he will show us to
use the Savior's power, by giving us a little bit at a time
and a little bit more at a time and a little bit more at a time,
until he is asking us to do big things. Okay, effort. The Lord
loves effort, and he will magnify it. Just try, just a
little bit. And you got this. Remember brother Wilcox, you got
this, because Jesus Christ has got you. You got this. We can do
this. Thank you so much everybody for being here. I
really appreciate your time. Keep learning, keep growing,
keep trying and be of good cheer until next time bye.