Paisley: Hey everybody, welcome back Paisley imperfect, and
today we are talking about President Nelson's talk from the
october 2018 general women's session of conference titled
sisters participation in the gathering of Israel. I know that
we've talked about the gathering of Israel recently, but that's
not the only thing that this talk was about. In fact, I'm
really only gonna, I'm only gonna, I'm gonna touch on bits
and pieces of all of it. But the part that I really wanted to
kind of focus on is at the very beginning, he starts off by
telling a story about a time where him and sister Nelson were
in South America, and he was speaking to a congregation
there, and he said, as the mother of 10 children, I can
tell you, and the interpreter, who the person that was
interpreting for him automatically switched Mother to
father, but sister Nelson caught it, and kind of got a kick out
of it. She pointed it out to him later on, and then he said this
about that, about that Freudian slip, he said, in that moment,
the deep longing of my heart to make a difference in the world,
like only a mother does, bubbled up from my heart through the
years, whenever I have been asked why I chose to become a
medical doctor. My answer has always been the same, because I
could not choose to become a mother. Now I know that this can
be triggering for many people. This used to be very triggering
for me too. Before you turn me off, though, please listen to
what he said, Next, he said, Please note that any time I use
the word mother, I am not talking only about women who
have given birth or adopted children in this life. I am
speaking about all of our heavenly parents, adult
daughters. Every woman is a mother by virtue of her eternal
divine destiny, every adult daughter of our heavenly parents
is a mother by virtue of her eternal divine destiny. That
means you, too. It means all of us. I wish that someone had said
that during general conference, a women's session, or otherwise,
a lot, long, a lot, a long time before that, that would have
helped me a lot. And you know, maybe they did, and I just don't
know it, because I haven't read every single conference talk
that's ever been given, but I don't recall anyone ever having
said all adult daughters of our Heavenly Parents are mothers,
just by nature of their divine destiny. President Nelson
continues, and he keeps talking about how important women are in
the home, in our wards, our stakes, and in society in
general. He said, No one can do what a righteous woman can do.
No one can duplicate the influence of a mother. Remember
his definition of mother, all adult daughters of her heavenly
parents, no one can duplicate their influence. He also says,
Men can, and often do, communicate the love of Heavenly
Father and the Savior to others. They do. I've met some really
wonderful men in my life who have shared the love of Heavenly
Father towards me. I think of my patriarchal blessing. I think of
Bishops that I've had. I think of one of the young the young
men's president, the person that was serving as the young men's
president when I was 16, and needed to learn 15 and needed to
learn how to drive. My dad was in the Navy. He was on
deployment. I needed to learn how to drive, and the young
men's President taught me how. He took me and let me get all my
practice hours in so I could get my driver's license. There are
wonderful men who can communicate and show the love of
our Heavenly Father and the Savior. But President Nelson
continues, he says, but women have a special gift for it, a
divine endowment. You have the capacity to sense what someone
needs and when he or she needs it. You can reach out, comfort,
teach and strengthen someone in his or her very moment of need.
So, you know, as I was going through and making the notes for
this, these questions came to my mind, why are we in such a hurry
to become more like men? Why is this gift that. We have been
endowed with given Why are we so ready to give it up just to
become more like a man? And I do not mean anything negative
towards men. They are necessary in the plan of happiness, just
as women are. I just it makes me a little sad that we are so
willing. And when I say we just women in general these days,
seem to be so willing and ready to give up their uniqueness, to
give up what makes them women and what makes them different.
Just to become more like a man, to be seen as an equal. It's
also sad that they feel that they have to. There are places
where you feel like you have to. There are I've had friends with
jobs. I've had jobs in the past where you feel like you have to
be more like a man in order to make a difference. But that is
not the case. President Nelson continues. He says women see
things differently than men do, and oh how we need your
perspective. Your nature leads you to think of others first to
consider the effect that any course of action will have on
others. I had a boss who every time, every time she needed to
make a big choice, she would go through how it would affect
every single person in the company every single time it
weighed on her, and she always did the best that she could. She
always, she always ended up making the right choice. But I
could tell that it, it was very carefully thought about, very
carefully thought out. And the the effect that any so your
nature leads you to think of others first to consider the
effect that any course of action will have on others. That is an
incredible and often paralyzing ability, because at some
sometimes you get to that place where you have to choose between
two good things, two good and right things, or the opposite is
also true. Sometimes you find yourself in a place where you
have to choose the lesser of two evils. How do you? How do you?
How do you decide? What do you do? And President Nelson
mentions Eve. Now, I don't know about you, but a few years ago,
when the temple videos changed, when they were updated, not from
the live to the stills, but from the old live to the new live, I
got a the very first time I saw the new video, I just remember
my perspective of Eve completely changing, and I felt like I
understood her in a way that I never had before. President
Nelson says this about her. He says it was our glorious mother,
Eve with her far reaching vision of our Heavenly Father's plan
who initiated what we call the fall her wise and courageous
choice and Adam's supporting decision moved God's plan of
happiness forward. Now put that in the context of the title of
this talk, again, the title is sisters participation in the
gathering of Israel.
Unknown: Put Eve's choice to further the plan
Paisley: of happiness by initiating the fall. In the same
context of sisters participation in the gathering of Israel, it
was up to Eve to make the decision to initiate the fall.
Could it be up to us to initiate the second coming through the
gathering of Israel?
Unknown: Could it be okay? I'm only going to share one
Paisley: more quote from this talk. Actually, I'm going to
share two. But this one, he says, My dear sisters, you have
special spiritual gifts and propensities. Tonight, I urge
you, with all the hope of my heart to pray, to understand
your spiritual gifts, to cultivate, use and expand them
even more than you ever have. You will change the world as you
do so. Change the world as you do. So, there's a lot more in
this talk about how we can get started in the gathering if we
haven't gotten started already. And guess what? None of them
have anything to do. Well, at least not directly. None of them
have none of them say temple and missionary or sorry, one of them
does say temple work. Work. None of them say family history or
missionary work, and temple work is number three. So he actually
offers four, what he calls he calls them invitations. He
offers four invitations to help us prepare our minds and our
hearts for the gathering of Israel. Now this was in 2018 so
six years ago. He is urging us to do different things now. And
I say that as I as I share these first two specifically because
the first one was a 10 day media fast. He said, social media and
any other media that has a negative influence in your life.
I'm paraphrasing that But, and I remember when he gave us this
challenge, and I remember thinking, But social media is
where I get a lot of my positive stuff from. So I didn't actually
go on a social media fast for those 10 days. Instead, I took
that opportunity to clean up my account. Over those 10 days, I
stopped following and got rid of people who were posting negative
things or hateful things, hurtful things, dumb things. I
just I didn't unfriend people. I just stopped following them so
that their stuff would stop showing up in my in my feed,
because I wanted my feed to be positive and uplifting. So that
was the first thing he said, a 10 day social media, or a 10 day
fast from media, social or otherwise the bring negative or
impure thoughts into our minds. Again, paraphrasing. The second
one was to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year.
So this was in it would have been the first Sunday wait
sister session. So it in the first Saturday of October of
2018 and he asked the sisters to read the Book of Mormon by the
end of the year. I'm not challenging you to do a 10 day
social media fast, not reiterating the challenge that
again, it was six years ago. I think times are a little bit
different now, already in six years. And I'm not challenging
you to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year. We only
have, like, what six weeks left before the end of the year. If
you want to, by all means, please go for it. But we're
finishing up the Book of Mormon with come follow me. I think
that counts. We'll finish it by the end of the year, right?
Anyway, if you want to go for it. But so the first one social
media fast, the second one read the Book of Mormon. Now this is,
remember, this is how he is telling us we can get started in
the gathering of Israel to fast from media and read the Book of
Mormon. The third invitation was to establish a pattern of
regular temple attendance. So while not necessarily directly
family history related, it is still temple work and something
I need to be way better about. And then the last one is to
participate fully in Relief Society. So if we took the first
two out, we're going to finish the Book of Mormon by the end of
the year with Come follow me, and we take that social media
one and maybe go clean up your account. So we clean up our
social media accounts. We finish up the Book of Mormon by the end
of the year. We start attending the temple, and then we start
participating fully in Relief Society. We are gathering Israel
and all of those things the Relief Society one is one that I
also need to work on. I've been in young women's and or primary
or working with the young single adults or seminary for the last
20 years. I actually have a Relief Society calling now for
the first time in about 20 years. So I'm gonna get an
opportunity to fully participate in Relief Society, and I hope
that I can help the primary young women leaders feel like
they should not should like they can fully participate in Relief
Society as well. Okay, so what I'm hoping that you will take
away from this episode is that no matter who you are or where
you are, all adult daughters of our Heavenly Parents are
mothers, just by nature of your divine destiny, nobody else can
have the same influence that you can. You are important and
needed, and Israel cannot be gathered without us. Here's the
last quote. This is the last quote from President Nelson's
talk. This one's down towards the bottom. He said, My dear
sisters, some of this is going to sound familiar, my dear
sisters, we need you. We need your strength, your conversion,
your conviction, your ability to lead, your wisdom and your
voices. We simply cannot gather Israel without you, we are
needed you. I hope with all of my heart that you believe these
things, that you know that you are needed, wanted, loved, your
heavenly your heavenly parents love you. Your Savior loves you.
You are needed, wanted and necessary. We cannot gather
Israel without you and your special gifts and your special
talents. I hope with all my heart that you believe that
thank you for choosing to spend your time with me today. I
appreciate it very much. Keep learning, keep growing, keep
trying and be of good cheer until next time you