Lesson Taught In Highbury Ward RS on January 12, 2025:
Privileges
January 12, 2026
Sister Emily Freeman begins by explaining that her husband recently received a diagnosis that would require surgery and chemo. They began to pray for heaven’s help and God’s power. She said that the Sunday after her husband’s surgery, she partook of the sacrament in his hospital room. She said, “This was a time when I needed power from heaven. In the midst of great heartache, exhaustion, and uncertainty, I wondered about this gift that would allow me to draw upon the power from Him that I so desperately needed. “
ALL of us need God’s power. All of us are probably currently facing or will soon face some type of heartache, exhaustion, or uncertainty. I’d like you to take a moment to write down what kind of power or help you could use right now. What challenges in your life could be improved if you had greater access to God’s power OR what challenges in your life do you currently feel God’s power helping you to navigate?
(Briefly share what I learned about power from reading the Book of Mormon last year? Go by the spirit on whether to share this or not.
Emily recognized that taking the sacrament would increase her companionship wiht the Holy Ghost and allow her to draw upon the gift of God’s power, including the ministering of angels and the Savior’s enabling strength to overcome. Emily said, “Priesthood ordinances and covenant promises allow God to sanctify us and then work wonders in our lives.”
Quote 1: Elder D. Todd Christofferson taught: “In all the ordinances, especially those of the temple, we are endowed with power from on high. This ‘power of godliness’ comes in the person and by the influence of the Holy Ghost. … I testify that God will keep His promises to you as you honor your covenants with Him. … He will, by His Holy Spirit, fill you with godly power” (”The Power of Covenants,” Ensign or Liahona, May 2009, 22, 23).
Quote 2: President Nelson taught: “Every man and every woman who participates in priesthood ordinances and who makes and keeps covenants with God has direct access to the power of God” (Russell M. Nelson, “The Everlasting Covenant,” Liahona, Oct. 2022, 10).”
How have you felt God’s power or accessed God’s power through participating in ordinances and keeping your covenants? What experiences have you had with this?
Invite Sister Young Yen to share. Then other sisters.
How does this work?
First, Sister Freeman explains that the ordinance must be done with authority from Christ. Christ has the keys and authority to oversee the delivery of priesthood ordinances. Under His direction, the sons of God (and in some cases such as in the temple endowment, the daughters of God) are given the authority to administer ordinances, to stand in place of Jesus Christ. (That is pretty powerful when you consider it! The person administering the ordinance has the authority in that instance to stand in place of Christ.
Second, we don’t just make covenants; we must keep them. A few months ago, I listened to a podcast with a guest named Melinda Brown. She’s written a book about Adam and Eve that I love, and so I was excited to listen to this podcast. She shared that the Hebrew word that we typically translate as “keep” such as “keep the commandments” or “keep your covenants” is shemar. The idea behind this word is to keep watch over, like a shepherd would watch over a flock of sheep. She explained that perhaps better words than keep...or at least additional words we might consider would be cherish or embrace. Cherish your covenants. Embrace your covenants. For me, pondering cherishing my covenants opens my heart to remember what a priceless gift my covenants, my access to priesthood power, my garments...all of these things are precious to me and changing my words to say cherish my covenants, reminds me that these covenants bind me to the Savior and Father that I deeply love. Choosing to embrace them allows me to live a little more like God.
Does that word invite YOU to think about covenants a little differently? Any thoughts you’d like to share on keeping/cherishing/embracing covenants.
Emily Freeman has a weekly podcast, Inklings, where she and other women discuss conference talks. When they discussed her talk, she shared how guided she felt in preparing this talk. She had 3 grandchildren due this summer. They were each due 2 weeks apart, and so she had scheduled her church assignments so that she could spend a week with each family as they welcomed these 3 new babies into the world. But things didn’t go exactly as planned and grandbaby number 3 came 3 weeks early, and grandbaby number 2 came late. It caused some wrinkles in the schedule, but –probably through divine intervention—it gave her an unexpected day to spend in Harmony, Pennsylvania, visiting Emma Smith’s home and pondering her life and D&C 25 as she sat in Emma’s house. Then less than 2 weeks later, she spent a day in Emma’s house in Kirtland, just across from the Kirtland Temple where she pondered Emma’s life and D&C 109. She felt very led during this time to speak about Emma and some of the things she has learned about this elect lady and how Emma’s experiences and the counsel in D&C 25 also apply to each of us.
Quote #3 “Last month I had an unexpected opportunity to visit Harmony. There, under the maple trees, the priesthood was restored to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery. Close to those trees is the front door of Joseph and Emma’s home. Across from the fireplace in that home there is a window. I stood at that window and wondered what Emma might have thought as she looked out across the trees.
In July of 1830, Emma was 26 years old; she was so young. She was three and a half years into her marriage. She had lost a baby boy—her first. His little grave is just down the lane from her home. As I stood at that window, it was not hard for me to imagine what might have filled her thoughts. Surely she worried about their finances, about the increasing persecution that threatened their safety, about their future. And yet the work of God was everywhere around her. Did she also wonder about her place in the plan, her purpose in His kingdom, and her potential in the eyes of God? I think she may have.”
Do you ever wonder about your place in the plan, your purpose in His kingdom or your potential in the eyes of God? How have you come to know about YOUR place, purpose and potential?
(*Patriarchal blessings, temple, prayer, promptings of the Spirit, callings, revelation, quotes about our divine nature, scripture study)
Quote #4: Through revelation, Emma would learn about the inward sanctification and covenant connection that would increase the ability of those priesthood ordinances to work in her life.
First, the Lord reminded Emma of her place in His plan, including who she was and whose she was—a daughter in His kingdom. She was invited to “walk in the paths of virtue,” a path that included ordinances that would unlock God’s power if Emma held on to her covenants.
Second, in her season of deep mourning, the Lord gave her purpose. Emma didn’t just have a front-row seat to the Restoration; she was an essential participant in the work taking place. She would be set apart “to expound scriptures, and to exhort the church.” Her time would “be given to writing, and to learning much.” Emma was given a sacred role to help prepare the Saints to worship; their songs unto the Lord would be received as prayers and “answered with a blessing upon their heads.”
We are also participants in the continual restoration. We also have a role to play.
Quote #5 In 1979, President Spencer W. Kimball made a profound prophecy about the impact that covenant-keeping women would have on the future of the Lord’s Church. He prophesied: “Much of the major growth that is coming to the Church in the last days will come because many of the good women of the world … will be drawn to the Church in large numbers. This will happen to the degree that the women of the Church reflect righteousness and articulateness in their lives and to the degree that the women of the Church are seen as distinct and different—in happy ways—from the women of the world.”
Quote #6 President Nelson said, “My dear sisters, you who are our vital associates during this winding-up scene, the day that President Kimball foresaw is today. You are the women he foresaw! Your virtue, light, love, knowledge, courage, character, faith, and righteous lives will draw good women of the world, along with their families, to the Church in unprecedented numbers!6
We, your brethren, need your strength, your conversion, your conviction, your ability to lead, your wisdom, and your voices. The kingdom of God is not and cannot be complete without women who make sacred covenants and then keep them, women who can speak with the power and authority of God!7 ...We need women who know how to make important things happen by their faith and who are courageous defenders of morality and families in a sin-sick world. We need women who are devoted to shepherding God’s children along the covenant path toward exaltation; women who know how to receive personal revelation, who understand the power and peace of the temple endowment; women who know how to call upon the powers of heaven to protect and strengthen children and families; women who teach fearlessly.
Quote #7 Sheri Dew (clear back in October 2000) said, “Imagine what would happen in this Church if every morning 4.5 million of us got on our knees and asked our Father who He needed us to reach out to that day. And then imagine if we did it! Imagine if we consecrated our energy and our focus en masse to the greatest service of all, that of leading our sisters and brothers to Christ. Imagine what will happen when we mobilize the sisters of Relief Society to stand together to help build the kingdom. We will see the awakening and arising of a sleeping, slouching giant.
Tonight I invite you to stand tall, to thrust in your sickle and join in this work with vigor. I invite you to rededicate your life to building the kingdom. To reach out to someone who has wandered. To take a new member under your wing. To consider serving a mission with your husband. To look and pray for missionary moments. To make a difference in someone’s life spiritually, especially the members of your own family. None of us have to reach everyone. But what if we all reached someone? And then someone else? And so on.”
How do these quotes make you feel? None of us can do everything or reach everyone. But what if we each prayed for someone? ALL of us have a role to play! All of us make a difference as we live what we believe and keep our covenants.
Quote #8: If we read section 25 carefully, we discover an important progression taking place. Emma would go from being a daughter in the kingdom to “elect lady” to queen. Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthood ordinances, combined with the keeping of her covenant promises, would increase her companionship with the Spirit and with angels, empowering her to navigate her life with divine guidance. Through His divine power, God would heal her heart, enlarge her capacity, and transform her into the version of herself He knew she could become. And through the ordinances of the Melchizedek Priesthood, “the power of godliness [would be] manifest” in her life, and the Lord would part the veil so she could receive understanding from Him. This is what it looks like for God’s power to work within us.
If time...perhaps give them a few minutes to write what blessings and power they need right now. IF they could ask God for any blessing, what would it be. Then share the story of Emma’s last blessing.
