We Can Change

 On Friday, I went to the temple.  When I got to my car, I had a text to please call Bishop Harding.  I wondered why...I have only been serving in my calling for a year, it hasn't been that long since I spoke in our ward, my kids are doing pretty well.  So I called him.  Cherish was supposed to speak in sacrament meeting on Sunday, but she was diagnosed Thursday evening with appendicitis and was in the hospital.  He asked if I'd be willing to speak.  He gave me the topic of change...but he said that I always seem to have something I'm thinking about so if I wanted to speak on a different topic I could.  But I liked the topic and liked the talks he gave me to use so I started working on it almost right away.

Sara and I went to lunch that day.  She told me that the night before, Chris had told her the situation and said he didn't know what to do.  He couldn't ask someone to speak with such short notice.  She said that he couldn't ask her...she'd spoken in our ward in November (or perhaps the end of October) because he asked her and she'd spoken in our ward in December as a stake speaking assignment.  Chris had just spoken last Sunday as part of our Christmas program.  They were lying in bed and after a moment, they both said, "Jenny."  So he called me Friday morning at about 8 AM.  He was worried when I didn't answer.  Sara said I was probably either sleeping or at the temple.  Then when she looked at the time, she said I was probably at the temple.  She knows me well.

So I prepared a talk and gave it today.  And as always, I probably benefitted the most from giving the talk.  

We Can Change  

 
 

I love the new young women’s theme. I loved the old one too.  Each week the young women stand and say, “I am a beloved daughter of heavenly parents with a divine nature and eternal destiny.”  I hope that that repetition helps these truths to sink deep into their hearts as they have mine. After these opening lines, my favorite line in the young women’s theme, says “I cherish the gift of repentance, and seek to improve each day.”  as a teen and a young adult. I didn’t feel that way about repentance. I felt ashamed that I so often made mistakes and needed repentance. But as I have gained a deeper understanding of repentance and a little more wisdom, I have come to see that it is a truly beautiful gift from our beloved Savior. It is a gift that we can change, overcome bad habits, and become a little better each day. 

Elder Kevin Hamilton gave a talk called “Then Will I Make Weak Things Become Strong” in April 2022.  He said, “One of Satan’s greatest lies is that men and women cannot change. This untruth gets told and retold in many different ways as the world says that we simply cannot change—or worse yet, that we should not change. We are taught that our circumstances define us. We should “embrace who we really are,” the world says, “and be authentic to our true selves.” 

While it is indeed good to be authentic, we should be authentic to our real, true selves as sons and daughters of God with a divine nature and destiny to become like Him.2 If our goal is to be authentic to this divine nature and destiny, then we will all need to change. The scriptural word for change is repentance. “Too many people,” President Russell M. Nelson teaches, “consider repentance as punishment—something to be avoided except in the most serious circumstances. … When Jesus asks you and me to ‘repent,’ He is inviting us to change.”3 

 

President Monson once spoke about a prison warden named Clinton Duffy.  “During the 1940s and 1950s, [Warden Duffy] was well known for his efforts to rehabilitate the men in his prison. Said one critic, ‘You should know that leopards don’t change their spots!’  

“Replied Warden Duffy, ‘You should know I don’t work with leopards. I work with men, and men change every day.’” 

 

 

Sister Becky Craven gave a talk entitled keep the change in October 2020. She said, “Jesus Christ…. created the heavens, the earth, and all the beauty we enjoy. Through His loving Atonement, He provides a way for us to be redeemed from sin and death. As we show our gratitude to Him by diligently living His commandments, He immediately blesses us, leaving us always in His debt. 

He gives us much, much more than the value of what we can ever return to Him. So, what can we give to Him, who paid the incalculable price for our sins? We can give Him change. We can give Him our change. It may be a change of thought, a change in habit, or a change in the direction we are headed. In return for His priceless payment for each of us, the Lord asks us for a change of heart. The change He requests from us is not for His benefit but for ours. …our gracious Savior beckons us to keep the change.” 

 

I love the thought that one way we can show our love and gratitude to the Savior is by changing, growing, repenting, becoming more like him.  And I am grateful that He helps us to change.   

 
 

These changes can be small or dramatic. Let me share one of my own.  When I was a child I was painfully shy.  I never had a problem answering questions in class.  But talking to classmates outside of class was often difficult. I remember once in kindergarten sitting on the side of the playground and my teacher came up and encouraged me to go and play with others. I said I would rather just watch.  If others invited me to play I was willing to do so, but I was too scared to ask if I could join them. While I haven’t entirely overcome my fear of talking to strangers or some social situations, I suspect that few people would consider me shy today.  I find it pretty easy to stand and speak in church or to teach classes to adults or children.  When I served as relief Society president, I regularly visited homes of women that I barely knew or didn’t know at all. I am not that same shy little girl that I was in kindergarten.  How did I change?  I think there are lots of parts to my answer …some happened because of opportunities I was given at school and many because of opportunities I have been given in the church to serve and teach and speak.  I also believe that the Savior has helped me because he has work for me to do that required me to overcome my shyness. 

 

I have many other examples of ways in which I have been enabled to change through the help of the Lord.  And I have many ways in which I still need to change and repent and improve! 

Sister Craven said, “When I was younger, I visualized myself walking along an upward, vertical path toward my goal of eternal life. Each time I did or said something wrong, I felt myself sliding down the path, only to start my journey all over again. It was like landing on that one square in the children’s game Chutes and Ladders that slides you down from the top of the board back to the beginning of the game! It was discouraging! But as I began to understand the doctrine of Christ and how to apply it daily in my life, I found hope.  Jesus Christ has given us a continuous pattern for change. He invites us to exercise faith in Him, which inspires us to repent—“which faith and repentance bringeth a change of heart.” As we repent and turn our hearts to Him, we gain a greater desire to make and live sacred covenants. We endure to the end by continuing to apply these principles throughout our lives and inviting the Lord to change us. Enduring to the end means changing to the end. I now understand that I am not starting over with each failed attempt, but that with each try, I am continuing my process of change.” 

 
 

I remember reading in a book by Elder Hafen that sometimes, when we see our sins and weaknesses, we can become discouraged, feeling that the gap between where we are, and where we want to become, is too great to overcome. We may suddenly recognize weaknesses in ourselves, that we had been previously unaware of.  Elder Hafen wrote that we should consider this a good sign when that happens…he said that as we learn more of the Savior, and grow closer to him, he will show us line upon line what we lack, and where we need to improve. So if you suddenly notice a weakness or failing that you hadn’t seen in yourself before, maybe it’s actually an indication that you have become more like Christ, and He sees that you were ready to grow and change in new ways.   

 
 

Sister Craven talks of her love for hiking in the mountains. Sometimes as she hikes, she gets a rock in her shoe. we’ve probably all had this experience….at first. It’s just a little annoying so she keeps going but eventually she stops and shakes the pebble out of her shoe.  She said, “it astounds me how long I allow myself to hike in pain before I stop and rid myself of the irritant. 

As we travel the covenant path, sometimes we pick up stones in our shoes in the form of poor habits, sins, or bad attitudes. The quicker we shake them from our lives, the more joyful our mortal journey will be.” 

 
 

President Nelson counseled us in April:  “Discover the joy of daily repentance. 

How important is repentance? Alma taught that we should “preach nothing save it were repentance and faith on the Lord.” Repentance is required of every accountable person who desires eternal glory. There are no exceptions. In a revelation to the Prophet Joseph Smith, the Lord chastised early Church leaders for not teaching the gospel to their children. Repenting is the key to progress. Pure faith keeps us moving forward on the covenant path. 

Please do not fear or delay repenting. Satan delights in your misery. Cut it short. Cast his influence out of your life! Start today to experience the joy of putting off the natural man. The Savior loves us always but especially when we repent. He promised that though “the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed … my kindness shall not depart from thee.” 

 
 

Take the annoying and painful rocks out of your shoes and repent today!  Ask the Lord to help you begin to change today.  Do not fear or delay repentance!   

 
Elder Hamilton gave three steps to take those painful rocks out and experience change.  He said that first we must be humble.  We must recognize that we need to change.  We need to be humble enough to follow the prophet, make changes, and ask the Savior for help.  Second, we must have faith in Christ.  While we can make changes on our own through goal setting, we will find greater success, greater happiness and greater ability to change as we turn to the Savior for help.  Faith gives us access to godly power.  Elder Hamilton says, “Third, through His grace He can make weak things become strong. If we humble ourselves and have faith in Jesus Christ, then His grace will enable us to change. In other words, He will empower us to change.” 

I have been pondering the parable of the vineyard lately.  It is a parable that bothered me a lot when I was younger.  Some workers are hired to labor in a vineyard early in the day.  They work all day.  At the third hour, the Vineyard owner goes and hires more workers.  Then again at the sixth and ninth hours more workers are hired. Finally at the 11th hour workers are hired again.  At the end of the day, all of the workers are given a penny.  The workers who had worked all day felt this was unfair.  And to our mortal minds, it does seem unfair.  But I have a different perspective now.  Those who were hired at the 11th hour, walked around with that pebble in their shoe all day, only being able to remove it at the very end.  So many of our brothers and sisters in the world don’t know that they can change.  they don’t know, that having eternal families is possible.  They don’t know that they have a Savior who loves them and enables them to change and become more.  They don’t know the joy of repentance or understand that they aren’t just a victim of their circumstances. I am so grateful that the Lord is so loving and merciful.  I am grateful that we can receive the blessings promised at baptism whether we are baptized at age 8 or age 80. I am grateful that the sealing blessings are the same whether we are sealed immediately or months or years later or that work is done for us in the temple after we die.  There is peace and strength and joy, and hope that comes from having the gospel, laboring in the Vineyard, and being able to repent now today.  It is a blessing to be called to work in the vineyard in the first or the third hour.   AND that payment of a penny is beyond what we can imagine!  All that the Father has.  But for those who don’t have that knowledge or who lose their way for a time—which to some degree or another is ALL of us, I am so grateful that the Lord  is so merciful and loving and good.  That because of Him, we can repent and change and grow and become.  It is the most hopeful doctrine I know.   

For several years, I have chosen a word as a word to focus on throughout the year.  This past year I chose “disciple”.  I’ve reflected on how I have done this year at being a disciple of Christ.  I hope and think that I’ve done a pretty good job of talking of Christ, teaching of Christ and testifying of Christ.  But I also know that there have been far too many times when I intentionally or accidentally hurt others, when I said or did something that was NOT what Christ would have done in that situation.  Sometimes I have felt pretty deep pain and disappointment to know that I so often act as a natural man rather than a disciple of Christ.  This makes me SO grateful that I can repent.  That I can try again and try each day to be a little better.  It is a gift that no choice or mistake or sin or bad habit has to be permanent.  I’m so grateful that through Christ’s loving Atonement, we can repent and change.  It truly is one of the greatest gifts and blessings we have been given.