CES Broadcast Yesterday (I really wanted to share!)

Yesterday was an amazing day for me! As tired as I was by the end of it, my heart was so full of gratitude for the Lord and his work!!

But I wanted to write and tell you all about the amazing CES fireside Elder Bednar spoke at that happened last night, because he brought up a lot of points that I hadn’t previously thought of before. I feel it was really important for everyone to hear, and who better to share it with than my wonderful family!! After all, in the February Ensign (I’m catching up on my reading and just read this the other day) there was an article about functioning families, and the author wrote about how a functional family helps one another become perfected…ugh, I’m going to find the quote from the article because I liked it so much.

“…in a family that functions well, family members recognize that they have weaknesses, and they work to improve their relationships despite their weaknesses.” –James D. MacArthur, Feb Ensign 2009, pg. 14

SO- Elder Bednar spoke about increasing our awareness and discernment of the adversary’s attempts at leading us astray BY discounting the worth of our bodies, or substituting progression with regression and separating our spirits from our bodies as they were in the premortal state.

When he mentioned these things in his intro, I was wondering, “what the heck is that all supposed to mean? How does the adversary separate our spirits from our bodies?” So I guess I was really trying to pay attention to hear Elder Bednar’s response.

The first point he talked about is the great irony that the adversary, who is miserable because he will never receive a body and so he cannot ever progress through the plan of salvation, focuses on us misusing or discounting the worth of our own bodies. Elder Bednar said that:

• It is our responsibility to discern things consistently as they really are.
• All beings who have bodies have power over those beings who do not.
• Satan labors to confuse the children of men about their divine worth.
• It should come as no surprise that the adversary who is miserable because he will never receive a body tries so hard to tempt us to misuse our bodies.
• Misuse comes in many forms, including:
• “worshipping the false idol of body image, either that of our own or someone else’s body.”
• Minimizing our bodies importance by placing it at risk in order to receive adrenaline rushes.
• We have a sacred responsibility to learn the doctrinal reasons behind what we are asked to do and keep sacred.
• And he said “thou shalt not idle away thine time!” and I think he was actually quoting scripture, but you know how he rarely gives the references. That’s basically what he was saying.

He then talked about his second point, the one that I found most intriguing. He began by talking about how pictures rendered electronically and the actual image in reality have to be of complete fidelity for them to be useful in such professions as architecture. He showed a rendering of a sealing room in the Long Beach temple, then after the temple was built the actual picture which looked almost identical to the rendered image. The rendered image and the actual image had complete fidelity. He then said that he was there today to “Raise an Apostolic voice of warning” that just as this technology can be useful when used for good, it can be equally as destructive when used for ill-intended purposes.

He spoke of how people are not moderating their usage of technology and technological distractions, but are gorging on cyber situations which disconnect us gradually from reality and thus separates us from what we think is true instead of the reality of our need to progress through this life.

He pointed out the wonderful use of technology, that it is not bad. But how the adversary can use it against us by gradually altering how we apply ourselves in our life. He said: “Apostacy is not anonymous just because it is in the virtual world”, and used the scripture “for as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”

He pleaded with us to diligently studying the plan of salvation, and understand technology and change in the context of the Plan. He then asked us to ask ourselves two questions:

1. “Does this use of technology invite the Spirit more fully into my life?” and
2. “Does the time I spend using technology and in the cyber world invite me to enlarge my spiritual capacity, ability to serve, and increase my knowledge?”

He told us about a time when Elder Maxwell came to see him at BYU-I, and as they wer touring the grounds Elder Maxwell stated that “the youth of this generation have the greatest capacity to be obedient”. He said that doctrine was based off of a quote from George Q. Canon who spoke of how each subsequent generation will have more courage and determination to face the world…fearless of the consequences of the world.”

He pleaded with the Lord that we can make the decisions today which will help us as we become the next generation of leaders in the Church, and said if we live faithful WE CAN AND WILL FULFILL OUR FOREORDAINED RESPONSIBILITIES.

It was such a great talk. I know my notes were long, but I thought it was so great, and I really wanted to share it with everyone, so I hope you were able to read it and feel the spirit of these divinely inspired words for our day and time. And also to ask Tommy to get me a copy of the actual transcript when he gets it because they send that to the Institute directors :D Love you all sooo much!!