Be Your Best Self

Brother Jones asked me to speak today on President Monson’s talk ‘Be Your Best Self’ from the April 2009 Priesthood session. I am glad for the opportunity to speak on this address today because I missed it originally because I got called in to work during the conference. It seems that it must have a special message Heavenly Father wanted me to hear.

In the talk President Monson delineates three suggestions to lead us along safely through our lives. They are Study Diligently, Pray Fervently, and Live Righteously. I generally like speakers who tell lots of stories, so today I would like to share some stories that show how these suggestions President Monson gave can help us in our lives.

1. Study Diligently

1 Nephi 15: 24 “And I said unto them that [the rod] was the word of God; and whoso would hearken unto the word of God, and would hold fast unto it, they would never perish; neither could the temptations and the fiery darts of the adversary overpower them unto blindness, to lead them away to destruction.”

When I think about studying diligently, I think of my father. He is a character in many of the stories I will be sharing today, and by no coincidence. He is my hero and a spiritual giant. I look up to him in so many ways. Every morning, as far back as I can remember, when I would wake up he would be sitting in the living room reading his scriptures. This was also the case nearly every night when I would head to bed. His spiritual preparedness has benefitted me many times in my life, and I am grateful for it. President Monson said, “I promise you… that if you will study the scriptures diligently, your power to avoid temptation and to receive direction of the Holy Ghost in all you do will be increased.” I know this to be true.

2. Pray Fervently

I have a strong personal testimony of prayer. This comes from my many experiences with blessings from prayer. This started at a young age. When I was probably about 5, I remember going to the City of Rocks for a ward camping trip. I loved being there and all the many wonderful rock formations. I had my favorite rock not far from camp that I would always escape to, and play on. On one of my excursions I decided to go find another rock to play on. It didn’t take long before I was lost and didn’t know what direction camp was. I grew scared quickly and started crying for help. I exhausted myself quickly as I screamed for help. I decided to pray for help, so I knelt down on the ground and asked Heavenly Father to help me find my family. It was a very short time later that I heard someone calling my name in the distance. I shouted back and my dad came running.

My next story of prayer is one told by my sister who writes inspiring posts on her blog frequently.

When I was serving in Young Women's, we had a goal to find all of the lost sheep on our list. It was quite lengthy. One of the things that I personally did was pray for each of the Young Women by name every night, asking the Lord to help me know the needs of each of the girls and how to help them. I encouraged everyone else to do the same. We started making progress and having success but there was one girl we simply could not find. With every attempt we hit a brick wall.

Then one week, I had the hardest week of my life. It was the onset of the hardest three years of my life. I didn't even know if the Lord loved me. I questioned if I even had a purpose. It was all I could do to get to church that Sunday. I sat in sacrament meeting and just cried. Then the same thing happened in Sunday School. I felt so stupid because I couldn't stop the flow of tears. When class was over, I stood up to leave and started walking down the aisle. As I was doing so, I had a very distinct impression to stop and ask a man if he knew this lost girl. I thought, "I can't ask him now. I can't even put two words together." But I've learned that when I have a prompting, I need to listen. So I stopped and tearfully asked, "Do you, by any chance, happen to know a Dayleene Jentzen?" To my complete surprise, he said, "Yes. She's in my government class and I'm also her basketball coach." The tears increased as I exclaimed, "You're kidding!! I have been looking everywhere for her!" Then I asked, "Do you think there is any chance that she'd be receptive to me?" He probably took pity on my pitiful state because he said kindly, "I think she would." I asked, "What should I do? How should I approach it?" He said, "Well, she's got a basketball game coming up. Why don't you come to that." I went home and wrote her a letter and said, "I finally found you!! I have been looking everywhere for you and I finally found you!" I explained myself. After I wrote the letter, I thought, "How stupid is that?! She probably didn't even WANT to be found!" But I felt strongly impressed on what I should write so I sealed it up and sent it with a prayer.

When the night of her game arrived, all the Laurels and I went. I cannot tell you of the flow of love that I felt for this girl! Here she was, this girl I'd been praying about for months! I longed to connect with her and help her and share my love for her! We weren't able to meet her that night but I wrote her another letter and told her we went to her game.

Shortly after this time, I found out that she knew an elderly lady in our ward. Bless this lady FOREVER because when Dayleene asked her, "Who is this women!?," my elderly friend said, "You'll like her; give her a chance." It wasn't long after that Dayleene and I started talking on the phone. We became fast friends. Then the Young Women and I made the plunge and planned an activity surrounding Dayleene. She started coming to more activities after that and our relationship remains strong.

In his talk President Monson said, “To those within the sound of my voice who are struggling with challenges and difficulties large and small, prayer is the provider of spiritual strength; it is the passport to peace. Prayer is the means by which we approach our Father in Heaven, who loves us. Speak to Him in prayer and then listen for the answer. Miracles are wrought through prayer.”

More recently I have strengthened my testimony of prayer. This has come from the many prayers Kelsie and I have offered asking for the health, strength, and continued safety of our new daughter, Keni. All through the pregnancy I had thoughts, as I am sure most people do, of how many things can go wrong medically when it comes to child birth and development. I consider it an absolute miracle that Keni is perfect. Another thing that has always been in our prayers over the past year has been my school. Applying to PA school was a very intimidating task. I had to take a huge standardized test; take almost another year of pre-requisites on top of my bachelor’s degree, and worst of all compete with everyone else who wants to go. For example the University of Utah received 757 applications for 40 seats in the program, and this is a pretty average ratio for the 6 PA programs I applied to. We prayed continually that I would get into a school. I was blessed enough to get into three, including the one I wanted to go to the most. We prayed continually that we would be able to find good housing with all the many things we wanted, including the hardest thing of all, proximity. It all just seemed to fall into place for us. I feel so blessed everyday for all of our blessings. In his talk President Monson said, “In the world today we face difficulties and challenges, some of which can seem truly daunting. However, with God on our side we cannot fail.”

3. Live Righteously

President Monson’s next suggestion was to live righteously. Again, when I think of a person living righteously as possible, I think of my dad. I remember a time when I was probably about 8 or 9 when my dad took me on a 4-wheeler ride up Little Mountain in Franklin, Idaho. I was so excited because, as all boys that age, I was obsessed with 4-wheelers and hadn’t ever been to the top of Little Mountain. On our way up we were going over a rocky part and the 4-wheeler began to roll. I was so scared and held on for dear life. Thankfully I was sitting in the front so my dad could protect me. The next thing I knew, the 4-wheeler was on top of us and my dad was holding it up with his outstretched arms and legs. He quickly asked if I was ok before throwing it off to roll down the hill. 4-wheelers weigh in the neighborhood of 700 pounds… how was he able to hold that kind of weight by himself? The answer is because he had help.

Before my sister, Darcee, and her 3 young boys were to drive the 500+ miles to my other sister’s home in Colorado she asked for my dad to give her a blessing to drive safely. I remember that in the blessing he blessed her that they would have an envelope of safety as they traveled. While Darcee drove through one of the many mountain passes they suddenly came up on a deer and she was not going to be able to slow down enough to avoid it. As if directed, the deer abruptly turned and ran directly up the double yellow line and Darcee narrowly missed hitting it.

By always living his life righteously my dad has always been ready to provide safety to his children. To me he is a perfect example of being your best self.

I hope that these examples have shown that by heeding to President Monson’s council will provide guidance through our lives. Just remember to study diligently, pray fervently, and live righteously. I have a personal testimony of all these things...