The Power of Repentance

Last week I gave a talk in church.
It had been a LOOOONNNNGGGG time since I had to speak in Sacrament Meeting.
It had been FIFTEEN years! [Since March 16, 1997, to be exact!]
So no pressure or anything.
Oh, and by the way, your topic is repentance.

I went to lds.org and bookmarked a few things that caught my eye.
I then of course waited until the day before I had to give my talk to really get to work.
I found so many wonderful talks, lessons, scriptures, that I had to make myself stop or
I'd just be making it harder on myself to narrow it down to fit into a 12-15 minute talk.

One of the first pages I read had a story that really hit me.
It was so moving and powerful.
It showed repentance in a new way to me.
I knew right away that I had to include this story into my talk!

[Click on the link below to read the story.]
The Power of Repentance and the Atonement

"You haven’t repented; you have just stopped doing something."

That one sentence just really struck me.
It made me think of that saying about fasting...
"If you're not praying when you fast, then you're just going hungry."
That was one of many sentences that I typed up in bold letters
to remind myself to really bring that point across as I spoke.

I also used a gospel principles lesson on repentance
to focus on what we need to do to truly repent.

 [Click on the link below to read.]
Principles of Repentance

 "Repentance is not optional for salvation; it is a commandment of God."

As I was preparing this talk, I prayed that I would be able to have it all come together
and to know which thoughts, stories and scriptures, would best help and inspire
those who would be listening to my talk.

"Satan wants us to think that we cannot repent, but that is absolutely not true. Don't let anyone tell you that you are beyond repenting, or that there is no point in repenting, or that it is all right to postpone repentance."

I just felt the spirit so strongly when I read that.
At first, it made me think of family members, who perhaps feel or have felt that way.
But more than anything, I just felt like there was someone who really needed to hear that message.

So Saturday evening, I practiced reading my talk aloud.
[Mainly to see how much time it would take me to read it.]
It was just right.

So, I turned on my printer to print it out.

My printer spit out the first page.....BLANK!
I played around with the ink controls a bit.
Using just black ink, using just blue ink...all with the same result!
I'm thinking, "There is NO WAY I am writing this talk out! It's five pages long typed!"
I prayed for my printer and went to bed, hoping that all would be well the next morning.

Sunday morning arrives and I decide to do some head cleaning and ink tests.
I feel optimistic when a page spits out with ink squares on it.
Alas, when I go to print my talk....still blank!
I'm thinking I may have to wait until I get to church and have it printed out there.
Or even bring my laptop with me and read my talk off of it!
But first I decided to contact my neighbors, the Andersons.
[Who live in the same complex I do and are my ride to church.]
I really didn't want to bother them as they just had a baby girl
a few days earlier, but figured I had to at least try!
Imagine my relief when they told me they had a printer [that works]
and to stop by any time.
Now I am grateful for their willingness to bring me to church,
but we usually get there just as Sacrament Meeting is starting,
if not a couple minutes later.
So I was really hoping that since they now knew I would be speaking,
that we would get to church a bit earlier than usual.
NOPE!
We arrived with one minute to spare!
[In fact, on our way to church, I missed a phone call from the Bishop.]

The Bishop approached me as I sat down and told me he was
getting a little worried because he remembered the Andersons were my ride
and that since they just had a baby, he wasn't sure if I had a ride or not.

As I sat on the stand and looked around at the congregation, I felt a little sad.
I looked at the members sitting in the chapel and realized how few of them I know.
6+ months in this ward and I knew the names of not even a quarter of the people there.
[But, to be fair there were a number of families absent that day,
the majority of which are ones that I know.]

I said another quick prayer before it was my turn to speak.
I started off my talk, with a little bit about myself.
Got a little misty eyed when I mentioned my nephew.
[Oh, how I miss that sweet little boy!]

So it helped when the following got a bit of a chuckle from the congregation.

"When the Bishop approached me last week about giving a talk, I was glad that he added that the topics for this month are about the principles of the gospel and that there wasn't some ulterior motive for asking me to speak on... repentance."

Then I dove right into my talk.
The next thing I knew...I was on the last page and my talk was done!

The following talk was given by a member of the High Council.
He incorporated the story of the young man I told into his talk.
I was impressed that he was able to recall so much of what I had shared
and was able to go off track of what he had prepared to work it into his talk.

When the meeting ended the Bishop approached me
and said with a look of disbelief, "Fifteen years?!?"
A young man came up to the stand and
thanked me for my talk and told me he enjoyed it.
Others approached me throughout the day, but only a handful,
which I will admit, I was a bit disappointed by.

Flash forward to today.
When I was in the hallway at church, I heard the Bishop call my name.
I stopped and he proceeded to tell me that last week he had two members
approach him wanting to speak with him.
One of them arrived in his office in tears, sobbing uncontrollably.
The reason these members came to him was because of my talk.
I was a bit taken back as the Bishop shared this with me....humbled.

After dinner today, I started feeling a little tired and woozy, so I decided to take a nap.
I had a dream that there was a knocking sound, only to realize,
I wasn't dreaming, someone was at the door!
I thought perhaps I had accidentally locked the dead bolt
and it was my sister, Trisha trying to get in.
But no, it was the missionaries, along with a member of the Bishopric.

They told me they were stopping by for two reasons.
One of which, was my talk. They all said it was really good.
One of the Elders said he rarely feels impressed to approach someone
after they've given a talk, but that he really wanted to let me know
that he thought I did an excellent job.
All three of them were still in disbelief that it had been fifteen years since my last talk.

The second reason was because I had mentioned in my talk,
that I was the only active member out of six siblings.
So they wanted to learn more about me and my family.
I had just happened to put up some picture frames on the wall the day before,
so I was able to "introduce" family members to them via photographs.

[They also admired my framed autographed Hugh Jackman Playbill.]

We talked for about half an hour or so and
I treated them to one of my luscious lemon bars.
They asked what my sister would think if they stopped by to visit her.
I shared my thoughts and feelings about that and we made an appointment
for them to come by on Friday evening.
I don't know what if anything, will come out of this, but it's worth a try!

I am so grateful and humbled that I was able to be an instrument of the Lord,
and to touch and help others, through the talk that I gave.
What a wonderful feeling!