Members of our stake have been invited to read the Conference Ensign by the end of the year. What a wonderful challenge! Of course, General Conference is wonderful the first time around, but I always find that while reading, I see and learn things that slipped by me. Reading the talks also allows me to engage in one of my favorite Conference activities: identifying repeated themes.
Consider what Elder Eyring once said:
The Savior has always been the protector of those who would accept His protection. He has said more than once, “How oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens, and ye would not” (3 Ne. 10:5)….
There seems to be no end to the Savior’s desire to lead us to safety. And there is constancy in the way He shows us the path. He calls by more than one means so that it will reach those willing to accept it. And those means always include sending the message by the mouths of His prophets whenever people have qualified to have the prophets of God among them. Those authorized servants are always charged with warning the people, telling them the way to safety.
…One of the keys to recognizing those warnings is that they are repeated…. The Apostle Paul wrote that “in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established” (2 Cor. 13:1). One of the ways we may know that the warning is from the Lord is that the law of witnesses, authorized witnesses, has been invoked. When the words of prophets seem repetitive, that should rivet our attention and fill our hearts with gratitude to live in such a blessed time (Henry B. Eyring, “Finding Safety in Counsel,” Ensign, May 1997, 24, emphasis added).
My husband and I have been humbled by one of the themes we have discovered from this last Conference: the absolute necessity of clinging to the word of God as found in scripture and the words of living prophets.
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