Temporal and Spiritual Self-reliance

While our stalwart Sunday School teacher, Colin, was at home perfecting his Darth Vader impersonations, we Rosny YSA gathered in our regular and regularly cold room for a bit of class discussion. After the announcements by Bek and the "YSA presidency," and hearing about everyone's week, the amateur Maz attempted a bit of class discussion, beginning with the Missionary Experience of the Week. It turns out that waiting a long, long time for a taxi late at night in Sydney can become a blessing when you discover the driver is one of the long-lost sheep of the fold, originally taught by two sister missionaries when he first came to Australia, baptised, but now with little knowledge or the church or where to find it. Luckily the Good Shepherd knows all his sheep and will always lead them back to the fold. Eric expressed earnest interest in being taught the gospel again by the missionaries and now he is able because the Good Shepherd led him to two Hobart Stake young single adults of the fold who could help him find it again. Now his wife and son, who were not around to hear the gospel when he was taught, will also have the opportunity to hear it.

The discussion then focussed on the only 2 pages of the reading that Maz had managed to do, about the welfare program of the church, which was also aided by Brother Eastwood's talk in sacrament meeting, about self-reliance. The ideas for temporal self-reliance which came from discussion by members of the class included working where possible, keeping a vegetable patch, living within our means and choosing wisely how to spend our money. Spiritual reliance was also discussed with great similarities, such as being accountable for our own spiritual learning and making the effort to fill and re-fill our own spiritual reservoirs instead of relying on leaders and programs of the church to fill it up for us. We are counselled in Philippians 2:12 to work out our own salvation, which implies a personal responsibility to seek learning and understanding and apply the principles of the gospel in our lives.

Mountain of the Lord

This week in YSA Sunday school we continued watching The Mountain of the Lord, a DVD about the construction and purpose of the Salt Lake Temple. We continued from the point where upon having uncovered the foundations again, which were buried to protect the temple from a visit by government troops, it was discovered that the sandstone foundations had cracks in them. This was about 10 years after the saints had begun building the temple, and the Prophet at the time, Brigham Young, was in a bit of despair! After thinking about it he decided it was necessary for the cracked foundations to be removed and instead the granite blocks to be cut to precise measurements to insure a strong foundation. While this event seems somewhat tragic, imagine if the foundations were not buried and the construction of the temple to have gone ahead to completion. Surely the weight of the granite and the continual beating of the elements would have cracked the foundations with time. But as Brigham Young said, he wanted to build a temple to last through the millennium and by burying the foundations this problem was discovered early and at a time when it could still be fixed. While the Tabernacle recently underwent renovations a few years ago to protect it against earthquakes and other disasters, the Salt Lake Temple needed no such renovations as it was already build to withstand such things.

Another interesting part to the story of the construction of the temple was when the prophet asked that all construction of the temple be stopped to instead labour to complete the transcontinental railroad which was being build. While this request was a little strange to some, in hindsight it was pure inspiration, as when it was completed and extentions were built between Little Cottonwood Canyon and Salt Lake City, the 4 day trip to bring granite to the temple sight by oxen was exchanged for a 1 hour trip on the railroad to bring much more granite. Even with this development the temple took 40 years to complete - image how long it would have taken had the prophet's counsel not been heeded!

Towards the end of the film President Wilford Woodruff, who dedicated the Salt Lake Temple, explained by personal experience why the temples are so important to Latter-day Saints. Some years earlier his wife Phoebe had passed away, but due to their having been sealed for time and all eternity prior to this he had the firm knowledge that he would in fact see her again, to dwell with her forever in peace. Indeed this is why we build so many temples today, and even perform these ordinances vicariously for those who have died without receiving them.

Thank you Colin for sharing the DVD with us.