My Thoughts on April Conference

This week I received a call from Bishop Makechnie asking me to take five minutes in sacrament meeting and talk about my thoughts on any address given at the April General Conference in Salt Lake City on April 3, 2011. I told him I’d be happy too. Here is the testimony I gave 10 April, 2001, in Weston.

In the early ninety’s my husband and I lived in Provo, Utah. One day I drove to Salt Lake City to visit my husband’s grandmother who was living there in a nursing home. I remember this visit well for two reasons. The first reason was that it was one of the last times I saw Grandma Hansen (Ruth Timmerman Bowring Hansen) before she passed away. As I sat with her that day I especially remember looking at her hands. They were very crippled with rheumatoid arthritis. She could not feed herself or take care of her daily needs. It was very sad. But we did have a very sweet visit. The second reason I remember this visit so well is that as I left her room and walked down the hall I looked up and saw a large statured man walking toward me. We both looked at each other, smiled and said, “hello.” That man was President Thomas S. Monson, who then was second counselor to President Ezra Taft Benson of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I tell you this because in General Conference when President Monson talks about caring for the 84 widows, I smile and remember the passing in the hall of this wonderful man. As our prophet he has set the standard of service very high. His love for the Savior and his willingness to be like Him has been such an example to me.

President Monson’s talk on The Holy Temple—a Beacon to the World, given at the close of the Sunday morning session, April 3, 2011, really touched my heart. He talked about the sacrifices that people have made throughout the years and continue to make to build temples and to attend them. He said, “My brothers and sisters, temples are more than stone and mortar. They are filled with faith and fasting. They are built of trials and testimonies. They are sanctified by sacrifice and service.”

Last fall while I was visiting teaching Sister Jan Evans, the mission president’s wife here is Boston, she mentioned that years ago she decided to attend the temple once a week. She had the faith and vision that this opportunity would bless her and her family. And it has. For weeks her passing comment kept ringing in my ears when finally I too decided that in the New Year of 2011 I would also attend the temple once a week. The season of my life is such that I can realistically keep this goal. At first I didn’t know how it would go. But now only four months in I have been blessed with the desire and urning to be at the temple even more. I go to put names on the prayer rolls and to remember my family on both sides of the veil. The power of the priesthood in the temples protects us, heals us, seals us and saves us eternally.

In President Monson’s closing remarks, which I’ll close with, he said, “Each one [temple] stands as a beacon to the world, an expression of our testimony that God, our Eternal Father, lives, that He desires to bless us and, indeed, to bless his sons and daughters of all generations. Each of our temples is an expression of our testimony that life beyond the grave is as real and as certain as is our life on earth."

I have a testimony that these words are true. They are for us to hear. In Matthew 11:15, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”