Eat Your Vitamin Pills

On his recent South American trip, President Nelson made this comment about the work of the Church: “We're witnesses to a process of restoration. If you think the Church has been fully restored, you're just seeing the beginning. There is much more to come.… Wait till next year. And then the next year. Eat your vitamin pills. Get your rest. It's going to be exciting.”  That’s quite the statement from the prophet, especially after all of the recent changes that have already taken place.  What else could be coming?!  His statement reminds me a little of Joshua’s statement to the children of Israel “Sanctify yourselves: for to morrow the Lord will do wonders among you” (Joshua 3:5).  We don’t know what will be coming up ahead, but we know that there is much to prepare for today for what lies yet in the future.  As President Nelson said previously, “Our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, will perform some of His mightiest works between now and when He comes again. We will see miraculous indications that God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, preside over this Church in majesty and glory.”      

               So how do we prepare for this future in which the mightiest works of the Lord will be performed?  How do we spiritually take our “vitamin pills”?  One way surely is in studying the scriptures, for recently President Nelson has invited various groups to study the scriptures more purposefully: he invited the sisters to read the whole Book of Mormon in just a few months, he invited the young adults to study all the references to Christ in the scriptures, and he invited those youth at the temple dedication to study specific topics in the Bible Dictionary.  He obviously feels it is very important for us to drink deeply from the words of the Lord.  I also think the story of the Nephites in the years before the Savior came among them is instructive on how we prepare for the future.  When they were threatened with destruction from the Gadianton robbers who infested the surrounding lands, they united themselves together and were taught this by their righteous leader Lachoneus, “As the Lord liveth, except ye repent of all your iniquities, and cry unto the Lord, ye will in nowise be delivered out of the hands of those Gadianton robbers.”  For them the key to preparing for their uncertain future was repentance and prayer.  And this is indeed what they did, “They did repent of all their sins; and they did put up their prayers unto the Lord their God, that he would deliver them in the time that their enemies should come down against them to battle” (3 Nephi 3:15, 25).  They acknowledged after their miraculous delivery from the Gadianton robbers, “They knew it was because of their repentance and their humility that they had been delivered from an everlasting destruction” (3 Nephi 4:33).  The key to their military victory was not their preparations for war or their armor or even wise military leaders—the key was to repent before the Lord.  They indeed saw the Lord perform mighty works in their preservation because they were united and humbled themselves before the Lord.  Surely that is the way that we also prepare—we repent, and sanctify ourselves, and tomorrow the Lord will work wonders among us.