The Stakes of Zion

I was moved by the heartfelt testimonies and uplifting spirit of our adult session of stake conference this evening.  To me there is a spirit in stake conference meetings that is almost unique to all of our meetings; as the Saints in the stake gather together to strengthen each other it is a powerful force for good.  As I sat there I was reminded of a stake conference I attended over 10 years ago in Nice, France as a missionary.  It was an anniversary 50^th stake conference for the stake, and all of the previous stake presidents came and spoke.  I was particularly moved by the remarks of Joseph Paya who had been the first stake president there.  He started his talk in the Sunday general session by saying that he had been so moved by the previous night’s meeting that he had torn up his talk and was going to speak to us from his heart.  He gave a powerful testimony using the Doctrine and Covenants as he spoke about Zion.  Perhaps at the core that’s why to me these stake conferences can be such a unique spiritual experience: it is the heart of Zion.  The thing that Joseph Smith sought most earnestly was to build up Zion, and even though the city of New Jerusalem was not physically built in his day, we today are indeed building up Zion as we strengthen her stakes.

                One of my favorite verses about Zion says this: “And that the gathering together upon the land of Zion, and upon her stakes, may be for a defense, and for a refuge from the storm, and from wrath when it shall be poured out without mixture upon the whole earth” (D&C 115:6).  That’s what Zion is—a place of protection from the world and its wickedness.  As we read in the privacy of our homes posts on social media and see the dominant opinions about moral issues seem to all go against the Church in recent years, we might sometimes feel like we are the only one left on the planet that believes in traditional marriage or chastity or keeping the Sabbath Day or protecting religious freedom.  We may want to say in resignation with Elijah of old (who was mourning the terrible wickedness of his day), “The children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left.”  But when we gather together in the stakes of Zion we realize, as the Lord told Elijah, “Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel” (1 Kings 19:10, 18).  There are others who still believe in the Savior and hold fast to their covenants and want to protect the family.  The Saints will never be in the majority, but we will never be alone in our beliefs if we stick to the stakes of Zion.  As Nephi said, we are indeed “small” but we can be “armed with righteousness and with the power of God in great glory” (1 Nephi 14:12, 14).  The power I believe comes at least in part from building up the stakes of Zion.  When the actual New Jerusalem is built we are promised that “the glory of the Lord shall be there,” and surely we have that blessing at least in part in the scattered stakes of Zion today.  Our stake in Zion can be a place of “peace” and “refuge” and “safety for the Saints of the Most High God” (D&C 45:66-67).  We must hold fast to our place in Zion and her stakes, for in the future it will be the only place of safety as the world is enveloped in war (D&C 45:69-71).