Hastening the Work

What an incredible general conference this has been!  With a solemn assembly to sustain a prophet, the restructure of priesthood quorums and major changes to home teaching and visiting teaching, the call of two new apostles and many other leaders, and the announcement of seven new temples, this is a conference that will be marked as historic for decades to come.  As I sat in the tabernacle and listened to President Nelson’s final address, I was filled with a sense of awe as I listened to him announce the seven new temples.  I was particularly shocked to hear him announce a new temple in Russia, a feat that seems impossible given the recent hostility towards religion in that country.  But President Nelson believes in accomplishing the impossible, and surely that temple in an unknown city will one day be built and be a great blessing to the people and country.  As I walked away with my daughter back to our car, the overwhelming impression that kept repeating in my head was this question: “How are we going to keep up with President Nelson?!”  He is a man determined to do the will of the Lord, and to do it now—and our monumental task is to follow His lead and redouble our efforts to follow the Savior.

            These changes signal once again that the Lord’s description of His work in the latter days is still being fulfilled: “Behold, I will hasten my work in its time” (D&C 88:73).  A hastening is certainly what it feels like from President Nelson, and perhaps the next verse of this section tells us what we need to do in order to follow suite: “And I give unto you, who are the first laborers in this last kingdom, a commandment that you assemble yourselves together, and organize yourselves, and prepare yourselves, and sanctify yourselves; yea, purify your hearts, and cleanse your hands and your feet before me, that I may make you clean” (D&C 88:74).  One of the messages today in conference, especially from President Nelson, was our need to focus on individual personal revelation.  We have to improve our ability to hear and heed the voice of the Lord, and to do that we must indeed prepare and sanctify ourselves, purify and cleanse our hearts so that we can more clearly learn the Lord’s will for each of us.  Then the Lord can work through us to make the hastening happen—He hastens the work, but we must be ready instruments in His hands.  The conference was a sign that revelation has indeed been received for the Church with all of these changes that took place, but President Nelson made it clear that we too can have that kind of revelation from the Lord in our individual lives.  It is certainly a new day in the history of the Church as we move forward with this inspired direction, and surely it can be a new day in our own personal lives also as we seek more earnestly to understand and follow the will of the Lord for us.