Here are a few of my impressions on Elder Holland's visit to Spokane last weekend:
1. He was concerned that people are receiving personal direction from the Spirit. The last thing he did was to have each member of the Stake Presidency answer what personal inspiration they had received. He said he was not referring to anything he said or did. It was what the Spirit said to them.
2. He was focused while he was here. Perhaps as focused as anyone I have ever met. It made me think that I am too light minded some of the time. I don’t mean that he wasn’t very cordial kind and gracious, because he was. He wasn’t pushy or anything like that. But it felt to me like it was as though he felt strongly the importance of what he was doing here. Like it was critical that he listen to the promptings of the Spirit and not miss anything. It was almost like life or death.
3. He was not interested in any sort of new programs or anything different that our stake might be doing and by the way, our stake presidency does everything they can not to create new programs. In fact, he expressed concern at one very minor thing that was done that was different than the basic program of the church. In fact, the impression I had was that we should use our creativity (and we have many very creative people in our ward and stake). We should use our creativity to help people. We should use it within the structure of the Church to make people’s lives better. Let those creative juices flow toward coming up with ways to bring someone back, to reach our children, to share the Gospel, help someone get employment, etc
4. When we left he specifically asked the Stake Presidency to communicate to you how much he loves us in a very interesting way. I think I remember he said. We (meaning he and Elder Bussey) know they (meaning you) love us, but I want them to know that we love them and have appreciated being able to be here.
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5 comments:
i love this. i really wish i could have been there.
That is very neat. I was wondering what he talked about.
Dying to know what you stake is doing that is different from the way it is done everywhere else. Our stake has settled into total mediocrity. No parties, no roadshows, anything that takes money or effort (says me). No controversy here, I guess. Good post.
He was very focused and very cordial. We ended up having 2 meals with him and he was so nice but very normal in his conversation which was much different than his talk from the pulpit...we are to have faith!!! Be strong!!! Know that we are loved!!! Be true and trust!!! It was a great blessing to have him here and Dennis, we are doing Roadshows this year...have them most every year.
Dennis, what Elder Holland commented on was extremely minor. It had to do with how we did the sustainings at Stake conference. (We added a couple of things. Our Stake follows the new handbook very closely. We do have one big youth conference each year which is in the handbook, but very well done. This year we reenacted 15 scenes from the Book of Mormon out in the wilderness, a thing called Moroni's Quest. The final scene had the youth waking up at 3 am in the morning and having the Stake President, dressed as the Savior, appear as in the Book of Mormon. (Actually lowered along a cliff.) He met each of the youth calling them by name and hugged each of them. Quite stirring. Elder Holland really didn't comment on that or on any programs at all either good or bad. He was intested in people, (converting, reactivating, getting to the Temple, keeping marriages together etc.)
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