When Joseph Smith went to the woods to pray one spring day,
he was not yet a prophet.
At that point, he was a boy who read his Bible
and sought earnestly for the gospel.
He felt eager to know God's will.
Some important messages come from the First Vision.
One of them is that family, status, education, wealth,
and maturity are not the things God takes into account when
deciding whom to speak with.
You know this already, but let's just
think about the beauty of that for a moment.
Not only does it not matter where your parents went
to college, it doesn't matter whether they went to college
or whether they can read.
And those things don't matter about you either.
Are you out of money?
Not relevant.
Do you share a bed with your siblings?
Doesn't matter.
This is good news for those who, throughout history, often
had less access to institutional religious authority.
For many women in the world, for example, interaction with God
has felt out of reach, because it was associated most often
with men and priestly office.
But the First Vision and the restored gospel
provide a balance to that.
Joseph Smith was in his early teens when he prayed,
and he wasn't ordained to any priesthood.
Instead, he was a person who learned from the scriptures
and had enough faith to pray and ask for answers.
We do that, too.
Although we aren't called by God to restore
the fulness of the gospel, God does call us
and teach us to be more effective, wise, and loving,
more like our parents in heaven.
In addition to teaching that you don't
have to be important or successful in the world for God
to talk to you, the First Vision teaches us
that God loves Jesus, responded to a boy's prayer,
and forgave that boy's sins.
But there is also a lot that the First Vision does not teach us.
For example, it does not teach us
about Relief Society, priesthood power, baptism,
or temple ordinances.
It does not teach us how often God will answer prayers
or in what form.
One major lesson the First Vision
does teach about revelation is that it is not the same thing
as an instruction manual.
Revelation is more like a treasure map.
My daughter drew this treasure map for me
and explained that X marked the treasure,
and there were mountains, an oasis, and things
in the lower left and upper right
corners that might be trees, or they might be something
scary from a children's book.
Revelation can be slow, spotty, and take a while to figure out.
In the words that I first heard from Sister Sharon Eubank,
"Revelation is a process."
I have found that when you stick with it, you can find treasure.
Joseph Smith told people about the treasure of his First
Vision several times during his lifetime,
and I'm really grateful for that.
Sometimes, a historian has only one source
to rely on to try to figure out what happened.
But Joseph Smith gave us more than one way to understand.
He described the experience differently
at different times, because he was
in front of different audiences and wanted
to emphasize what mattered for each of those audiences,
just as I tell an anecdote in one way to my adult friends,
another way to my children, and still
another way during a Gospel Doctrine class,
depending on how I understand the needs of each audience.
But I also think Joseph Smith described his sacred experience
differently at different times because his understanding
of what happened increased over time.
The more experience he had and the more skill he
acquired in receiving and interpreting revelation,
the more he understood what had happened
that morning in the grove.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
founding meeting took place 10 years after the First Vision.
When it takes a long time for an initial revelation
to bear actual fruit, some of us can
start to doubt our interpretation
of the revelation.
And while it's good to be prayerfully
open to the possibility that we have misunderstood something,
it's also important to remember that revelation is a process
and takes time.
My study of Church history has taught me
that our leaders have pursued their planning and decision
making, quote, "by study and also by faith," end quote.
Revelation, study, and faith all interweave in the process.
It may seem as though President Nelson announced
a lot of fast changes once he became our prophet,
but in fact, many of those changes
had been under consideration for a long time, for years.
Church leaders had studied what those changes would look like,
and in cases such as two hour church and the new achievement
programs for youth, they did pilot programs to test them.
In short, they had been counseling together
and praying about many of these changes for years.
The 1978 revelation to restore and extend
temple blessings and priesthood blessings for black Church
members is a particularly moving example
of important revelation taking a great deal of time, thought,
and internal struggle.
I don't understand why it took so long,
but I do know that when it finally came,
the members of the First Presidency
and Quorum of the Twelve were united in their rejoicing.
I'll now share two examples from Church history
showing how revelation is a process
and essential to the continuing Restoration of the Church.
Living in Farmington, Utah, 43-year-old, Aurelia Spencer
Rogers noticed a problem.
She's the one in front in the image you can see.
The boys were rowdy, inconsiderate,
and apparently not grounded in the gospel
that their elders had sacrificed security, comfort,
and relationships to preserve.
Remarkably, as Sister Rogers looked for solutions
to this problem, God whispered to her His approval
and encouragement, so she pursued her solutions,
which have enriched Latter-day Saint lives around the world
ever since.
First, Aurelia Rogers shared her ideas
with Eliza R. Snow and other female leaders, who
liked them and described them to acting Church President John
Taylor.
Soon, she had a mandate to gather the children
in Farmington and to figure out how an organization for them
should function.
Looking back, she later described
how she felt after accepting the calling.
Quote, "While thinking over what was
to be done for the best good of the children,
I seemed to be carried away in the spirit,
or at least I experienced a feeling of untold happiness
which lasted three days and nights.
During that time nothing could worry or irritate me;
if my little ones were fretful, or the work went wrong,
I had patience, could control in kindness,
and manage my household affairs easily," end quote.
But those joyous feelings were not permanent.
While planning and working for the children,
she began to feel unworthy and depressed, so much
that she had trouble fulfilling her responsibilities.
Open quote, "I . . . went to my meetings weeping by the way,
being humbled to the very earth; so much so, that whatever any
one said afterward in my praise, did not make me feel exalted,
or lifted up in my own mind," close quote.
Nonetheless, she went on to found what we now
call the Primary organization.
Maybe you wonder, as I have, why she
experienced this dark sadness while doing important work.
Shouldn't acting on revelation and being on the Lord's errand
feel endlessly blissful?
Shouldn't it keep negative feelings at bay?
That would only be true if Eve and Adam had not
eaten that special fruit.
In real life, acting on revelation
is not a promise that we will feel inspired all the time.
We did not come to earth for easy.
Being embodied is not easy and working with other people
is not easy.
But these are two of the major reasons we are here,
to have the experience of inhabiting a mortal body
and to work with and serve other people.
My middle daughter has recently learned to drive.
In her driver's education class, she drove a simulator machine
before sitting behind the wheel of a real car.
The real car is much harder to drive.
The stakes are so much higher.
On the simulator machine, if you run a stop sign,
it will tell you that you made a mistake
and make you start a new round.
In real life, if you run a stop sign,
you could severely injure another person.
Driving a real car is dangerous, but it's also the only way
to really learn.
Living in a body is also dangerous.
People, disease, gravity, and our own clumsiness hurt us.
They can kill us, or they can wound us
in ways that feel even harder than death.
But there are lessons that only our bodies can teach us.
Our bodies can also be sources of great joy.
For me, this has included the feeling of exercise,
making my muscles stronger and my balance more sure.
Physical joy has included the experience
of cooking, which is a great source of pleasure to me,
a satisfying creative art and a way to serve others.
My body also helps me to express and receive affection, hugs
and kisses from loved ones, but even hugs from people
who aren't in my close circle.
Maybe you, like me, feel more aware of embodiments joys
now that the COVID-19 virus has taken some of them
temporarily away.
We learn from the sorrows of embodiment
as well as from the joys.
Our mortal experience also means that a veil separates us
from the presence of God.
Although we can receive revelation,
we also sometimes ignore or misinterpret it.
Just as for Aurelia Rogers acting on revelation
did not yield uninterrupted happiness, acting on revelation
does not promise that all the support we need
will fall into place.
Ardeth Kapp, whom you may remember as Young Women General
President during the 1980s, had experience with this.
Sister Kapp was well-prepared when
she was called as president.
She had already worked as a teacher and a consultant,
worked on the Church Youth Correlation Committee,
and served in a Young Women General Presidency.
Immediately after accepting this calling,
she began to receive revelation.
She wrote in her journal, open quote,
"It seems to me the heavens are opening
and thoughts, directions, spiritual promptings
are coming fast and clear."
Even at that early time, she felt
the organization needed a charter statement and a goal
system that was based on values.
But it took three years of focused effort
before the Young Women theme and values were
fully created and announced and five years
until the values based personal progress manual came out.
Collaboration, execution, and further revelation
took time, and so did getting approvals.
Sister Kapp was very good at counseling with others.
She called capable people to her board,
and they worked collaboratively together.
Elder Bednar has taught that different members of a council
have different pieces of revelation,
and you need each person's input in order
for the whole vision to come together.
Open quote, "The contributions of all of the council members
add elements to the inspiration,"
close quote, he has taught.
Former members of Sister Kapp's board
have told me that she was gifted at drawing out
the people in her councils.
But effective collaboration takes time.
The program changes Sister Kapp oversaw were complicated,
and getting the details right was slow.
There were delays, repetitive extra labor,
and other frustrations.
For the new Personal Progress Program,
she called a committee of women and men, most of them
married to each other, and they worked together for two years.
Furthermore, Sister Kapp was president
during a time when female officers of the Church
no longer interacted much with the First Presidency,
as they previously had.
And they did not serve on high Church committees
such as the Priesthood and Family Executive Committee,
as they do now.
The resulting communication gaps also
required extra time and work, but the result
was programs that effectively nurtured
the young women of the Church for over 30 years.
Not only were the programs good, but all
of the people with whom she had counseled
understood them well and could help
to explain, implement, and in other ways,
support the new changes.
Sister Kapp's example motivates me
because even when discouraged, she
continued to counsel with others, exercise faith,
fast, pray, and work hard.
When I read about her experiences,
I feel the spirit testify that she acted on revelation
and that God magnified her considerable native talents
through collaboration with other people.
If we don't continue to pursue the Lord's guidance,
particularly when we encounter difficulties or frustrations,
then we might overlook inspired solutions
and fail to fix problems.
We and others may not learn what the Lord invites us to learn.
Now I'm going to shift from talking
about others' revelations to talking about our own,
especially how our revelations can help us better
be better at helping others.
I have a quotation near my desk to remind me
that good thinking and good work take time and careful study.
The words are from Simone Weil, a French philosopher who
thought a lot about right and wrong
and who went to great personal sacrifice to live in the ways
she thought were morally right.
Weil taught, "All wrong translations,
all absurdities in geometry problems,
all clumsiness of style, and all faulty connection of ideas . .
. , all such things are due to the fact that thought has
seized upon some idea too hastily,
and being thus prematurely blocked, is not open to . . .
truth," close quote.
To make ourselves feel less vulnerable,
we humans like to define things.
We often grab onto a definition quickly
because having the definition makes
us feel comfortable and safe.
As Weil suggests, the problem with the speed
is that we can reach a wrong conclusion.
I believe this too quickly finding and holding tight
to a potentially false definition
is what leads to some of our greatest sins
against one another, such as bigotry,
which rears its ugly head in every nation
and every political party as we misunderstand
each other's intentions and lash out in response.
Excessive speed can also mean we teach a false principle
in a lesson, or are you on social media in a way
that treats someone unfairly?
On the other hand, not everything
needs to take a long time.
Perfectionism can keep us from ever getting anything done.
Bearing a simple testimony, studying the scriptures
with another person, reaching out in ministry,
these can be part of our process instead of a perfect end.
They can be imperfect.
Prayers can be imperfect.
We can be imperfect.
In fact, in this life, we try to improve,
but we can't help but make mistakes.
We will not be perfect in receiving revelation, either,
because it is a process.
When perfectionism threatens to halt progress,
my husband quotes those wise words attributed to Voltaire,
open quote, "The perfect is the enemy
of the good," close quote.
What he means to say is that perfectionism
can paralyze us and prevent us from accomplishing
the good that can simply result from trying.
I'd like to acknowledge how painful it
can feel when you don't feel adept at receiving
and understanding revelation.
There are valiant souls among us who obey and seek,
who strive to do everything right, yet struggle with this.
That situation can be upsetting.
They can feel unworthy, although they are not,
isolated from God and from other members of the Church.
I have learned that even Mother Teresa,
a devout and tremendous example of service
and spiritual wisdom, felt for long periods
that God was distant.
In one case, she asked someone she
trusted to pray for her that she would
do God's will when she herself couldn't hear God's will.
Open quote, "The silence and the emptiness
is so great, that I look and do not see, listen
and do not hear.
I want you to pray for me--that I let him have a free hand,"
close quote.
So what do we do if we don't feel we receive answers
to our prayers?
Some people I admire deeply fall into this category,
and I have learned from observing them.
First, they recognize that some of us
have an easier time receiving and understanding revelation
than others.
Other gifts come more naturally to them, and the gifts they do
have, they use to serve others.
Next, they acknowledge all the goodness
that comes from Church participation.
They see the beautiful lives and relationships it fosters.
They trust in its goodness.
They continue to serve, pray, fast, and read their scriptures
even when they do not have strong spiritual feelings.
Finally, they are humble.
They remember the moments when they
have felt the influence of divine power, however slight.
Instead of stomping their feet that they don't have more,
they appreciate what they do have.
I also want to add a note of hope here.
When they served in their respective Relief Society
General Presidencies, both Sheri Dew and Julie Beck
taught that revelation is a skill we can develop.
I believe that is true.
I have watched a friend who doesn't believe
that he has the gift of personal revelation,
but generously serves anyway.
I see thoughts come to him with increasing frequency
to act in a particular way.
He has learned to trust those thoughts
even if he can't be sure that they are personal revelation.
He acts in faith and comes closer to God as a result.
His life and those of many others
have been enriched by his willingness to try.
Another friend wrote to me, "I do not experience revelations
as feelings of comfort or certainty," she said,
"and only rarely as insights or answers that come to my mind.
However, I have had vivid experiences
upon meeting particular individuals in which
a strong impression is conveyed to my heart
that I am responsible for offering them love, care,
and fellowship.
Those moments are powerful and the impressions persistent,
and I have come to recognize them as revelations."
These paths I've just described are not my own.
One of the great treasures of my life
is the gift of personal revelation.
Even so, this gift waxes and wanes.
Some weeks, I receive insights to remember and act
on during several of my prayers.
Some weeks, I do not.
Sometimes I receive less because I ask vague questions,
or I fail to listen.
Other times, I don't ask or listen well,
and I receive direction anyway.
And then there are periods when God needs me to work things out
on my own.
In all of these stages, I know that where I fall short,
I can repent, and God will forgive and also compensate
others for my blunders.
I trust that God is the architect of the final picture.
As my friend Darl Huell says, "These are only battles.
God's already won the war."
By virtue of our membership in Relief Society,
we are called to instruct, inspire, and heal.
How could God not want to communicate with us when
God needs us to do this work?
Not all of us have the skills to easily understand revelation,
but I believe even those of us who
struggle with personal revelation
can grow closer to God in the process of doing good work.
Now, let's spend some time on the relationship of revelation
to the gathering of Israel.
President Nelson has been encouraging the youth and us
to participate in the gathering of Israel.
To my mind, the gathering of Israel
means a blessing for the whole world,
as well as for Church members and potential Church members.
Early members of Relief Society believed
that when, in the name of God, Joseph Smith turned the key
to women, he made possible things like the Seneca Falls
Convention, which was the first Women's Rights convention
in the United States.
They believed when he turned that key and promised quote,
"And this Society shall rejoice and knowledge and intelligence
shall flow down from this time--this is the beginning
of better days," unquote, that conditions would improve
for women throughout the world not only for themselves.
When I first learned they believed
that, I thought it was quaint and sweet,
but as I've grown in understanding,
I've come to agree with them.
In a similar way, I believe that the better we become as Saints,
the more we can bless people outside of our Church,
as well as those within, and we can be open to things,
the good things people outside of the Church have to teach us.
Passages written by the Book of Mormon prophet Nephi
have helped me to imagine more about what
the gathering of Israel looks like.
Nephi describes this time from the perspective of mortals,
open quote, "He gathereth his children from the four
quarters of the earth; and he numbereth his sheep,
and they know him; and there shall
be one fold and one shepherd; and he shall feed his sheep,
and in him they shall find pasture," close quote.
I love the image here of all of us
from every part of the earth finding pasture together
under one perfect, all loving shepherd.
There is a pasture I love which I visit every summer.
Horses and cows graze there and deer.
The sky, mountains, meadow, trees, and streams
are beautiful.
The air is clear.
The animals have all that they need, and they are safe there.
To have all of us in a safe and beautiful place where we are
known, seen, and cared for--I want to be in that place.
And I want to help others find it.
Revelation is crucial to the gathering of Israel.
Seeking God's will both as it comes through our leaders
and to us individually is the way
we can find pasture and help others to do so as well.
Building bridges with people from countries outside the one
I was born in, especially, but not exclusively when
I was a missionary in Russia, has
been one of the most meaningful experiences of my life.
Watching God's love, through the Holy Ghost,
transcend linguistic and cultural barriers
fills me with hope.
That miracle makes me think that every good thing is possible.
It strengthens my faith in Nephi's words
that come just a few verses later than those I already
read where he foresees that for those people who repent,
"all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people shall dwell safely
in the Holy One of Israel."
I long to see all of us dwell safely
in the Holy One of Israel, and that promise
motivates me to pursue revelation
so I can contribute to this process and help more of us
to the pasture of Jesus.
In some ways, the way we tell history
has misled us about how revelation works.
There was a long period in American history
where we came to think of useful history
as that history that gave us people to venerate.
We learned to tell histories that
only included the admirable.
This affected the way we often told Church histories as well.
We made it tidier, the people simpler and easier
to understand than they really were.
The records themselves can be untidy.
We at the Church History department
are trying to tell stories of real people
in all their complexity and acknowledge the moments when
things did not go perfectly.
In doing so, we are recovering a more whole understanding
of past events.
Some people welcome this shift.
For others, it creates painful challenges.
Despite the pain of this transition,
which I feel sorry about, I believe
it is the right thing to do.
Only a few hours after the Church was organized,
God commanded us to keep a record.
God didn't tell Church leaders only
to record the easy times or members' actions that
were clearly 100% correct.
Since humans are involved in history,
that would have made for a short record.
I find Church history inspiring because I
see the love of God in it over and over,
and I also see people who have the love of God in them
and people who are resourceful.
Church history puts real stories in my heart,
like the story of my great great great great grandmother,
whose husband left her repeatedly and then, finally,
for good, but who raised children across the plains
and served as chair of the Female Council of Health
in early Utah history, where she shared
a recipe for medicine that had come to her through a vision.
Church history includes the story
of her descendant, my dad, who made
good choices and bad choices.
Instead of giving in entirely to bad choices
at times when they were adding up, part of him
kept trying to make good choices.
He made awkward phone calls to me once or twice a year.
His priesthood and temple privileges
were restored around the time of his death.
The flame of my own courage is strengthened
when I think of the courage it took
for him to pursue those reinstatements
and to place those phone calls to the daughter he
had abandoned when she was six weeks old.
For all of the mistakes he made, I
feel to honor him for the hard things that he did right.
His is not a tidy story, but in addition to forewarning me,
it does also inspire me.
Adopting a view of revelation as a process
requires patience and hope.
By definition, hope is something we have despite negative past
experience or evidence that points to the contrary.
Hope is something we choose.
When you feel acutely one of the world's problems,
you can spend all of your energy in anger and criticism,
or you can study, pray, and choose
to hope in the solution that comes,
your role as part of the solution.
Criticism is vital to good thinking,
but I believe we must balance it with hope
and with positive action.
We can hold that hope out in front of us to light our way
and to light the way of others.
This image has been meaningful to me for a long time.
When I was in the missionary training center,
my friend Laura cut it out of a catalog,
mounted it on foam core, and mailed it to me.
I took it with me everywhere.
A year or two after I returned, my friend Emily
found a larger version and asked her artist husband
to frame it for me for Christmas.
I have displayed it in my home ever since.
Note all of the things strapped to her body
so that she doesn't drop them.
One of them is a baby.
One of them is a rope.
One of them is a musical instrument.
I wonder whether that candle is the reason she can fly.
Imagine yourselves as this woman.
What is strapped to your body?
To mine is strapped three daughters and a husband,
but they also help me, so maybe we're
all attached to each other by ropes extending out.
I carry along a pen and paper, books, a salad to deliver,
a garden shovel, someone else's baby
because I like to help younger moms,
a list of people to pray for, a vacuum cleaner,
a folder of writing to edit, Esther Akerberry's recipe
for Swedish pancakes.
What, for you, would the flame be that you hold?
For me, that candle is hope and all the things
that make up that hope: the gospel of Jesus Christ,
as restored by Joseph Smith and woven into our Church
institution by every prophet since, Latter-day Saint
women's experiences from the past 200 years, my ancestors,
my friends, and you.
Fire is contagious and others' flames keep mine burning.
We can do substantial good in this world,
not because doing so is simple, but because we
are strong enough to do things that are hard.
Our Heavenly Father is waiting to help us,
to make us stronger.
He needs us to follow through on answers to the questions
He is waiting for us to ask.
He needs us to follow through on answers to the questions
He is waiting for us to ask.
Sisters, we are endowed with godly power.
Let's exercise that power to light this world
with God's love.
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.