Farewell Talk

August 20,2017

Hello everyone for those that don’t know me, my name is Adam Roberts and I have been called to the Quezon city Philippines mission but I don’t leave for another 10 days so anyone who doesn’t know me and is down to send me packages with tasty food we still have time to hangout. Like I said I have been called to the Quezon City mission I will be speaking Tagalog which before I opened my papers I didn’t even know was a language so… yeah pray for me. In all seriousness, I am so excited to serve the people of the Philippines and share the gospel with our Filipino brothers and sisters.

Today I was asked to speak on the talk “A Sin-resistant generation” given at this last general conference by Joy D. Jones. I honestly wasn’t pumped for giving this talk because after listening to the talk I knew I couldn’t do such a great talk justice but I will do my best. In this talk Sister Jones outlines the things we can do to raise a sin resistant generation and would like to share these things with you.

“Fortifying children to become sin-resistant is a task and a blessing for parents, grandparents, family members, teachers, and leaders. We each bear responsibility to help. However, the Lord has specifically instructed parents to teach their children “to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost” and “to pray, and to walk uprightly before the Lord.”

I found it interesting the first thing mentioned is repentance. One of my best friends who has already left was super into climbing and because he liked climbing I would go climbing with him quite a bit. Always the first thing we would check before we would even touch the cliff was that our harnesses, knots, and belay devices were ready to use because we both knew no matter how good either of us were at climbing or how easy the climb was there was always a chance that we could mess up and there was potential of us falling. Teaching repentance first is the same concept. we know no one is perfect so it only makes sense to teach repentance first, so once we sin we are able to quickly recover from the sin and continue with the climb without suffering the consequences of the fall which could sometimes be spiritually fatal.

The second doctrine she mentions is faith in Christ. I feel like sometimes we hear faith and we feel like we don’t measure up. We always think of all the people who seem to have more faith than us. Well I think faith is like a muscle. I know exactly what you are all thinking what could this scrawny kid possibly know about muscles? Not a lot obviously but I know what it’s like to go to gyms and see all the people who clearly spend a lot more time there and I always get the same feeling of wow I clearly can’t be here I am not nearly big enough once I get bigger then I will work out. Clearly that logic doesn’t make sense but why is it that when we think our faith isn’t strong enough or we begin to doubt what we know we turn away from the church and the scriptures? Clearly teaching our children to have faith and how to gain faith and keep their faith strong is central to keeping them in the church.

The third doctrine is baptism. But why is baptism necessary? DC:20:37 this says that baptism is not only a way to be cleansed of our sins but also to show our determination to keeping the Lord’s commandments. It is a covenant that we will bear his name and do as he would do. Teaching this to children before and after baptism can help them to honor this covenant and help them to prepare for it.

The fourth doctrine is prayer. To go back to my story about climbing I am not the best climber so going climbing with my friend who was a huge climbing enthusiast meant I knew quite a bit less about climbing than he did. Often, I would meet parts of climbs that were difficult or confusing and decide to figure it out on my own and not ask for help this would often end in me exhausting myself going a far more difficult way or even end in me falling. All these times I could have avoided both of those unfavorable outcomes by merely asking for advice from someone who knows what they are doing.

Similarly, we often meet difficult or confusing times in our lives and decide to rely on our own knowledge instead of the knowledge of an all knowing and all-powerful God who loves us and wants what’s best for us which often ends with us making things far more complicated then they need be or making a poor choice which could end poorly for us. So by teaching children to talk to their Heavenly Father we teach them to look to the only one who can truly provide the perfect guidance for life.

The last doctrine is walking uprightly before God. To me this does not mean we don’t ever sin or we never stray away. Instead this means when we do make mistakes we don’t let our pride get in the way of repentance and instead we confess our sins, forsake them, and move on to continue the Lord’s work. Ultimately to me walking uprightly before god means doing your best no matter the circumstances and continuing to strive to be better.

When I was first assigned this talk I jokingly said to my mom “They know I’m 18 and haven’t raised a family right?” to which my mom replied “Yes but you are one of the sin resistant generation.” I am unsure if this is true but I do know I was raised in a sin resistant environment one that focused on the gospel of Jesus Christ so I’d like to take this time now to say thank you to the countless people responsible for the favorable circumstances which I was raised in.

1.      Mom

2.      Dad

3.      Grandparents

4.      Siblings

5.      Ward members

6.      Friends

   

People who helped me have a sin resistant environment! Thanks!