It’s impossible to get to every class at BYU Women's Conference, but here are a few inspiring highlights:
1. You can receive revelation every single day.
Seeking and Receiving Personal Revelation
Arla Funk and Suanne Rosenbaum
We are all worthy of and entitled to, the Spirit directing our paths; we just need to learn how to listen. You can receive revelation every single day if you pray for it, look for it, recognize what you are told to do and then do it. Sister Rosenbaum gave five tips on how to better receive personal revelation:
- We all have the “go ahead” as children of God to counsel with Him and receive His guidance, so we should act on it.
- We must talk to God every single day, all day. When we set our focus on the Lord, we change our relationship with Heaven.
- The Spirit has times of speaking loudly. When the Holy Ghost talks to us in a strong voice, we better listen up and follow the directions we receive.
- Sometimes the Spirit seems silent to us. During these times, we must pray to recognize the challenge of silence and ask God what we are to learn from it.
- The Spirit uses a still small voice. The Holy Ghost speaks to us a lot more often than we realize. Learning to recognize and hear the small whisperings of the Spirit will be a blessing in our life.
2. Failure is a teacher and the first step to success.
More Strength to O’ercome (Hymns, no. 131): Dealing with Failure
Barbara Thompson and Mary Ellen Edmunds
Barbara Thompson taught that failure isn’t the actual failure but our refusal to ask for help or learn from the failures in our life. To help us learn from our failures, we should remember:
- Some things just can’t be controlled
- Saying “why me” doesn’t do anyone much good
- Mistakes are not equivalent to failure
- It does little good to blame others for our failure
- To drop our pride and let others help us along the path
- It doesn’t help to compare ourselves to others - we can’t compare our weaknesses to their strengths
- Service, charity and love can always help us
- No matter what, Heavenly Father and the Savior love us always
Mary Ellen Edmunds listed many historical figures that failed and keep trying: Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Vincent Van Gogh and more. Failure is a teacher, and often becomes the first step to success. We can learn from these historical figures and “fail our way to success.”
3. Faith is an avenue for finding answers.
Holding Your Ground: Faith during the Challenges of Mortality
Rosemary Thackeray and John Bytheway
Sometimes we have questions we do not feel we can overcome. We are promised that answers will come, though they may come later than we’d like. Your testimony is a mix of things you know and things you don’t. It isn’t a light switch. We were built to receive the light the gospel brings and we need to share that light with everyone around us. We are all on our own journey of faith, but the adversary is always there trying to get us to let go of our faith. Like baseball players that use pine tar in order to maintain a grip on their bats, we need to use our own “pine tar” to maintain a grip on our faith. If we grip our faith, our faith will grow and answer our questions or give us hope that we will one day receive the answers we seek.
Four “pine tars” that help us hold onto and increase your faith:
- Pray daily. A miracle will occur; you speak to Him and He will answer you.
- Study scriptures daily. Scripture study brings power and knowledge into your life and can bring answers to your heart.
- Regularly attend the temple. There is a power that comes from going to the temple. We are promised if we worship in the temple, we can have angels round about us.
- Listen by the power of the Holy Ghost for the answers you receive for the pleas of your heart and others’ hearts. In this way we will be able to better serve one another.
4. The Lord shows his love and mercy in personal and meaningful ways.
The Lord’s Loving and Merciful Assurance
Shauna Andrus and Janet Rowley
Tender mercies are personal, individualized and timely blessings from the Lord manifested in various ways. “Tender” means considerate, protective and gentle and “mercy” means kindness and compassion; tender mercies are gentle and considerate acts of compassion. These tender mercies can be small or big, but they always remind us of God’s love. Three ways we can recognize God’s tender mercies:
- Allow others to serve us in our times of need.
- Be grateful for his assurances and tender mercies.
- Be humble enough to recognize and receive the mercies of God.
Writer: Jayne Edwards, Whitney Larson, Alexa Hodson
