Lessons from General Authorities

In the October general conference Elder Oaks gave a talk on Good, Better, Best. This week in church the talks and lessons focused on this topic. We had Elder Hallstrom from the Asia area 70's speak in our branch. After sacrament meeting he went to priesthood and Bret said he told a really great story about Elder Oak's talk during conference that not a lot of people know. He said that Elder Oaks didn't get to give two paragraphs of his talk in conference because he was short on time. These two paragraphs were not published in the Ensign and Elder Hallstrom was curious to know what Elder Oaks was going to add to his already great talk, so he asked him. Here is what Elder Oaks said.

"It is good for a man to be moral and try to follow Christ and if he does so he will be rewarded with a place in the Terrestrial Kingdom. It is better for a man to make covenants with God and live to be like Christ and he will be rewarded with a place in the Celestial Kingdom. It is BEST for a man to be sealed to his companion in the temple of God and that man will be rewarded with Eternal Life."

When Bret told this to me I felt many things come to my heart. I wanted to share with my family how much I really believe this is true. There are so many good things we do, and we find happiness in the good things. But as President Kimball said, we should "lengthen our stride". We should evaluate our lives and determine what it is we are striving to achieve here in mortality. What is the end goal? I have been taught all my life and firmly believe that I want exaltation. I don't want to settle for what is good, or better. I want what is best. And I pray daily for all of my siblings that they will have the same desire so we can all be there together. We are the authors of our life. We choose what we will be and where we are headed. We are responsible for our happiness.

Every day I will try to do a little more to be the best I can be. Some days I don't do so well, but I will pick myself up and start again. Oh boy do I need to pick myself up a lot, but it is in the struggle that we become stronger.