Africa

Today I woke up and listened to a conference talk from April of last year.  I had listened twice to all of the talks from the October conference, and thought I'd take a gander at them and pick one to hear a third time.  When nothing stood out to me, I went back to the April 2016 conference, and almost immediately clicked on the talk entitled, "I am a Child of God" by a member of the presidency of the seventy whose name escapes me at the moment.  It is an amazing talk.  Great speaker, and great message.  He speaks at the end about being in a huge conference in Liberia, right after the Ebola outbreak ended and they finally let westerners back into the country.  There were 4300 people at this conference and most of them had walked long distances to be there.  It was a hot and humid day, and they arrived hours early most of them, in anticipation of the event.  They wanted to be there to hear an apostle of the Lord.  During the conference when any speaker read a scripture, they all recited the scripture aloud, from memory.  Then when Elder Bednar, the anticipated speaker got up to speak last, the mood became even more, "electric".

He spoke and they were silently listening, except when they quoted a scripture with him.  And then he asked them, "Do you know the hymn 'How Firm a Foundation'?

4300 voices said, "Yes!"

"Do you know verses 1, 2, 3, and 7?"

"Yes!"

They began to sing-- powerfully and beautifully and with all their hearts.  Verse seven is especially powerful.

"That soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,
I will not, I cannot desert to his foes.
That soul, though all hell has endeavored to break,
I'll never, no never,
I'll never, no never,
I'll never, no never, no never forsake."

He concludes by saying that in terms of material goods, these saints had very little, but spiritually they seemed to have it all.  I left by bed yesterday morning (I'd been listening in bed), deciding to try and be more like an African mother.  The speaker mentioned the way that we get distracted by material things.  I wore my African bracelet and felt determined to not be distracted.

And I don't even remember what distracted me first, but I had forgotten my desires to be like an African mother by the time James was dropped off at home.  I did not remember until this morning when Ryan told me about his African experience yesterday...