Layne's Lunch

After re-reading President Monson’s April 2017 conference talk titled “ Kindness, Charity, and Love ” I have been thinking about why he would choose this subject as one of his final talks to the people of the Church.  It is not a new topic for him, but considering that he has spoken on a variety of topics as a prophet, why would he choose this one as his final 5 minutes standing before the priesthood?  During that talk he quoted both Moroni 7:44-47 and D&C 121:42-44.   41 No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by  persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; 42 By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile— This scripture contains the key virtues of priesthood service, namely, persuasion, patience, gentleness, meekness, love, and kindness. As I thought about these virtues, I remembered that Elder Renlund gave an incredible ta

Recently I had an experience that caused me to reflect on this idea of unanimity, presiding, and counseling together.   As I searched the scriptures and conference talks related to this topic I came up with several quotes.  These quotes are below, followed by some of my own thoughts.      "It is possible to rise to the lofty standard set by the Lord for priesthood holders in making decisions in quorums. It is possible when there is great faith and love and the absence of contention. Here is the Lord’s requirement for His endorsement of our decisions: And every decision made by either of these quorums must be by the unanimous voice of the same; that is, every member in each quorum must be agreed to its decisions, in order to make their decisions of the same power or validity one with the other-- D&C 107:27” (Henry B. Eyring, “Learning in the Priesthood”, April 2011 LDS General Conference) This idea of unanimity in counsels intrigues me.  How does counseling together until u

Goodreads is a great web site for me to select good books to read and to track my reading.  Each year they have a reading challenge.  Members of the site are encouraged to set a reading goal for the year and post that goal on the site.  I participated in 2016.  At the end of the year I noticed that the percentage of those who finish their goal is very small.  Here is the site and the statistics.   https://www.goodreads.com/challenges/3890-2016-reading-challenge You will notice that only about 1% of the people completed the challenge that they set for themselves.  So, do we say that 99% of the people failed?   I don’t think so.  If you look, there were nearly 40 million books read.  3 million people read 40 million books last year.  This is fantastic!  I wouldn’t call anyone a failure that set a goal, read some books, and came up short of their goal.  The real failure would have been not starting at all.  Perhaps the average goal of reading 46 books in a year is much too high.

As I read D&C 133:57-59, I asked my self what it means when it says that "two shall put their tens of thousands to flight"  57 And for this cause, that men might be made partakers of the glories which were to be revealed, the Lord sent forth the fulness of his gospel, his everlasting covenant, reasoning in plainness and simplicity—  58 To prepare the weak for those things which are coming on the earth, and for the Lord’s errand in the day when the weak shall confound the wise, and the little one become a strong nation, and two shall put their tens of thousands to flight.  59 And by the weak things of the earth the Lord shall thresh the nations by the power of his Spirit. What does this passage of scripture refer to?  Is this a specific event or a description of the Lord's support of his children in the latter-days?  What can I learn from this?  As I thought about these question I remembered a phrase from 2 Kings 6:16 that there are more that be with us th