I love how the Lord prepares me to learn through questions. This past Monday, we had a family home evening lesson from Preach My Gospel with our neighbors about the first principles and ordinances of the gospel which are faith in Jesus Christ, baptism by immersion for the remission of sins, repentance, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. As I taught and we discussed these principles, I thought about how faith, repentance, accessing the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end are principles we live and work on each day. But baptism isn’t like that. We are baptized only once for ourselves, although we can be baptized by proxy in the temple for our ancestors who have died. I couldn’t figure out how baptism figured into my life continually. That question sat in my mind and heart as something I wondered about but couldn’t understand. Many of my questions take a long time and much study to be answered and many have not been answered, but I feel like in having that question enter my mind and heart, the Lord was preparing me for immediate answers to come.
Some may be thinking that the answer is obvious and wonder why was that even a question for me. But many times even if I know something intellectually or I’ve heard it and learned it many times at church or through gospel lessons, the concept is not written in my heart.
That FHE lesson was on Monday. On Wednesday, I received a text with a link from a friend: Elder Dale G. Renlund’s BYU Speech, Lifelong Conversion. As the saying goes, my mind was blown. The answer is the sacrament. Again, I already knew this, but I didn’t know in the same way as when I listened to this talk and my spirit was taught in a deeper way. Elder Renlund speaks about participating in the principles of the gospel repeatedly and iteratively. Repeatedly is to cycle through the principles on the covenant path over and over and iteratively “means that we change and improve with each cycle.” Each element builds on itself and repeats and the way we repeat baptism is by partaking of the sacrament. To truly change and improve through the ordinance of the sacrament, we have faith in Christ and ask Him what we need to repent of, and then take that sin or fault to the sacrament each Sunday. I’ve also heard over and over that the sacrament is the only ordinance that is repeated for ourselves.
I was not able to partake of the sacrament this Sunday, because we had Stake Conference. The nine wards in our stake met in meetings on Saturday and Sunday to hear from local leaders. My spirit was enlightened even more through the talk of our stake president, President Stephen B. Packer. He spoke on Saturday night about altars. Altars were used for blood sacrifices of animals from the time of Adam to the death of Jesus Christ as a symbol of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. I knew this and I also knew that we now offer a broken heart and a contrite spirit instead of animal sacrifice, and I knew that the sacrament was a symbol of Christ’s sacrifice, the bread for his body and the water for his blood. The deeper understanding came when President Packer reminded us that during this past year when we could not attend church because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we were authorized to have the sacrament in our homes. I remember the first time we had the sacrament in our home after a few weeks of not partaking of the sacrament. At the time we had five young adults plus me, my husband, and my youngest son in our home. Four were men who hold the priesthood and were able to prepare, bless, and pass the sacrament to all of us. I cleaned off our granite countertop in the middle of our kitchen and found two silver serving trays and a white table cloth. My husband and my son, who had recently been ordained to the office of a teacher, spread the white table cloth and prepared bread and water. Then my son-in-law and nephew-in-law broke the bread and blessed the sacrament. I felt so much gratitude for the ordinance of the sacrament, and that I was able to partake of the sacrament in my home. President Packer reminded us that we had prepared an altar within our own homes and that we offer a real personal sacrifice. During the sacrament we put the animal in us on the altar and let it be consumed. Then President Packer asked us to consider what is most sacred to us and what we need to sacrifice.
Today I was taught even more about sacrifice. During our morning session of Stake Conference, Elder Kenneth J. Firmage, a member of the Seventy, asked us to consider what we would sacrifice to be endowed with power. He asked us to plead with the Lord in prayer about how we spend our time, and then to invest in our future and that of our family by sacrificing to attend the temple. He promised that the Lord would bring the miracles we need to receive as we sacrifice.
I have some pondering and pleading to do to figure out what the Lord will accept as an offering in righteousness from me. I am grateful that I was prepared with a question to receive greater light and knowledge this week about the sacrament and sacrifice. I know that by keeping my covenants, I am given the opportunities the Lord knows I need to grow and increase.