Religious - Conference Thoughts - Part 1

Perhaps because of my latent ADHD, I have never really been able to distinguish different talks at conference. They all seem to run together. I have always been jealous at people who talk about what So and So said and this General Authority said. My mind has never compartmentalized Conference like that. However, the talk by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland has stood out to me as one of the greatest talks I have ever heard at conference.

What made it great was its fearlessness and power. It is not very often you run into things that change you. This talk changed people, it caused you to take an opinion whether it be negative or positive. You could not sit there and just say, "Meh, it was a nice talk" when he was done. You were stirred by the power of his words either to your enlightenment and the strengthening of your testimony, or you fell farther away. O that one day I could speak with that power to the convictions of my soul. I was profoundly moved and my testimony of the Book of Mormon was strengthened. Perhaps what made this more poignant for me, was that I had become familiar over that last several months with some of the detracting voices. To quote:

"If anyone is foolish enough or misled enough to reject 531 pages of a heretofore unknown text teeming with literary and Semitic complexity without honestly attempting to account for the origin of those pages—especially without accounting for their powerful witness of Jesus Christ and the profound spiritual impact that witness has had on what is now tens of millions of readers—if that is the case, then such a person, elect or otherwise, has been deceived"

That is really the case. No detractor has ever been able to prove their point by showing conclusively where else the book came from. While they produced some plausible stories, playing on holes in the known history, none have ever been able to show that the book came from anywhere else but God. It's power has touched the lived of millions.

I will remember this talk always because of the testimony which it bore by a prophet of God. Surely none else could speak with such divine power declaring the word of God.