His Arm Is Sufficient

This entry is part of my general conference application series.

His Arm Is Sufficient, by Barbara Thompson
Second Counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency


My wife's family has a saying that is escalating towards motto-status: "Family is Everything."

I agree.

I love spending time with my little family, and I love that we love being together (that's a lot of loves). As I reviewed Sister Thompson's words, I noticed a paragraph that sums this all up nicely:

Scriptures, family home evening, and family prayer will strengthen families. We need to take every opportunity to strengthen families and support one another to stay on the right path.

These are three things that are a priority in our home, and I think that the love and strength we feel are a result. These benefits aren't limited to our family, though:

No matter what our family looks like, each of us can work to strengthen our own families or help in strengthening others.

As we live life, interacting with others, we can strengthen not just our own family, but others' as well. Sister Thompson relayed an experience where she was strengthened and helped. Her summary touched me and encourages me to live so that such may be said of me and what I do:

They lived their testimony and demonstrated the reality of their covenants.

As a new missionary, we were instructed to memorize the six standard missionary discussions that we shared with those we met with. However, our instruction went one step further. Our mission president, President David M. Brown, taught us that after we understood what was in the discussions, we were to set the booklets aside (perhaps keep them on our lap until we were totally comfortable) and teach our testimonies.

This style of instruction clicked with me. Instead of teaching by rote—a repeated script—we were to teach what we knew, believed, and [ideally] lived. It turns out that it's much easier to share with others and really connect if you are being you, not just repeating words on some page.

I liked that Sister Thompson identified this connection in her example. Those helping her weren't motivated by reward (or fear); they were simply living according who they were—who Christ had helped them to become. Their actions showed the fire of their covenants burning within them.

I want my actions to more fully be in harmony with what I believe, and what I've covenanted to do/be; I want to be perfectly converted.

If I can't be perfect (we often hear people say "you can't be perfect"), I'll settle for being perfectly converted. (... but, is there really a difference?)