Your Potential, Your Privilege

This entry is part of my general conference application series.

Your Potential, Your Privilege, by Dieter F. Uchtdorf
Second Counselor in the First Presidency


Our new home is beautiful and comfortable. It is an older home in an established neighborhood with tall trees and nice neighbors.

Here is our living room

But it is old. There are things that are wearing out and need to be replaced. This recent Labor Day Weekend, I spent an afternoon adding light kits to ceiling fans and replacing old dimmer switches with rocker panel switches. In addition, I'm systematically going around the house taking out old light switches and wall outlets that are discolored and worn and replacing them with new, white ones. It's a small thing, but it makes a difference!

You can say that I've been thinking of switches a lot lately. In fact, I have a growing list of household chores that I'm attending to, and the list is on my smart phone. Imagine how close to home the following words of President Uchtdorf hit for me:

Too often we attend meetings and nod our heads; we might even smile knowingly and agree. We jot down some action points, and we may say to ourselves, “That is something I will do.” But somewhere between the hearing, the writing of a reminder on our smartphone, and the actual doing, our “do it” switch gets rotated to the “later” position. Brethren, let’s make sure to set our “do it” switch always to the “now” position!

With all my home improvement goals and lists--which I'm dutifully pursuing--have I been neglecting more important items? Have I moved my personal switch of priesthood responsibilities from "Now!" to the "Later" position?


If this is the case, I'm probably like President Uchtdorf described:

When asked about the priesthood, many of us can recite a correct definition, but in our daily lives, there may be little evidence that our understanding goes beyond the level of a rehearsed script.

How can I be sure my switch is in the right position? In the talk given just before President Uchtdorf's, Elder Gibson encouraged us to "go to the scriptures and discover for ourselves what our duties are." In this talk, President Uchtdorf coincidentally gave a list of scriptures to read! This list includes the following sections from the Doctrine and Covenants:

• 20 - outline of duties and responsibilities (link)
  
• 84 - includes the Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood (link)
  
• 107 - a great revelation on the priesthood (link)
  
• 121 - has the powerful instruction on priesthood and why "many are called but few are chosen" (link)
  

President Uchtdorf testified:

The more we study the purpose, potential, and practical use of the priesthood, the more we will be amazed by its power, and the Spirit will teach us how to access and use that power to bless our families, our communities, and the Church.

While I'm having a great time replacing light switches around the house, I need to remember to mind other switches and make sure the priesthood responsibilities "Do It Switch" is in the "Now!" position.

As with placing new, white switches: It's a small thing, but it makes a difference!