Conference Talk of the Week

Overview

Elder Jeremiah J. Morgan grew up in another church that also believes in the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. His single mother read the Book of Mormon aloud to him every day until they finished it. At 14 he began quietly attending Latter-day Saint meetings and gained a testimony that this is the Lord's Church. Later, as he wondered why a young boy would care so much about religion, his wife, Rebecca, gave the answer: covenants. His third-great-grandparents had been baptized by Oliver Cowdery in 1831 and made temple covenants in Nauvoo. Elder Morgan teaches that God's power in covenants does not expire. It reached him generations later, it fulfilled a promise to Enos more than 2,000 years after it was made, and through the Atonement of Jesus Christ it can reach any child or loved one who has wandered.

Three Key Takeaways

• 1No time spent reading the Book of Mormon is wasted. Elder Morgan remembers only two phrases from his mother's daily reading, but because she kept at it he knew the book mattered to her and that she knew it was true. That knowledge later helped him gain his own testimony.
• 2Covenants bless more than the person who makes them. Faithful parents and grandparents do not override their children's agency, but because of their sealings and the promises made to them, God keeps reaching out to their posterity. Elder Morgan's ancestors made those covenants in Nauvoo, and their effect reached him generations later.
• 3God's covenants have no time limit. The Lord promised Enos that his people's descendants would one day receive the fulness of the gospel, and that promise took more than 2,000 years to be fulfilled. The promise in Doctrine and Covenants 2 that children's hearts will turn to their fathers is being fulfilled in the same way today.

Reflection Questions

• Whose covenant faithfulness, in your family or outside it, may have helped bring you to Jesus Christ, and how do you see God's hand in that now?
• Elder Morgan remembers almost none of the words his mother read, but he remembers what the Book of Mormon meant to her. What do the people around you learn from the way you treat the Book of Mormon?
• If you are worried about someone who has wandered, what changes for you when you remember that your covenants keep working even on days you cannot see results?