Relief Society · Elders Quorum · 25 minutes
Elder Alan R. Walker · Of the Seventy · Sunday Morning Session
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Because God sees us as His peculiar treasure, obeying His voice and keeping our covenants is how we receive His power, acceptance, and blessings.
Skip rehearsing the full list of three blessings from President Christofferson, trust the class discussion to surface them naturally, or name them only in the closing invitation.
Before Sunday
Sunday we're talking about something Elder Walker said might surprise you
This Sunday we're studying a talk by Elder Alan R. Walker called 'A Peculiar Treasure.' He shares a surprising truth from scripture: God describes His covenant people as His treasure. As you think about that before Sunday, consider what covenants you have made and what keeping them has cost you, and what it has given you. Ponder question: When have you felt that keeping a covenant, even when it was hard, brought you closer to the Lord?
Pick one opening
Think of something you genuinely treasure, not just something valuable, but something you would hate to lose. What makes it a treasure to you? (Let 2-3 people respond briefly.) Elder Walker's talk opens with a surprising idea: that God uses that same word, treasure, to describe us. We're going to talk about what that means today.
Think of something you genuinely treasure, not just something valuable, but something you would hate to lose. What makes it a treasure to you? (Let 2-3 people respond briefly.) Elder Walker's talk opens with a surprising idea: that God uses that same word, treasure, to describe us. We're going to talk about what that means today.
When Elder Walker was a boy, he and his brothers would visit their grandparents near the Andes Mountains in Argentina. They'd spend hours searching the fields for shiny rocks, cracking them open, hoping to find something precious inside. They never did. Years later, reading the scriptures, he discovered something that surprised him: while the scriptures warn us constantly not to treasure up riches, God Himself calls His covenant people His treasure. That discovery shapes everything in his talk.
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At Mount Sinai, the Lord told Moses that His people would be a peculiar, or special, treasure if they did two things: obey His voice and keep their covenants with Him. Elder Walker is careful to say the Lord does not demand perfection right away. He asks for honest and broken hearts, humble spirits, and a willing readiness to sacrifice, not a flawless record. That is an invitation any of us can accept today.
Elder Walker, quoting modern revelation: 'All among them who know their hearts are honest, and are broken, and their spirits contrite, and are willing to observe their covenants by sacrifice … they are accepted of me.'
Ask the class
If time remains
Elder Walker teaches that keeping covenants does more than mark us as God's people; it gives us actual power to rise above trials. Drawing on President Christofferson, he describes a continual stream of blessings that flows into covenant-keeping lives, including the ability to convert tribulation into triumph.
Ask the class
Counsel together
Last 3–5 minutes
This week, identify one specific moment when keeping a covenant will cost you something small, time, comfort, convenience, a habit, and choose it deliberately as an offering to the Lord. Notice how you feel afterward.
Elder Walker promises that as we obey the Savior's voice and keep our covenants, even through small and quiet daily sacrifices, we will feel His love more deeply and receive His guidance more clearly.
Your witness: Share, in your own words, a time when keeping a covenant, even imperfectly, even when it was hard, made you feel that the Lord saw you and was with you.