Farewell Sister Connery

Good morning brothers and sisters, my name is Grace Connery and I am leaving this week to serve a mission in Barbados. Since you will not hear from or see me for 18 months I was asked to speak on the topic of becoming more unified in serving Christ and Heavenly Father. When I began researching for this topic, I immediately looked up the definition of unity which is the state of being united or joined as a whole. In the last General Conference Sister Aburto gave a talk entitled “With One Accord” in which she speaks of unity and how in order for us to reach our sublime destiny we need to be united as friends, family, church members, and beyond. She used the example of the monarch butterflies and their migration habits to begin her explanation of unity. She explained that butterflies migrate south for the winter and north for the summer. These beautiful butterflies are each uniquely and artfully made by the Creator and when they are all gathered together they are called a kaleidoscope and when they stop their migration at night they do just what their name suggests and create a beautiful kaleidoscope to help stay together and to help ward off predators. We also can be like these butterflies and work together to make the world a more beautiful and fruitful place while serving Jesus Christ and our heavenly Father. 

Being unified is so incredibly important. Sister Aburto said, “As we work in unity, our purpose should be to look for and do the Lord’s will; our incentive should be the love we feel for God and for our neighbor; and our greatest desire should be to “labor diligently”, so we can prepare the way for the glorious return of our Savior”. Why would we not want to serve the Lord who has blessed us so abundantly and given us so many opportunities to come home to Him one day. He sacrificed His Only Begotten Son so that we could come and do His work, so why would we want to do anything but unify ourselves in His name? At the end of the Book of Mormon, the Nephites and Lamanites are in the most depraved state of the entire 1000 year history of this people. So great are their sins that even their cries to the Lord are merely the lamantations of condemned souls. Despite this, as recorded in Moroni 9:6 Mormon is giving direction and wisdom to his son Moroni and we read, “And now, my beloved son, notwithstanding their hardness, let us labor diligently; for if we should cease to labor, we should be brought under condemnation; for we have a labor to perform whilst in this tabernacle of clay, that we may conquer the enemy of all righteousness, and rest our souls in the kingdom of God.” If it was still incumbent upon Mormon and his son to try to labor in love and unity among such difficult circumstances, how much more should we also labor diligently and when we perform this labor in a unified manner we following the directives given to us by Heavenly Father. 

We have been given numerous examples of unity in our religion, the ultimate example being the unity between Jesus Christ and His Father. Together they created the world we live in and every other thing around us each and every day. As Sister Aburto says, “they are one in purpose, in love, and in works, with “the will of the Son being swallowed up in the will of the Father”. This outpouring of unity that they have together is something that we can emulate in our own lives. Today there are almost 70,000 missionaries preaching the gospel to help aid all of Heavenly Father’s children to return to Him through the divine plan which Jesus Christ has set up and sacrificed for us. We can be like these 70,000 missionaries by following the counsel of our prophet and by ministering to all of those around us. The doctrine of ministering is such an important way for all of us to unite together and further the work of the Lord in our day. Ministering is about more than just doing what you are supposed to, it is about going above and beyond and becoming unified as a ward, as church members, and simply just as human beings. This is of so much importance to the Lord, that through His prophets, He has completely transformed the Church’s ministering efforts within each Ward around the world. He has given us such an opportunity to expand our capacity for love as we minister to all. We can also create more unity by humbling ourselves before the Lord. When we humble ourselves, we are understanding that the things the world tells us are important such as status, gender, race, and wealth do not matter. We need to be humble in order to be unified when you are focused on things of the Lord there is no room for error. Elder Quentin L Cook said, “In the Lord’s Church, the only culture we adhere to and teach is the culture of the gospel of Jesus Christ”.

We all love the Stripling Warriors in the Book of Mormon. So much so that even our little children sing songs of their greatness thousands of years after their time! We’re even singing about them in this very meeting! They are a prime example of unity. They were unified in their families and their desire to enable their fathers to keep their promise with the Lord of never picking up weapons and shedding blood again. They were unified in their decision to help the Nephites and to keep them out of bondage to the Lamanites. And most importantly they were unified in their love for the Lord. They had such incredible faith that even though they were young and inexperienced, if they did as their mothers taught them and did not doubt, then God would deliver them, and as the story comes to an end God has delivered them and not a single one of them had been slain in the battles. The Stripling Warriors showed amazing faith, love, and unity to all those around them and especially to the Lord through this example.  

The Battle of Jericho is another scriptural example of unity within a group. They were given specific instructions on how to defeat the city of Jericho and take down the protective wall surrounding the city. Instruction in Joshua 6:5 says that, “all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall ascend up every man straight before him”. The scripture clearly states that all of the people should shout, not just some of them or whoever felt like it, but that all of the people needed to unify together and shout in order for the instructions to work and for them to ultimately win the Battle of Jericho. The people had such great faith and were so unified in their purpose that they completed the instruction given to them by the Lord through Joshua, and eventually came out victorious.

When my dad passed away my family experienced amazing unity. Not just within our own family, but also with this amazing ward that we live in and with our Heavenly Father. Immediately after my dad passed we had an incredible outpouring of love from the members of this ward, and could feel the love that each of you had for us, even those of you who didn’t know us very well were so willing to show love and service to us in our time of need. For me this occasion reiterates the principle in Matthew 18:20 which says, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them”. As you all came to support us you were showing amazing Christ-like love and the Spirit of the Lord was evident at all times. And as we have learned, unity does not end, because we as a family are still feeling it and reaping the benefits even today. Going through hardships, no matter what they are, gives you the opportunity that you may need to strengthen your relationship with your Heavenly Father. Personally, being able to lean on my Heavenly Father during the biggest hardship of my life was also the biggest blessing that I could have received. I needed the constant companionship of the Lord in the most significant ways and through the pain that I felt I was able to grow closer to Him and feel united with Him in all aspects of my life more than ever. As a family we would not be where we are today and would not be on the paths that we are on had it not been for the unity that we felt with each other, with our ward, and with the Savior.

Unity will be a vital factor as I serve my mission. As my companions and I work together in praying, seeking out people, growing in the gospel, and so much more we will need to have a constant unity with one another so that we can both be in tune with the Spirit and follow promptings that we may receive. As companions we will need to have unity with the ward members in our area, so that we can help them and so that they in turn can help us to further the work of the Lord. And like I have said previously, unity with the Lord will be the most important unity that we will experience. You cannot expect to the Lord’s work if you are not unified with Him. Just like Jesus Christ and the Lord are unified in purpose, love, and works, we too as members and missionaries need to be unified in this same way in order to be effective and gracious. As it says in Doctrine and Covenants 38:27, “…be one; and if ye are not one, ye are not mine”. We should all be striving to be unified so that when the time comes we will be able to say that we are one and we are His.

It is our time to stand together and help further the work of the Lord in all aspects. We need to serve and love all of those around us in their varying capacities because that is what the Savior would do, and should be constantly striving to be like Him. 1 Peter 2:9-10 says, “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of into his marvelous light: Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy”. We are these people and with a heightened sense of unity and love, we will feel that we are just as the scripture says a chosen generation which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God. 

Set apart on June 24, 2018