Stake Presidency Message 

The late Jon Huntsman Sr. said: “Life is not a game of Solitaire; people depend on one another. When one does well, others are lifted. When one stumbles, others also are impacted. There are no one-man teams—either by definition or natural law. Success is a cooperative effort; it’s dependent upon those who stand beside you.”

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In the church of Jesus Christ the first covenants we are associated with tether us not only to God but to each other. Vowing at baptism to mourn, to comfort, and to bear burdens with each other (Mosiah 18:8,9). Within these tethering bonds, we are effectively removed from life’s game of solitaire and called up into the game of familial and congregational solidarity. A full-contact sport!

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Now don’t get me wrong, moments of private worship are critically important, but ultimately insufficient to bring us to “the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Eph 4:13). A stature and fullness that John describes with 3 profound words: God is love! (1 John:8) Love is the nucleus of His character, the substance, and essence of His being! It is a love that Moroni called charity and said if we don’t have it we are nothing (Moroni 7:46). It is a love that Christ taught that upon it hangs all the laws and prophets. (Matt 22:40). It is a love devoid of all self-interest, it is a mindset of absolute meekness, it is the capacity to endure all things. (Moroni 7:45) This love isn’t a moment of emotion, it is the very character and nature of Christ!

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And how does an omniscient and omni-loving god school us His children in this type of love? He fastens us together in families and geographic communities of faith. Why? Because the development of this type of love cannot occur in isolation, it requires people! We are each other’s “clinical material” (NA Maxwell), and proximity to people is the enzymatic process we require to develop this character of love. These constant interactions with each other produce some of the most meaningful and joyful relationships of our lives. And to be real, they can also produce some of the most challenging and distressing relationships of our lives.

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As Adam Miller said: “Charity is a willingness to have our lives made difficult by people we did not have to help, objects we did not have to save, thoughts we did not have to think.”

Being perfected in Christ requires proximity to Him, and the way to greater proximity to Him is with each other. We cannot become like Christ without each other, and we cannot survive each other without Christ. The cross of Calvary that bore the body of our savior Jesus Christ in the final moments of His atoning sacrifice also bears the symbolic path for our perfection in Him. Our horizontal tethering to each other, and our vertical tethering to Him is the only way to become like our heavenly parents and obtain eternal life.