Sandee sent me an article from the "Meridian Magazine" that got me to thinking....Who has ever gone on a "treasure hunt" or even a "
scavenger hunt"?????...Perhaps, all of us...at some time in our lives...Well...we are going to participate in a "treasure hunt" on this BLOG...We are going to SEEK the "Pearls of Great Price"...that were given in this last Conference...I am going to PASTE the article Sandee sent to me....to help illustrate what I mean....
A Command Voice By Janet Peterson
Not long after President Gordon B. Hinckley became the fifteenth President of the Church in March 1995, my husband, Larry, and I were discussing the messages we remembered as the highlights of recent prophets' administrations. I commented, “President Kimball told us to lengthen our stride and to increase missionary work, to keep journals, and to plant gardens. President Benson exhorted us to read the Book of Mormon. President Hunter urged us to attend the temple and to become more Christlike. These aren't revolutionary ideas. As members of the Church we all know that we should be engaged in these endeavors. Why do we have to wait to be told?”
My husband's reply was, “You always need someone to call cadence.”
Fifteen months after Larry and I were married, we found our lives and our dreams dramatically changed by the VietNam War. Ten days after our graduation from BYU, which ended Larry's student deferment, he was inducted into the army as a Private E-1 at Ft. Ord , California . We felt that his army experience would be enhanced by serving as an officer and, so although it added one more year to his commitment, following basic training Larry entered Officer Candidate School at Ft. Benning , Georgia . OCS was a very rigorous, difficult training program designed to make army officers out of inexperienced young men.
All the members of Larry's OCS class were college graduates, and although the class started out with a large number, many of these men dropped out or were weeded out during the six-month course. Officer candidates were at times washed out over some seemingly arbitrary rules, such as not having fatigues starched stiff enough or not having the tile floors shined mirror bright. But there was one non-negotiable and overriding ability that each potential officer had to possess and if he did not, he was history---that ability was having a command voice.
Each officer candidate took a turn leading the troops on the parade ground or out in the field. Those who could call cadence, who had a command voice to direct the other candidates, were allowed to stay in the program and eventually become lieutenants. Those who did not, were immediately reassigned to other tours of duty, often immediately to the war zone.
One officer candidate I particularly remember was a returned missionary, a college graduate, a very nice person, and a committed Church member. But when it was his turn to take command, he did not have a forceful enough demeanor to be the kind of the leader the army wanted. His voice was weak, he got the commands mixed up, and the troops he was trying to lead were without proper direction. On a field at the army post in Georgia , it was only an exercise. But in the jungles of VietNam , calling cadence with a command voice and being an effective leader was a matter of life and death.
As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we have someone with a command voice who calls cadence for us. What the prophet tells us to do is not a mere exercise for us to practice on the parade grounds of life. What the Lord's mouthpiece instructs us to do is a matter of life and death---spiritually. The prophet does indeed speak for the Lord: “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7).
While President Spencer W. Kimball served as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, he suffered from cancer of the throat and had most of his voice box removed, which changed the sound of his voice dramatically. Nevertheless, during the twelve years that he served as President of the Church and the prophet of the Lord, President Kimball, with his soft, strained, yet compelling manner, spoke with a command voice.
Each prophet in this dispensation has spoken with a command voice in giving clear and specific instructions to the Saints. Each prophet's commission to speak for the Lord did not come through a mere six-month training course, but rather through a lifetime of faith and obedience and hearkening to the voice of the Spirit. For example, Brigham Young directed the Saints in the great exodus from Nauvoo and in colonizing the Intermountain West. President Heber J. Grant emphasized the principles of work, self-reliance, and financial security. President David O. McKay stressed “Every member a missionary” and that “No other success can compensate for failure in the home.” Reinstituting family home evening, he urged parents to spend more time with their children and to teach them the gospel. President Ezra Taft Benson told mothers their place was in the home, not in the marketplace.
President Gordon B. Hinckley, who served as a counselor in the First Presidency for a number of years and then as prophet, seer, and revelator and President of the Church from 1995 to 2008, spoke with a command voice and called cadence for us. He told us, among other things, to “be a little better, to stand a little taller,” to be friendly and neighborly and the kind of people Latter-day Saints ought to be. He taught us to nurture new converts. In mid-2005, President Hinckley asked us to read the Book of Mormon in its entirety by the end of the year, the 200 th anniversary of the Prophet Joseph Smith's birth. Saints throughout the world followed his counsel. More people than ever before read the Book of Mormon and were significantly strengthened as individuals and families as they did so.
President Thomas S. Monson, who was ordained as prophet in February 2008, likewise speaks the mind and will of the Lord. What a privilege it was to hear his inspired instruction at the just-concluded April 2009 general conference. President Monson told us to focus on our blessings as members of the Church, not on our problems. He assured us that in this time of difficult challenges the Church is “doing very well” and that the Lord's work will “move forward uninterrupted.” He also instructed the priesthood holders to live worthy of that responsibility and to live by faith, not fear. In his closing remarks, President Monson warned against inappropriate, degrading uses of modern technology. He admonished Church members to attend the temple frequently and to nourish our testimonies.
We sustain President Monson as the prophet, seer, and revelator and President of the Church, but we also sustain the counselors in the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as prophets, seers and revelators. The other General Authorities and general auxiliary leaders speak by divine direction as well. “And whatsoever they shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost shall be scripture, shall be the will of the Lord, shall be the mind of the Lord, shall be the word of the Lord, shall be the voice of the Lord, and the power of God unto salvation” (D&C 68:4).
In today's world of waning moral values and confused direction from myriad sources, we do not have to wonder what is expected of us and whose clear and specific guidance we should follow. “For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?” (1 Cor. 14:8.) There is no doubt about the certainty of this sound. However, the prophet does not order us as an army officer orders his troops to follow him into battle. Yet we are engaged in an ever-increasing battle against Satan. Are we listening? Are we following our file leader? Are we willing to accept the prophet's counsel to us and implement it in our lives? Indeed, we do thank God for a prophet in these latter days who calls cadence for us: “What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same” (D&C 1:38).
