Caribbean Area Leadership Message
The Next Ordinance for Me
When I was investigating the Church, I remember the missionaries teaching me about the importance of partaking of the sacrament after being baptized. This helped me to remember the covenant I chose to enter. I was baptized on Dec. 6, 1988. I will always remember the Sunday that followed because I was then able to partake of the sacrament. I felt joy, simple and sweet joy, peace, and confidence. I felt that I was completely part of this special meeting. My Sundays became different because of being able to come to the table of the Lord. I felt empowered by the covenant and received the promised Spirit of the Lord to start and handle the coming week.
Thirty-five years have passed since then and I think that I rarely missed a sacrament, always making it a commitment to come to sacrament meeting and partake of this special supper.
I remember my husband sharing an experience he had years ago as he participated in a 20-kilometer running race. Running in a very hot climate, in the middle of the day can be very challenging. The heat is unbearable, your feet, knees and legs ache, you may have injuries and blisters. You may wonder why you engaged in this challenge and wished you could have just stayed home sleeping or doing something fun! You may even want to quit. But why are you here? You came to accomplish a goal, something important to you, to overcome a difficulty and feel the satisfaction, the joy of making it to the finish line. He shared what helped him stay focused and make it to the end. When you have a race like this, you have people posted on the road holding out bottles of water to every participant. Just imagine if you had to run a 20 kilometers without being able to drink along the way? Finishing would be impossible.
But because of this fresh water found all along the way, he was able to reach his goal.
Aren’t our lives like a race? Isn’t this water like the sacrament? How can we make it to the end? Elder Peter M. Johnson of the Seventy said, “Prayerfully partake of the sacrament every week, every week, every week. It is through covenants and priesthood ordinances, including the sacrament, that the power of godliness is manifest in our lives.”
Elder David A. Bednar taught, “The ordinance of the sacrament is a holy and repeated invitation to repent and to be renewed spiritually.”
President Dallin H. Oaks added, “Those who try to walk the straight and narrow path see inviting detours on every hand. We can be distracted, degraded, downhearted, or depressed. How can we have the Spirit of the Lord to guide our choices and keep us on the path?”
In modern revelation the Lord gave the answer in this commandment:
“And that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the world, thou shalt go to the house of prayer and offer up thy sacraments upon my holy day;
“For verily this is a day appointed unto you to rest from your labors, and to pay thy devotions unto the Most High” (Doctrine and Covenants 59:9–10).
This is a commandment with a promise. By participating weekly and appropriately in the ordinance of the sacrament we qualify for the promise that we will “always have his Spirit to be with [us]” (Doctrine and Covenants 20:77). That Spirit is the foundation of our testimony. It testifies of the Father and the Son, brings all things to our remembrance, and leads us into truth. It is the compass to guide us on our path. This gift of the Holy Ghost, President Wilford Woodruff (1807–1898) taught, “is the greatest gift that can be bestowed upon man.”
Whosoever wants to stay on the covenant path must partake of the sacrament regularly. It is the next ordinance for every one of us. Each week we can come to the table of the Lord and partake of the bread and water He has provided to us through His servants. He provided a Sabbath day for us to rest from our labor, a sacrament meeting where we can come and be nourished by the good words of God and the sacrament to always remember Him and have His Spirit to be with us, and He invites us week after week to receive this strength and bless our lives. He said in 3 Nephi 9:14, “Yea, verily I say unto you, if ye will come unto me ye shall have eternal life. Behold, mine arm of mercy is extended towards you, and whosoever will come, him will I receive; and blessed are those who come to me.”
What do you do when you eat something that you really like? Well, you have two choices, you can keep it to yourself, or you can share it with, at least, your loved ones. What did Lehi do when he went to the tree of life? He said, “And it came to pass that I did go forth and partake of the fruit thereof; and I beheld that it was most sweet, above all that I ever before tasted. Yea, and I beheld that the fruit thereof was white, to exceed all the whiteness that I had ever seen.
“And as I partook of the fruit thereof it filled my soul with exceedingly great joy; wherefore, I began to be desirous that my family should partake of it also; for I knew that it was desirable above all other fruit” (1 Nephi 8:11–12).
He partook, he felt, and he shared.
May we do likewise. May we come to the Savior to receive the strength to make the necessary changes that need to occur in our lives and that will help us stay on the covenant path. Partaking of the sacrament is the next ordinance for us and others that will bring the blessings of the temple and the power of the priesthood to lead our lives.