True Friends

This post may take up to ten minutes or longer to read. I would like to ask you the following two questions and encourage you to answer those questions in your own
time. "What is your definition on true friends?" and "Do you choose friends wisely?"

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This post is based on a April 2002 General Conference talk and it is called, "True Friends" by Henry B. Eyring. I would like to share with you some highlights while I was reading the talk and I hope you will learn something new.

"Sometimes our preoccupation is on having friends. Perhaps we should focus on being a friend." - Elaine S. Dalton.

Henry Eyring mentioned, ".. The Savior warns that if we start along the path and go far enough and then fail and deny Him, it would have been better if we had never begun. .. 

It is to keep the promise we made in the waters of baptism “to bear one another’s burdens.” It is to be a friend.

These words of President Hinckley energize me: “I hope, I pray, I plead with you, every one of you, to embrace every new member of the Church. Make a friend of him or her. Hold onto them.”

President Hinckley can’t be there as a friend for every new member. But you can be there for at least one. All it takes is to feel something of what they feel and something of what the Savior feels for them. .. All it takes is a friend to bring such a mighty change in one’s life.”

.. He introduced his friend to the missionaries. He saw that his friend was baptized and received the gift of the Holy Ghost. He took his friend, even before baptism, to where he would study the scriptures and thus be nurtured by the good word of God.

Even before baptism he helped his friend discover this promise: “Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do.” The words must have told him to buy scriptures, which he did. .. 

.. We know from the scriptures what caused those changes in him. He had to be praying with faith in the Savior. He was receiving testimony and directions through the Spirit. 

And then he was not only doing what he was inspired to do but he was asking God

to let the Atonement work in his life.

Nephi, describing that miracle of change and what brings it, said this:

“And now, my beloved brethren, I perceive that ye ponder still in your hearts; and it grieveth me that I must speak concerning this thing. For if ye would hearken unto the Spirit which teacheth a man to pray ye would know that ye must pray; for the evil spirit teacheth not a man to pray, but teacheth him that he must not pray.

“But behold, I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in 

the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul.”

.. When we are called to serve, we can pray for the Holy Ghost to be our companion with assurance it will come. When we ask in faith, a change can come in our natures both for the welfare of our souls and to strengthen us for the tests we all must face.

There are limits on what friends can do to help the ones who must endure. It is the new members who must pray. It is they who must rely on the strength they will receive in answers to their prayers. They must choose for themselves in faith to be baptized, trusting in their perfect friend, the Savior. They must choose in faith in Him to repent, to be humble and contrite.

They must choose to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. The words of confirmation into the Church are an invitation: “Receive the Holy Ghost.” And that choice must be made not once, but every day, every hour, every minute. Even when the Holy Ghost comes and inspires them what they should do, doing it or not is a choice. Even when they read the

scriptures regularly, it takes a choice to “feast upon the words of Christ.”

And even the feast is not nourishing without a choice to do what the words of Christ tell them to do. With faith and obedience practiced long enough, the Holy Ghost becomes a constant companion, our natures change, and endurance becomes certain.

The member must make the choices, but the true friend is vital. There are important ways for us to share the new member’s burden that it may be bearable. We can love, listen, show, and testify.

First, we must love them. That is what the Savior does. We can do it with Him and for Him. He showed us the way in His mortal ministry. .. “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. “Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.

.. The Savior watches over the struggling member as a friend. He laid down His life for all of us. He loves us and will grant us, if we are faithful, the gift of feeling a part of His love for them. ..

Second, we must listen to the new member with understanding and empathy. That also will take spiritual gifts, since our experience will rarely parallel theirs. It will not be enough to say, “I understand how you feel,” unless we do. But the Savior does. He is prepared to help you be a friend who understands even those you have just met, if you ask in faith. Before He was born, prophets knew what He would do to be able to help you be a friend for Him. ..

Third, we must be an example for the new member. We can feast upon the word of God. We can ask for and live for the companionship of the Holy Ghost. We can be obedient out of our faith in Jesus Christ. And in time we can become an example of a disciple who is born again through the Atonement. It may be gradual. It may be hard for us to discern in ourselves. But it will be real. And it will give hope to the new member and to all those we befriend on the path to eternal life.

Fourth, we must testify of the truth to the new member. It must be sincere, and it is best when it is simple. It is most helpful when it is about the reality and mission of the Savior, about our Heavenly Father’s love, and of the gifts and companionship of the Holy Ghost. And it is essential to testify that the Father and the Son appeared to the young Joseph Smith and that the full gospel and the true Church have been restored by heavenly messengers. The Holy Ghost will confirm those simple declarations as truth.

The new member will need that confirmation, again and again, even when we are not there to testify. Should they choose to reject the companionship of the Holy Ghost, he or she will not endure. But that is true for all of us, wherever we are and however faithful we have been. All of us will be tested. And all of us need true friends to love us, to listen to us, to show us the way, and to testify of truth to us so that we may retain the companionship of the Holy Ghost. You must be such a true friend.

.. And your friendship to even one new member may, in this life and in the next, cause hundreds or even thousands of their ancestors and their descendants to call you blessed. .."

If you would like to read the whole talk in your own time, here is the link below.
www.lds.org/general-conference/2002/04/true-friends

That is all from me for now, I hope you will have a wonderful Sabbath and I should be posting again sometime tomorrow, Pacific Daylight time zone.