A More Excellent Way

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A More Excellent Way

• www.kevinhinckley.com

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Super Bowl Trivia

• Quarterback Sneak
• Church members quietly leaving during meeting.
  
• Draw Play
• What the kids do with the bulletin during the
  meeting.
• Sacked
• Being asked to speak in Sacrament meeting
  before you can perform the quarterback sneak...
  
• Backfield-in-Motion
• People in the back of the Chapel going to the
  restroom or water fountain during the meeting.
• Staying in the Pocket
• What happens to the tithing that should have
  been paid three weeks ago.
• Two-minute Warning
• The point at which the concluding speaker says,
  "In conclusion, I would like bear my testimony"
  and you start to gather up your children and
  belongings.
• Instant Replay
• The High Counselor accidentally shuffles his
  notes and ends up repeating what he just said.
• Sudden Death
• Your attention span when Sacrament meeting goes
  into "overtime".
• End Run
• Using the side doors to get out of the building
  on fast Sundays to avoid getting caught in long
  conversations
• Halfback Option, also know as the High Priest
  lateral

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Matthew 4,5

• And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in
  their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the
  kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and
  all manner of disease among the people.
• And his fame went throughout all Syria
• And there followed him great multitudes of people
  from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from
  Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond
  Jordan.
• And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a
  mountain and when he was set, his disciples came
  unto him
• And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,

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Joseph F. Smith

• Read the Sermon on the Mount, and then ask
  yourselves whether it is beyond and above
  everything ever taught by man. It confirms me
  in the belief that Jesus was not merely a man,
  but that He was God manifest in the flesh.
• It is the doctrine of eternal life, by which if a
  man shall live he shall never die by which if he
  shall walk he shall walk in pleasant paths and
  by which if he shall abide, he shall know the
  truth, and the truth will make him free.
• (Collected Discourses 1886-1898, ed. by Brian
  Stuy, vol. 5, Joseph F. Smith, Oct. 18, 1896

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BeatitudesLatin (to be happy)

• Blessed are
• The poor in spirit
• They that mourn
• The meek
• They which hunger and thirst after
  righteousness
• The merciful
• The pure in heart
• The peacemakers
• They which are persecuted

Question Is the gospel only for the needy?
Savior Explained They that be whole need not a
physician, but they that are sick.
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Elder Boyd K. Packer

• Perhaps the greatest discovery of my
  life, without question the greatest
  commitment, came when finally I had the
  confidence in God that I would loan or yield my
  agency to him
• without compulsion or pressure, without duress,
  as a single individual alone, by myself, no
  counterfeiting, nothing expected other than the
  privilege.
• In a sense, speaking figuratively, to take ones
  agency, that precious gift which the scriptures
  make plain is essential to life itself, and say,
  I will do as you direct, is afterward to learn
  that in so doing you possess it all the more.
• (BYU Devotional Speech, Dec. 7, 1971)

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President McKay

• Each Beatitude names a virtue and
  contributes to the perfect state of peace
  for the individual. The opposite attitude or
  condition of mind shows the source of
  confusion and strife.
• The poor in spirit are they who are conscious
  of their destitution-not of worldly
  possessions but of heavenly riches. Those who
  experience this condition run counter to them who
  arrogantly manifest pride in personal
  accomplishments or acquired possessions.
• Those who mourn are they who weep not because of
  loss of wealth or of earthly emoluments but who
  sense their own deficiencies in spiritual
  possessions. That feeling runs counter to the
  calloused, the indifferent, and the
  self-satisfied.
• (David O. McKay, Gospel Ideals Selections
  from the Discourses of David O. McKay, p.40-)

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Matthew 5 15

• Ye are the salt of the earth but if
  the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it
  be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing,
  but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot
  of men.
• Question
• How does salt lose its savour?
• 1) By being left in the sun and not used
• 2) By being diluted by other things

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Matt 514-16

• And I beheld, on the other side of the river of
  water, a great and spacious building and it
  stood as it were in the air, high above the
  earth.
• And it was filled with people and they were in
  the attitude of mocking those who had come at
  and were partaking of the fruit.

• Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set
  on an hill cannot be hid.
• Let your light so shine before men, that they may
  see your good works, and glorify your Father
  which is in heaven.

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President Hinckley

• I wish to say that none of us ever need
  hesitate to speak up for this Church, for its
  doctrine, for its people, for its divine
  organization and divinely given
  responsibility. It is true. It is the work of
  God. The only things that can ever embarrass this
  work are acts of disobedience to its doctrine and
  standards by those of its membership.
• That places upon each of us a tremendous
  responsibility. This work will be judged by what
  the world sees of our behavior. God give us the
  will to walk with faith, the discipline to do
  what is right at all times and in all
  circumstances, the resolution to make of our
  lives a declaration of this cause before all who
  see us. (Ensign, November 1996, p. 51) 

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Brother Richard Cracroft

• The office staff of the Switzerland Zürich
  Mission had taken the evening off to enjoy a
  performance of Verdis Rigoletto. We were the
  guests of LDS baritone Brian Montgomery, who
  would be singing the role of Rigoletto.
  Following the first act, the manager of the
  theater made his way to our little
  groupLooking at my name tag, he asked if I were
  the Herr Präsident of the Mormon Church.
• He explained that Herr Montgomery had requested
  our services and then asked with some urgency
  that I accompany him, which I did, taking my
  assistants, with me. he explained that Miss
  Marina Jajic, the soprano playing the role of
  Gilda, had become seriously ill and would be
  unable to continue her performance. He had been
  about to call the house physician but was
  prevented by Herr Montgomery, of your faith, he
  explained, who insists that the Präsident of the
  Mormon Church say a prayer over Miss Jajic and
  make her well--so, if you would be so kind . . .
• Suddenly apprehensive, we followed him into a
  corner of the dressing room where Miss Jajic--an
  attractive, heavily made-up, and deathly pale
  young woman--sat slumped in a corner chair I
  introduced ourselves to her and that she was
  from Yugoslavia, spoke little German but more
  English, believed in Jesus Christ, and, yes, she
  knew he could heal her
• As I began the sealing portion of the
  ordinance I felt the old, familiar the thrill
  up the spine, the electric flash across the
  forehead, the chill across my shoulder
  blades--signs I had known well and often. I knew
  my role I stepped back and let the Spirit take
  command. From some recess in my soul the words
  welled up to give utterance and translation into
  English of those clear but ineffable impressions
  affirmed by the Holy Ghost in behalf of this
  lovely, talented, and deathly ill woman Then I
  heard myself say, It is the will of God, Marina,
  that you be healed, at once! Be healed! And
  then You will begin to regain strength
  immediately you will experience an amazing
  recovery and you will not only continue your
  performance this evening, but you will sing and
  act magnificently.

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Continued

• I concluded the administration Marina did
  not take up her bed and walk. Instead, she
  mumbled her thanks, her eyes still partially
  closed, her face pallid. As we turned away, the
  hand-wringing manager asked if I would be
  offended if he allowed the house doctor to
  treat her. No, of course not, I replied,
  but to myself I thought, still in tune with the
  Spirit and confident in the well-tried
  pattern, She wont need him shes going to
  recover--now.
• Then, like Peter, my stroll across the water was
  threatened by the storms of reality, and I
  nearly staggered with the realization of what
  I--or somebody--had just promised. And the raised
  eyebrows of my two assistants said, President,
  you just promised this woman that she will sing
  act 2. What have you done?
• As we left the dressing room, I said to them,
  Elders, I said only what the Lord told me to
  say lets pray hell make it happen.
• After an interminable five-minute wait, the
  manager reappeared. I am pleased to announce,
  he beamed, that Miss Jajic has recovered and
  will be able to continue in her role as Gilda.
  The curtain went up, and Marina swirled onto the
  stage as the vivacious Gilda and sang her way
  into our hearts. I sat all amazed and thanked the
  Lord for his gracious intervention We learned
  later that she went home to bed and collapsed for
  several days.
• Marina, soon recovered and very much aware of
  the miracle that had occurred, began to ask
  Brother Montgomery during rehearsals exactly what
  had happened that Monday evening the next week
  Brian and Jenny invited Marina to dinner, That
  Friday at dinnertime, two sister missionaries
  just happened by and were persuaded to stay for
  dinner and teach Marina the gospel. In June 1988,
  two months after that very special night at the
  opera, Marina Jajic awoke and arose to membership
  in the Church of Jesus Christ. (BYU Devotional,
  Dec. 1996)