Various Authors - Converted unto the Lord: Talks from the 2017 BYU Womens Conference

Printing of the First Book of Mormon , page 153, courtesy Gary E. Smith.

Family photo, page 157, courtesy Gary E. Stevenson.

2018 Brigham Young University

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Womens Conference (2017 : Brigham Young University), author.

Title: Converted unto the Lord : talks from the 2017 BYU Womens Conference.

Description: Salt Lake City, Utah : Deseret Book, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017046130 | ISBN 9781629724386 (hardbound : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Mormon womenConduct of lifeCongresses. | Mormon womenReligious lifeCongresses. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day SaintsDoctrinesCongresses. | Mormon ChurchDoctrinesCongresses.

Classification: LCC BX8656 .W6 2017b | DDC 248.8/43088289332dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017046130

Printed in the United States of America

Edwards Brothers Malloy, Ann Arbor, MI

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Cover art, Christ in a Red Robe by Minerva Teichert, IRI. Used by permission.

Design: Shauna Gibby

Book design Deseret Book Company

A few months ago, I went to an Asian caf in town for lunch. The friendly guy behind the counter said: Have you ever been here before? And I confessed no. Okay, pick your starch, your protein, and your sauce. I had never thought of lunch that way before and it struck me that there were almost endless combinations made from these three basic building blocks for a meal:

Pasta, meatballs, and marinara

Rice, chicken, sweet and sour

Spaetzle, beef, and stroganoff

Tortillas, carne asada, and salsa

Brown rice, tofu, and curry

Rye, pastrami, and mustard

Potatoes, steak, and A.1.

Biscuits, ham, and gravy

Angel hair pasta, scallops, cream

Waffles, bacon, and syrup

Ive thought about this a lot since that day. What would be the main building blocks of conversion? What are the basic experiences we all have that combine into an endless variety?

Building Blocks of True Conversion

I have come to believe there are three basic ingredients to the feast of each persons conversion. We all have experiences with these key ingredients but each has such a different look and taste that its not always easy to compare our conversions. There is no one conversion. Its the Atonement that gives us the multiple chances we need to repent and to combine these three ingredients into a satisfying feast of true conversion.

The first ingredient is learning to see beyond the mortal limits of time and space.

On earth we are bound by limits:

During the seventy to ninety years of an average life, we can only experience a fraction of the stream of time. Its very difficult to look forward or backward to see the big picture.

Our memory is very poor. We forget almost everything unless we write it down.

Frailty, illness, energy, disease, and death limit us physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Pride, conflict, and the quest for power are constantly disrupting our attempts to come together and accomplish something as a group.

We cannot prove the truth to others; they must find it for themselves.

Transcending the limits of mortal time and space is the power to see things as they really are (Jacob 4:13), not how they look on the earth. One person able to do it was the brother of Jared. He was able to pierce the veil and see the bodily form Jesus would take later on earth (see Ether 3:613). Another to do it was Sarah, who looked beyond a suffocating personal grief and let her only beloved son walk out on a journey with his father, Abraham (see Genesis 22). Another name for this ability to see beyond right now is faith .

What would it mean for you and me in the twenty-first century to think beyond mortal limits? It means the fashions of the day, the opinions on Twitter, the handicaps and barriers of this brief mortal life are just thatbrief. They dont last. We women are called to focus on what lasts. From the very beginning, Eve took a really long look through the veil. What is mortal life for? To hang around in the beautiful garden? She realized that to have birth there had to be death. In order for Eve and Adam to multiply and replenish the earth, she had to choose to eat the fruit. To open the door for all of us to come into mortality, she had to trigger the fall. She sacrificed a Garden of Eden kind of life in order to bring us all through the veil. She became the mother of all living. Her ultimate testimony to all her children is: Were it not for our transgression we never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient (Moses 5:11). She could do it because she put her complete confidence in Jesus Christ. She and Adam had the faith that Jesus would accomplish His Atoning work. Jesus promised to compensate for the fall of Adam and Eve. And He did. His Atonement removes the barriers of sin, injustice, mistakes, ignorance, and pain at the hands of others so that if we have faith and keep covenants with Him, we will transcend or overcome the limits of this fallen world. Every challenge we encounter in life will help us learn to use revelation, or eyes of faith, to look past the realities of this world into the better world.

I want to share three examples of women who used their eyes of faith to look beyond present pain and circumstance.

I read recently a BBC survey where 31 percent of Christians polled believed in the literal resurrection of Jesus. That means 69 percent of Christians in that poll do not believe Jesus actually rose from the dead in a physical form. We just celebrated Easter. I like to imagine early in the morning before dawn Jesus as a spirit coming into the tomb before He was resurrected. The grave clothes would have to be unwound from the body before He could enter it. In John 20 it describes how the napkin that had been around his head was folded and laid on one side and the clothing on the other (see John 20:7). When the body was ready for Him, I imagine Jesuss spirit entered it. Was there light or sound at the resurrection? I dont know. But I do know that when the heavy stone was rolled away and Jesus walked out of the grave, the firstfruits of them that slept (1 Corinthians 15:20), the limits of death and hell stopped having power on this earth. There was now a living, physical example of those scriptural promises that the dead should rise again. Of course, it was hard to mentally grasp. Mary Magdalene, full of grief in the garden, couldnt believe it at first, but when Jesus spoke her name and she reached out to embrace Him, she knew Him. She knew what resurrection meant (see John 20:1118). Mary Magdalene was the first mortal witness to testify: He is risen (see Matthew 28:7).