The two
conference talks I finally settled on were “Hearts
Knit in Righteousness and Unity” by
Elder Quentin L Cook (here) given in October 2020 and “Room
in the Inn”
by Elder Gerrit W. Gong (here) given in April 2021.
Elder Cook started off
his talk by relating a story about the Kane family who had traveled from
Pennsylvania with Brigham Young and company. One day the Kanes were visiting
with Thomas and Matilda King and their family in the King home in
Fillmore, Utah. As the Kings and Kanes were sitting down to their dinner, there
were five Native Americans who came into the room. Matilda King spoke to them in their dialect
and one of their guests, Elizabeth Wood Kane, asked about what had been said.
Elizabeth learned that Matilda
had told the group that she had prepared a meal for the Kane family who would
be eating their meal first and that the other five would have to wait but
assured them that she had another meal for them cooking over the fire. Each received the same meal and the same
amount of food. Elizabeth had been impressed with the compassion Matilda had to do the same for all that
entered.
Unity is enhanced when
people are treated with dignity and respect, even though they are different in
outward characteristics. Although outward appearance may seem easier to
identify, there are inward characteristics as well. We are always going to find people that think
differently than we do or worship differently than we do or may have different
values or seemingly no values at all.
We are all children of God
regardless of our backgrounds, whatever challenges we may have faced and what
walk of life our path has led us to. We
are ALL equal in His eye. He doesn’t label
us his brown children and white children or his Mormon children and Jewish
children and so forth. God wants ALL of His children to return to him and
desires for ALL to come to Him in His inn.
I
have a granddaughter who appears to be on the chunky side as well as academically or perhaps socially challenged compared to some of her peers.
Recently the school she attends celebrated the first one hundred days of
school. Each child was told to bring 100
items of his or her choosing. Ally chose
Band-Aids as it is a product that she uses on a daily basis and because “she has some really
cool ones."
Ally has a rare disease called Kabuki syndrome which requires her to receive
two shots per day. Her mom had figured that Ally will go through over 120 Band-Aids a month on average.
She says, “My girl is a warrior. She is strong. She is brave. She recognizes
that she is different but let's it be known that being different is okay.”
There are some of us who embrace the differences, and then there
are others who feel threatened or afraid of the unknown – why
that man has a different skin color, why a parent would allow his or her child
to dress a certain way – but until we really get to know a person, we don’t
know what makes them tick – and
even when we do learn something that makes up part of their personality, we
still don’t know everything.