Gage's sister, Kylee was lucky enough to speak with Gage as a youth speaker in sacrament meeting. I loved that they were able to be up on the stand to support one another. The concluding speaker was Eric Vanderkooi who has been a great example to Gage over the years, and was even his "Pa" on a Pioneer Trek a couple of years ago. They all gave incredible talks that brought a great spirit to the meeting. I am attaching Kylee's and Gage's talk below:
Agency and
Accountability
By: Kylee
Davis
Good
morning Brothers and Sisters! I wasn’t really expecting to talk today because I
talked a month ago, and everyone told me that family doesn’t speak with the
missionary. But I guess that doesn’t apply to me or Brother Lawes doesn’t know
those rules.
I was asked to talk on the topic of
Agency and Accountability. I would like to start by reading from the for the
strength of youth. Heavenly Father has given you agency, the ability to…act for
yourself. Next to the bestowal of life itself, the right to direct your life is
one of God’s greatest gifts to you. You are also responsible for developing the
talents and abilities Heavenly Father has given you. You are accountable to Him
for what you do with your talents and how you spend your time. Choose to do
many good things of your own free will.
In
Helaman chapter 14 verse 30 it says. And now remember, remember,
my brethren, that whosoever perisheth, perisheth unto himself; and
whosoever doeth iniquity, doeth it unto himself; for behold, ye are free;
ye are permitted to act for yourselves; for behold, God hath given unto you
a knowledge and he hath made you free.
I really
enjoyed the story that President Russel M. Nelson told in general conference
this past week. He said:
Throughout my life, I have been blessed by such women. My
departed wife, Dantzel, was such a woman. I will always be grateful for the
life-changing influence she had on me in all aspects
of my life, including my pioneering efforts in open-heart surgery.
Fifty-eight years ago I was asked to operate upon a little
girl, gravely ill from congenital heart disease. Her older brother had
previously died of a similar condition. Her parents pleaded for help. I was not
optimistic about the outcome but vowed to do all in my power to save her life.
Despite my best efforts, the child died. Later, the same parents brought
another daughter to me, then just 16 months old, also born with a malformed
heart. Again, at their request, I performed an operation. This child also died.
This third heartbreaking loss in one family literally undid me.
I went home grief stricken. I threw myself upon our living
room floor and cried all night long. Dantzel stayed by my side, listening as I
repeatedly declared that I would never perform another heart operation. Then,
around 5:00 in the morning, Dantzel looked at me and lovingly asked, “Are you
finished crying? Then get dressed. Go back to the lab. Go to work! You need to
learn more. If you quit now, others will have to painfully learn what you
already know.”
Oh, how I needed my wife’s vision, grit, and love! I went
back to work and learned more. If it weren’t for Dantzel’s inspired prodding, I
would not have pursued open-heart surgery and would not have been prepared to
do the operation in 1972 that saved the life of President Spencer W.
Kimball.
This past week President
Nelson was honored by the University of Utah for performing the first
successful cardiac surgery 60 years ago back in 1955. He was a pioneer of open
heart surgery. Utah was the 3rd state in the country to do open
heart surgery.
I like
this because if you think about choices you make every day do you think about
who they could affect. If President Nelson had not used his talent and gone
back to work then another doctor in the field of open heart surgery would have
had to learn everything that he had already learned from past experiences.
Heavenly Father wants us to be accountable for our choices and for how we use
our talents that he has given us. Our agency and accountability is much more
than choosing right and wrong, it’s developing our talents to improve ourselves
and help others. I am grateful for the opportunities that we have in this
lifetime to learn and grow. I hope that all of us will remember how important
it is to learn and develop our talents. I say these things in the name of Jesus
Christ amen
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Gage’s farewell talk:
Surprisingly enough, they gave me the
topic of missions.
I have chosen a couple of different
topics about missions. First I will talk about my journey of deciding to serve
a mission. I had always thought about
going on a mission at a young age just like any other little kid growing up in
the LDS Church. We are taught that every healthy and worthy young man should
serve a mission.
All through elementary school my mind
had not changed, I still wanted to serve a mission once I was of the age. Then
I graduated elementary school, and then moved on to the dreadful middle school
days, a troubled teen trying to find my place in this world. I did figure out
that I had a huge passion for soccer. I loved this sport and I spent all of my
time playing it, you can ask all my old scout leaders. Whenever they would ask,
“who is going to go to the young men’s activity this week?”, they already knew
my answer, “I have soccer that day”. That stuck with me from deacon all the way
up to being a priest. It seemed that soccer was all I did, whether it was
playing, talking about, or watching soccer. I thought that soccer was
everything! The thought of going on a mission had slipped my mind. I didn’t
want to go on a mission, because I had a goal to play college soccer.
During my high school years, I still
went on with my life playing soccer nonstop. Going on a mission was the
furthest thing from my mind, I was going to just focus on soccer. After high
school I got a scholarship to play for Utah State Eastern University’s soccer
team. I was so excited to keep pursuing my dream of playing soccer at this higher
level of play. I played the first semester, and it was a lot of fun. I thought
I was just going to stay and play another year, until it hit the end of the
first semester, and I went home for winter break. I kept getting asked if I was
“going to go on a mission”. I answered, “I don’t know”, a lot of times to
people. If I was going to go on a mission, I was going to do it for me, and not
let people persuade me. I got tired of
people asking about it. I was getting asked too much, and I was even being told
that I needed to go on a mission. I got the impression to pray, and ask if I
should go on a mission.
I asked in prayer and pleaded for
days and days wanting an answer, but there was nothing. One night I was feeling really sick and was
trying to relax. This is when I decided to read a section out of the Doctrine
and Covenants. I opened up to D&C 38, verse 1, it says: “Thus saith the Lord your God, even Jesus
Christ, the Great I am, Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the same
which looked upon the wide expanse of eternity, before the world was made.”
I also read D&C 39:11 which says “And
thou do this, I have prepared thee for a greater work. Thou shalt preach the
fulness of my gospel, which I have sent forth in these last days, the covenant
which I have sent forth to recover my people, which are of the house of
Israel.” He is the creator of all things. He does not make us do anything,
He has given us agency. We have the right to make our own choices, what we do
not get to choose is the consequence of our actions. We are here on this earth
to make it back to Heavenly Father by following his commandments. He wants us to
teach and bring people into this gospel of happiness. At this moment, I realized that I don’t have
to go on a mission if I don’t want to, and He will still love me the same. I
had clarity and I realized that I needed to share what I know about this
wonderful gospel with those who don’t have an understanding of it. My mind
changed, and I want to serve a mission!
The second topic I wanted to speak
about is, “what are the purposes of serving a mission and how do those purposes
fit in with heavenly father’s eternal plan?” In Moses 1:39 it says “For behold, this is my work and my glory to
bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” He wants all of his
children to make it back to live with him. He loves each and every one of us the
same. He sees all as equals, and that no man is better than another. Our
Heavenly Father has given us all the keys to make it back to live with him. He
has given us commandments and covenants that he expects us to keep and follow.
But we are not perfect, we all make mistakes.
He knew that we would sin and mess up
from time to time whether it is something big or small. Heavenly Father sent
his only begotten son Jesus Christ to the earth to atone for all of our sins.
Jesus Christ made the greatest sacrifice so that we can all repent and be
forgiven of our sins. No one else in the world could have done what he did.
Even after being nailed upon the cross by these people, he still asked Heavenly
Father to “Forgive them, because they know
not what they do”. The love that he showed for all of us is amazing! We
can’t even imagine the pain he went through to bear all of the sins of the
world, he bled from every pore. This had to have been difficult for our
Heavenly Father to sit back and let his son suffer on the cross, knowing that
he could not do anything, because it had to be done. Jesus still had no
bitterness in his heart or wondered why this was happening to him? He did ask
“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” while he hung there. I think that
if I was in that situation, and in that much pain, I probably would have been bitter
and been angry with God for letting something so bad happen to me. I am so very
grateful for Jesus Christ and all that he did for everyone in this world!
During my first year of high school things
were going really well, and I was happy with my life and how it was going. Then
my life took a turn...I felt like I kept getting hit with problems constantly,
and I was ready to give up. People would ask, “what is wrong?” I wouldn’t tell
them because I have never been one to express my feelings. They were my
problems, I didn’t need to burden others with my problems, because they have
their own to deal with. It all hit one Sunday, and I just didn’t want to go to
church, so I was somehow “sick”. The next thing I know I am getting a text (after
sacrament meeting would have been over) from Lindsey wondering why I was not at
church? I told her that I did not feel like going to church, and that I was not
happy with how my life was going. I was bitter.
The next text from her said, “Put on your church clothes because I am coming to
pick you up so you can come to Sunday school. I feel like there is something
that you need to hear today.” I knew that I better get ready for church so that
when she got to my house, she wouldn’t kick my butt…I got ready, and we went to
Sunday School. I went, but I wasn’t expecting anything out of it. Then Brother
Hedman went over a story during class, it was the story of the Currant Bush
told by Elder Hugh B. Brown originally in 1973. Elder D. Todd Christofferson
recently retold the story in April 2011 general conference.
Currant Bush
“I was living up in Canada. I had
purchased a farm. It was run-down. I went out one morning and saw a currant
bush. It had grown up over six feet high. It was going all to wood. There were
no blossoms and no currants. I was raised on a fruit farm in Salt Lake before
we went to Canada, and I knew what ought to happen to that currant bush. So I
got some pruning shears and went after it, and I cut it down, and pruned it,
and clipped it back until there was nothing left but a little clump of stumps.
It was just coming daylight, and I thought I saw on top of each of these little
stumps what appeared to be a tear, and I thought the currant bush was crying. I
was kind of simpleminded (and I haven’t entirely gotten over it), and I looked
at it, and smiled, and said, “What are you crying about?” You know, I thought I
heard that currant bush talk. And I thought I heard it say this: “How could you
do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I was almost as big as the
shade tree and the fruit tree that are inside the fence, and now you have cut
me down. Every plant in the garden will look down on me, because I didn’t make
what I should have made. How could you
do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here.” That’s what I thought I
heard the currant bush say, and I thought it so much that I answered. I said,
“Look, little currant bush, I am the
gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a
fruit tree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and some day,
little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say,
‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down, for caring
enough about me to hurt me. Thank you, Mr. Gardener.’”
Time passed. Years passed, and I found myself in England.
I was in command of a cavalry unit in the Canadian Army. I had made rather
rapid progress as far as promotions are concerned, and I held the rank of field
officer in the British Canadian Army. And I was proud of my position. And there
was an opportunity for me to become a general. I had taken all the
examinations. I had the seniority. There was just one man between me and that
which for ten years I had hoped to get, the office of general in the British
Army. I swelled up with pride. And this one man became a casualty, and I
received a telegram from London. It said: “Be in my office tomorrow morning at
10:00,” signed by General Turner in charge of all Canadian forces. I called in
my valet, my personal servant. I told him to polish my buttons, to brush my hat
and my boots, and to make me look like a general because that is what I was
going to be. He did the best he could with what he had to work on, and I went
up to London. I walked smartly into the office of the General, and I saluted
him smartly, and he gave me the same kind of a salute a senior officer usually
gives—a sort of “Get out of the way, worm!” He said, “Sit down, Brown.” Then he
said, “I’m sorry I cannot make the appointment. You are entitled to it. You
have passed all the examinations. You have the seniority. You’ve been a good
officer, but I can’t make the appointment. You are to return to Canada and
become a training officer and a transport officer. Someone else will be made a
general.” That for which I had been hoping and praying for ten years suddenly
slipped out of my fingers.
Then he went into the other room to answer the telephone,
and I took a soldier’s privilege of looking on his desk. I saw my personal
history sheet. Right across the bottom of it in bold, block-type letters was
written, “THIS MAN IS A MORMON.” We were not very well liked in those days.
When I saw that, I knew why I had not been appointed. I already held the
highest rank of any Mormon in the British Army. He came back and said, “That’s
all, Brown.” I saluted him again, but not quite as smartly. I saluted out of
duty and went out. I got on the train and started back to my town, 120 miles
away, with a broken heart, with bitterness in my soul. And every click of the
wheels on the rails seemed to say, “You are a failure. You will be called a
coward when you get home. You raised all those Mormon boys to join the army,
then you sneak off home.” I knew what I was going to get, and when I got to my
tent, I was so bitter that I threw my cap and my saddle brown belt on the cot.
I clinched my fists and I shook them at heaven. I said, “How could you do this
to me, God? I have done everything I could do to measure up. There is nothing
that I could have done—that I should have done—that I haven’t done. How could
you do this to me?” I was as bitter as gall.
And then I heard a voice, and I recognized the tone of
this voice. It was my own voice, and the voice said, “I am the gardener here. I
know what I want you to do.” The bitterness went out of my soul, and I fell on
my knees by the cot to ask forgiveness for my ungratefulness and my bitterness.
While kneeling there I heard a song being sung in an adjoining tent. A number
of Mormon boys met regularly every Tuesday night. I usually met with them. We
would sit on the floor and have a Mutual Improvement Association. As I was
kneeling there, praying for forgiveness, I heard their voices singing:
(Hymns, no.
75.)
“It may not be on the mountain
height
Or over the stormy sea;
It may not be at the battle’s
front
My Lord will have need of me;
But if, by a still, small voice
he calls
To paths that I do not know,
I’ll answer, dear Lord, with my
hand in thine:
I’ll go where you want me to
go.”
I arose from
my knees a humble man. And now, almost fifty years later, I look up to him and
say, “Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for cutting me down, for loving me enough to
hurt me.” I see now that it was wise that I should not become a general at that
time, because if I had I would have been senior officer of all western Canada,
with a lifelong, handsome salary, a place to live, and a pension when I’m no
good any longer, but I would have raised my six daughters and two sons in army
barracks. They would no doubt have married out of the Church, and I think I
would not have amounted to anything. I haven’t amounted to very much as it is,
but I have done better than I would have done if the Lord had let me go the way
I wanted to go.
I
had such a different mindset after hearing this. I had been so selfish; I had
been thinking “woe is me”. Why do you do this to me? Now it had become crystal
clear, that he had cut me down and hurt me, because he knows what he wants me
to be. I asked for forgiveness for my selfish needs. Now days, people don’t
want to do hard things, because they are afraid that they might fail. I tell
you that before you can learn, you must fail. If you feel like you have too
much on your plate and everything is against you need to know one thing. You
will always have a loving Heavenly Father that loves you no matter what! Also,
you have a savior, Jesus Christ that knows what pains you go through. He
suffered for all of us that we may repent, and make it back to Him and our
loving Heavenly Father.
Testimony and thank you.
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