The Cure for the Post-Conference Blues

I've talked to enough folks -- testimony-bearing, faithful folks -- who came away from the Sunday morning General Conference session just feeling plain hurt or discouraged. If you're still feeling pain or sadness about Elder Packer's remarks that morning, I suggest you cross reference that talk with this talk, given in the October 2007 first general session.

Here are a few highlights:

No one of us is to consider himself of more value than the other (see D&C 38:24–25). “God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him” (Acts 10:34–35; see also Romans 2:11; D&C 1:35; 38:16)....

There is the natural tendency to look at those who are sustained to presiding positions, to consider them to be higher and of more value in the Church or to their families than an ordinary member. Somehow we feel they are worth more to the Lord than are we. It just does not work that way!...

As General Authorities of the Church, we are just the same as you are, and you are just the same as we are. You have the same access to the powers of revelation for your families and for your work and for your callings as we do....

No member of the Church is esteemed by the Lord as more or less than any other. It just does not work that way! Remember, He is a father—our Father. The Lord is “no respecter of persons.”...

And so the Church moves on. It is carried upon the shoulders of worthy members living ordinary lives among ordinary families, guided by the Holy Ghost and the Light of Christ, which is in them....

This talk reminds me of what I love about Elder Packer. I just finished reading this message and it brought tears to my eyes. It speaks directly to some of the hurt I and others have felt since Sunday. Read the whole thing with an open heart, from beginning to end, and maybe you too will find that by the time you get to the, "In the name of Jesus Christ, amen" you'll feel much, much better.

I know I did.