Boyd K. Packer "You're Good Enough" post #1

AN EVENING WITH PRESIDENT BOYD K. PACKER, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
A CONVERSATION WITH TEACHERS
Address to CES Religious Educators • February 29, 2008 • Salt Lake Tabernacle

(I heard this talk given to seminary teachers in Feb, 2008 and it has always been special to me. Boyd K. Packer emphasizes the normalness and averageness of church leaders, they are everyday people just like you and me, except for the fact that they have been given huge responsibilities in the kingdom. Throughout the whole talk, his theme is that we are “good enough” to do our callings, God will help us with everything we need, we don’t have to be a General Authority to have help and guidance from the Lord. We just have to have faith and do our best and rely upon Him.

I love the down-home, conversational tone of the talk, he kind of rambles but he gets his message across. I’m sorry that the talk is only available on the seminary website, which requires a password to enter. Here are some excerpts from the talk.)

I have many times held on to that promise in the Book of Mormon that all “men”—and that would include women also—“are instructed sufficiently that they know good from evil” ( 2 Nephi 2:5).
Sometimes when I have been working with a person who was near self-destruction and had almost given up and he says, “Well, what’s the use,” I remember that “men are instructed sufficiently that they know good from evil.” .......

..... If you knew the Brethren as we know them, you would find that, thank goodness, we’re nobodies. We are as ordinary as ordinary can be. There is not time to convince you of that, but we just have the monumental, monstrous responsibility of guiding
the Church in this day and age. ........

........During the Vietnam War...I, with Brother Harold B. Lee, was on the servicemen’s committee......A young man came up to us as we were leaving and said, “Elder Lee, I’m leaving within the week to go to Vietnam. I don’t know whether I’ll come back or not. I come from an inactive family. Will you give me a blessing, please?”
You could hardly resist the pleadings of a soldier boy.
To my surprise, Elder Lee said, “My son, your father should give that blessing.”
He said, “Oh, my father isn’t active. He wouldn’t even know how. He’s never given a blessing of any kind.”
Then Brother Lee said, “Nevertheless, he should give you the blessing. Let me tell you what to do. You go to your father and say, ‘Now I’m leaving, and I don’t know whether I’ll be back. I’m certainly going into harm’s way, and I want a father’s blessing.’”
Brother Lee knew that this embarrassed father would say, “I don’t know how to do that.”
But Brother Lee gave him the instruction. He said, “Tell your father that you’ll sit on a chair, and he can stand behind you and put his hands on your head and say whatever comes.”
That was the end of that conversation, and the boy went away sorrowing.
That incident was out of my mind until nearly a year later when I met that young man. He reminded me of that circumstance.
He said, “Do you know what happened? My father gave me the blessing. It was a marvelous thing and a strength and a protection.”.......

(I will post more of the talk tomorrow.)