Companion speaker to High Councilor talk

January 13, 2019:

Good morning Brothers and Sisters, my name is Elder Goon and I recently returned from my mission in South Korea. There is probably so many good reasons why coming home is great but I’ve really been having withdrawals from my mission specifically with teaching. I’m having the most vivid dreams of teaching the gospel and it’s kind of weird. And when I’m driving, I don’t know exactly how it happens, but somehow the radios turned off and I’m 10 minutes into teaching the Plan of Salvation just teaching the road I guess and my shower has probably heard the mission of the restoration about 30 times. So I’m really grateful for this chance to speak because I really miss teaching the gospel on my mission that was something I very much enjoyed, I wouldn’t say I was good at it, but I really miss it. Today I get to speak on teaching and learning in the church, specifically with the new schedule and the new program the church has put out. Also, my talk is notes from the recent Ensign article by Elder Jeffery R Holland called Making your Life a Soul Stirring Journey of Personal Growth. I thought that was the most interesting title for this specifically the word Soul Stirring. I didn’t really know what stir meant, like I know it’s doing this (motions with hand) but I don’t actually know the definition of stir. And I looked it up and it says to mix, to add or to move. So when I think of our soul mixing I thought of our soul mixing with other souls here on earth and us helping each other. I thought of adding to our souls, a big theme in our mission was adding light to our souls. And I thought of moving our souls towards God. I think the church’s new policies on teaching and learning in the home supported by the church is a great way to stir our souls. There is a sentence that Elder Holland uses that I kind of what I want to base my talk on, it says “our souls were created to grow” and I have a big circle that says “our life’s purpose” because I’ve explained the purpose of life to many people I know a lot of many different ways but I think the word grow is maybe the most perfect way to explain the purpose of life. Elder Holland talks about how learning, becoming living and teaching are the keys to personal growth. Teaching learning and living the gospel are key principles to progression, sometimes we call it conversion, and sometimes we simply name it repentance. And I found it interesting the Elder Holland is saying eternal progression and conversion and repentance are the same thing. I noticed that Elder Holland, when he talks about learning, he makes a clear distinction between listening to a lesson and accumulating knowledge and improvement, knowing the truth and changing. I think teaching is really a part, especially to be a great teacher. I think of all the amazing teachers I’ve had in my life and they all have one thing in common and that is love and teaching people not lessons. Elder Holland talks about this. I thought it very fitting because missionaries are heavily trained on teaching people not lessons. On my mission lots of times I’d be in a lesson about the Book of Mormon and the person would ask a question about the Word of Wisdom. Nine times out of ten, my companion would say oh we’re not talking about that now, we’ll get to that later and go on with the lesson. I’d let him talk for a little bit and then when it was my turn, I’d say Brother Kim, you mentioned back there the Word of Wisdom, let’s talk about it, and I’d talk about it. And after those type of lessons, me and my companion would always have a moment where I’d tell him, we are not here to teach the Book of Mormon, we’re here to teach this man and if he wants to know about the Word of Wisdom then that’s what we’re going to teach him. I think it’s really easy to teach people and not lessons when we’re teaching just one person or sometimes 2 or 3 or 4, but when I was reading through this talk and Elder Holland was talking about teaching people and not lessons I couldn’t help but wonder about the seminary and Sunday School teachers who with the new combination of quorums have to teach 30, 40 sometimes 50 people all at once. I think it can be overwhelming to try to teach all those people at the same time. But I had an experience on my mission that I think can help people that might be struggling with that problem. I was at a devotional that I set up. I was in a position to get some missionaries together for a devotional and I invited the speaker to come and talk about some specific things because there were some missionaries in our zone that were having issues and I wanted him to address those and talk to those people. So this was a devotional for everyone, but specifically for two missionaries. So kind of went into that thinking o.k. I’m not going to get much out of this as it’s for not me, it’s for two other missionaries. But there was a moment in this man’s talk where he stopped and I could tell he was listening to something and he said “I don’t know why I have to say this but…” and he said something very short and simple for about 20 seconds, but that changed me and it hit me so hard and changed the rest of my mission. And as the missionaries were talking about their favorite parts from the devotional, as you guys know, almost everyone has the same favorite parts from the talk, but nobody even noticed this 20 second comment and no one even mentioned that it touched them or that they enjoyed it and I know that that was a teach who had prepared but was willing to listen to the spirit and for just 20 seconds was able to affect me. I don’t know about everyone in that devotional but I know that Heavenly Father is willing to teach us individually and he teaches us always and we just have to listen and as teachers we just have to be worthy and ready for Him to teach through us. The focus that I wanted to talk about today was teaching and learning in the home. As you guys know, our church has shifted from a church centered home supported church to a home centered church supported church and Elder Holland and President Eyring have some interesting things to say about that that have really related to a recent experience that I had that I want to close my talk with. Maybe 5 years ago, I heard a talk by Elder Robert E Wells. Elder Wells I guess is famous for speaking on the subject that Jesus Christ payed for our mistakes and this is kind of the topic that he always loves to speak about. He tells the story of a mistake that was made that resulted in his wife dying. He didn’t break a commandment, he didn’t do anything wrong, he just made a mistake and his wife died. After years of pain and grief he finally realized that Jesus Christ paid for his mistakes well and he was able to find peace and comfort in that. So I’ve been hearing this story for years, I’ve learned it and I know that that is true. It’s an accumulation of knowledge but up until a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t really have a testimony of what that meant. A few weeks ago, I was in a car accident that was horrible, no one got hurt and there wasn’t much damage but it was just a silly mistake that I made and I felt horrible. I remember right after I crashed, I thought that the Holy Ghost was in the passenger seat because he almost yelled at me “Don’t worry, Jesus Christ will pay for your mistakes”. So I thought maybe I’m going to get out and there’s not going to be even a scratch on the car. But that wasn’t true and I thought maybe I’m going to wake up and this was a dream, but that wasn’t true either. Maybe $10,000 is going to fall from the sky and Jesus really will be the one to pay for my mistake, but that wasn’t the case. So I kind of doubted that impression and thought how is Jesus Christ going to pay for this mistake? After an hour or so, my dad got involved and the other driver came and I just felt horrible and I was so scared and I thought I was going to get yelled at punished for a silly mistake. But when I got home, me and my dad had a very very short conversation maybe a minute or two which ended in my dad saying “Everyone makes mistakes, its o.k.” and then he gave me a hug and went to bed. I stayed up for maybe 20 more minutes just crying because of the joy I felt and I finally realized what it meant that Jesus Christ paid for my mistakes. He didn’t take it away, but he replaced the guilt and sorrow with peach and forgiveness. Elder Holland says this about God’s plan “Surely all things bear record of Him, that God is willing to teach us anywhere and anytime in informal moments with our children and our friends. This was truly an informal moment but my Dad’s forgiveness was able to increase my testimony of Heavenly Father’s love for us and our Savior Jesus Christ. President Henry B Eyring said “Though earthly families are far from perfect they give God’s children the best chance to be welcomed to the world with the only love on earth that comes close to what we felt in heaven, parental love. Families are also the best way to preserve and pass on moral virtues and true principles that are most likely to bring us back to God’s presence. I know that the strongest lessons I’ve learned have been from my family. The lessons that have changed me the most have been in my home.  I’m very grateful for the inspiration from our prophet and apostles to take the initiative to our homes. I know that parents aren’t perfect and children are far from perfect but if we try our best to live right and live the gospel and to teach and learn in our home that it will have 10 fold effect than just learning in church. I am grateful for this chance to speak and I‘m grateful for great teachers and great lessons and I know that as we follow our prophet and apostles that we can learn a lot in our homes. As we as a family try harder to live the gospel it brings blessings. And I know that what the prophets and apostles have taught us truly is going to make our life a soul-stirring journey. And I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ amen.

Official Homecoming talks Las Palmas Ward

November 11, 2018

Taz Homecoming Talk:

I was supposed to prepare this week, but I was a little busy. As I sat during the sacrament hymn, I started to shed some tears. I guess it finally feels real that I’m home and I don’t really want to be hear. NO actually, I’m excited, I’m just kidding. I got home from my mission on Tuesday and I got released at 8:00 Tues. night. That was 5 days, 10 hours and 7 min ago and I know that there isn’t a second that’s gone by that I haven’t thought about going back I wanted to do that. Before my mission I was actually terrified to go, I didn’t want to serve a mission. Today I’m going to be talking about following prophetic principles from General Conference. I’m not really sure what that means so I’m just going to talk about General Conference if that’s o.k.

I’ll first say that on a mission General Conference is much better. Before your mission, you’re not really paying attention. This past conference I learned a lot of things but all the talks that stood out to me were all about trials and faith and stuff. I feel like that’s the thing I learned the most on my mission is to have faith in the Savior and to overcome trials. So I want to talk a little bit about that today. When I started my mission, it was a lot harder than I expected it to be and it only got harder and harder and harder, it was really hard. There was a lot of things happening in Korea, at home with friends and family that were hard to go through but luckily I had the best Mission President in the world and he helped my go through it. I was about to give up actually when I was about 3 months out and 4 months out. I was just not enjoying my mission at all, finding no joy and no success or miracles. I told my Mission President that I packed my bags and I am ready to go home. But luckily, he said no and so I didn’t go home. When I was going through this hard time, gratefully, I had some of my best friends with me that could really support me and help me a lot, but probably one of the biggest supports was my little sister, she was also going through a hard time and she sent me an email about a conference talk called: God Shall Wipe Away all Tears and I read that talk and that was kind of a turning point on my mission where I started to realize that it’s going to be hard and it’s going to be pretty miserable, but it’s going to be worth it and that’s when I started really growing too. As I served in Korea we met 4 apostles and 4 seventies and they all talked to us and as I listened to them talk I gained a testimony of their prophetic call. As I’ve applied things I’ve learned from them, I’ve pretty much got a testimony from their counsel and the blessings we receive from following it. The talk that stood out most to me during General Conference to me was a talk called Wounded by Neil L Anderson. He opened his talk about a bombing where a lot of people were killed and there were some missionaries in the airport that got exploded and a lot of injuries and after that they had a lot of trials with healing and things like that. Elder Anderson posed a kind of the question of all time: Why do bad things happen to good people? As I served in Korea that’s kind of the question I was asked the most: Why do bad things happen to good people? Especially because the year before I got to Korea, there was a big crash and a ship sank killing 500 students. So lots of people wanted to know why is the world so terrible why do bad things happen? I think Elder Anderson covered that really well. When I was on my mission I had an experience with my less active friend and it was probably one of the coolest experiences I’ve had. A lot of my old companions had served in this area so when I got there, they all told me that I needed to go visit this less active and work with him. I picked up the phone to call him and I was typing in his name and he called me. Hello, hello, oh, are you Jenkins friend? I must see you…if you’re Jenkins friend, then you’re my friend. I was like ok that’s lets meet, so I met him that day 2 hours later at McDonalds and yes there is McDonalds in Korea and it’s cheaper and it’s just as delicious. We met in front of McDonalds and as soon as he picked us him he immediately started with the excuses why he wasn’t going to church…he was busy, no job, no money, no time, but the excuses got worse and worse and he just really made me mad listening to all the excuses he had on why he couldn’t follow God. Then  started telling me about all the hard things he’s been through and all the trials  that come up ever since he joined the church and he said If God loved me when I was going to church, he should have helped me get a job, he should help me keep my job. He often told me during that meeting that’s he’s much happier not going to church because his life is easier and better. Ever since he left, his life started getting better. I really just listened to him a lot because I really didn’t know what to say exactly. When I listened to him for probably 2 hours just going on about how hard it is for him and listening to all his excuses and then all of sudden I just knew what to say and I told him that, I promised him in the name of the Savior that until he came back to church, he’d never find a job and that until he came back to church he’d never find a job and I told him that until he starts putting God first in his life that he will be miserable and I promised him that. The next Sunday, he came to church and he came 5 weeks in a row. I left the area and I came back two weeks later and he was at Stake Conference. I guess I must have scared him pretty bad. As soon as he came back, there was a light in his eyes. The ward welcomed him back and he just seemed so happy. We met a couple of more times, he really likes bread because he’s allergic to a bunch of stuff, so he can only eat bread and he kept saying you need to come  over and break bread with me. We got really really close after that. I never got to break bread with him because the day before I left that area he came to visit me and we were sitting in his car and he started crying and he broke down and said I had no friends no support and I was really lost and when you came into my life and he sat there crying for a couple of minutes and he leaned over in the car and just hugged me for a long time. He said you were right, as soon as I came back to church, I got my job back and I started to be happy again my life is peaceful. He said goodbye and I left. I thought about why did he have to fall away and learn the hard way that maybe even though following the gospel is hard, it’s much more rewarding. I thought about why he had to go through that hard time, what was the point of God taking away his job and his friends and family and basically leaving him alone for a little bit? Then I thought about by own experiences on the early part of my mission when I felt nothing but alone and was just miserable. I thought about the trials I’ve gone through and about what that’s done for me. I saw the change that this man had because of his trials. And so I guess along with Elder Nielson and a lot of the apostles that spoke at General Conference, they all said take joy in trials and lift up your heads and be of good cheer when times get hard. The biggest struggle on my mission was the temptation to think that because I’m struggling God doesn’t love me. Because there were a lot of days where I could not feel God’s love for me.  I felt like he had abandoned me and during those times it was really easy to say why is He making me do this? or Where is He now? if He loved me, He’d help me? And finally for the first time in my life I actually following God and giving Him all that I had and he’s gone…at least that’s what I felt like and  this period of time lasted well over a year but luckily during that time I had some great companions that helped me a lot. One of my companions at the time was Elder Lydon. We were in Incheon together and that was just the worse time in my life and we watched a video together about trials, times of trouble by Elder Holland and he talked about this question: Why do bad things happen to good people? And how can I be happy during trials? He first talked about the scriptures. If you look in the scriptures there is not a single fairy tale ending in there. Either they die or get stoned or get swallowed by a whale. There is a lot of hard stories in the scriptures and none of them seem to have very easy lives. I thought about all the Book of Mormon stories that I’ve come to love and how many trials. All of it is trials. But the thing that stood out most to me is Elder Holland talked about the Savior, talked about how hard the Saviors life was. We might think that our lives hard, but it’s not hard at all because no one lived a harder life than Jesus Christ. He had to be perfect every day. He faced so much ridicule and suffered for all of us in the Garden of Gethsemane and died for us on the cross. Jesus Christ was God’s only perfect son, the only son that ever listened to Him, the only son that was faithful to Him. Jesus Christ suffered more than all of us combined. I don’t know about you guys, but I would never say that God doesn’t love Jesus Christ. That just makes no sense. God loves Jesus Christ I knew he loves me and the prophets in the scriptures. But I know for a fact He loves Jesus Christ. But Jesus Christ suffered for all of us. He suffered so bad that on the cross he cried out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Jesus Christ didn’t have to be alone. He’s the only son that was ever worthy, God never had to abandon Jesus Christ, but He did. So that Jesus Christ could would know what we feel like when we feel alone or when we’re struggling. After that talk, I really started to recognize the Savior more in my life and recognize the people that he sent to me and feel the love that he has for me. Ever since I thought about that, I’ve had more faith in the Savior and his ability to help me and comfort me. I know that when we have hard times and things don’t always seem to go our way the first thing we have to hold onto is that God loves us no matter what. No matter how hard Satan tries to convince us that God doesn’t love us, He does. In April General Conference someone quoted President Nelson who said: when people are going through hard times, the thing I want them to remember most is their identity. And so it’s no wonder that when we are going through hard times that Satan would want us to forget our identity that we are sons and daughters of God. I also know that during hard times, we need to have faith in the Savior. We need to know that he actually did suffer for us and he actually did die for us and he actually did rise again for us, that that is not a fairy tale. That’s not just something that people say to comfort themselves. That that really happened, it was a true event. And when you know that and know those two things you can get through anything. On my mission I saw so many Korean members had it so hard. It would be so hard to be a member in Korea because everyone hates you. We are the biggest cult in all of Korea and everyone hates us so bad. The members in Korea are so strong and they are so faithful, but their lives are just so hard. I’ve seen so many people whose spouses have left them or are disabled, or have kids who fall astray, have family members that die. I’ve seen so much suffering amongst the members in Korea and I’ve also seen so much suffering among my companions and missionary friends. But I’ve learned on my mission that suffering is exalting, that if we really want to get to the Celestial Kingdom that we have to suffer, we have to walk through the Garden of Gethsemane. Not in the same way the Savior did, but no matter how you get to salvation you have to go through Gethsemane and that is a place of suffering. I know that that might sound like life is miserable and everything is hard but it’s not. There is so much happiness in life and I’ve seen so many blessings and miracles on my mission. I do truly know that the Savior loves us and that we are Heavenly Father’s children. I’m so grateful for the support that you guys showed me on my mission. I’m so grateful for my parents for strongly encouraging me to go because without them I would not have gone and without my mission I would be lost, I would not be the person I am today. I know that this church is true. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. I’ve read it and I’ve prayed about it. I know that Joseph Smith saw and talked with God.

이제 한국말로 이야기하도록 하겠습니다. 제 간증을 이미 나눴는데 제 뒤에 계신 친구들한테 제 사랑을 표현하고 싶어요. 저는 여러분들을 너무 사랑하고 제 영원한 친구들이 되어서  엄청 기뻐요.

I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ Amen