About
Our purpose on this planet, our purpose during our mortal sojourn, is to progress, to change for the better, to become more than we are currently. In his baccalaureate speech in 1905, to students of the Agricultural College in Logan, Utah, Orson F. Whitney stated: “When Christ said, ‘Be ye perfect,’ he meant it. Perfection is the object of human existence.” We are striving for that perfection. Jesus Christ is our example, our perfect example.
In 2000, I was serving as a missionary in Venezuela when during General Conference, Dallin H. Oaks gave a talk entitled The Challenge to Become. This talk changed the way I thought about life and what I was doing, not only as a missionary, but as a son of God on the earth. It provided me with a completely different way of understanding what life was all about.
He said things like:
“… the Final Judgment is not just an evaluation of a sum total of good and evil acts—what we have done. It is an acknowledgment of the final effect of our acts and thoughts—what we have become.”
and
“ It is not enough for anyone just to go through the motions. The commandments, ordinances, and covenants of the gospel are not a list of deposits required to be made in some heavenly account. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a plan that shows us how to become what our Heavenly Father desires us to become.”
As soon as I received a copy of the Ensign that included the conference talks, I did the best I could to translate that talk into Spanish so I could share his words with members and others. My wife (of course we weren’t married at the time :) will even tell you that it was one of the first things I talked with her about after I returned home from Venezuela.
