Jacob on Religion and Ethics

Recently The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had their fall General Conference, and they have just released the audio files of the various talks given on their website. The audio files are a great way to review General Conference material.

I’ve been working on a site called ScriptureCast.net which can create podcasts of the scriptures at custom rates. I’ve recently added the recent General Conference to the list of sources available for podcasting. Now you can subscribe to a custom podcast which feeds the talks to you at (almost) whatever rate you want.

I’ve just subscribed to a feed which starts with the Saturday morning session, and will give me a custom rate of talks so that I’ll finish the last talk just before the next General Conference in April, 2008. This way, I can study the conference talks all year round.

Update April 2008. I plan on putting the April 2008 LDS General Conference talks up on ScriptureCast.net just as soon as the individual talks are made available in MP3 format.

Here is a thought provoking quote I came across today:

I am asking that we stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight

–President Hinckley

Here are a few of the points and things that I learned in attendance of the Priesthood Session of the 177th Semi-annual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. One of the themes of the session was to not procrastinate doing good things.

• From Elder Perry I learned that missionaries must meet the minimum standards, and then continue to raise the bar to fulfil. their full potential.
• President Kimball was quoted as saying, “Procrastination leads to loss of exaltation.”
• Elder Clayton of the Seventy said that healing and escaping a trap may require:
  1. All your heart and mind.
  2. Help from a bishop
  3. The power of the Atonement
• Elder Gonzalez of the Presidency of the Seventy explained that we will have tremors in our lives similar to earthquakes, and now is the time to prepare (not at the time of the quake), similar to how the priesthood leaders in Peru were prepared for an earthquake.
• President Eyring, the new Second Counselor in the First Presidency told about things you can do when we feel inadequate in our priesthood responsibilities:
  1. Find assurance from memories of times when Heavenly Father has helped you.
  2. Forget yourself and help the people that you are called to serve
  3. Go to work

  He also explained that the purpose of any priesthood responsibility is to help Heavenly Father’s work in helping others to succeed.

• President Monson said that we accomplish our goals, not in the thinking, but in the doing. He repeated a quote, “A man never stands taller than when he is on his knees.” He stressed five things: vision, effort, faith, virtue, and prayer.
• Finally, President Hinckley warned us about anger and said that we get into trouble when we get angry.