1. Elder Bender's talk: Virtually Essential

Gabe Wood WRTNG 150

Virtually Essential

Things as they really are by Elder David A. Bednar focuses on the importance of our bodies, their realness, and the potential dangers of getting caught up in a virtual world. Surprisingly enough Elder Bednar subsequently delivers a presentation to the world entitled Sweep the Earth as with a Flood advocating one aspect of the very thing he had previously warned against and even condoned the exaggerated use of. That is technology and our ability to communicate with people without ever really seeing them.

In both talks, he devotes large amounts of time to setting the stage and clarifying the doctrine that he is about to try and persuade us to live. He does this by liberally presenting both ancient and modern prophetic declarations of truth. This is important considering his audience–the more he can get you and I to truly believe deep down that what he is telling us comes straight from God, the greater chance he has at getting us to act upon what we are hearing. With this doctrinal background he also helps us see that we, the God-believing-church-goers that we are, can’t simply settle for the well-I’m-not-doing-anything-really-bad logic.

        What does this mean? You might ask. Well, the point that Elder Bednar is trying to get us to understand in both of his talks here, is that God has made available great resources in our day and they can be used for great evils, but are virtually essential to hasten to work and will of the Lord. If those of us wasting time with the evils of these great tools will move away from that, and along with those of us on the middle ground towards complete devotion of ourselves to capitalizing on the huge potential to do the will of God that is now possible, we will have heeded apostolic admonitions and we will surely gain prophetic promises. May we all fulfill our divine destiny and cease the misuse of and increase the correct use of to power given to us by God and actually do, post, and tweet those messages that the Savior would have us do, post, and tweet.