Bubba's Talk 11-21-21

The Name of the Church

In 2010, 33 miners in Chile were trapped in a collapsed copper mine. They were trapped 2,300 feet underground for 2 months. During that time, they didn't have a lot of food to eat, not a lot of air to breathe, and not a lot of water. It sounds like it must have been pretty horrible to be trapped in that mine. There is only one thing that I can think of that is worse than being trapped in a mine for 2 months.

When you get a text from Brother Turnbull and he asks you to speak in Sacrament Meeting.

Maybe one day public speaking will be fun for me. But today is not that day.

However, I do love this message that I am going to share.

In President Nelson's 2018 General Conference address, he explained to the church the importance of using the inspired and official name of the church, instead of the nickname "Mormon"

Mormon was a really awesome prophet. Without Mormon's efforts we wouldn't have the Book of Mormon. He made sacrifices for us, and I love and honor him. I am eternally grateful for what he did for us.

But I am eternally devoted to Jesus Christ. He died for my sins, He suffered on the cross for me. And because of who He is, and what He did for me, I am first and foremost a follower of Jesus Christ.

When Jesus was on Earth, He established a church. His followers joined His church, and He gave His followers the Priesthood so they could baptize new members. He taught them Sacrament. And He taught his followers how to treat one another.

After a few hundred years, Jesus's church disappeared. This dark time in history is called the Apostasy. The Christian churches on Earth during the apostasy tried to follow Jesus. But they were misled and confused. They didn't have a true prophet of God on Earth to lead them.

Then 201 years ago, the young Joseph Smith knelt in the woods and asked in faith which church to join.

This faithful innocent prayer was the beginning of the Restoration of Jesus' Church that He Himself had established when He was here on Earth almost 2000 years earlier.

I am so thankful to be a member of Jesus' church. The actual Church of Jesus Christ.

To distinguish ourselves from the members of Jesus's church from 2000 years ago, we call ourselves The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

I supposed that the 3 Nephites that are still on this Earth are allowed to drop the "of Latter-Day Saints". But the rest of us are latter-day saints of Jesus Christ's church.

In many parts of the world, even sometimes in the United States, many people have heard of "Mormons" but dont know that we believe in Jesus Christ. This is very sad because we do! In fact, Jesus is at the very center of all we believe. He is the center of our scriptures. He is at the center of all the teachings of our prophets.

Telling everyone we meet about Jesus is the best gift we could ever give. As President Nelson said in the last conference, "imagine how quickly all the worlds problems would be solved if they all turned to Jesus."

I know that the name of our church is inspired, and I know that our prophet's call to use the real name of our church, instead of the nickname, is also inspired. And I know that we as a people and individually will be blessed when we obey our prophet.

I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.