President Chipman’s Sacrament meeting Talk 6/29/2025

Thanks for coming today.

In our mission, the first few rows of benches in the chapel are called the “bancas de

conversion.” And our missionaries who came today, being very obedient, came to the bancas de

conversion. We love them.

I’m also very grateful that the ward agreed to broadcast this by Zoom.  We had approximately

500 missionaries.  Some of them are watching from South America. So here and there, I might

insert a message to them. (Nuestros quieridos retornados, déme unos minutos in ingles. 

Tendré una invitación para ustedes en unos minutos).

My experience as a mission leader can be summed up with a scripture:

“Let him that is ignorant learn wisdom by humbling himself and calling upon the Lord his God,

that his eyes may be opened that he may see,  and his ears opened that he may hear.” 

What I have learned is way too big and too deep to explain today. I could do it if I had eight

hours, but that would make no one happy. I only have 15 minutes, so I'm just gonna cover a few

things.

First, I have a message to those who are seeking God, who have not yet found Him, or who feel

far away from Him, or who don't trust Him, or who don't feel Him in their lives. My message to all

of you who feel this way is demonstrated with something that happened in the Old Testament.

The Children of Israel were wandering in the wilderness. One day, poisonous snakes entered

that camp and began biting people and killing them. Moses obviously was concerned and

asked the Lord for guidance. The Lord told him to construct a brass serpent and to place it on a

pole and to place it before the camp. Moses promised the people that if they were bitten, all

they had to do was look upon the brass serpent to be healed.

Many looked and were healed.  But many did not, not because they were bad people, but

because they did not believe that looking upon the brass serpent would help them. They were

essentially saying, “Moses that is a great brass serpent. But I’ve got snakes all around me here.

You have no idea what it's like. We need some serious resolutions. We have a complicated

problem. We need a complicated solution. Making a brass serpent is not going to help.”

So, here’s the first lesson I learned. We want God to kill the snakes. But He wants us to come to

Him so that we can be healed FROM the snakes.  Life is complicated–very complicated and

difficult and messy. When we come unto Him, His way, not our way, we can be healed.  If we

look only to our problems, we lose sight of how we can find true healing from the snakes in our

lives.

The Savior makes this point clearly in the scriptures. In the interest of time, I’m going to mix

some scriptures up as one scripture so that we can see the clarity fo the invitation that Jesus is

making to us:

Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

Draw near unto me, and I will draw near unto you.

Seek me diligently, and you shall find me.

For I am  meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest unto your souls.

Will you not now return unto me and repent, and be converted that I might heal you.

We come unto the Savior His way through His Doctrine. We cannot come unto Him our way.

His way is clear. We obtain access to the redemptive power of Jesus Christ when we exercise

faith in Him, unto repentance. 

When I have felt distant or neglected or caught up in my problems, I ask myself some basic

questions about the small and simple things I am doing in my discipleship. I ask, “Am I just

praying to pray, or am I praying with real intent? When I open the scriptures, am I merely

completing a task, or am I engaging with God? Do I come to church and just take the

sacrament? Or do I come to church on time to engage intentionally with the sacrament as an

ordinance full of hope? Do I attend a temple to complete a task? Or do I worship in the temple

intentionally. Am I being intentional about my discipleship?” When I do those small and simple

things intentionally, His way, not my way (because I, too, just want Him to kill my snakes), I find

healing. And step by step, he brings me to Him. I testify that He is real. For those of you who

feel distant from Him today, come unto Him. Exercise faith in Him unto repentance, and he will

heal you.

I didn’t know what Sister Chipman was going to say in her talk. But I loved what she said about

the spiritual growth we witnessed in our missionaries. It relates to the second point I want to

share today. I few months ago, one of our sister missionaries shared an experience dur”ing one

of our interviews. She told me that she and her companion were at the house of a friend.

Someone in the house was sick (I cannot remember right now who was ill). They asked a

companionship of elders to come to the house and administer of blessing of healing. The

Elders arrived at the house. This is what the sister missionary told me. She said, “President,

when they walked through the door, I saw light in their faces. They were illuminating light. They

were full of light and joy.” Then she said, “President, I want that light. I want that joy. I want to

be like them.” This sister missionary is still on her mission. Several months have passed. She

now has that light. People see that light in her.

That is what it means when the Savior says, “I am the light that shineth in darkness, and the

darkness comprehended it not.” Because there’s a reality of darkness out there. In our mission,

we call it the “realidad de la calle (the reality of the street).” But there is a reality of light also,

spiritual light. Jesus is that light. He is real. When we come to Him, His way, not our way, we

can have that light too.

Finally, I’ll share with you something about what Sister Chipman said about how God magnifies

our efforts and brings miracles to us.

To me, my mission experience was Ether 12:27 on repeat, over and over and over again. I

finally understand that scripture. When we come unto Jesus, really come unto Him, He will take

us and stretch us. He stretches us because He is a God of high love and high expectations and

knows that when we leave our comfort zone and are forced to rely on Him that we grow in His

strength. And when we are stretched, there is no place to hide. So, our weaknesses come out,

and we are forced to either run back to our comfort zone (not a good thing), or humble

ourselves before Him and exercise faith in Him and be strengthened through Him. I was taken

through this process over and over again for three years.

Look, we had over 500 missionaries during our time in the mission. Our mission covered 12

stakes. Many of you don't know what a district is, but we had three of them. It was a lot.

Frankly, the task was impossible without some help. Well, the first thing God did for us was

send to us some angels to help. They came in two ways. First, He sent angels from Colorado

in the form of sisters who became service missionaries and who worked with us remotely from

the homes here—Carries Hachtel, Missy Morgan, Sisters Gomez-Weekly and Gutierrez. They

saved our mission and saved us. Our mission had not received a senior missionary couple in

over 15 years. Then the Maxfield’s came. They were game changers and mission changers.

Then came the Van Dusen’s, and the Otero’s, and the Rodriguez’s, and our dear friends the

Bertoch’s. Goodness gracious, we received so many blessings from all of them.

But beyond that, I can testify as an eyewitness, not only to help received from these senior

service and full-time missionaries, but also to the guidance and help I received directly from God

as a mission president.  For example, missionaries often told us how much they felt love from

us—deep and powerful love from us. It's true that we love them. But that is not the powerful

love that they felt. Frankly, we're not that awesome. The fact is, God loved them through us.

The love the missionaries felt around us is the love that God was delivering to them, through us

(not from us). And it was powerful love.

I calculated that I gave over 200 talks on Sundays and did over 4,000 missionary interviews. I’d

be lying if I told you that I was fresh for each one of those talks and interviews. In fact, there

were times when I felt completely spent, spiritually, physically, and emotionally, and I still faced a

slate of twenty interviews.

In these instances, I would say, “Heavenly Father, it is up to you, because I’ve got nothing

today.” After praying, I would diligently do the interviews. And then, several hours later,  I would

leave those interviews in awe of Him. Why? Because He would act through me in miraculous

ways. I would quote patriarchal blessings unknowingly. I would share scriptures and thoughts,

not of my own, and intended specifically for the missionary in front of me. If any of you still

doubt that there is a God, I am an eyewitness of these events, I was there. They happened. He

is real. He loves his missionaries. And we felt it. We felt that same love for those who would

come and have to be reassigned to service missions shortly thereafter. He loves them, too. He

guides them, too.

I know he lives, and I know this is His church. We are so blessed to be part of this work. 

We have a few of our missionaries here today. We love them. They are just a representation of

our 500 missionaries. 180 of them are still serving in Peru. The rest have returned home to The

United States, Canada, but also Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Honduras, Guatemala,

Argentina, and the Dominican Republic. Some of them are watching.

Indulge me please while I share a message to them. Okay? (message delivered in Spanish)

Brother’s and sisters, we are grateful to be here. We are thankful for your patience with us

today. Grateful for the opportunity we have to share these messages, and we say these things

in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.