I know....I'm naughty!
Duncan and Brett got to speak in church and I took a picture of the two of them on the stand.
I don't have a copy of Brett's talk, but I do Duncan's. He did a great job, and we got several complements on what a good job he did.
Hello, for those of you who don’t
know me my name is Duncan Lutz. Yes, like Dunkin Donuts as if I have never
heard that one before. Today I was asked to talk on Jesus Christ. Possibly the
broadest topic you can be asked to speak on other than “We don’t care, you
choose.” But before I start, I would just like to point out to the Bishopric
that my sister, Tori, has not had the PLEASURE of giving a talk yet. And has
informed me on several occasions that she actually WANTS to give a talk, I just
thought you should know that. Now, because I was given such a broad topic, I
thought I would go with something simple. Repentance and the Plan of Happiness,
bear with me now, I promise I will tie this in to Jesus by the end of the talk.
In case you don’t know, which you obviously do, repentance is forgiveness of
your sins. Lds.org states quote “Repentance is more than simply acknowledging
wrongdoings. It is a change of mind and heart. It includes turning away from
sin and turning to God for forgiveness. It is motivated by love for God and the
sincere desire to obey His commandments.” Close quote. The Plan of Happiness or
the Plan of Salvation is the plan that Heavenly Father has put into place to
allow his children to return to him. Now, as some of you might know I am on the
Woods Cross swim team. Throughout the year so far we have traveled to several
places including St. George, Layton, and Salt Lake. We mostly however tend to
stay in our main pool at the South Davis Rec Center. Now in any team sport, for
the most part, teams tend to move around. Going from one place to another,
allowing them to meet other teams and compete to test their athletic abilities
and compare themselves to their peers. Teams also tend to have coaches, people,
usually of an older age and with some experience in the sport, who are there to
give both mental and physical support, making sure that the team is at tip top
shape, and helping them to perform at their best. Throughout the several meets
that I have been to, we have been assigned an event, heat, and lane. The event
is what we will be swimming, such as a 50 meter freestyle, my favorite, or a
500 meter butterfly, which I have thankfully never been assigned to. However,
once and a while you would be given something that you did not like to swim or
you physically couldn’t and you had to find someone else to swim it for you. The
heat is simply a way to split up the events further, depending on how many
schools are participating; each event may have up to 34 heats. This, as you
might imagine, takes a LONG TIME! The lane splits up the heats even further,
telling you specifically where you are assigned to go and where you will come
out. Now, this is where I will start to tie in the gospel. Consider the name of
our church, the Church of Jesus Christ of LATTER Day Saints; it’s called that
for a reason. We were put here in the LATTER days because we were considered
the strongest, while the influence of Satan is around every corner, and the
world is becoming more and more wicked, we were the ones who God knew could
withstand the temptations and stresses that would be placed on our shoulders.
God has set up certain “Events”, making sure that we all know the general time
period when we will be placed onto the Earth. The “Heats” represent what time
specifically we will be placed here, and the “Lanes” represent where in the
world we will be put. So there is the pre-mortal existence and some of our
mortal life, but what about the rest? What about repentance and returning to
our Heavenly Father? Well, I will explain this with a story. Yesterday I had
the opportunity to go to a Swim meet. At this point, I would just like to both
apologize to and thank my father, because I got the time wrong and I ended up
missing the bus. But he was very kind and drove me to the meet. Now the meet
was not at a normal pool, no it was at the “Layton Surf and Swim” and if you
have ever been there you know that there aren’t any blocks (blocks are the box
like structures that swimmers start on). The pool was intended to have waves in
it, which would raise the water level so that you could reach the edge if
necessary. However, it would be very difficult to swim in such big waves for
that event, thankfully they turned them off. But because of the lack of waves,
and the fact that there are no blocks, all we had to swim in was 4 feet of
water and all we had to jump off of was the cement floor. Now, to make sure
that our feet didn’t slip they had placed towels where we were supposed to
stand as we jumped in. In my case, the towel did the exact opposite and I
slipped as I jumped in. We swam our fifty meters and then proceeded to return
to the side, once you were in the water however; the wall looked a LOT higher.
There were two bars on the wall for swimmers who were swimming the backstroke,
but even climbing onto those did not allow for us swimmers to climb back up.
There was no way that we would be able to climb it alone, so we had people,
sometimes friends, sometimes strangers, who would grab our arm and hoist us up,
we could help them by first grabbing onto the bars and climbing upward,
allowing them to not have to carry us the whole way. Back to tying in the
gospel, as we know, in the pre-mortal existence there were two groups, those
who followed Heavenly Father and Jesus, and those who followed Satan. As I
mentioned before, sometimes you get a task that you do not want to do. But you
have to anyway, no matter how embarrassing. Those who followed Satan did not
want to complete the task we were given, to work to return to our Heavenly
Father, they wanted to have a guaranty that they would return. So they went
with Satan. In this case, these are the swimmers who walk away from the block
because they don’t want to swim the 500 butterfly. Then, those who take up the
challenge dive in and swim as fast and as best as they can, as to try to not
get disqualified along the way. When they reach the end, as all of us do, they
have several bars that they must climb. In this case, they represent personal
repentance, and help from your bishopric and or stake leadership. Sometimes,
you must climb these bars, and there, your friend and brother, Jesus can help
you to the top, or you’re Heavenly Fathers Kingdom. I testify that if we
repent, Jesus will help us return home. And that Joseph Smith is a true
prophet. And I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
