President Niger's Message to the Provo Utah Married Student 2nd Stake

President Niger's Message to the Provo Utah Married Student 2nd Stake

I've done my best to capture as much of President Neiger's talk as possible, because I truly believe it is so important for us to listen (or read) and hearken to his words. I believe that it's as important for us to hearken to this counsel as it is to our apostles' and prophet's. Holding the priesthood keys of Stake President,  President Neiger does receive  inspiration from heaven about what we all in this stake need to hear and do .

As always, he's given us some counsel on goals to achieve in our lives. I've bolded and numbered the over arching goals he feels inspired for us to achieve, and put the more specific challenges he gave us to get there in purple.

First, President Neiger challenged us to:

1. Read Moroni 10:32-34 together as a couple and discuss the purpose of sanctification in our lives. What do you believe sanctification to be?

The purpose of life is to become Holy, or sanctified.

Sometimes we feel there's a chasm, like the grand canyon, that separates us from God. COme unto Christ - he helps us overcome and return.

2. Study the parable of the 10 Virgins in Mathew 25 together as a couple. Remember the President Kimball taught that the 10 virgins represent members of the church.

It is not that the 5 virgins did not share out of spite, but because they knew oil was something they could not give. The fire, or light of the lamp, is the spirit/light of an obedient life. Every good dead and act of obedience is a drop of oil added to our personal lamp. It makes sense to me know why the 5 could not share - we can not live another person's life in obedience, only they can do this for themselves. 

It is President Neiger's opinion that our judgment will be based upon how much light we attained in this life. 

Next, President Neiger read two questions that he received when he asked a group of Men in the stake to write down on a note card the one question they would like to ask him. He chose to answer 2: what is the goal or vision you have for us as members of your stake and what is your biggest concern for us? 

His answers: 

1. Work with all our souls to have a strong, covenant marriage.

Not surprisingly, President Neiger's biggest concern for us is tied to his first goal he wishes us all to strive for. He said the one of the most heart wrenching things he hears from stake members is that they are getting divorced. He said he was surprised about how many divorces happen within our stake. He did not expect to hear this dreaded news so often from stake members at the time he was called to serve as Stake President. 

I believe that President Neiger was very inspired about what practices we should include in our marriage to keep it healthy and strong. Everyone in the stake fell in love only a short time ago, up to a few years, as we are all students. What could drive us apart to early into our marriage? I'm sure the ways are endless, so instead we focus on what we should do today, to maintain or revitalize the most important relationship we have, the only thing that we will carry with us out of this life. 

          1. Pray daily as a couple (morning and night is ideal, once as a minimum), and talk about what you               are thinking and feeling about the things you've prayed concerning so that you can recognize                           revelation together.

          2. Hold FHE weekly. This can be as simple as reading a conference talk to together and talking                      about it or visiting temple square. 

          3. Attend the temple regularly together. A good idea is to replace a recreational activity or date                  with a date to the temple together. President Niger talked about how he went with his wife last                      week to the temple and they ate in the cafeteria afterwards. He said they were surrounded by '90                  year olds' but that it was lovely and they enjoyed the food and their  time together. 

          4. Don't raise your voice to one another.

          5. Serve one another (one small act a day is all it takes). 

          6. Treat your spouse with the utmost kindness and sensitivity. Do not make a dig at your                        spouse in private or in public to get attention. All we need is a little pivot to change our trajectory.                  Kindness can be that pivot. 

I found some Mormon Message videos that emphasize some of the points about nourishing marriages, as President Neiger talked about:

Saving Your Marriage

Expressions of Love

2. Hold Tight to the Iron Rod

• Read and Discuss 1 Nephi 8 & 11 with your spouse.

The tree is the Saviour, the fruit is His grace. All it takes is a small crack for Satan to get in and drive us apart, it is surprisingly easy for an lds couple to want a divorce if they don't hold to the rod. Hold to the rod. Do not be as the children of Israel, many of whom died because they would not look at the brass serpent Moses commanded them to look at. They died because they would not accept the simpleness of the way. Our marriage relationships, like a living thing, can easily die if we reject the simpleness of the way.

3. Be Engaged in Missionary Work

The prophet's highest priority right now is missionary work.

4. Create Unity in the Ward
Think about what you can do each week.


5. Serve One Another (ward members)
President Neiger brought up a couple of examples in our stake. One sister changed her schedule so that she could go on walks with a sister she found out was having a difficult time. Another sister created a group for sisters struggling with infertility; they strengthened each other and brought some happiness into tough days. President Neiger said he could go on and on about all the good reports he's heard from bishops (yay - go sisters! I know you are a part of that, or will be soon).

"Treat everyone with extra kindness. Everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle."

President Neiger then talked briefly about how a friend took him to play some baseball and after 15 minutes he was feeling like he was in high school again and rejuvenated. He was having a tough week and his friend's kindness was the little pivot that changed the way his week was going.

President Neiger then quoted C.S. Lewis:
"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no 'ordinary' people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whome we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendours."

And Ralph Waldo Emerson:
"To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."

He finished with his short and powerful testimony:
"The gospel is true. I know it with every fiber of my being."