Good morning, Brothers and Sisters. My name is Jinny Valle. I guess I get to introduce our family since I am first today. We moved here recently from California. We've kind of lived all over in California, but we most recently came from a place called Ridgecrest, which is attached to China Lake, out in the Mojave Desert. There is a Naval base there where my husband was doing weapons development for the navy.
We both actually grew up way farther North, in Northern California, North of Sacramento, in a little town called Gridley. I only say the name of the town because it seems like everywhere we go, someone has heard of Gridley. Which is crazy because it is a 5,000 people little cow town. So just in case, we are from Gridley.
And then Omar went to school for the first time at UC Berkeley, so we lived in the Bay Area for a while. I say the first time because he has two degrees. He has a degree in Sociology from UC Berkeley, and was a probation officer in Northern California for a while. He didn't enjoy living in jail... and so went back to school and has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Chico State.
We've moved a lot and had a lot of life changes in our years of marriage, and I am lucky to have gotten to do all of that with the genius sitting over there.
Omar is a covert to the church, he was raised Catholic. He is Mexican, even though he doesn't look like it. He looks like...I can't tell what you are exactly? But yes, his family came from Mexico. And my family came on the Mayflower and were Mormon Pioneers. So we have quite a rich background of experiences to draw from in our marriage.
I was raised in the church. We had Family Home Evening every Monday, or almost every Monday. And we had family prayers and scripture study and we went to church every Sunday. And so I was raised being taught the gospel and what the standards expected by the Lord were.
We all have Spiritual gifts. And one of my spiritual gifts is not believing anything anyone says ever, until I figure it out for myself... which can seem more like a curse most of the time... and over-thinking everything. I was a Sociology major at BYU with a critical thinking minor, to give you an idea of the amount of overthinking that I do.
Being raised in the church, and knowing the FACTS of the gospel, and knowing the standards that were expected of me, did not create, for me, a testimony. At all. Until I had a moment of intense divine intervention when I was 15.
For my 15th birthday my parents decided to give me a trip to EFY at BYU. At that point in my life that was the last thing that I was going to want for my birthday. But they sent me off.
The first night that we were there, our counselors challenged us to pray every night while we were there. We were in a dorm room, with a stranger, and the challenge was to pray OUT LOUD on your knees every night.
I was in a dorm room with someone I had never met before, and I hadn't said a personal prayer since I was like 8. The idea of trying an outloud prayer in front of this stranger, there was no way I am going to do that. I would say, maybe if they would let me out of the dorm and I could go find a place by myself I might give it a try. But under these circumstances, there is no way that is going to happen.
Thursday night at EFY there is a testimony meeting. And on the way back to our dorms afterward, walking in dark in the middle of BYU campus, my counselor stopped everyone and said, "I don't normally do this, and you guys aren't supposed to be by yourselves in the dark, but I want everyone to go find a private spot somewhere on campus to go pray for a while."
And that was what I needed to know that God was real.
And so I did. I prayed.
Now there was a lot of things I still needed to learn. There are a lot of things now I still need to learn. But knowing that there really was a God, a God that knew me personally, was a turning point in my life.
I think for all religion that is kind of the basic question, right? If you are going to believe anything, the first thing that you have to believe is in God. If you believe there is a God you take the religious path and if you don't believe there is a God then there is no reason to care about that.
So knowing that there is a God is the first step for all of us.
In a General Authority training session, someone asked the question, "How do we help people that are struggling with a personal problem?" And President Nelson, who was Elder Neslon at the time, stood up and said, "Teach them their identity and purpose." This is something that really stood out to my mom at General Conference. She has been bringing it up a lot. It didn't hit me the same way, and I had to think about why that mattered. The more I have thought about it, the more I have come to understand that knowing my identity and my purpose are what changed my life, and gave it direction. And they are what allow us to have peace and joy in this life.
So knowing that God exists is one thing, and knowing that we are His children is another. The way that you come to know that is by praying and by asking if it is true.
There are some things in this life that you can know scientifically and by studying and thinking about it. And there are some things that you can only know in your heart. Like, I don't know that Omar loves me because I have studied it out and have lists that explain it. People can tell you facts, but you won't know it the same way that you know something in your heart. That's why the Holy Ghost talks to us in that way.
So to know that you are truly a child of God, and someone that He loves, it is something you pray about, and ask for the Spirit to testify to you. And because it is true, The Spirit will testify of that to you. It's not something I can tell you and then your whole life will be changed. You have to know for yourself. And because God respects our agency, he waits until we ask.
The other thing that has really changed my outlook is understanding God's plan.
Understanding God's plan helps us to understand the true nature of God. As I began to change my life at 15, and started making different choices, I got to know God's mercy through the repentance process through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. But I still had a lot of misconceptions about what God's plan for us was.
I thought I can repent for what I did before and it's fine because I didn't really know. But know I know so I better do everything right. And sometimes I am going to screw up, and I guess I can repent, but I will have blown it, because I should be doing everything right now, because now I know better.
We talk about life as being a test. We talk about being afraid of hell. We talk about a list version of the gospel: these are the things we need to accomplish to qualify for the Celestial Kingdom. And we look at church assignments and the standards that we are taught as a way to measure ourselves against the perfection that we are supposed to be living.
We all hear about people who have 100% home and visiting teaching. They've never tasted alcohol. They never miss church, even when they are sick. And none of these things are bad. But if that's what we are focusing on, if we are focusing on the check lists, then we are missing the whole point of everything. That is not the gospel. And then when we are focusing on the check lists, we come to church and we hear about how other people are succeeding and it makes us aware of where we are failing, and it makes us feel like we are not measuring up. That we are not Celesital. That we are never going to be good enough.
My mom is the Stake Relief Society President in her stake now. For a long time she hated going to Relief Society. Because she would go and just feel depressed. She would hear how great everyone else was doing at everything and come home feeling like a failure every week. I dont' think it was necessarily what people were trying to do when the taught or commented. But she was still learning about what the Atonement and the gospel really looked like.
This misunderstanding of the Atonement and of the gospel also makes us terrified of the mistakes of our loved ones. So when people that we care about are making choices we know are going to make them unhappy, it feels like the end of the world. It feels unconquerable.
And it makes us afraid of the world. We start talking about how "the world" is attacking us, and "the world" this and "the world" that. But the world that we are talking about is really just our neighbors. People. That we don't have to be afraid of. That are trying to good in other ways. So we end up being isolationist or the tribalism they keep talking about in conference. And all of this is coming from fear. It doesn't come from a desire to be bad people, but it comes from fear, and a misunderstanding of the nature of God.
Our whole life, even back when we were dating, and Omar was still Catholic, he kept telling me that my idea of God was crazy. That I had this idea of a mean God, but God was really a loving God. That I was always worried too much, and needed to calm down and trust Him more. Which made me feel afraid for him, because I didn't think he was worried enough!
But my understanding of the Plan of Salvation and the Atonement of Jesus Christ has changed a lot over the last 8 years. Because life got hard. And in my wondering mind, I needed to find answers. And so I did lots of research, and read lots of things. And all of a sudden, this whole world of joy and peace opened up, that I didn't have an understanding of before.
In April 2017, President Uchtdorf gave a talk titled, "
Perfect Love Casteth Out Fear". He talks about the problem with fear.
"...who among us has never been compelled by fear to eat better, wear a seat belt, exercise more, save money, or even repent of sin?
It is true that fear can have a powerful influence over our actions and behavior. But that influence tends to be temporary and shallow. Fear rarely has the power to change our hearts, and it will never transform us into people who love what is right and who want to obey Heavenly Father.
People who are fearful may say and do the right things, but they do not feel the right things."
My understanding of the Plan of Salvation that changed was what we are supposed to be doing in this life. Which was becoming like God. Sometimes we talk about life as a test, but the most useful kinds of tests are ones that are for assessment and improvement.
In this last General Conference there was
a talk about a Physics teacher at BYU who let his students retake the test as many times as they needed to get the answers right. That is the kind of test we are doing in this life.
Twice in the last three General Conferences someone has said that "repentance is not a backup plan" just in case our plan (or His plan for us) to live perfectly fails."
And I think that is the biggest thing that changed in my understanding, is that God sent us here knowing full well that we were going to keep making mistakes. And that was the whole point. You learn better by experiencing things and making those mistakes. And then the consequences of those mistakes are repentable. Which means you learn and realize something you hadn't before. Your heart changes and you become more like God.
If he had just forced our choices there is no becoming. And He wants us to become like Him becasue He wants us to have everything that He has. The glory that God has, the power that God has, the joy that God has, are all consequences of who He is. And He wants all of that for us.
Being a parent has changed my perception of God, also. You want to protect your kids from everything, but at certain points you have to let them struggle, and you have to let them suffer. A simple example that we have been talking about with some friends that are visiting this week is babies falling down when they are learning how to walk. If we protected babies from every falling down, and always held their hands, then they would never learn how to walk.
If we had stayed in God's presence and we were always with Him, or He was always showing us exactly what was right, we would never actually become like Him for ourselves. Our hearts have to become like His heart. And that's what we are doing in this life.
The standards that we learn, and the assignments we are given at church, and all of those things, are really about becoming. They are about teaching us what Godliness looks like in the practical mundane moments of our lives. But if I keep the standards without my heart changing to love people like God, then they are not helping me become like Him. We cannot use the standards to measure our righteousness. He wants us to keep the standards because they help us to become like Him. Without our hearts, without understanding why we are doing things, they don't have any power to change us to become more like Him.
A few years ago I read a book called "The God Who Weeps". For a long time the church didn't publish, through Deseret Book, any books that were philosophy of religions type of books. They do now, and this was the beginning of that change. It is written by husband and wife, Terryl and Fiona Givens. The things I read about the Plan of Salvation were mind blowing to me because it was different than my perception of God and the gospel had been to that point. And then once I had this new understanding, I would go back and look at Conference talks, and it was what they had been saying all along. That repentance isn't a backup plan, and life is about joy and changing your heart.
The title of the book, The God Who Weeps is taken from Moses chapter 7 where Enoch is having this great vision of the Lord. Enoch was alive back when the city of Zion was translated back in the Old Testament. In the Book of Moses he is having visions and talking to God. In verse 28 it starts:
"And it came to pass that the God of heaven looked upon the residue of the people, and he wept; and Enoch bore record of it, saying: How is it that the heavens weep, and shed forth their tears as the rain upon the mountains?"
Enoch goes on to say, You are perfect, and you have all glory, and all power, how is that you are crying?
God's response starts in verse 32:
"The Lord said unto Enoch: Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency;
33 And unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood...
37 ...Satan shall be their father, and misery shall be their doom; and the whole heavens shall weep over them, even all the workmanship of mine hands; [and here's the part that stand out] wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer?"
God gave us our agency and allows us to make choices that cause Him to weep and suffer, because He loves us so much. He wasn't weeping because He felt like a failure, He was crying at their suffering.
It reminds me of the story in the New Testament when Lazarus had died, and Jesus wept. Jesus knew that Lazarus would live again in a few minutes. And even if that wasn't the case, Eternally everything was fine because of the Plan of Salvation. But Jesus wept because they were sad.
I've learned about how God's heart is upon us. How His joy and His heart are tied up into us. In the Book of Moses God goes on to talk about how there is hope for the people, and they will find peace eventually for Jesus Christ, and everything will be okay. But even so, the suffering they were choosing caused God to weep.
Understanding that, God looked again at the vision he was having. "Enoch knew, and looked upon their wickedness, and their misery, and wept and stretched forth his arms, and his heart swelled wide as eternity; and his bowels yearned; and all eternity shook."
That yearning, that understanding about God's love for us, and then seeing that for everyone else, is what makes us good ministers. It's what makes us good missionaries. It's what makes us participate in the gathering. Once we understand who we are and what our divine potential and purpose is, once we have that joy and peace, we want everyone else to know, too. You can see their suffering, and you don't want anyone to suffer. It's not about numbers, or completing tasks on a check list. It's about becoming like God and wanting everyone else to get there with you, too. Because that IS who God is. It's not about joy and glory for myself, it's about joy and glory for all mankind.
What I learned was the gospel is a gospel of joy and not a gospel of fear. That God truly loves us. That through the atonement of Jesus Christ I don't have to be afraid of mistakes, because I am constantly making mistakes. The more I learn to be like God the more I learn I am not like God at all. I am so grateful for my Savior, who makes it possible for me to keep learning, and keep changing my hear, and become more like God.
I testify that God lives. That He is our Father and that He loves us. Everything we do to be more like Him will bring us joy. That is the gospel. That is the Plan of Salvation. That is the truth of it all.
