I am so excited about this book club! Thank you!

Thank you for your insight and thoughts. It is always good to know that there is some else, besides me, who realizes that mistakes have been made and is on the path of correcting that mistake. I am thankful that the Atonement has made that possible.

I still struggle daily with being consistent, but everyday gets a little easier and everyday I repent and work a little harder the next.

I also loved his point about hypocrisy. I had never really thought about the hypocrite in all of us. This talk continually reminded us that there is a gap between what we know and how we act and we should be working toward closing that gap. Knowing something is pointless without acting on that knowledge. I have tried to see the largest gaps in my life and start to close them. Not all at once, but with little brush strokes.

On an unrelated note, my husband and his friend were recently talking about how uncomfortable they are when men get up and gush about how they don’t deserve their wives, their wives are the greatest thing ever, the only reason they have any hope of making it to heaven, etc. They claimed that often these men are trying to publicly apologize for private problems without fixing the problem and that if you look at the wives, they are often stony faced when this happens. I thought they were in left field, but Elder Bednar’s talk mentioned something along the same line (plus I watched a gentlemen who testifies in this direction a lot and they were right about his wife’s face during his testimony). Is this some guy thought process I’ve never realized before?

I really like your image of the sliding scale, and evaluating where we are on the continuum between hypocrisy and integrity. I agree…I need to just keep sliding toward integrity.

I also really loved his repetition of the phrase “it might feel awkward or even embarrassing sometimes” as he gently nudged us out of our comfort zone, pushing us to try something that’s not easy or might not feel totally natural at first.

1. Even just the phrase “more diligent and concerned at home” made me realize how careful I should be to not feel nor communicate APATHY towards my family or home. How easy it is to roll eyes, shrug off their needs/requests and say, “whatever. I don’t care.” That’s obviously NOT being careful, much less diligent.

2. As he repeated in all three points the importance of doing what we know we should do, I thought of integrity. I’ve always loved the YW definition that it is “the moral courage to make my actions consistent with my knowledge of right and wrong.” It struck me that his whole talk is about having integrity, especially where it matters most– in your own home. And the Savior, like Shantel pointed out in her comment, is our finest example of integrity. Everything He believed and knew was reflected in the way He lived His life. What a great goal to work towards.

3. And it occurred to me that the opposite of integrity is HYPOCRISY, which Elder Bednar warns us so well against. Normally (for me) the gap between what I know and what I do is what causes the most guilt/angst, so as I listened again to this talk, I pictured it like a scale or line graph where Hypocrisy is at one end and Integrity is at the other. All I need to do is keep sliding toward the Integrity end– be more aware of my actions and their relationship with my beliefs and work harder to make them match more and more.

4. The whole concept of “seemingly simple things” is so great. Wouldn’t it be nice to have “reality” magnifying glasses and see all those simple things as magnificent as they really are?

5. Okay, last one. This phrase was a cool summary of a principle taught a LOT throughout this last general conference: “our love of and for the Lord is evidenced by walking ever in His ways.” And I thought how much I want my family to feel His love and feel my love for Him. These 3 steps Elder Bednar challenges us to do, like EVERYthing the Lord asks of us, require us to love the Lord and show love through obedience.

Great, great talk. I feel like I could study it a hundred times and still get more out of it.

I’ve been pondering the word “consistency” a lot since General Conference. We all know how easy it is to get complacent with the small things, but the scary part is, it’s easy to think that it’s okay to live the gospel that way. At least that’s how I was. I thought, “I’m a good person. I go to church. I take care of my kids. I love my husband. I’m happy.” Um…not so much. Those things were all true, but not to the extent that they can be and should be. Without being consistent in the small things, I cannot be as good as Heavenly Father expects me to be, I won’t get as much out of church, I can’t give as much love to my kids and husband (I find that the closer I am to the Spirit, the easier it is to love and the more powerful that love is), and I am definitely not as happy as I think I am. I hope I was able to convey that thought to you. It sounded really cool in my head. I’m just seeing now more than ever how very important consistency is.

Some specific things Elder Bednar said that I liked were:
-”We are not merely striving to know more; rather, we need to consistently do more of what we know is right and become better.” We can learn and learn and learn until our head explodes, but it won’t do us any good if we don’t DO what we learn (it also won’t do us any good without a head).
- I loved how he structured his talk and how he repeated some things. There’s power in repetition.
-I loved how he talked about hypocrasy. Wow! I know I’m guilty of that, and I’m fixing it right now. “Children are often the most alert and sensitive when it comes to recognizing hypocrisy.” They see and hear everything! I need to be a much better example to my children. I need to live the gospel and share my testimony through my words and my deeds.
-I loved what he said about he and his wife’s efforts: “The consistency of our intent and work was perhaps the greatest lesson- a lesson we did not fully appreciate at the time.”

One last thing- As I read this talk a phrase from the sacrament hymn “Reverently and Meekly Now” kept running through my head:

Be obedient, I implore,
Prayerful, watchful evermore,
And be constant unto me,
That thy Savior I may be.

If we want to be close to the Savior, know Him, feel the power of His atonement- it’s up to us. We have to be constant. That’s it. There’s no other way.