Safety For the Soul Elder Jeffery R. Holland October 2009 General Conference
This talk really needs no introduction. In my humble opinion it is the one of the greatest talks ever given at any time. I remember when he gave it. I am embarrassed to say that I had no idea who Elder Holland was at the time, and my wife had conference on upstairs on Sunday afternoon. I was downstairs watching football. I came up for a minute and he was right in the middle of the talk. To me it seemed like he was just going off. I remember, I said to my wife “holy cow he is about as fired up as I have ever seen a GA”. At the time I didn’t realize but would come to find out over the next few years, that it doesn’t happen a lot today in General Conference, but this kind of bold testifying used to occur with more regularity. I told my wife to rewind it I have to see what the heck this guy is talking about that would summon this kind of energy. We rewound the Tivo, and what an absolute masterpiece. I could not believe how concise, to the point, and eloquent this testimony was of the restoration, Book of Mormon, and prophetic calling of the prophet Joseph Smith. As well as the divine mission of the Savior. He said things that I had previous thought on some level, but didn’t have any idea how to verbalize with any simplicity or clarity.
Love this talk? Share it with others
Related
About bestldsconferencetalks
I am a 39 yr old husband and father great kids. In November of 2009, I was going about my usual business, as a salesman that traveled in the car and listening to sports talk radio. Then the thought hit me, you know what this is an absolute waste of time. I could careless about this, in that moment for some reason sports seemed so meaningless. I thought I am so schooled in what is going on in sports to the point that, I almost felt embarrassed. I thought is this how my wife feels when I am yelling at the TV while the Vikings are getting jobbed on a call? Is this what it feels like to actually grow up? Even though I had served a mission to Spain the depth of my understanding of the gospel was pretty shallow. So it seemed pretty obvious that I needed learn. I felt this sensation that I was far behind in my progession and had to make up for it. So, naturally my next thought was, I am going to die soon? To that question came another question, and what if you are? To that the answer was obvious I would know a lot about sports and not much about what was really important in this life.
So, I borrowed all the conference CD's that a friend of mine had been collecting since 2002. I remember distinctly the first time I put in a CD it was dark early in the morning on the way to the airport. I didn't try and organize the listening at first because I just wanted to hear a few talks. I remember thinking Mike and Mike are on and this is going to be torture listening to conference instead. So, I ramdomly picked April 2007 and gabbed the Priesthood session disk. I thought I will listen to a couple talks that I know. So the fist talk was a good talk by President Monson. Then came President Hinckley, the talk was titled "I am clean" I became enthralled in the talk. The tone and inflection in his voice. The emotion that echoed through the car as I drove down the road was amazing. As pulled into Park and Jet with tears streaming down my face, I was hooked. I couldn't believe that I had never heard that talk. I couldn't wait to listen to more.
Within a matter of months I had listened to all the talks that my friend gave me and wanted to hear more. I went to the internet to get the talks older than 2002. To my amazement, they were nowhere to be found. I thought that the internet had everything. So I drove around again listening to sports talk radio for a week or two. Then one day I found myself in a DI, I can't even recall why. When low and behold I look up and sitting on the shelf are conference tapes from April 1979. I had no idea that these even existed. Over the next year and a half I found at the DI from Las Vegas to Brigham City every conference dating back t
bestldsconferencetalks 