RACHEAL ALVSTAD / Scroll

Now and then

CONFERENCE LESSONS FOR TODAY AND OUR YOUTH

Lindsay Law LAW05002@BYUI.EDU Scroll Staff

For many students at BYU-Idaho, the era of their birth and childhood was the ‘80s. The decade of leg warmers, crimped hair and Michael Jackson mania had an affect on students’ lives.

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in this generation were taught about keeping themselves clean, serving others and the importance of the scriptures.

In his opening address in the April 1986 general conference, “Cleansing the Inner Vessel,” President Ezra Taft Benson said the plaguing sin of that generation was sexual immorality, quoting Alma’s stand on such sins in the Book of Mormon.

“In the category of sins, the Book of Mormon places unchastity next to murder. … If we are to cleanse the inner vessel, we must forsake immorality and be clean,” President Benson said.

President Benson also discussed the members’ reluctance to study the Book of Mormon.

“The Book of Mormon has not been, nor is it yet, the center of our personal study, family teaching, preaching and missionary work. Of this we must repent,” he said.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks, of the Quorum of the Twelve, addressed the issue of profanity in his talk “Reverent and Clean” in the April 1986 conference.

“Indecent and vulgar expressions pollute the air around us. … Moral sins that should be unspeakable are in the common vernacular,” Elder Oaks said. “Human conduct plunging downward from the merely immodest to the utterly revolting is written on the walls and shouted in the streets.”

Elder Robert D. Hales, of the Quorum of the Twelve, discussed the importance of the welfare program in his talk “Welfare Principles To Guide Our Lives” in the April 1986 conference.

“Some have become confused about what ‘welfare’ really means. Some approaches to welfare in the world foster idleness, give subsidies with no labor required, create a burden of debt and promote greediness,” Elder Hales said. “The Lord rejects such welfare programs. … His purpose is to provide for our eternal welfare.”

Twenty years later, though hairstyles, clothing and music have changed, general conference talks in April 2006 addressed many of the same issues that affected the world of 1986.

President Thomas S. Monson discussed many issues, including immorality, drugs, excessive debt and pornography in the Saturday morning session.

“Avoid any semblance of pornography,” President Monson said. “It will desensitize the Spirit and erode the conscience.”

Reminiscent of President Benson’s talk two decades before, President Boyd K. Packer talked about the story of Alma and his son, Corianton, and mentioned the negative influences of the world in the Saturday afternoon session.

“It is a wicked, wicked world in which we live and in which our children must find their way,” President Packer said. “Challenges of pornography, gender confusion, immorality, child abuse, drug addiction and all the rest are everywhere. There is no way to escape their influence.”

Though Elder Hales talked about ways the Church should improve in their welfare efforts twenty years earlier, Bishop H. David Burton, presiding bishop of the Church, praised the Saints’ relief efforts in the December 2004 tsunami in Indonesia, Hurricane Katrina efforts and their help in vaccinating African people against the measles in the Saturday morning session.

Finally, in contrast to President Benson’s admonition to members to put the Book of Mormon at the center of their lives, President Gordon B. Hinckley spoke about observing members reading the Book of Mormon on buses, while waiting for appointments and in other areas.

“I sincerely hope we have grown closer to God by reading this book,” he said.