SATURDAY SESSION
Brother Steve Cochran
Keeping the Sabbath day holy is an ongoing struggle and challenge. It is not a once and done scenario. But it is worth it. Keeping the Sabbath day holy brings a balance and perspective to life that when observed correctly will bring families closer together and will also bring generations together.
Sister Sara Nielson
What an amazing gift the Sabbath is for each of us! A day to rest from every care. Don’t we always complain that we never have enough time? But Sunday is literally time given to us, and when he asks us to abstain from our own pleasure, it is so we can be better, purified, and sanctified. If we want our children to delight in the Sabbath, we need to show them the amazing gift that it is.
President Bryan L. Laubaugh, Second Counselor
In the context of your personal ministry to those you see in need, do something. Send a card, text, email, letter, make the phone call, invite them over for a visit. Just commit to do something. I promise that every act of kindness, whether large or small, will make a difference in their life and yours as well.
Brother Skip Juhasz
I want to thank everyone in the stake as a whole, that you had faith in me, and that through that faith, you showed me your love. I want to bear my testimony of the power of members, particularly in their work as home and visiting teachers. Sometimes we feel in those callings that we don’t have much success. The people who worked with me probably thought they didn’t have much success. But they did.
Sister Barbara Juhasz
I’m grateful for the love and support of home teachers. Thank you for not giving up hope. We couldn’t have made it through [my husband’s inactivity] without faithful home teachers who I have no doubt loved my family and wanted to be there for us. I have a testimony of miracles.
SUNDAY SESSION
President Douglas Talley, Stake President
Our church membership should be a blessing to us and not feel like a burden that is too heavy to carry. So much of it depends on our own attitude and our own manner of thinking. When we speak to ourselves and have our own continuing conversation and dialog, what is it we say to ourselves? I know that the Lord God knows our thoughts. He knows what we’re thinking moment to moment. God knows who we are, knows what we’re thinking, knows what we’re intending.
We often think that the Sabbath is a day of rest where we can recreate ourselves with our own refreshments. But what the Lord is suggesting here [in Isaiah 58] is that we turn away from our own pleasures and accept His pleasures. Because this is His day, and He can teach us how to delight in His day, how to trade what might be really good pleasures — not necessarily unholy pleasures — and substitute those pleasures for those that He can offer. And that will truly make the Sabbath a delight.
President Joel K. Dayton, First Counselor
Reading from the Book of Mormon daily will help to keep our spiritual shoelaces strong and tight, and help us avoid getting tripped up as we walk along the path of life. Don’t let your reef knots and your slip knots become distorted and loosened. Keep your shoelaces (and testimonies) firm and strong by reading from the Book of Mormon daily as our prophets and apostles have admonished us to do.
Sister Isabella Weaver
Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.
Sister Jennifer Biggs
Partaking of the Sacrament each week allows us to access the enabling power of the Atonement in our lives. Worthily partaking of the sacrament each week enables us to do good and become better in ways that are beyond our mortal capacities.
Note: The Stake Newsletter will not include remarks from Elder Daniel F. Dunnigan.
This is in compliance with the following statement that was read during stake conference:
“We ask that you not record, transcribe, or otherwise electronically transmit the messages of the General or Area Officers of the Church who will speak to us.”
Akron Ohio Stake News 