When the rain comes pouring down, don’t look down and don’t look around—look up and soak it all in.
As young adults in today’s world, it can be hard for us to be confident enough to speak up and share our beliefs. We’re constantly bombarded by those who don’t believe what we do. So how can we get the courage to tell others what we believe in? Elder Yoon Hwan Choi discusses ways to do this in his general conference address “Don’t Look Around, Look Up!”
Photo by Gabriele Diwald
Elder Choi explains that when he served as mission president of the Washington Seattle Mission, it rained most days but his missionaries were still required to proselytize. Elder Choi would tell them to “go out in the rain, look up to heaven, open your mouth, and drink it!” He notes in his general conference address that “when you look up, you will be strengthened to open your mouth to everyone without any fear.”
Why does looking up help us to have confidence? It’s because of who we’re looking up to: God. When we turn our focus toward God, we remember our eternal perspective. We remember what’s important in the world and forget the things that aren’t. Rather than looking around us, at our temporal situations, we should look upward and think of our Heavenly Father. As we do so, we’ll likely want to share the joy and the knowledge that we have with those around us. Let’s teach each other to look up!
Source: LDS General Conference
—Maisy Ward, Mormon Insights
feature image by omar lopez
Find more insights
Learn more about having an eternal perspective by reading or watching Elder Jeffrey R. Holland’s talk “Be Ye Therefore Perfect—Eventually.”
Discover how to better focus on heaven’s light by reading the talk “Spiritual Eclipse,” by Elder Gary E. Stevenson.