Welcome.

Presently, I have the sweet treat of emailing several full-time missionaries weekly.

Often, I am amazed by the content they choose to include in their regular correspondence. So many times, so many of them have – via their emails – elevated my understanding, strengthened my faith in the Savior, and invited me to make beneficial changes.

I started out providing what I thought would be a little service to them, but they are the ones that aid me – week after week.

Though it feels unbalanced to me (in my favor), I am so grateful for their full soul contributions not only in their respective fields of labor but also as they consistently reach back to the homeland they left and touch, invite, and influence hearts here, too.

This week one of the sisters invited us, her email readers, to listen to a really fantastic talk given by Elder Oaks in the April 2011’s General Conference. He titled it, “Desire.” (Oaks, D., “Desire,” April 2011, General Conference)

It’s powerful!

Near the end of his talk, Elder Oaks, speaking to those who were married in the temple, said they “should do all they can to preserve it.” (Oaks, D., “Desire,” April 2011, General Conference)

“[A]ll they can to preserve it.”

When I read that line, my mind was overrun with elements in my life that need greater preservation focus.

I can do better.

In so many areas.

Here at Untoalltheworld today, I’ll talk about one.

Testimony.

Am I doing all I can to preserve my testimony?

Satan seeks it of us. He would love to steal it right from our hearts – little by little or in one giant sweeping swipe.

To preserve a testimony is delicate, daily, and deliberate work. It doesn’t merely come for the wanting. A yearning for a testimony is a good place to start and is needful for sure, but desire alone won’t keep testimony burning brightly.

Desire has to be transformed into doable action.

What am I doing to secure my witness, to strengthen it, to defend it, to keep it from dimming?

I love these words by President Harold B. Lee:

“Your testimony is something that you have today but you may not have it always…Testimony is as elusive as a moonbeam; it’s as fragile as an orchid; you have to recapture it every morning of your life. You have to hold on by study, by faith, and by prayer…That which you possess today in testimony will not be yours tomorrow unless you do something about it…Testimony is either going to grow and grow to the brightness of certainty or it is going to diminish to nothingness, depending upon what we do about it…” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Harold B. Lee [2000], 43).

Is my witness sure?

Have I recaptured it today?

Am I holding on “by study, by faith, by prayer?”

Today, do I possess “the brightness of certainty” or the darkness of doubt?

How much we must “wake up and do something more than [just] dream of [our mansions] above…” (Hymn: “Have I Done Any Good?”)

Testimony is knowing, and conversion is doing, but doing is the faithful product of knowing, and knowing is a daily choice.

An every -day decision.

To embrace. Or forsake.

To rebelieve. Or disbelieve.

The daily grab, the refusal to let it slip away.

The growing light or the ensuing dark.

Bearing or burying?

Am I doing all I can to preserve my testimony?

Unto all the world: Let us do all we can to preserve our testimonies!