Welcome.

There have been a lot of references to joy lately in my little world.

At the recent funeral services for my maternal grandmother, my mother read a poem my grandmother had written in her 80’s, some few years prior to her earthly graduation. She titled it, “Unspeakable Joy.” It gives a tender indication of the purifying process through which my sweet grandma purposefully passed, for the deliberation with which she approached God, for the experiences she had with Him that changed her, for the woman she had become when she commenced. Here are her soul stirring words:

Unspeakable Joy

I go to the Lord

On bended knee –

I feel His presence

And He talks with me.

Joy, unspeakable joy –

This is what I feel.

No matter the problem

No matter the time –

With arms wide open

His time is mine.

Joy, unspeakable joy –

This is what I feel.

I tell Him of pain

And weakness I feel –

He touches my heart and

I know I will heal.

Joy, unspeakable joy –

This is what I feel.

No longer in anguish

No longer in fear –

My eyes have been opened

My ears do hear.

Joy, unspeakable joy –

This is what I have

Unspeakable joy! 1

Then this week in Come Follow Me, a suggested talk for study was Elder Christofferson’s October 2019 General Conference message entitled, “The Joy of the Saints.” His whole message is fantastic, but I especially loved remembering the story of Sister Kalombo Kamwanya from the DR Congo who was, at the time of Elder Christofferson’s talk, serving as a full-time missionary for the Lord.

Elder Christoferson shared her beautiful story:

“As a teenager, Sister Kalombo…Kamwanya…fasted and prayed for three days to find the direction God wanted her to take. In a remarkable night vision, she was shown two buildings, a chapel and what she now realizes was a temple. She began to search and soon found the chapel she had seen in her dream. The sign said, “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” Sister Kamwanya was baptized and then her mother and her six brothers. Sister Kamwanya said, ‘When I received the gospel, I felt like a captured bird that had been liberated…’ ” 2

I love this image! Once trapped, now freed.

As noted by Elder Christofferson in that message, three years prior, President Nelson delivered a message about joy as well. Many of us remember that talk, especially this paragraph:

“The joy we have has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.”3

That shared insight by President Nelson was a life changer for me. In 2019, I began to radically and drastically shift my focus, and man has it changed my life.

As I’ve been pondering joy – and loving the idea of unspeakable joy – I’ve thought of Father Lehi and his deeply meaningful, revelatory vision of the tree of life. It’s a bit of a busy dream with lots of moving parts and lots of things happening concurrently, but I love the symbolism – unique to each reader – of all that’s happening.

When Lehi’s son, Nephi, saw his father’s dream and learned of the interpretation thereof, there is this awesome statement by Nephi that I just love, and it’s been coming to my mind over and over this week. Of the filthy water, Nephi wrote: “…so much was his [Father Lehi’s] mind swallowed up in other things that he beheld not the filthiness of the water…”4

SO MUCH WAS HIS MIND SWALLOWED UP IN OTHER THINGS THAT HE BEHELD NOT.

This is joy. This is living in joy. This is letting the world go on in chaos and confusion and all the while being upheld by a fulfilling and sustaining covenant relationship with God, with clear vision of what matters most, knowing that God is right and you have enlisted on His side. While all around us is filth and decay and degeneration, it matters not because so much are “our mind[s] swallowed up in other things that we [behold] it not.” 5

Is this to say we live under a rock? No. Not at all. We know of the calamities, we live in them, but we are so much focused on the gospel and the good we can contribute therein and to all of mankind that we do not “behold” – in any personal way of experiencing it – the filth of our fallen world.

And that, my friends, brings joy now and in time, unspeakable joy.

Unto all the world: Joy! Unspeakable Joy!

1. Poem written by Nancy Hyde, read at her Feb 2024 funeral services in Fallon, Nevada
2. Christofferson, T., “The Joy of the Saints,” Ensign or Liahona, November 2019, 15-18)
3. Russell M. Nelson, “Joy and Spiritual Survival,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2016, 81-84
4. 1 Nephi 15:27
5. Ibid.