Hey, good to be here, Scott. You're a little cloudy today. Yeah, it is. But nice, nice day today. So ladies and gentlemen, you may not know this, but we're fortunate that it's cloudy today. That way Dave's here, not on the golf course. Just to... It was beautiful yesterday on the golf course. Okay. So now he's rubbing it in. Let's get right to it. Some of us were working yesterday.
Yeah. So, hey everybody, we've spent the last three episodes talking about some extremely important concepts and eternally important things in our lives and in the lives of those around us. In fact, in the lives of even those of us that don't understand that these things are important in our lives, they're just that important.
But as we've done this and we've started our kind of our journey in understanding the atonement and how redemption works through the atonement, not just redemption, but how healing works. All things can be changed and made new and made well and made better and made perfect and made whole through the atonement of Jesus Christ. And as we've been talking about those things over the last few episodes, we've really spent a lot of time in... Last week, we spent a...
And the week before, we spent a lot of time talking about premortal existence. We talked about our role there. We talked about how all of this was planned ahead of time, how the plan of redemption was laid out in front of us, how we all chose Him there, how it's our responsibility, our pleasure, our privilege, our gift to know Him here.
And as we do this and as we come to know ourselves and as we come to know Him, then finally we begin to put into process and into play the things that we need to in order for us to heal, in order for us to overcome, in order for us to see ourselves as we truly are, which are sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father. And we're going to talk about that today. We're much more than just sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father.
I mean, there is nothing more than that, but it extends and it's more complex and it's more involved than that. And I think that what we'll be talking about today will do nothing more than lend to the ability that we have as we see ourselves more clearly. It will give us the ability to have more faith in the redemption process. So having said that, let me take care of a couple of real quick housekeeping items too, first of all. We want to thank you for listening.
We want to thank you for your many responses, whether they be via text or email. We invite you to email us at, he redeemsusatgmail.com. He redeemsusatgmail.com. He received several emails, one is say a special thanks to Cindy and Roger and many, many others who reached out with some emails to us to encourage us, to give us some ideas, to share experience, strength and hope. And we're very much appreciated, appreciative of that. So with that, let's get things rolling.
Dave, what do you want to talk about today? Well, Scott, it dawned on me after our session last week that, I think we said it, but I don't know that we emphasized it enough or confirmed it enough using Scripture that not only did we choose Christ in the premortal existence, but that the atonement of Jesus Christ had power in our lives in the premortal existence.
And that it was through Christ and His atonement that gave us power even in the premortal existence to overcome Satan there, just as that's the key to overcoming Satan here. And one of my favorite Scriptures on that topic is in the Bible describing the war in heaven in the book of Revelation in chapter 12 verses 9 through 11, it reads, and the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.
He was cast out into the earth and His angels were cast out with Him.
And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, now has come salvation and strength, and the kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ for the accuser of our brethren, interesting phrase or title for Satan, accuser of our brethren, which in the premortal existence would have included Satan and those who led in the great noble ones in the premortal council in heaven, for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
Now the last verse and this is key, and they overcame Him by the blood of the Lamb, even in the premortal existence, Scott, and by the word of their testimony, and they love not their lives under the death. So this is a three step process of how we can not only overcome Satan here, but how we overcame Him there in the premortal existence.
Number one, through the blood of the Lamb or through repentance, we progressed, we received enabling powers and redemptive powers and compensating powers, healing powers, even in the premortal existence, that allowed us to overcome Satan there. And then we had testimonies there. I believe that we were all born with testimonies of truth, that there's a God, that there's a Christ.
I believe we were born now, even though we've forgotten, I think it's in our spirits, and that's why so many, when they hear the truth, they resonate with it. Most people on this earth believe they lived before they were born, even though I think we are the only, if not the, one of the few, if not the only church that teaches that. Anyway, people resonate with truth because it's ingrained in our spirits.
We had testimonies there, and we overcame Satan because of our testimonies there, and it's so important that we strengthen our testimonies here to overcome Him here. And then we were willing to go to the wall, so to speak. We were willing to do whatever it took. We were willing to give our all. Yeah, they were willing, they loved not their lives under the death. We were willing to fight, go to war. We were willing to take the risk.
We were willing to have those in the great and spacious building there, just like they do here, point fingers and scorn us. Those are the three keys to overcoming Satan. And so I just don't know if we emphasized enough how grateful we should be for the infinite, infinite Atonement, which we'll talk more about in another podcast in more detail, but infinite meaning, it covers all time.
It's retroactive back to when we were intelligences before we were spirits, and it will be retroactive as we progress and seek to become like our heavenly parents, that the Atonement had power and effect in our lives, even in the premortal existence. So there's a couple things that kind of stand out to me as you go through this. There is so much here that we need to know, because knowing this really helps us know ourselves better, right?
So first thing that comes to mind is, so often in the church, and not just in the church, I want to be careful of that, because I don't want to ever horrible-ize in a way things bigger than they really are.
But sometimes I believe that we as humans who are trying to have a spiritual experience or who are trying to draw nigh unto him, so to speak, that we see ourselves and we see our mistakes and we see our humanness, again, that we're going to address in the future, along with every day actually, as we're talking about this.
But those types of things keep us from filling, can keep us from filling his spirit, can cloud my knowledge of who I really am, can accuse me in my own mind of being something that I'm not or being something more than I am, which is that's never an adjective used to describe Jesus Christ. The accuser's only used. Advocate. So there's a big difference there. Advocate and accuser. Accuser versus advocate. Huge difference. Jesus is our advocate. Satan is our accuser.
And Jesus advocates for us and says, I died for them. I suffered for them. I love them. I have enough grace for them. Satan on the other hand accuses us and tells us that we're this or we're not that. He tells us that we're not sinners. He accuses us of not being children of God. He accuses us of not being good enough or he accuses us of being too good or whatever works, whatever works, whichever way we're leaning. He accuses us.
And I think that it's just really important that I remember, and we talked about that word last week too. We're coming across some, not coming across, we've known these all along, but as we start to put together an orchestrate kind of a string of these gems, you know, for me, I need to remember who I am. And when I'm feeling accused, I need to remember that I'm not remembering who I am. Right?
And so, you know, if I'm feeling accused, I need to step back and ask myself, and I've done this recently, as recently as this week. And I actually had a conversation with a very awesome man that I have a relationship with in a recovery world who's working steps and trying to better his life and, you know, these types of things.
And I had to, and as I shared this with him, I'm hearing these words myself that when I'm accusing myself, when I'm feeling less than, when I'm feeling inadequate about or any of those other things, I need to remember the source from whence they come, which is from the accuser, not the advocate.
And again, as we start to put in our minds and in our hearts, really in our souls, together what it means to have a relationship, to understand my identity, all of these things really help me with my identity, my spiritual identity crisis, which we all, we all from time to time deal with, but these things start helping me put that back together so that the healing process, the redemption process, cannot just begin but begin to be realized completely.
We, we see a lot of news and we talk a lot about identity theft in our world today because of technology. Satan is the master of identity theft. He is constantly accusing us of who we are or who we're not in the negative. And, and once he steals your identity, he's got you. Once he can convince you who you are or who you're not, according to his accusations, then he's got you. Yeah. Yeah. So you hit three things. Overcoming Satan, the first one was through the blood of Christ. Through the blood.
The second one was because of our testimonies and the third one was what? The third one is that they were willing to go to the wall and give their lives for the plan of redemption. Yeah. We were willing to give our lives to fight for it, fiercely fight for it, go to war to protect the plan of redemption. And so we get back to that, give our lives, right? Then we talked about last week, second step of most recoveries or came to believe that a spirit greater than me could restore me to sanity.
They all come from the 12 steps of alcoholics, non-mess, even the church of Jesus Christ, of Latter-day Saints has adopted as part of the addiction recovery program a variation of that very thing. We just use the name, the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ instead of higher power. It's identifying our identifying our identity. That seems a bit redundant, which it is. But that's really what we're doing. We're identifying our true identity in this search, in this quest.
Well, you and I talked a little bit about this just before we started, but identity is everything. Identity determines eternity. I believe that, Scott. And so we're probably spending, I don't know, a lot of time on this before we really get into the plan of redemption and the Atonement of Jesus Christ, but it seems to be such a central part in all of that is identifying who we are.
And I think on that point, maybe the second thing that I'd like for us to discuss today is continuing on who we are or whose we are, is that we also belong to a sacred family, a family of Abraham and Sarah. And sometimes we don't focus on that enough or don't understand the importance of that, Scott. It's all part of receiving the Abrahamic covenant and seeking to fulfill the Abrahamic covenant in our personal lives. So I want to talk a little bit about what all that means.
So I think that this is a great place to kind of bring into, as we go through life and as every human that's been on earth has gone through life, there are certain ties back to our origins, right, to our identity, getting back to this that really kind of help us. And we say this a lot in a lot of things, you know, don't look back, just look forward. Don't look back, just look forward. Because sometimes looking back to identifying to understand who we really are can be extremely important.
So as we start to go down and take this little journey with Dave here and understanding our relationship with the divine, our relationship with Heavenly Father, because of our relationship and our familial, really relationship, our family ties to Abraham and Sarah, this is just going to further expound on how important we are in the grand scheme of things and why we have this so that we can get back to and tie our spirits back to our Heavenly Father
and healing and enjoying the redemptive process. And it goes back to our premortal existence, Scott, again, seems like everything does, but we were foreordained, Abraham and Sarah were foreordained to be the father and mother of many nations, and we were foreordained to be descendants of them.
And I honestly believe as a patriarch, having given many blessings and in each of those blessings by revelation, telling someone who they're a descendant of or through which maybe a better way to say it is through which tribe of Israel they are to receive the blessings of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, and Jacob, that it's just really, I think, clear to me that we are literal descendants of Abraham and Sarah.
If anyone's not and they join the gospel, then they're adopted into that lineage and they're adopted into that bloodline. And you and I both have adopted children, and so we'll talk more about that in the future, you know, stories about that experience and things we've learned through our families and are adopted to my son, your daughter. We've experienced that, and we know that blood may be thicker than water, but love is thicker than blood, and that we love them like they're our own.
Yeah. Right? Yeah, because they are our own. They are our own. There literally is no differentiation. I know you feel the same way. So Dave and I adopted these two 30-plus-year-old children when they were just babies, and about the same time. I think we were just in a few months of each other. Dave has other children, as you know. We shared a story last week about Devon. I have other children, six other children, actually, and Casey's my second oldest.
And you know, there is absolutely no differentiation, even in her mind. There's no differentiation. And I know that to be a fact, because I had this conversation with Casey just yesterday again. It's really a sweet experience and option.
And it's interesting that when you take them to the house of the Lord in the temple to have them sealed to you, it's so interesting the wording there, which I don't know if it's appropriate for me to even repeat it, but in essence, how it is as though they were born to us. It says though they were born into the covenant and that there are forever and ever and ever, just as if they had been born to us. So I don't know.
I don't ever worry about whether somebody is a literal descendant or whether they're adopted into the house of Israel. The important thing is, is Abraham your father and Sarah your mother? Right. Right. And I think it's important, is if we are adopted and, you know, our DNA, I don't know how to run a DNA test to get the results back from whether or not I am Abrahamic, you know, et cetera. But it's really based on the concept of adoption that we just talked about.
It really is, I was going to say somewhat, it's totally irrelevant whether we're adopted or whether we are true descendants. It's still who we are and it still has the same effect and can, if we choose to let it, have the same effect on the way that we approach life, the way that we approach the world and each other. Well, let's talk a little bit about Abraham and Sarah and what it means to be children and descendants of Abraham and Sarah.
You know, it's interesting to me, we're doing Come Follow Me, the Old Testament this year and the church, which is fun. And I'm sure people have, you know, learned this. Moses in writing the book of Genesis spends 10 chapters or 15 pages in our Bible in describing 2,000 years of history from Adam to Abraham. And then everything after that, it seems to go back to Abraham. It's, I mean, there are several chapters in Genesis, pretty much the rest of Genesis is about Abraham and his descendants.
And Abraham goes all the way into the New Testament where he's talked about Father Abraham, Father of the faithful, that if you're of Christ, you belong to Abraham's seed in Galatians chapter 3. Moses quickly covered in 10 chapters, 2,000 years. And Abraham comes around 2000 BC and the whole rest of the Bible really hinges on that point. Abraham and Sarah and the Abrahamic covenant. We know the Lord appeared to Abraham several times.
We even know that Abraham and Sarah had the gospel of Jesus Christ. They knew Jehovah, they worshiped him, they knew that he was their Messiah. They had all the blessings of the gospel. They would have, they definitely had eternal family relationships and they had received these significant gospel covenants that make them eternal families. All of that was available to them and we've learned that because of the restoration of the gospel.
And the Abrahamic covenant, which he received, is talked about in Genesis 17, Genesis 22. But maybe the chapter that we have in the standard works that describe it, I think best, is in the book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price. And I'll just turn there quickly and we can read about the Abrahamic covenant and listen to the description of it here. So Pearl of Great Price, book of Abraham chapter 2, verses 8 through 11. It reads, My name is Jehovah and I know the end from the beginning.
For my hand shall be over thee, Abraham and Sarah. I will make of thee a great nation and I will bless thee above measure and make thy name great among all nations. I believe that's true today, Scott, like, you know, never before, all nations. And thou shalt be a blessing unto thy seed after thee, that in their hands they shall bear this ministry and priesthood unto all nations. So think about the Abrahamic covenant, the promises, and the responsibility that are described here.
I will bless them through thy name, for as many as receive this gospel shall be called after thy name and shall be accounted thy seed and shall rise up and bless thee as their father, literal or adopted, doesn't matter. And I will bless them that bless thee and curse them that curse thee. And in thee, that is in thy priesthood and in thy seed, that is the priesthood, for I give unto thee a promise that this right shall continue in thee, right, or we could say, and responsibility.
And in thy seed after thee, that is to say the literal seed or the seed of the body, shall all of the families of the earth be blessed, even with the blessings of the gospel, which are the blessings of salvation, even of life eternal. Well, that's in essence the Abrahamic covenant, Scott, and we can talk about that and the importance of it and what it all means. Well, so I think then the question becomes, why is this so important? And we've identified a couple of those answers, right?
I mean, one is just to further move along the process of our getting to know ourself and how that relationship with our Heavenly Father through the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ works. So, you know, why Dave then is the rest of this so important for us to know? Well, not only does it tell us who we are, but it tells us what we should be about. It tells us what we should be doing.
I think some people misunderstand that being of the seed of Abraham or making the covenants that we make or all of that that we do in the church or in trying to live the gospel and make and keep covenants, it's about a relationship, Scott. It all comes down to having a relationship, all of the gospel, all of the principles, all of the doctrine, all of the policies, all the procedures, all the covenants, all the commandments. Everything comes down to one point. Relationships.
Having an eternal relationship with deity and with our families. That is what this is all about. And one other thing that came into my mind is it's not just about the promises we receive, but it's about the responsibilities that we take upon ourselves. And it should give us some direction about how we live our lives, plan our lives, what we do with our lives. You know, being of the seed of Abraham, Scott doesn't make us better than anybody else, but it does give us responsibility.
It gives us the responsibility to take the gospel to all of the world and to get everyone connected to this sacred lineage. So it's not just about who we are, what should inspire us to then go out and help others to belong to this family. Yeah, and I think that's what it is. I think that once we do know who we are, we can't help it, right?
Once we really understand who we are, our appreciation becomes so deep for the blessings and gifts that we've been given that it's not necessarily even a decision-making process that I have to go through or one would have to go through to be, okay, do I share this now? Do I spread this good news? You know, all of those responsibilities. You know, for a guy like me, when I hear, here's your responsibilities, I just automatically get a little bit ruffled.
Yeah. Yeah, I don't like necessarily, Deb can't give me lists, she knows that. You know, I just don't necessarily like to be told what to do by anybody. But here's the thing that I've come to grips with, that the more I understand who I am and the greater love I feel for my Heavenly Father, I don't have to be told. It just becomes part of who I am. It becomes the fabric of Scott Durfee's essence of my spiritual, my soul, my spiritual and physical being.
It's a powerful, motivating, motivating force in our life when you really know who you are. I think another part of this, the importance of knowing who we are, specifically that we are sons and daughters of Abraham and Sarah Scott, a story just came into my mind from your life that when you were a little boy in Greenwood Elementary, you were accused of stealing something. Do you know what I'm talking about? I sure do. Yeah. And do you want to tell that story in the importance of a family name?
Yeah. So. The importance of having a family or a name. And you can say, Abraham is my father or my grandfather. Why don't you tell that story? So I don't necessarily remember all of the details. It seems to me that I do know that I was not yet even in fifth grade. So it was younger than fourth grade. And the reason I know that is because I remember the classroom in the hall. I walked down that long hall to that long walk to the principal's office. You know, I had been accused of something.
And it's never been beyond me to fit the accusation, but this time I did not fit the accusation, right? And I remember Mr. Allen was our principal. Marvin Allen was our principal. Good man. Great man. And two of his sons, Jay, and I don't, had been teachers mind, both in high school and junior high too. But anyway, he said to me, Scott, why would I believe you? He asked me, is this true? Did you do this? Is this true? Why would I believe you?
And I really couldn't think of anything else, except that I had been taught on my life, you know what, Scott, in our family we don't act like that. Or in our family we don't say those kinds of things. In our family we don't lie, you know, in those kinds of things. Obviously I wasn't a good student later in life, but at that point in my life, I think that, you know, I had grasped and held on to a lot of those things. And he said to me, Scott, why would I believe you?
And I said, well, Mr. Allen, because I'm a derpy and we don't lie. And I, and he said, okay, and that was good enough for him, you know. My name meant something to me. It meant something to him too. He knew my dad, he knew my parents, he knew grandpa, whose birthday it is today, by the way, happy birthday grandpa. Right. That would have been a hundred and let's see, eight today. Hundred and eight years old? Yeah. I'm missing.
But anyway, that was really cool because that experience, and I never said anything. I didn't tell my dad and mom what happened. I didn't tell anybody, but apparently he did, you know, because one day my, and I don't even remember if I'd come home from school and I don't remember all the circumstances surrounding it. I just remember one day my dad said, Scott, I need to talk to you. And that wasn't necessarily always a really good experience when, you know, a conversation began that way.
Scott, I need to talk to you. But this time it was, you know, he was just, I'm happy, Scott, that your name meant something to you and, you know, and that was the result. That's what it happened. And when we say Abraham's our father, Sarah's our mother, that should mean something. If we really understand their lives, and maybe we don't study them enough and attach the importance of their, who they really were.
And I, when I think of Abraham and Sarah, there's so many great attributes that we could talk about, their faithfulness, their patience, the unbelievable faith they had to wait to have a promised son, you know, and I think Sarah was 90 years old and she couldn't believe it that she could bear a son. I just can't believe their faith and patience waiting for the promised blessings.
And I think of the book of Hebrew when I think of Abraham and the promises that they saw as Paul describes it, a far off, and I just want to read this one verse. This is in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 13, describing the faith of Abraham and Sarah. It says, these all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them a far off. Seeing they had the eye of faith, Scott, these patriarchs and major arcs that we belong to, they have the eye of faith.
They received the promises, but having seen them a far off, and they were persuaded of them or motivated by them. Or had hope because. Yes, and embraced them as if they had already received them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth, knowing who they were, knowing they were sons and daughters of God, knowing who they belong to, knowing of their premortal past, knowing of their eternal lives that lay ahead of them.
When I think of Abraham and Sarah, I think of that verse and the description that it gives of their faith. Yeah, so when we read this, having received the promises, but having seen them a far off. You know what that does to me, David?
That brings in my mind how often, and it happens recently, it has happened recently, and it continually happens sometimes, but how often do I have something that I'm working towards, something I'm trying to overcome, something that's really nailing me, making life difficult. Yeah. Whether it's because of my own decisions or because, whatever, you know, and I could be talking about addiction, I could be talking about depression, I could be talking about anxiety, and a myriad, literally a myriad.
Or you could be upset and concerned about a way we're child. That too. You know, others who you love, who were having those same challenges and problems in their life. I could be dealing with a situation that was perpetrated against me many years ago. Or against your child. Or against, and on and on and on and on it goes, your imagination is the only restrictive part of this potential process, right? And so, you know, having seen them a far off. The promises. Having seen those promises.
Those promises are far off. So the promises of what? So as we talk about, what are the promises that we're talking about here? Obviously, all part of the Abrahamic covenant, no question. Right. That the promises specifically we're talking about here is the promises of redemption and the promises of atonement. The promises of healing and eternal life that can only come through this, through this thing that we know is the atonement through redemption.
And so as he sees them a far off and we're persuaded of them, that's the faith. That's the faith I have. When I have something that, oh man, I just can't seem to be get overcoming this. I just can't seem to be putting it aside or whatever. I pray, I make, I take it to the sacrament table, I fast about it, whatever the case may be. And I'm struggling. But that faith were that they sawed them and were persuaded of them and embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on.
I mean, that whole thing right there is broken heart and contrite spirit. That whole thing right there is steps one, two and three in every recovery program. See it a far off because I can see it a far off. It creates faith in me because I know who I am and I know who I am. But because it's far off, I'm persuaded because of my faith and then that relief comes. So many in the church are married, struggle with, as my wife and I did, with the challenge of infertility.
And to be able to have this, to say that I'm of Abraham and Sarah and to be able to know their life and to seek to follow their example and to obtain this eye of faith would help me to know that it's just a matter of time that we have children and that maybe I can actually see them in my eye of faith. I can see children, sons and daughters because of this faith that Abraham and Sarah had that we should all seek.
Or whether I'm single and I'm not married and I haven't received that promise or I haven't been able to overcome all of my sins and addictions to go to the temple. You know, I have a dear friend who had a wayward son and he couldn't see ever his wayward son being a part of their eternal family.
And one day he was in Chicago, this was a friend, dear friend I had in Minnesota and he'd gone down the temple in Chicago and he was in the Chicago temple, Scott, and he was sitting in the celestial room and he was praying and he had this impression to look up at the veil of the temple. And he looked at the veil of the temple and with, I'm sure, an eye of faith. But in his mind, he really saw this. He wept as he shared this with me. He saw his son, Sam, walk through the veil of that temple.
And Sam was not in a place at that time where he could have stepped foot in the temple or wouldn't have. So with an eye of faith, having the faith of Abraham and Sarah trying to again, you know, knowing that their characteristics and trying to receive those same characteristics can be such a blessing to us here on the earth as we struggle with our everyday challenges. You know, something just occurred to me as you were sharing that story.
Not only is it important that we know who we are, it's important that we know who everybody else is too, right? Right. I mean, if I know, we see them that way. If I'm that father and I have that son and I have the ability to see that son the same way that I'm attempting to see me right now. You know, Dave, you'll remember, I don't know if you will or not, but I called you and I was struggling because I had made some choices in my life that had created a separation of my family.
You know, my family, it wasn't just that. There's more to it than just that. But my family had, it was no longer whole the way that it had been whole before. I was divorced now and single and I had these four kids and I was really struggling because my four kids were not necessarily being blessed with the kind of blessings in direction and example and various things. And I certainly wasn't providing a very good one.
And so, you know, imagine the double jeopardy of the despair that maybe I was feeling around that. And I had to understand that if I just understand who they are, we sat at the Italian place one day and here in Orm Utah and, you know, I don't even, it was a long, long lunch, but we went through that whole thing of understanding not just who I am, but who they are and who my wife is and who my parents are. If you could just see them. Yeah, my God. The way God sees them.
If you could just see them, who they are and who they are, it totally changes your relationship with them. And I think that's what he meant when he said, love one another. See them the way I see them. Yeah. Now, further, we should talk about what it means to be of Abraham and Sarah through their lineage and through a tribe of Israel. So Abraham had Isaac. Isaac had Jacob. His name, Jacob's name was changed to Israel.
He has these 12 sons and such an important part of our church and the history of our church and the present state we find ourselves in the church is the gathering of these 12 tribes of Israel, the gathering of Israel. I love President Nelson's emphasis on this, Scott. The gathering of Israel on both sides of the bell. And that's what we're all about and Israel means let God prevail and President Nelson really has a vision of this.
And it's never before Scott has Israel been gathered or the descendants of Abraham and Sarah like they're being gathered now. And it was exciting, thrilling for me.
I always thought that maybe the most important part of a patriarchal blessing was an individual's lineage and even though many of them were the same, I thought if they understood what that meant and they really understood what that means to be of Ephraim, of Joseph, of Jacob, of Isaac, of Abraham, how would that change their life and not just as far as how they see themselves, but how they plan their life and what they do with their life. I had an experience. Do we have time to share this?
I had an experience once that really taught me of the importance of a tribe. I was giving a patriarchal blessing to a young woman. I think she was about 20 years old. She had come from the middle of the Congo in Africa. And she had escaped her captors. Her family had been hurt, some of them killed. And she had escaped and had immigrated to the United States miraculously. And she came to the United States and an immigration officer after interviewing her, said to her, you sound religious.
I'm going to send you to Utah because I understand they're religious. So she came thankfully to Utah. She was adopted by a family in our, she was taken in and then later adopted by a family in our stake. She had a two year old child that she had had. But anyway, this beautiful young woman had finally joined the church after being here for just over a year. And shortly after that, wanted to get her patriarchal blessing. And I prayed and fasted to prepare to give her a blessing.
And this would often happen with me. And I don't know, not all the time, but many times. I knew what her lineage was before she actually came to my home. Praying about it, I knew. And when she came and I was giving her patriarchal blessing and I got to that part of lineage, I told her that she was a descendant of naftali. Wow. I'd never. First one? First one, first ever, never again, naftali. She started to weep.
I could feel her just kind of, you know, she, I could just feel how important that was to her. And sweet blessing. And after the blessing was over, she turned to me and she said, Brother Durfee, can I pray? And I said, you want, you want to pray, Julie? She said, yeah, can I pray? I said, sure, let's pray. And she, she went to kneel down. Wow. Yeah. And I said, wait, wait just a minute, Julie, let's, let's all of us kneel down.
Her parents were there with her, her adopted parents and we kneeled down. All four of us. And she said, can I pray in my language? Oh, wow. Yes. And I said, sure, of course. And she started to pray. I will never forget this sacred experience and the power of her prayer, Scott. She prayed loud. She was very loud. And I didn't understand the language, but I kept hearing this one word over and over and over again that I recognized naftily, naftily, naftily.
Prayer ended and we got up, tears in our eyes and brother and her mom and dad came over, shook my hand and said, it might, it might help brother Durfee, if you understand something about Julie. She lost her tribe. Oh, wow. And now she has a tribe. Yeah. And in her culture, and I think that's true for most of the Middle East, for her culture, tribe is everything. Right. Belonging to a tribe is everything. It's family.
And that really was a singular experience that taught me the importance and the sacred nature and the powers, Scott, of belonging to a tribe, the tribe of Israel, how important that should be to us, how we should seek to understand more about our tribe, the characteristics of our tribe, the mission and responsibilities that our tribe has received in the patriarchal blessings given by Israel, Jacob, the great patriarch, and we should seek to understand
our tribe and the responsibilities we need to fulfill. Anyway, if we could fill that way about belonging to a tribe and belonging to Abraham and Sarah and Abrahamic covenant, it would really change, again, our mortal mission. Yeah. There's no question. I'm speechless. That is an awesome story that you just shared about that young lady.
And you know, this is something that I think that at some level, if we take a minute and reflect in our own lives, this is something that we can all really relate to, I hope. You know, there's probably very few things that are more despairing than the lack of belonging to something. As a matter of fact, addiction is really more about detachment, a lack of having something to connect to. That's it. It's a lack of connection.
And so, you know, as we've talked about today, all of these things that we've talked about when we are at a time, I'm going to let Dave say a few more words before we call it to a close here in just a minute. I just want to emphasize the importance again for the third week in a row, the importance again of who we are, the importance again of how important our identity is.
And a real honest and accurate concept, self-concept, spiritual self-concept of who we are is paramount in importance to maybe everything else that we know in this life. Because knowing that, then we can start to build a really solid foundation.
As we live for more peace, as we live for more harmony, and as we learn to let the atonement of Jesus Christ through His redemption and through His healing and through all of the other things that have been promised to us through our various connections to Him, I just know that it's through that that all of our troubles are healed and taken care of. And so, another great session, Dave, what do you have to impart to us on your way out?
Well, if it's okay, I just want to close by expressing my gratitude, Scott, for the restoration of the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And to kind of top this discussion of the importance of belonging to Abraham and Sarah, you know, there's only two gospels in this life that are mentioned in the scriptures. The gospel of Jesus Christ is one. He's my Savior, He's my Redeemer, He atoned, He ransomed, all of that for me.
He is the center, His atonement, and He are the center of the whole plan of redemption. But it's also mentioned in the scriptures in Doctrine and Covenants section 110 that Elias restored the keys of the gospel of Abraham. Maybe I know we're out of time, Scott, but I'm just going to read this verse. It's in Doctrine and Covenants section 110, which was the dedication of the Kirtland Temple.
And there in the Kirtland Temple, in a holy house dedicated to the Lord shortly after the dedication, Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Smith go behind the veil up in the pulpits of the Kirtland Temple, and the Savior appears to them, Moses appears to them and restores the keys of the gathering of Israel. And then verse 12 says, after this Elias appeared and committed the dispensation of the gospel of Abraham. I just, what's the gospel of Abraham?
Whenever we see the gospel, we of course think of Christ. That's the fullness. That's redemption. But the gospel of Abraham is also important. And the verse continues, saying that in us and our seed, all generations after us should be blessed. That's the Abrahamic covenant or the gospel of Abraham, which is really comes down to again one point. Scott, families can be together forever. We can have eternal families. That's what it comes down to. That's the gospel of Abraham is eternal families.
I'm so grateful for the fullness of the gospel that's been restored, the gospel of Jesus Christ and the gospel of Abraham, which we have because of the restoration. How wonderful. And I know I speak for all of our listeners. We're grateful for you, Dave, and your ability to help us to understand some of these things a little deeper. And to be able to maybe apply them in our lives, it's one thing to have a really good knowledge of this stuff.
It's another thing to be able to know what it means and how do I use it in my life for my own betterment and the betterment of those around me. Remember that identity determines eternity. I'm going to quote Dave on that for the rest of my life. We'll probably even title this podcast that because it's so important, so true. Brothers and sisters, ladies and gentlemen, please remember who you are. Please know who you are.
Please gain a great deep understanding of who you are and who you are because as we do that, the process of healing, the process of coming unto him, the process of redemption, the process of ridding ourselves of anything that is not exactly like him becomes much easier to do. We're grateful to have had the opportunity to be with you again today. Don't forget to send us your comments. He redeems us at gmail.com. Scott Durfee, Dave Durfee, we've enjoyed being with you.
Once again, look forward to our time together next week. Until then, God bless and take care.