2025-07 Jul - Prioritizing

Jul 20, 2025 house of order prioritizing hastening pace of new temples personal revelation

Read time: Summary 0.1 minutes | Expanded section: 8.0 minutes | Entire message 8.1 minutes

Summary

Expanded Message

Happy Fourth of July!

The Hastening

“Do you see what is happening right before our eyes? I pray that we will not miss the majesty of this moment! The Lord is indeed hastening His work.” ~ Russell M. Nelson, 2024; see also Doctrine and Covenants 88:73: “Behold, I will hasten my work in its time.”

Hastening His work. “Hastening” is a word that matters. It suggests moving quickly, accelerating, and even urgency. In the growth of the Church and the plan of Christ, hastening is happening. And we are all a part of it. ~ Elder Ronald A. Rasband, Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Apr 2025

Exciting words from our last General Conference.

The Church is building temples at an unprecedented pace, giving more members an opportunity to worship in the house of the Lord. Second, missionary work is gathering record numbers to the fold of the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ. ~ Elder Ronald A. Rasband, Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Apr 2025

What does the increasing pace of temple construction imply for us?

As the Lord hastens the work, the collaborative nature of everyone working on the Human Family Tree is indeed better than me only keeping a database on my local computer.

Brothers and sisters, we are hastening our holiness as we live temple worthy, as we worship in the house of the Lord, and as we make covenants with God for ourselves and on behalf of our ancestors on the other side of the veil. ~ Elder Ronald A. Rasband, Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Apr 2025

Prioritizing Our Time With Help from the Holy Ghost

Our time in mortality is bound by time, and time steadily marches forward.

Personal revelation can include listening for promptings as we prioritize how we spend our time.

Definition of Prioritize:

Why should I prioritize? Because like Nephi had limited space on the brass plates to write, we all have limited resources like time, energy, and attention. Prioritizing helps us focus on the most important and impactful items. Prioritizing can lead to better outcomes and reduced stress. Knowing we didn’t try to run faster than we have strength AND that we consciously prioritized, helps us sleep better at night.

Recently I took a new job with so much to do and little time in which to do it. I prayed for help. As the Lord helped Nephi find ore, and build a ship, I asked for help in my new role.

I ask the same of everyone today: Whatever is on your to-do list, give equal time, not spare time, to the Lord in personal scripture study, family study of Come, Follow Me, prayer, Church callings, ministering, partaking of the sacrament, worshipping in the temple, and pondering the things of God. ~ Elder Ronald A. Rasband, Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Apr 2025 (emphasis added)

At this new job, I needed to adjust quickly to be successful. I needed to prioritize the most needful things first. I prayed and I received personal revelation about how to proceed. The promptings of the Holy Ghost also brought me increased internal peace in the midst of the daily churn at high speed.

Our Lord and Savior has said, “Learn of me … and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” Take Him at His word. And give Him equal time. ~ Elder Ronald A. Rasband, Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Apr 2025 (emphasis added)

Rest unto your body includes a good night’s sleep. Rest unto your soul may include feeling like we did the best we could with what we had.

Prioritizing helps us focus on the things we can control that matter most and helps us trust in God for help with the things we cannot control. Accomplishing the most meaningful things in a day helps me feel good. I suspect it does for you too. Rest to our soul, means letting the portions we’ve turned over to God go after we turn them over to him.

Mortality is a spiritual journey. Here is our living prophet giving us guidance:

“I plead with you to let God prevail in your life. Give Him a fair share of your time. As you do, notice what happens to your positive spiritual momentum.” Russell M. Nelson, “The Power of Spiritual Momentum,” Liahona, May 2022, 99. (emphasis added)

It can sometimes seem hard, and sometimes overwhelming. The world’s voices cry all the louder from our radios, mobile devices, computers, and streaming services (and TV broadcasts for those still using that).

Jesus Christ is the answer. Start with Him. Look for His hand in your life. Listen to Him. “Let not your heart be troubled” ~ Elder Ronald A. Rasband, Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Apr 2025

West Point intentionally overloads cadets with more to do than is possible. All of the load added on those young adults provides experiential learning that prioritization is a necessity in chaotic or complex situations.

Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God (D&C 88:119, emphasis added)

Sometimes our lives can feel chaotic or hard. Simply having a todo list, for me, is not enough. A todo list can quickly grow to huge proportions making it clear there is more to do than can be done. Those times take us back to the need for prioritization. Life seems to force the need upon us. Necessity becomes the mother of invention. We can restore order using prioritization.

And we do not all have the same priorities. Each of us have different capacities. Most of us have different callings in growing the Kingdom of God on earth. Therefore we should expect that your prioritization list will not be the same as mine. Yet both help establish order in both our lives.

The scriptures indirectly address prioritization without using that word. Ordering something first is by definition, prioritizing.

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. (Matt 6:33)

The other story in the New Testament that comes to mind is Mary and Martha and how one focused on the most needful thing and the other had to be coached by the Savior on prioritization. Sometimes, perhaps we’re more like one, and sometimes more like the other.

Seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom (D&C 88:118)

One of the wisdom nuggets I have found is the Cynefin Framework. There is an article in the Havard Business Review about using it for decision making in leadership roles. I find it interesting that the Cynefin model divides our challenges up into “ordered” and “disordered”. Especially when the Lord asks for a house of order. In each of the Cynefin domains, success requires prioritizing differently. Our context should influence our prioritization. For example, our calling, or whether we have children, and if so, how dependent they are on us at their current stage in life.

I testify the Holy Ghost will help us with prioritizing how we spend our time, if we ask, and if we listen, and if we act on those promptings. I know the blessings of internal peace when aligning with the Lord, even for my job.

Story Time

Are there any stories of helping others in your family’s history that you might share with loved ones?

If not, consider these.

Reminder. Current Workflow for Family History:

Think Inputs and Outputs.

  1. Historical people’s information first has to be digitized (others do this).
  2. We index people’s digitized information so the image can be associated with text, which can be found in computer searches. AI is still not good enough to do this by itself.
  3. We link families' data together in FamilySearch.org (each member’s initial target is 4-Generations found and linked. Later we work cousin lines too.)
  4. We attach people’s information (source data) to the right person to help us and others to get to know them better. Attaching more sources also shows our hypotheses about individuals more likely true than not true as we build a clear picture of who they were.
  5. Then, we can get names to take to the temple and offer them the choice of being linked to their families for eternity.
  6. By delving deeper, finding and attaching sources and their small bits of information about our ancestor’s experiences, we get to know our people (both direct lines and cousin lines), and our hearts turn to them. As more original sources are digitized and indexed, more puzzle pieces become available. It’s an ongoing and accelerating effort. When are we “done” knowing someone? We can all go beyond the dates of their birth and death and get to know our people.
  7. We can bless others by sharing with our immediate family and cousins what we’ve learned about our shared ancestors or kin, helping all of us feel more grounded, knowing where we came from. Potentially helping them to turn their hearts to their fathers too.

As Ward Temple & Family History Consultants we are called to help you with HOW to do these things, the Lord has asked that we all do.

Sincerely, Your Ward Temple & Family History Consultants,

During Stake Family Search Center posted hours, our staffing assignments are posted

(our contact info is in the tools app, or see us in church)

P.S. - Older versions of this Ward Message (without names), with some how-to instructions, are at familyhistorystuff.com for your reference. This site is not for profit. The .com was a mistake when .org was intended, and would have doubled the cost to fix the mistake.