To the Saints: A Rousing Cry

I finished a book recently. It is nonfiction, a collection of unassigned church talks that sprang from two successive requests to speak at the mission farewells of some friends, Travis Kupp and Sean Bell. This collection would not exist without their curious faith in me, so thank you Travis and Sean (They've both been back from their missions for some time now.)

I've only given the first three publicly; the other five are much, much longer than would be able to fit in a sacrament meeting schedule. Those five are essentially long essays in the form of talks (e.g. I address the audience as "brothers and sisters" from time to time). All eight of these are still in rough draft mode, which means I haven't really gone back to them very much after initially completing them and the immediate read-through for basic errors before I post them on the blog. So before I seek to get this collection published I will be going back and doing a heckuva lot of revising and editing; thus your input and/or encouragement would be most welcome.

In the end, this is part of my contribution to the missionary work we're all meant to be engaged in. I wasn't able to serve a full-time mission because of health issues, and I realized that that style of sharing the gospel is something I really don't have the capability to do; therefore, I've done this. I hope something in one of these talks can touch the reader and help them expand their perspective of our identity and destiny, and see some aspect of the gospel in a new light.

I call this collection, To the Saints: A Rousing Cry, because I want readers to catch some of the energy I feel about this work, to wake up, throw off the chains of spiritual sleep, and rise up to do our duty to God. There's a lot of work to do, and it can only be done by us.

I am also including Talk #8 online for the first time. Previously it had been shared only privately due to its extremely personal nature.

Here is what is essentially the table of contents. All the links will take you to the particular talk.

1. The God Arc
2. A Man More Precious than Fine Gold
3. The Fruits of Repentance
4. This Dream Will End
5. A Mirror of God
6. The Work is Not Yet Done
7. A New Call for Consecration
8. Ris'n with Healing in His Wings

A guide to the topics:

1. our identity and destiny as children of God
2. words of comfort and counsel to people in pain (of any kind)
3. the unending effects and global importance of personal repentance
4. comfort to those who have lost something or someone
5. about our Heavenly Father and our relationship with Him
6. the work of the holy temple
7. another aspect of consecration: specifically, our time and talents
8. the Atonement, its function and purpose (and how it has affected me)

Please read some of these when you have the time. Some of them can get quite long (peaking at ~13,000 words in "A Mirror of God") but I think they might be worth it. A good Sunday read, if anything.

Thanks,
Neal