Jan 9, 2025

ChurchofJesusChrist.org

In missionary work we teach and are taught lessons that benefit us personally for many years. While in California I had the opportunity to work with Elder and Sister Steed, a wonderful senior missionary couple. They were going to have a discussion with a family, and the minister of their congregation would be with them. I was invited to come, and I prayed to know what I should do and say. 

After a few minutes of meeting with the family, they started making insincere comments and asking antagonistic questions. I asked them to share their beliefs, and they only attacked and questioned ours. Their minister then asked, “So what do you think about our questions?”

I replied with a scripture that came to my mind, Doctrine and Covenants 50:23: “And that which doth not edify is not of God, and is darkness.” The minister was taken aback, but it changed the spirit of the meeting, and we closed with a prayer.

Though I had already known that the Holy Ghost was a revelator, I learned a valuable lesson from this experience on how I could distinguish Him from other sources: The Holy Ghost edifies. Joseph Smith taught, “The Holy Ghost is a revelator,” and “no man can receive the Holy Ghost without receiving revelation.” Joseph Smith was the model for receiving answers to prayers and learned the difference between the darkness of the adversary and the edifying light of the Holy Ghost. To edify is to instruct or improve, enlighten or uplift morally or intellectually. Its synonyms are to educate, inspire, enlighten, or enrich; its opposites are to mislead, misinform, bewilder, conceal, perplex, conceal, deceive, or hide.

President Wilford Woodruff was one excellent example of listening to and following the Spirit. He taught: “Now, if you have the Holy Ghost with you—and every one ought to have—I can say unto you that there is no greater gift, there is no greater blessing, there is no greater testimony given to any man on earth. . . . It is by this power that we have performed that which we have. It is this that sustains us through all the persecutions, trials and tribulations that come upon us.” In other words, we will be edified and guided in no matter what situations we face.

As we have been given much, let us give much to others and by choosing to follow the Spirit we will be able to bless others. In a revelation to Joseph Smith he was told, “Wherefore the voice of the Lord is unto the ends of the earth, that all that will hear my voice” (Doctrine and Covenants 1:11). As we follow His voice we will be with the Spirit, in the Spirit, by the Spirit and of the Spirit. If it does not edify it is not of God (Doctrine and Covenants 50:23), and we can be assured that it is not from our Heavenly Father.

Garry Weiss is a retired teacher currently living in Snowflake, Arizona, who loves his family, Church, community, and especially his grandchildren. His hobbies are journal writing, rock collecting, temple and family history work, and anything his grandchildren want to do and learn.

The Wilford Woodruff Papers Foundation’s mission is to digitally preserve and publish Wilford Woodruff’s eyewitness account of the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ and make his records universally accessible in order to inspire all people, especially the rising generation, to study and to increase their faith in Jesus Christ. For more information, please explore wilfordwoodruffpapers.org.