Also Working on a Talk, Ugh – Help Please!

I’d call the bishopric member back ASAP and tell him that after some thought, I’d really prefer if I could just give a Fathers’ Day talk and ask if that’s OK with him. If he says he’d rather I talk on the BofM, then I’d tell him, that I won’t be able to speak that day, but I’d again offer to give a Fathers’ Day talk, so is he sure he doesn’t want me to do that? If pressed about why, I’d simply say that it’s just too difficult of an assignment to speak about the BofM on Father’s Day, and that I don’t know how to make it come across as anything but an annoyance to the the listener. The most important thing is that I’m offering it by way of explanation, not so that he can assure me that it will be OK. I’ve already decided that I won’t be able to do that.

There, I was able to get myself out of it without a ‘confession’. Most likely, he’d accept my proposal, because he doesn’t want to scramble to find someone else with less than a week to go.

As an aside, although I wouldn’t do it out of respect, it does delight the imagination to just do this myself. I could go up with seven or eight pages of somehting printed out (doesn’t matter what it is, because I would never write a talk out anyway… cookbooks or sections of Lord of the Rings or something)… but then make a big show that I’ve got this long typed-out ‘talk’ that I’m going to read, but then it would be fun to say something like, “I have prepared a talk on studying the Book of Mormon, but I feel inspired today to set it aside and talk about Fathers’ Day”… Then I’d fold up the pages and put them into my scriptures and just talk on what I wanted in the first place.

Yeah, I would write a Father’s Day talk based on the Book of Mormon helping us draw closer to Christ. 😆

Seriously, I would write a Father’s Day talk and use some examples from the Book of Mormon to assist in making the points you want to make. You can use Lehi and Alma as nearly opposite examples of how to deal with wayward children (Lehi preaching at them and Alma praying for them – and the different results of those approaches) – or Mormon teaching his son charity by returning to a wayward people, even though it meant being killed in the end – or any other message you want to teach. (Fwiw, I think one of the central principles in the Book of Mormon deals with fatherhood and how to deal with children who struggle in some way.)

At the end, I would tie in how learning to be a righteous, patient, charitable person (married or not, parent or not) leads us to Christ.

I would avoid seminary completely. Literally, I would ignore that request and, if asked about it afterward, honestly say I ran out of time.

Postscript: If your Bishop won’t allow women to be the final speaker in Sacrament Meeting, he is a cafeteria Mormon. :silent: Sometimes, irony is delicious, even if its fruit is not.

Disclaimer: Don’t take my advice.

For the last two talks I’ve been assigned I’ve treated the theme as suggestions. I’ve started with what they wanted me to talk about but I’ve spent a considerable amount of time trying to reframe the theme into something I’d feel comfortable talking about. The last two themes:

1) What am I doing to HtW? That didn’t happen, in fact I made it a point to not say the phrase at all during my talk (people hear it enough already). I turned this talk into something completely different but still tied it back in with missionary work, even if it wasn’t the traditional kind of missionary work.

2) Using the BoM as a tool to do missionary work. I struggled with this one for a while but I finally decided to read some scriptures from the BoM that are centered on mercy then saying that people out there need this message. Something like that. I never ended up giving this talk because I talked to a councilor in the bishopric about the program and we ended up tweaking it a bit. Still I would have felt comfortable with the slight deviation that I made if I still had to give a talk.

My plan going forward is to take the assigned theme as a suggestion. If they don’t like it then I figure they won’t ask me to speak as often.

Doesn’t work for everyone, both the person giving the talk and the leaders that asked the person to give the talk. We’re a small unit that feels more like family so it may be easier for me to get away with stuff like that. In short, I’d just give a talk on fathers. :angel:

(This once backfired horribly, BTW, but that’s a story for a different thread).

I’ll be keeping my eye out for it.

Thanks for your comments and advice. They’ve been very helpful and have given me the courage to give the talk I want to give.

Love this OON:

As an aside, although I wouldn’t do it out of respect, it does delight the imagination to just do this myself. I could go up with seven or eight pages of somehting printed out (doesn’t matter what it is, because I would never write a talk out anyway… cookbooks or sections of Lord of the Rings or something)… but then make a big show that I’ve got this long typed-out ‘talk’ that I’m going to read, but then it would be fun to say something like, “I have prepared a talk on studying the Book of Mormon, but I feel inspired today to set it aside and talk about Fathers’ Day”… Then I’d fold up the pages and put them into my scriptures and just talk on what I wanted in the first place.

😆 Don’t think I’ll do that this time, but I’m filing it away for future undesirable speaking topics.

Mom3 Said:

On the other hand, don’t make the phone call, write a talk about Fathers, include lots of scripture fathers – including a few from the Book of Mormon, use examples of loving father/son relationships. Express gratitude for the scriptural images of father hood and call it good.

and Ray said:

Seriously, I would write a Father’s Day talk and use some examples from the Book of Mormon to assist in making the points you want to make. You can use Lehi and Alma as nearly opposite examples of how to deal with wayward children (Lehi preaching at them and Alma praying for them – and the different results of those approaches) – or Mormon teaching his son charity by returning to a wayward people, even though it meant being killed in the end – or any other message you want to teach. (Fwiw, I think one of the central principles in the Book of Mormon deals with fatherhood and how to deal with children who struggle in some way.)

I agree with both of these wholeheartedly, especially the part about preaching vs praying for/loving . This is the way I was thinking too. My husband and I learned this lesson the hard way. He’s a great father, but we both did way too much preaching and not enough loving in raising our boys. We’re doing our best to make up for that now. I want to help young fathers avoid the mistakes we made. I also want to pay tribute to my father for the amazing man he is, even though he won’t be there to hear it. I can read it to him later on the phone.

I also think that the only way (or maybe best way?) to come to Christ is through love. We talk about this so little in the Church, but I know there are many other threads on that topic.

BTW, Mom3, I think DH will be fine with whatever I say in the end, because he’s like that. I’m just not going to tell him what I’m going to say before hand.