What is the purpose of stake priesthood leadership meetings?  More particularly, what is the reasoning behind stake priesthood leadership meeting on stake conference weekend?  The meeting happens twice a year, right in the middle of a busy Saturday afternoon.  Everyone with anything at all to do must choose between 10 other worthy projects and attendance at priesthood leadership.

Beyond the fact that the Brethren have prescribed the holding of these meetings, what other reason justifies their being held?

Let me tell you about several meetings that I've attended.

As an elders quorum president I attended the priesthood leadership session when Bruce R. McConkie visited our stake.  Elder McConkie had lists of the priesthood leaders in front of him.  He ran his finger down the list of elders quorum presidents and stopped on President James E. Kerns.

"President Kerns.  Would you please stand?" he said.

President Kerns didn't want to stand.  In the worst way, he didn't want to stand!  He was glad, however, that since his name was called, he was there to answer.  His bishop and stake president were likewise glad that a summons by an Apostle was not answered by the embarrassing silence of a no-show.

President Kerns stood.  Elder McConkie proceeded to ask a doctrinal or a procedural priesthood question.  President Kerns answered.

Elder McConkie had probably originally intended to direct his next question at another priesthood leader, but something in the answer to the first question prompted him to direct another to President Kerns.—And then another, and another.

President Kerns came away from the experience with two sensations.  One was that he had spent an interminably long time on his feet being grilled by the Church's foremost doctrinal authority.  The other was an intense feeling of satisfaction from knowing that he had done well.  His confidence in himself took a giant stride forward.

Few, if any, remember that meeting now 20 years past.  President Kerns will always remember it.  The meeting was intended for him.  But even he can't remember anything said there.  We rarely remember anything said at a meeting for very long, but we don't forget the feelings we have there when the Spirit touches us.

And that is the main reason for meetings.  Church meetings are an invitation to feel the Spirit.

A secondary reason that the Lord calls for Church meetings is to provide practice so that when He calls, we can be like Samuel and respond, "Here am I.  Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth."  (1 Samuel 3).

Most of our meetings are probably just practice—or tests—to get us conditioned to be where we need to be, when we need to be there.

When we're in our places at the right times, then the Lord can use us to help others, or He can use the Spirit to zero in on us individually to teach us or bless our lives in a meaningful way.

Such was the case when Elder Gene R. Cook was our stake visitor.  President Kerns had been attending these meetings many years as a clerk or as a Young Men leader or as a bishop's counselor.  On this occasion, he was a new bishop.

The 2-hour meeting started with the usual preliminaries.  There may have been a short talk or two before the time was turned over to Elder Cook.  Elder Cook proceeded to speak, and to tell personal experiences and to cry.  How others received the messages Bishop Kerns didn't know.  But Bishop Kerns was electrified—spellbound.  Fifteen minutes later, to Bishop Kerns' great disappointment, Elder Cook suddenly ended his talk.  Bishop Kerns jerked his head around to look at the clock and was totally shocked to see that the entire two hours had elapsed.

That meeting changed the life and the course of Bishop Kerns' family for the next decade.

What if Bishop Kerns had elected to use his agency and stay home that Saturday afternoon?  What a pity it would have been if, when the Spirit called, Bishop Kerns had not been there to answer, "Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth."

It is recorded in 2 Samuel 11:1, "And it came to pass…at the time when kings go forth to battle, that David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel…But David tarried still at Jerusalem."

Why didn't David go with his army?  Why did he tarry at Jerusalem?  Why wasn't he where he was supposed to be?  Had he not been tarrying, he wouldn't have seen Bathsheba bathing.  He wouldn't have been tempted.  He wouldn't have sinned, and he wouldn't have conceived the plan of committing murder to cover his sin.  Because David tarried and wasn't where he was supposed to be when he was supposed to be there, he changed the course of the rest of his life and lost his exaltation.

As a stake president's counselor, President Kerns attended a long weekend of meetings scheduled by an Area Authority, Elder Karl E. Nelson.  The meetings began at 11:00 a.m. Saturday, and didn't conclude until nearly 5:00 p.m. Sunday.  Much of the time was spent by President Kerns sitting and listening as a silent observer while Elder Nelson met with stake families.  President Kerns neither contributed anything nor gained anything.  His presence was merely required by his file leaders.  He didn't resent being there, however—and this is important—he didn't murmur and complain about it either inwardly or outwardly.

The payoff came suddenly nearly at the end of the string of meetings.

Elder Nelson had asked the high council and stake presidency to stay after stake conference.  He taught them, recapped the conference and made some significant points.  He then invited all to kneel and face one another around the big high council table.  Eighteen men, the priesthood leaders of the stake, knelt shoulder to shoulder as Elder Nelson acted as voice for the group in, as he termed it, "returning and reporting our stewardship to Heavenly Father."

He began at the beginning of the weekend's events.  He named the people he'd met with, told Heavenly Father the challenges they faced, and the commitments they had made to Elder Nelson, the Lord's servant.  He spoke to God as "one man speaketh unto another."  He didn't forget a name.  He mentioned each specifically, and you knew that Heavenly Father knew those individuals, that He heard the prayers, and that the specific blessings being prayed for would come to pass because of the united faith of those present.

And suddenly President Kerns heard himself being prayed for.  President Kerns is a private person.  But he had dropped his reserve as he and Elder Nelson had driven together from one town to another.  President Kerns told Elder Nelson about the financial challenges he faced.  He didn't mention to Elder Nelson that the preceding week had been the most discouraging, depressing, confused, and frightening week he'd spent since joining the Church almost 30 years previously.

But Elder Nelson sensed it.  And Elder Nelson laid the whole matter before the Lord and before the high council, President Kerns' friends, who had no idea whatever that there were problems in President Kerns' life.

Strong tears came to President Kerns' eyes.  Elder Nelson prayed on.  He prayed for President Kerns' health, his finances, his ability to care for his family, President Kerns' wife, and for her to have the strength to care for her aged mother.  President Kerns wished he would move on to someone else.  President Kerns was crying freely, and Elder Nelson prayed on.

Elder Nelson eventually did move on.  He prayed for and blessed everyone from the stake president's lonely missionary daughter to the new convert who had spoken in stake conference.

When the prayer ended, eighteen men stood up, wiped their eyes for several minutes, and no one spoke.

I have wondered about what was said in 3 Nephi chapter 17 as Jesus knelt with and prayed for the children.  It is written that, "they brought their little children and set them down upon the ground round about him, and Jesus stood in the midst; and the multitude gave way till they had all been brought unto him.  And it came to pass that…he himself also knelt upon the earth; and behold he prayed unto the Father, and the things which he prayed cannot be written, and the multitude did bear record who heard him.  And after this manner do they bear record:  The eye hath never seen, neither hath the ear heard, before, so great and marvelous things as we saw and heard Jesus speak unto the Father; And no tongue can speak, neither can there be written by any man, neither can the hearts of men conceive so great and marvelous things as we both saw and heard Jesus speak; and no one can conceive of the joy which filled our souls at the time we heard him pray for us unto the Father."  (3 Ne. 17:12-17).

I think I now know something of how that prayer went.  Jesus mentioned each child by name, because He knew them.  His prayer was not general.  It was specific—about specific problems faced by specific people.  Through it all shone his love and genuine concern.

Being present for and witnessing that prayer was a turning point for the Nephites.  The power of that experience ushered in two hundred years of righteousness, blessing even generations unborn.

Elder Nelson's prayer did likewise for President Kerns.  Discouragement was banished.  Faith, enthusiasm and energy replaced it.  A corner was turned.  Hope rekindled.

Throughout our lives we're going to be asked to be present in all kinds of meetings.  Most are going to be meetings like we've attended a hundred times before.  Many are going to be dull, perhaps only because we haven't come prepared to feel the Spirit.  All can be beneficial to some degree, but a few will be just for us.  Because we've consistently been there when the Lord has called, a meeting will come along every once in a while which will make worthwhile every effort we've ever put forth.

The Lord knows us as individuals, and He has given each an assignment.  Our job is to resist the siren calls that would cause us to shirk our responsibilities, so that each time the Lord calls our name we can confidently say, "Here am I.  Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth."

And then he will feed us with His Spirit.  And we won't forget the things we feel.  And our hearts will be glad.

(Talk given in stake priesthood meeting February 1996).