John Bytheway: 00:01 Welcome to part two with Sister Reyna I. Aburto on Easter.

Hank Smith: 00:06 I was thinking about that the other day when my mom passed away that I thought, “Oh, I would like to have her back,” and then I thought, “I don’t think she’d like to be back,” because what President Nelson said once something to the effect of if you could see the reunions on the other side, it would mitigate the way you feel. I would love for my mom to be back, but I think she’d say, “What are you doing? I was talking to my mother and my grandmother,” and seeing these wonderful people from her history and just history in general. I thought “President Nelson’s right”. I wouldn’t want to take her from those experiences.

Sister Reyna I. Aburto: 00:48 Yes.

John Bytheway: 00:49 Speaking of mortality and what we go through, I remember as a student at BYU and Hank, this is when you were probably in elementary school, but they have this building, they still have it called The Testing Center and it’s the Heber J. Grant Building and in my day you went there, you took your number two pencil. I’ve actually taken tests with this. You take your number two pencil, you bubble in everything and you go there to take tests and some things occurred to me once, I’ve never seen anybody in the testing center about to burst with joy because you’re taking tests.

  01:24 It’s not fun, and somebody that always had a really bad cold and nasal congestion always seemed to find a seat right next to me when I was taking a test. Somehow they knew. I remember once I took a Statistics 222 test in there, I got there at 7:00 AM, I left at noon. By the time I left, I didn’t care what I got, but the funny part about the testing center was for me is when you leave, there’s usually a group of students there. You’re handing in your answer sheet and they’re feeding it through a computer. Now, Hank, does the word Dot Matrix Printer mean anything to you?

Hank Smith: 02:01 I think I saw it in a museum once.

John Bytheway: 02:04 Right. So it makes a loud noise.

Sister Reyna I. Aburto: 02:07 Petrified.

Hank Smith: 02:07 Petrified.

Sister Reyna I. Aburto: 02:08 Petrified, right?

John Bytheway: 02:10 Yeah. Indiana Jones discovers one in Egypt, I think, but when it prints, you hear it. A laser printer sounds the same no matter what it’s printing, but a Dot Matrix is like… You hear the paper feed.

Hank Smith: 02:23 Okay, yeah.

John Bytheway: 02:24 So there’s usually seven or eight people standing there giving in their answer sheets and there’s three or four student employees there that start feeding them into different machines and you don’t know whose results are printing out. What you do know is that if you ace the test, all it will print is your name, your student number, and your score. But if you missed one, it’ll print, okay, number two, your answer B, correct answer D. Number four, your answer A, correct answer C. Number 16, your answer B… When they start printing, everybody’s just holding their breath and you’d hear one tick, tick, tick name and then it would be… And everyone’s just, “Oh, oh, stop. Oh, make it stop.”

Hank Smith: 03:10 Don’t let that be mine. Don’t let that be mine.

John Bytheway: 03:11 Right. Then they rip it off and then they call your name in front of everybody, “This way, John.” That’s mine. Many times I remember grabbing it and walking out because everybody just heard that. Maybe you’ve heard what Boyd K. Packer said about testing because at first you’re thinking, “I am glad that wasn’t my test.” Now think with your spiritual ears, have you ever said that? I have. I see people and think, “How are they doing that?” President Boyd K. Packer said once, “There’s more equality in the testing than sometimes we suspect,” which is a remarkable statement that I’m still chewing on. Once you get out of the testing center, there’s the fullness of joy, but usually in the testing center it’s not there, but you have an expectation that someday you’ll be done with these tests and with Dot Matrix Printers in general.

Sister Reyna I. Aburto: 04:06 Yes. That also reminds me that everyone goes through hard things, John, and sometimes we kind of take turns and that’s why we need to always keep that hope in our heart and also to try to help the people around us because one of the apostles once said also, there is a big chance that people around you, everyone is carrying a burden, a big burden at the time. And we need to be willing to help each other, to minister to each other and to bring each other to Christ so we can all receive his healing. I like that image that you painted even with the sound effects.

John Bytheway: 04:45 Now it seems so funny because everybody was thinking the same thing when you heard it print. You’re like oh my goodness. And then it goes to the second page, you’ll be like, “Oh.”

Hank Smith: 04:59 If they called my name, I’d be like, “I don’t know who that is.”

John Bytheway: 05:01 I don’t know. I just look around, I wonder who they’re looking for.

Hank Smith: 05:07 I’ll come back later when there’s no one here. Reyna, we’ve been talking here about witnesses of the resurrection and I think our listeners would be interested because you spent five years in the Relief Society General Presidency where you were around special witnesses, the apostles or special witnesses of Christ. Would you mind telling us a little bit about that experience?

Sister Reyna I. Aburto: 05:32 It was actually very humbling to be sitting on the same tables with those special witnesses of Christ. We had regular meetings with them. We belong to different councils and committees that were chaired by different apostles and every time I was present in one of them, I couldn’t believe that I was actually there. I was always pinching myself. But I think that one of the things that I really enjoyed the most was to actually get to know them on a personal level and to see how different they are. They all have different personalities. Some of them are more quiet or more shy and some of them are very funny and it is beautiful to actually see that they are regular people in a way, but they have a special calling and they have a special mantle and they have all this experience that they have gained through serving the Lord with all their might and strength and you can feel that power.

  06:27 I had the opportunity, like I said, to belong to different councils and one of them was the Temple and Family History Executive Council, they call it. It’s usually chaired by an apostle. For many years when I belonged to that council, it was Elder Bednar who chaired that council and then we also had Elder Stevenson and Elder Renlund in there. What we will do in there is to look at the things that will come to the first presidency for them to approve because everything that has to do with temples has to be taken directly to the first presidency. I had an experience that shows how wise they are. This was towards the beginning of me attending that council. I remember that we received a long document. It was probably 20 pages that we had to read before coming to the meeting. And they asked us to actually bring feedback if we thought that there were things that could be improved or changed a little bit or things that could be added to it so it would be more clear.

  07:24 And because I’m a translator, that’s my profession. I have read and reviewed a lot of text in my life. So for me it’s very natural to read text and to find things that I think that could be improved. In that document, I probably had 25 changes that I wanted to suggest. Some of them were really minor, like editorial changes, but maybe four or five, six of them were a little bit more about the actual content. When it was my turn to actually share my comments with the council, I apologized from the beginning. I said, “Okay, I have about maybe 20, but I’m just going to talk about five because I don’t want to take a lot of time because some of them are just editorial and I can send them later.” I started mentioning one and then there was some discussion around the table about what I said, and then I mentioned another one and I was feeling a little bit nervous because I was like, “I think I’m taking too much time of it,” and I was apologizing in a way and I was like, “Okay, two more. I won’t take that long.”

  08:25 And then Elder Bednar looked at me and he said, “Sister Aburto, please stop apologizing. We want to hear what you have to say. Don’t apologize, please.” I mean he said it in such a sweet way, but then he made me feel part of that council. In a way he was telling me, “Your voice is important here.” And I saw that over and over in so many settings that I was in which we were counseling together trying to find the Lord’s will in a collective way. Trying to give our best offering to the Lord. It was a great lesson for me that I didn’t need to apologize, that I needed to follow the spirit and say what I thought I could say.

  09:07 And something that I learned also during those years is that when I say something in a council, I put that on the table and I let it go. It doesn’t belong to me anymore because really it was the Spirit bringing thoughts to my mind and letting me be part of the conversation and giving something to that table and then let it go and don’t take it personal. If for whatever reason the council thinks that it’s something that doesn’t need to happen right now or that it can wait for later, I learned that sometimes we think that things need to happen in a way that we think they need to happen. We shouldn’t have an agenda when we come to those councils.

Hank Smith: 09:47 I think you’ve hit a weakness of mine here, Reyna, which might be to attach a bit of my own emotions to an idea I bring, and if it’s not taken by the council and they don’t run with it and love it, if it falls to the side, I might get my feelings hurt. I might be a little offended.

Sister Reyna I. Aburto: 10:06 That’s why I think it helps to have that mindset from the beginning. You are trying to receive the revelation beforehand if you already know what the agenda is, but you should not bring this mindset that, okay, they’re going to do what I say because I’m right. I don’t think that’s what the Lord wants. He wants you to come there in that setting in which we receive revelation with a humble heart and just a desire to contribute the best way you can without having to impose your ideas. They should not be your ideas, they should be just feelings, thoughts, promptings that the Spirit is giving you to help with whatever you are discussing. I think that we need to have a different mindset that it helps a lot when we look at things differently.

Hank Smith: 10:52 Reyna, I think you’ve taught us a profound lesson here, because here’s Elder Bednar in your example, special witness of Christ, yet in a council, so you wouldn’t think, “Oh, here’s the person that knows everything, so I’ll sit and listen and do what he says.” Like in our old ward councils, we look at the bishop and go, “Well, you’re the guy with the keys, so we’ll just do what you say.” Where here’s Elder Bednar, a special witness and yet counseling.

Sister Reyna I. Aburto: 11:18 Yes. And I saw so many times that he will first ask everyone what we think about something and then at the end he would probably say how he felt about it, but it was not like we are going to do what I think. It was a collective contribution. Everybody contributed. Elder Anderson said once, “Revelation is scattered among us.” When we each bring that little offering that we had because of the promptings or the experiences that we have had in our life or because of things that we have seen as we traveled around the world, literally we each brought something to it and then something better comes out of that.

  11:57 We had a few occasions, maybe two or three times during those years in which we actually didn’t have an agenda and he told us, come prepared to council together and then he will ask a question related to temples and to the things that were happening at that moment. If you think about COVID, all the temples had to be closed for months and that never happened before. To start opening them little by little and having these protocols that every temple needed to meet in order to open again, it was amazing how revelations came from heaven. We received that heavenly help to be able to talk about things and those were very sacred. They were so sacred because you could actually feel the spirit just testifying that it was a gift from heaven.

Hank Smith: 12:45 Since we have you here, Reyna, on a side note, let’s say we have a young women’s president listening and she has an idea at ward council but she won’t interrupt. How do you do that?

Sister Reyna I. Aburto: 12:56 I think that if we try to be in tune with the spirit and I had to actually practice that many times, not only with apostles, but even in ward councils and different councils and even at home because we council together at home, we need to make sure that we wait for the right moment. If someone is speaking and they are sharing an idea or expressing something from their heart, you wait for the right moment, you raise your hand or if you see that they’re moving onto a different subject, you say things like, could I say something related to that? You make sure that you are seen and that they know that you have something to say.

  13:32 And I think that also it is very important how we present our ideas. Instead of saying, “Well, this is what I think,” we could say, “Could we consider maybe doing this? Have you thought of maybe that? or an option could be, or maybe we could think about this.” There are ways of saying it so it doesn’t sound like you are imposing your ideas like I said. I think that there is an art and we can actually put it into practice and try to learn it so we don’t sound like we are trying to rule that council and that also helps us so we don’t take it personal if like you said, they don’t run with the idea.

Hank Smith: 14:14 I think this ties into Easter and the Resurrection actually quite well because you said earlier this council is seeking the will of the Lord. If you truly believe there is a resurrected Lord, you’re going to come to that council with that in mind.

Sister Reyna I. Aburto: 14:32 Yes. The idea that we are trying to help build the kingdom of God on the earth and that we are trying to prepare the earth for his second coming and that’s what should be in our heart. It’s not that, oh, I think that having that activity is the best idea in the world and we need to have it because I think so. This is what we need to eat in the activity because of this or that. You know what I’m saying? Sometimes we argue about things like that that don’t really matter. Have you had those experiences in the past?

Hank Smith: 15:01 Here’s what needs to happen.

Sister Reyna I. Aburto: 15:03 Yeah. It’s a different spirit when we come with that attitude.

John Bytheway: 15:07 My beloved mission president Menlo Smith is probably close to the same age as President Nelson, really, he was wonderful this way. He put such an expectation on us. It’s kind of like that brother of Jared’s story, what will you that I should do for you? President Smith, if you came to a meeting, he would say, “Never come to your boss with a problem. Always come with a recommendation.” And he would want us to wrestle with it because that’s where the growth comes. I always loved that approach that you have a calling, you’ve been set apart. You’ve been given Priesthood authority whether you’re a young woman in a class presidency or a young man in a quorum, have you prayed about it? Have you wrestled with it or are you just coming to the bishop and say, “Tell us what to do Bishop.” And that’s what I appreciate about what my mission president taught me was let people lead and then we can discuss that the way you talked about.

Sister Reyna I. Aburto: 16:05 Feeling that power with those special men that have been called by God is something very almost tangible and you can see that they’re trying to bring people to Christ. That’s really all that they’re trying to do, every one of them. And they are actually giving their life literally until their last breath into this work.

Hank Smith: 16:27 I think Elder Holland was asked once, maybe this is just an internet story, would you give your life to the church and he said, “I think that’s what I’m doing.”

John Bytheway: 16:34 I am. That’s what I’m doing.

Sister Reyna I. Aburto: 16:40 Yes, literally that’s what they’re doing. They’re such a great example to us of what the law of consecration is. They’re really consecrating their lives and we can do the same thing in our own sphere. Sometimes we think that consecration is just the time that we spend in our calling or reading the scriptures or praying, but really it’s how we live our life. It’s 24 hours a day, even the eight hours that we sleep, that’s part of that consecration because we need to take care of our bodies so we can keep serving the Lord. It’s the 24 hour thing. The apostles, they’re in their ministry until they die, but we are also in our own ministry until we die.

Hank Smith: 17:18 What does Lehi say to Jacob? You’ll spend your days in service to your God. I’m excited to know that’s what I signed up for. So there you were Reyna and excuse me if I keep asking questions, but there you were, you’re probably eating lunch occasionally with these special witnesses. You’re probably having conversations with these special witnesses. What did you learn there?

Sister Reyna I. Aburto: 17:43 It was wonderful to see the different personalities and I always tell people, you will never guess who I think, of course, this is my personal opinion, who I think is the funniest of all of them. And I honestly believe that is President Oaks. When you are in a very relaxed setting like in a dinner table, he makes everybody laugh over and over. And even Sister Oaks has to say like I do to my husband, okay, I think that’s enough. But I think that is cute because they are human beings. They’re like all of us. They all have different personalities. Each of them is amazing. That reminds me also of another story. This happened when that announcement was about to be made about the adjustment from home teaching and visiting teaching to ministering, I believe it was in April, 2018 that they announced that.

  18:35 The week before General Conference usually the general leaders they have a few days of meetings all day with leaders that come from all over the world. We have general authority 70’s and some even area 70’s that come and they are trained. They explain to them all the things that are happening and even the announcements that they’re going to make in General Conference. President Ballard stood in front of us and he told us about the announcement that was going to be made on Saturday, but he told us, and I will never forget this because he was very calm. He spoke slowly. He was so wise and then he told us, “Okay, we’re going to make this announcement, but let me tell you, I’m very worried. We members, we complicate everything and I’m afraid we are going to complicate this ministering.”

  19:26 He asked us to help the members understand that it’s not complicated at all. That it’s all based on the two great commandments which are to love God with all our heart, mind and strength and to love our neighbor like the Savior loves us. And that if we base it on love, then we will not complicate it. It was such a beautiful teaching from him that we need to simplify it. I’m sad to say that I think he was right. In many cases we have complicated it but we shouldn’t. I hope that everybody will have heard him asking us to help everyone focus on what is important, which is to try to serve each other, to account for the Savior’s sheep, to watch for each other and to bring people to Christ. That’s the bottom line of everything. We are trying to bring people to Christ and that’s what ministering is, is to help people feel the love of God through us.

Hank Smith: 20:21 Fantastic. Reyna, thanks for that. You have listeners all over the world, many who maybe have seen an apostle in person once in their lives or maybe never. To hear you talk about this interaction you had up close and personal with these special witnesses of the Lord, it’s faith affirming for those of us who aren’t there. Did you ever think that was going to be you?

Sister Reyna I. Aburto: 20:43 Never, never. I will wake up every morning thinking, okay, I am going to Salt Lake. I’m going to meet with this brother and this apostle, and I could not believe it. Yes. But at the same time it is simple. The way that things are done in church headquarters are simple. The basic elements of looking for revelation, praying, doing everything in the name of Christ, bringing people to him, that was the basic goal that we all had, how to bring people to Christ.

Hank Smith: 21:15 Which transitioning back to Easter is what it’s all about. I listened to a talk from Sister Sheri Dew, John, this is your friend. I claim Sheri’s my friend, but I think she tolerates me. She really likes John though. Sheri said, this is in the 2016 BYU Easter conference. She was with an evangelical friend in some sort of meeting. They were rescheduling their next meeting. And he looks at his calendar and said, “Well, next week it’s holy week, so we can’t meet then, we’ll have to look past that.” And Sheri said she made the mistake of saying, “Wait, you don’t work at all next week?” He looked at her like she was some sort of infidel, like, are you even Christian?

  21:58 She said, “I quickly changed the subject to, well, what do you have planned? What do you have planned for Holy Week?” John, he had a full week of church activities and family activities to celebrate Easter. So with that in mind, John, Reyna, how can we do that as Latter-day Saints? We love and revere the Lord, and at Christmas time, I think we do a great job of showing that to our families and our friends, our neighbors, our ward, and I think it’s happening more and more, don’t both of you? That Easter is becoming more emphasized.

Sister Reyna I. Aburto: 22:33 That reminds me of a recent talk from Elder Stevenson that is called the Greatest Easter Story Ever Told when he talked about his family. They are really trying to celebrate Easter in a more Christ-centered way and to do it more purposely. I love that message because it shows that we are all trying to do better. Sometimes we think, oh, he’s an apostle, he has it all figured out. But he actually told us that he’s trying to do this and he invited us to also try to do it. I think that we could all be more deliberate. We can be more purposeful in trying to remember Christ more during that week and trying to probably read the scriptures just like we do during Christmas. He actually mentioned that we could go and read the scriptures of things that happened during that week, so we are ready to celebrate Easter Sunday when we actually remembered the day that the Lord was resurrected and that amazing gift that he gave us through that.

John Bytheway: 23:33 I’m really glad we’re talking about this because Elder Stevenson, it wasn’t the first talk, someone else gave a talk about this without Easter, there is no Christmas at all. I’m excited to really try to do that. I think one way, Hank is to take that holy week apart what happened each day and be able to talk about that and remember try to make that a bigger deal. What is it that President Howard W. Hunter said, “Without the Resurrection, the life of Jesus is a litany of wise sayings and some unexplainable miracles, but no ultimate triumph.” This is everything. I’ve been thinking this whole time. We’re talking about Job’s question. If a man die, shall he live again? and Easter is the answer to that. Not just that Jesus would live again, but all of us will live again and that’s an Easter question, not a Christmas question. I’m just glad we’re talking about it. I don’t have the answer, but I’m going to do better this Easter.

Sister Reyna I. Aburto: 24:34 I think that we can all pray to know what we can do better in our own families. Easter Sunday is when we celebrate the Lord’s Resurrection, but why to stop there? Why couldn’t we after that day actually go and read about the resurrected Christ and all the appearances that he made. His followers, and then go to the Book of Mormon and talk about what he said to the Nephites and you continue with that probably then we could hit Christmas at that time and then we can start all over, right?

John Bytheway: 25:04 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 25:06 Reyna, before we let you go, we have listeners all over the world, and by the way, wherever you are, come on to YouTube and tell us where you are. It’s a treat, isn’t it, John? To read those YouTube comments and to find out where you all are, it’s pretty incredible to us. It takes our breath away really to hear from you. These listeners, many of them, like we said earlier, are suffering because mortal life has all sorts of challenges. Why don’t we just glean from you and your wisdom with these thoughts about Easter and the resurrected Lord, what might we say to bless the lives of those who are listening?

Sister Reyna I. Aburto: 25:43 I would like to testify that even in those darkest moments, the Lord Jesus Christ is by our side and he’s trying to reach out to us to help us. We just need to turn to him and reach out for his help because his hand is always extended towards us. And there are times in our lives when it seems like everything is dark and all these clouds, heavy clouds are on top of us and we cannot see the end of that darkness, but I testify to you that just by thinking about Jesus Christ, about all the gifts that he gave us and turning to the scriptures, because that’s the place where we can actually get to know him better, when we read about his life, his mission, the miracles that he performed, that can actually give us the hope that we probably need.

  26:32 But I would also like to tell people that there are times in which that sadness is more than we can bear many times it’s because we may be suffering from something that needs special care and that we should not be afraid or ashamed to ask for help. We should look for a safe person. Of course, we talk to our heavenly Father. He’s the first safe person that we have in hand, and we express to him our feelings and we tell him how we feel and we ask him questions and we plead for his help. But we also look around us and try to find someone who listen to us and that we know that they’re not going to judge us and just express our feelings, and sometimes by expressing our feelings we may feel better. An important thing also is that we need to also try to be a safe person. Each of us can be a safe person for someone who probably needs to reach out and get out of their chest, all those burdens that they’re carrying.

  27:30 In some cases we may even need professional help in dealing with maybe depression or an anxiety or things that we are going through, and there is nothing wrong with that. Because if we have a pain in a certain part of our body, we go to the doctor and we ask them to fix it. President Nelson has talked about this, Elder Holland too, there’s nothing wrong in admitting and realizing that we may need help from someone who can help us with our emotional and mental health. Of course, the Lord is the ultimate source of healing and hope and peace, but has also allowed us to develop that science and all that knowledge that allows us to help each other when we are in need of help.

John Bytheway: 28:14 Absolutely. I’d go back to that beautiful verse from Isaiah 61 that Reyna read to us and that Jesus read when he introduced himself, when he went back to Nazareth. That he’s here to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives. I love that that is what he would focus on himself and we can take him seriously when he says that’s what he’s here to do. When I think of Easter and I think of all the greatest victories, imagine conquering death and sin, but for everyone.

  28:52 When Jesus first came, many thought he was a different kind of Messiah, that he was more going to deliver them from the Romans. He’s like, “We’ve got bigger problems than the Romans.” Death and sin, like mortality. For him to conquer that for everybody. Let me read from my favorite Easter hymn. I’ll just read the first verse. “He is risen. He is risen. Tell it out with joyful voice. He has burst his three days prison, let the whole wide earth rejoice. Death is conquered, man is free. Christ has won the victory.” Is there another victory that even compares with that? I can’t think of one. It’s amazing.

Sister Reyna I. Aburto: 29:38 That’s beautiful, John. I would like to share this passage of scripture that we find in Jacob 4 in which he’s actually extending an invitation to us. I love these words because they fill me with hope in the resurrection and he says, “Wherefore beloved brethren” and I will add sisters too, “be reconciled unto him through the atonement of Christ, his only begotten son. And ye may obtain a resurrection according to the power of the resurrection, which is in Christ. And be presented as the first-fruits of Christ unto God, having faith and obtained a good hope of glory in him before he manifesteth himself in the flesh. And now beloved, marvel not that I tell you these things for why not speak of the atonement of Christ and attain to a perfect knowledge of him as to attain to the knowledge of a resurrection and the world to come?”

  30:37 Isn’t that beautiful? He’s inviting us to speak of the atonement of Christ and to have hope in his resurrection. He resurrected so he could help all of us to be resurrected so the purpose of God can actually be fulfilled and his work and his glory can actually be performed. Issued an invitation to keep speaking about him, to keep testifying of him and to keep being witnesses of him. Of his resurrection, of his power, of his love, and of his light. I think that this is something that we should all be doing in a regular way every day of our life to testify of him and to bring other people to him so they can also feel that joy.

Hank Smith: 31:20 Beautiful. Abinadi facing his own death, I don’t know who he’s speaking to. If he’s speaking to himself or speaking to Noah, he said, “There is a resurrection. The grave hath no victory. The sting of death is swallowed up in Christ. He is the light and the life of the world. A light that is endless that can never be darkened, a life that is endless there can be no more death.” Reyna, it has just been a treat to have you with us. I think our listeners are thinking how wonderful you are.

Sister Reyna I. Aburto: 31:57 Oh, it’s a privilege for me to be with you. I’ve been following you for years and I have learned so much from you and your guests, so thank you for inviting me. This is truly a privilege to be with both of you. I admire you and I know that you’re trying to bring people to the Lord.

Hank Smith: 32:14 That’s exactly right. To all of our listeners, Happy Easter. We hope you have a wonderful season and feel the Spirit of the Lord with you. With that, we want to thank Sister Reyna Aburto for being with us today. It has been fantastic. I don’t want it to end. We want to thank our producer Shannon Sorensen, our sponsors David and Verla Sorensen, and we always remember our founder and we’re sure he’s with us right now, Steve Sorensen. We hope you’ll join us next week. We’re going to continue our Book of Mormon studies on FollowHIM.