The Preparatory Priesthood

The Aaronic priesthood is called the lesser priesthood or the preparatory priesthood. I prefer preparatory.

Seasoned priesthood holders can help holders of the Aaronic priesthood by entrusting them with responsibilities.

Those we are correcting must have felt our love before the correction before they will accept the correction. Then we must follow the correction with yet more love.

My message tonight is about the Aaronic Priesthood. It is also to all of us who help in the realization of the Lord’s promises for those who hold what is described in scripture as the “lesser priesthood.” It is also called the preparatory priesthood. It is that glorious preparation about which I will speak tonight.

I always prefer the term preparatory priesthood. I think President Eyring makes sure to use quotes on the phrase “lesser priesthood” to clearly indicate that he doesn’t think of it as lesser. The only way that it is “lease” is that it doesn’t have the authority to officiate in all priesthood work that Heavenly Father has entrusted to His children.

My message is to those whom the Lord sends to help prepare Aaronic Priesthood holders as much as it is to those who hold the Aaronic Priesthood. I speak to fathers. I speak to bishops. And I speak to those of the Melchizedek Priesthood who are trusted to be companions and teachers of young men who are in priesthood preparation.

I became a deacon at the age of 12 in a little branch in the eastern part of the United States. The branch was so tiny that my older brother and I were its only Aaronic Priesthood holders until my father, who was the branch president, invited a middle-aged man to join the Church.

The new convert received the Aaronic Priesthood and, with it, a call to watch over the Aaronic Priesthood. I still remember as if it were yesterday. I can recall the beautiful fall leaves as that new convert accompanied my brother and me to do something for a widow. I don’t remember what the project was, but I do remember feeling that the priesthood power joined in doing what I later learned the Lord had said we must all do to have our sins forgiven and so be prepared to see Him.

Even though he was new to the church this man would have had some experience he could share with young men of the Aaronic priesthood. Had he been called to work with adults he might have been inclined to think he could only learn and not teach among more seasoned members of the church.

Another visit was to a man long absent from the Church. My bishop invited him back to be with the Saints. I felt my bishop’s love for someone who seemed to me an unlovable and rebellious enemy.

On yet another occasion we visited a home where two little girls were sent to meet us at the door by their alcoholic parents. The little girls said through the screen door that their mother and father were asleep. The bishop kept talking to them, smiling and praising their goodness and their bravery, for what seemed to me 10 minutes or more. As I walked away at his side, he said quietly, “That was a good visit. Those little girls will never forget that we came.”

Both of those visits show a gap between the natural perspective and the spiritual perspective. As a young man president during saw an enemy and a water of time where his bishop saw a hurting but Haldane child of God and time strategically week spent.

Two of the blessings that a senior priesthood companion can give are trust and an example of caring. I saw that when my son was given a home teaching companion who had vastly more priesthood experience than he did. His senior companion had been a mission president twice and had served in other leadership positions.

Before they were to visit one of their assigned families, that seasoned priesthood leader asked to visit my son in our home beforehand. They allowed me to listen. The senior companion opened with prayer, asking for help. Then he said something like this to my son: “I think we should teach a lesson that will sound to this family like a call to repentance. I think they won’t take it very well from me. I think they would take the message better from you. How do you feel about that?”

I remember the terror in my son’s eyes. I can still feel the happiness of that moment when my son accepted the trust.

It was not by accident that the bishop put that companionship together. It was by careful preparation that the senior companion had learned about the feelings of that family they were about to teach. It was by inspiration that he felt to step back, to trust an inexperienced youth to call older children of God to repentance and to safety.

I don’t know the outcome of their visit, but I do know that a bishop, a Melchizedek Priesthood holder, and the Lord were preparing a boy to be a priesthood man and someday a bishop.

I could be wrong but I imagine the soon he is talking about was Stuart.

All of us in the priesthood have an obligation to help the Lord prepare others. There are some things we can do that could matter most. Even more powerful than using words in our teaching the doctrine will be our examples of living the doctrine.

Paramount in our priesthood service is inviting people to come unto Christ by faith, repentance, baptism, and receiving the Holy Ghost. President Thomas S. Monson, for instance, has given sermons to stir the heart on all those doctrines. But what I know of what he did with people and missionaries and friends of the Church when presiding over the mission in Toronto motivates me to action.

In priesthood preparation, “show me” counts more than “tell me.”

That is why the scriptures are so important to prepare us in the priesthood. They are filled with examples. I feel as if I can see Alma following the angel’s command and then hurrying back to teach the wicked people in Ammonihah who had rejected him. I can feel the cold in the jail cell when the Prophet Joseph was told by God to take courage and that he was watched over. With those scripture pictures in mind, we can be prepared to endure in our service when it seems hard.

My father was once asked by a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to write a short paper on science and religion. My father was a famous scientist and a faithful priesthood holder. But I can still remember the moment he handed me the paper he had written and said, “Here, before I send this to the Twelve, I want you to read it. You will know if it is right.” He was 32 years older than me and immeasurably more wise and intelligent.

His father likely knew that a young man without bike would recognize the truth regardless of any special wisdom.

Our success in preparing others in the priesthood will come in proportion to how much we love them. That will be especially true when we must correct them. Think of the moment when an Aaronic Priesthood holder, perhaps at the sacrament table, makes a mistake in performing an ordinance. That is a serious matter. Sometimes the error requires public correction with a possibility of resentment, a feeling of humiliation or even of being rejected.

You will remember the Lord’s counsel: “Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy.”

The word increase has special meaning in preparing priesthood holders when they need correction. The word suggests an increase of a love that was already there. The “showing forth” is about the increase. Those of you who are preparing priesthood holders will certainly see them make mistakes. Before they receive your correction, they must have felt of your love early and steadily. They must have felt your genuine praise before they will accept your correction.

The Aaronic Priesthood is an appendage to the greater Melchizedek Priesthood. As the president of all the priesthood, the President of the Church presides over the preparatory priesthood as well. His messages over the years of going to the rescue fit perfectly the mandate to take the gospel of repentance and baptism into the lives of others.

Quorums of deacons, teachers, and priests counsel regularly to draw every member of the quorum to the Lord. Presidencies assign members to reach out in faith and love. Deacons pass the sacrament with reverence and with faith that members will feel the effect of the Atonement and resolve to keep commandments as they partake of those sacred emblems.

Teachers and priests pray with their companions to fulfill the charge to watch over the Church, person by person. And those companionships pray together as they learn the needs and the hopes of heads of families. As they do, they are being prepared for the great day when they will preside as a father, in faith, in a family of their own.

This is exactly how we should view and treat the Aaronic priesthood – with great respect and dignity, not as some throwaway scrap to feed to stragglers or infants.