I love how this wonderful Church leader took a potentially embarrassing moment and transformed it into a way to teach others.
During the October 2014 general conference, Elder David F. Evans, General Authority Seventy, had the opportunity to pray at the beginning of the Sunday afternoon session. Before thousands of individuals both in the Conference Center and watching and listening worldwide, Elder Evans said that they were “so grateful for this opportunity to have our strength faithened.”
And just that fast, as he discovered when one of his former missionaries sent him a Facebook message later that day, he became a meme.
Soon after that, Elder Evans had a meeting at Church headquarters, which included Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Elder Bednar told him that he should write a talk about what he prayed for. “The grammar is not correct,” the Apostle told him, “but the thought is right. Often it is our strength that needs to be ‘faithened’ in order for us to become what God has always intended.”
The devotional address Elder Evans gave at BYU-Hawaii on Tuesday, Sept. 25, is that very talk.
While looking to the audience of students gathered in the George Q. Cannon Activities Center, he said they possessed many strengths — intelligence, diligence, personal discipline in study, faith and others. “With each of these strengths comes the temptations to misuse the very gifts, or strengths, that God has provided,” Elder Evans said.
He focused on three ways to “faithen” their strengths.