Sister Susan H. Porter of the Primary General Presidency said in the Women’s Session of April 2022 general conference:
. . . . I was going through my mail when a small picture in a catalog caught my eye. As I looked closer, I realized it was an artist’s rendition of the Samaritan woman with Jesus at the well. At that moment the Spirit spoke clearly to me: “That is what you are supposed to do.” A loving Heavenly Father was inviting me to come to the Savior and learn.
I would like to share with you three lessons I am learning as I continue to drink from His well of “living water.”1
First: Our Past and Present Circumstances Do Not Determine Our Future
Sisters, I know that many of you feel as I did, unsure how to face difficult challenges and loss—loss because your life is not unfolding in the way you had hoped for, prayed for, and planned for.
No matter our circumstances, our lives are sacred and have meaning and purpose. Each of us is a beloved daughter of God, born with divinity in our souls.
Our Savior, Jesus Christ, through His atoning sacrifice, made it possible for us to be cleansed and healed, enabling us to fulfill our purpose on earth regardless of decisions of family members, our marital status, physical or mental health, or any other situation.
Consider the woman at the well. What was her life like? Jesus perceived that she had had five husbands and was currently not married to the man she was living with. And yet, despite her life’s difficulties, one of the Savior’s first public declarations that He was the Messiah was to her. He said, “I that speak unto thee am he.”2
She became a powerful witness, declaring to those in her city that Jesus was the Christ. “And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman.”3
Her past and present circumstances did not determine her future. Like her, we can choose to turn to the Savior today for the strength and healing that will enable us to fulfill all that we were sent here to do.
Second: The Power Is in Us
In a familiar verse in the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord encourages women and men to be “anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; for the power is in them.”4
Sisters, the power is in us to bring to pass much righteousness!
President Russell M. Nelson testified, “Every woman and every man who makes covenants with God and keeps those covenants, and who participates worthily in priesthood ordinances, has direct access to the power of God.”5
I have come to know that as we strive to honor sacred covenants made at baptism and in holy temples, the Lord will bless us “with His healing, strengthening power” and with “spiritual insights and awakenings [we’ve] never had before.”6
Third: “Out of Small Things Proceedeth That Which Is Great”7
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught His disciples, “Ye are the salt of the earth”8 and “Ye are the light of the world.”9 Later He compared the growth of the kingdom of heaven to leaven, “which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.”10
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Salt
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Leaven
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Light
Even in very small amounts, each affects everything around it. The Savior invites us to use His power to be as salt, leaven, and light.
For Sister Porter’s complete talk including working links, click . . .‘Lessons at the Well’
