After our granddaughter, Emma, who was four years old at the time, visited our sacrament meeting one Sunday, she said, “Grandma, they say the same prayer at your church as they do at mine.” She was referring to the sacrament prayers. I was grateful that at such a young age, she had paid close attention to what she heard both at her family’s ward and at her grandparents’ ward.
As I have attended meetings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints around the United States and in various areas of the world, I have heard the sacrament prayers offered in many languages besides English—including Spanish, Korean, Slovenian, Hungarian, Japanese, and French. Regardless of the language spoken, I knew the meaning of that prayer and was thankfulfor the opportunity to partake of the sacrament, to renew my covenants, and to think about the Savior.
Although I have not always understood the speakers who addressed the congregation during these sacrament meetings, I have rejoiced in gathering with fellow Saints, feeling at home, and being edified by the Spirit. There is both a familiarity and a universalityattendant to sacrament meetings around the world because individual wards do not “create” their own version of the procedures and the principles of the gospel taught.
In October, my husband and I traveled to the Washington, D.C. area and were there on a Sunday. By looking at lds.org, we found that the McLean 1st Ward was only a few miles from our hotel in Virginia and that its services began at 9:00 a.m. We were warmly welcomed by several ward members when we walked into that chapel. Although we had not previously met any members of that ward, we felt that we were “no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens in the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19.) What transpired during the meeting following the administration of the sacrament—the hymns sung, the talks given by youth and adult speakers–were so familiar and true.
Won Yong Ko, who is Korean and who served as an area authority seventy, said, “Through my business experiences, I have had quite a number of chances to visit with people in many countries. Wherever I go and meet with members of the Church, I find the same principles of the gospel.”He also noted, “One of the reasons I believe in The Church of Jesus Christ is because I have seen the universality of gospel principles.”[1]
Gospel principles have not evolved since the Church was restored. What my ancestors learned and gained testimonies of during the 1840s in England, the 1850s in Scotland, and the early 1900s in Germany are the same truths that I know and that I know to be true. My grandchildren are in the formative stages of their gospel development. Each set of our grandchildren has moved at least once to a different state; yet they have not had to adjust to new teachings and principles whether they have attended Primary in California, Oregon, Utah, Idaho, Texas, or Massachusetts.
President Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the First Presidency stated: “We members of this Church speak many languages, and we come from many cultures, but we share the same blessings of the gospel. This is truly a universal church, with members spread across the nations of the earth proclaiming the universal message of the gospel of Jesus Christ to all, irrespective of language, race, or ethnic roots.”[2]
What four-year-old Emma observed about the sacrament prayers that Sunday, what all my grandchildren have learned in their moves from one ward to another, and what we have found in visiting Latter-day Saint meetings is that this familiarity and universality comes because the Lord has told us “I am the same yesterday, today, and forever” (2 Nephi 29:9).
