Faithful Friends
President Henry B. Eyring
First Presidency Message – July 2010

President Eyring points out the Savior calls those who have been faithful in their service to him “friends” (D&C 84). We can become his friend by serving others.

President Eyring tells us that over the next few days we will each have opportunities to be the Savior’s friend. If we are alert over the next few days, we will see others carrying heavy burdens, or have old friends called to mind we have not seen in years. We need to reach out to these people and lighten their burdens.

Our Savior will bless us to feel what they feel. As we serve them, our love for them will grow. That will give us courage to reach out again to others.

President Eyring also recounted how old friends had reached out to him in the past in his time of need across many miles and years when only Heavenly Father could have told them of his burdens.

Its a great feeling to reach out to old friends in their time of need, and soothing when they do the same for us. May we all follow his counsel and be especially alert this month for these opportunities to grow and to become the Savior’s friends.

A Mormon Wordle of his message is below:

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Canaries With Gray on Their Wings
President Thomas S. Monson
First Presidency Message – June 2010
President Thomas S. Monson

President Monson talks of when he was a young bishop, a widow in his ward passed away and left three canaries. Instructions had been left for the two with pretty yellow wings to be given to her friends, but the third, with its yellow wings marred by gray was to be given to President Monson. Her note asked him to give it a home, it is not the prettiest, but its song is the best.

He likened the widow to the canary, “She was not blessed with beauty, gifted with poise, or honored by posterity”, but her “song” (meaning her life), blessed the lives of others and strengthened them in their time of need.

President Monson told us the world is full of canaries with grey on their wings. Only a few have learned to sing. We must develop our capacity to face trouble with courage by gaining a true perspective of who we are (sons and daughters of our heavenly father) so that we too can have a good “song” and bless the lives of others.

A Mormon Wordle of the message is below, along with a description of our efforts in producing it.

We spent longer trying to Mormon Wordle this message than any previous post at the time we made it. We were trying to overlay it on the photo of some parakeets I took a few years ago below.

We tried to use a white on black image version of the Mormon Wordle above, extract the white text, and overlay it onto the parakeet image. After exhausting the selection tools in Photoshop Elements and Inkscape and never being able to cleanly select the white text, we gave up in the second week of July and posted our efforts.

One of the basic wordle shapes resembles a footprint. We chose it to promote the concept of us walking in the footsteps of the lady who walked in the footsteps of the canary with gray on its wings. Interestingly, on close inspection, you may note the lime green parakeet closest to the camera is actually just a plastic bird. Many of us are like that, we have not reached our potential and are just sitting there like a bump on a log. May we all emulate its song in our lives by lifting the lives of those around us.

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A Great Work of God
President Dieter F. Uchtdorf
First Presidency Message – April 2010

In this home teaching message, President Uchtdorf tells us of the organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on April 6, 1830. The meeting was simple, but the Holy Ghost was poured out upon those in attendance. While the event went unnoticed by the world, the heavens must have rejoiced, for on that day the Church of Jesus Christ was returned to the earth.

He recounts the story of Solomon Chamberlain, who had been promised earlier in a vision that he would see the day when the Church of Christ of organized on the earth after the apostolic order. Traveling through Palmyra, New York on his way to Canada by boat, he heard talk of a “golden bible”. Solomon said those words sent “a power like electricity (that) went from the top of my head to the end of my toes.” After spending two days at the Smith home, Solomon took off for Canada with 64 newly printed, unbound pages of the Book of Mormon. Everywhere he went, he taught people “to prepare for the great work of God that was now about to come forth.”

Since then, millions have been baptized. President Uchtdorf closes with his testimony that the great work of God is on the earth today. These are glorious times. The Lord is mindful of those like Solomon Chamberlain who follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost and join in helping bring forth this great work of God.

We created a Mormon Wordle of President Uchtdorf’s message in a brilliant green to convey some off the luster of this home teaching message about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints being restored to the earth, the Holy Ghost leading people to it, then those people joining the Church and sharing the Gospel with others.

We did take a few liberties with the phrase “Great Work of God”. In the text it was sometimes presented as “Great Work of God” and other times as “great work of God”. We changes all of them to read “Great Work of God” before we wordled it so all the weight and size of word frequency would go to one phrase instead of being split between them. We also changed the opening sentence “One hundred eighty years ago” to “180 years ago” so wordle would drop the number and not leave a long phrase in our completed Mormon Wordle.

The greens and reds we chose may be a bit difficult to distinguish by any brethren that may be color blind.

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Moral Courage
President Henry B. Eyring
First Presidency Message – March 2010

President Eyring identifies some of the things that help give us courage in this life. He points out the Atonement of Jesus Christ, baptism, the sacrament, Spiritual Gifts, the scriptures, the Holy Ghost, the priesthood, priesthood ordinances and service in the Church can help banish our fears. He quotes D&C 122:7-8 where the Lord told Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail that” if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.”

In closing, President Eyring comforts us by telling us our Heavenly Father has given us more than enough help to banish our fears and to give us courage, irregardless of whatever we may face in life. “As we reach out for His help, He can lift us toward that eternal life we seek.”

We turned his message into a Mormon Wordle with a bit of a golden tint to it. On first viewing it, you may only notice a few of the larger words that were used most frequently (Courage, help, thou, God, Jesus Christ), but soon your eyes are drawn to the less frequently used words (baptism, confidence, choice, ordinance, and many more), and to the less frequently used phrases (jaws of hell, mortal existence, carnal temptation, Gods’ children, and more). As you explore it, you will recall more and more of President Eyring’s talk, plus hopefully make some more associations that will help you gain so more insights from his message you can apply in your own life.

As always, we welcome your comments, especially from any who actually included the use of this Mormon Wordle in your home or visiting teaching preparations or in the actual visit itself.

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The text and wordles above were originally posted on our Mormon Wordles dot com site. They were moved here in early January 2017.

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