Dear Brothers and Sisters,
This week, in Come Follow Me, we were each invited to consider a question the Savior asked of
those who were beginning to follow Him. He asked them, “What seek ye?” (John 1:38)
As we begin a new year, we invite everyone to carefully consider that question. What do you
really want in 2023? How would you like your life to be different a year from now and what
would you like to have accomplished? What Christlike characteristics would you like to develop
in the coming year?
The Children and Youth Program has a great pattern for becoming more like the Savior by
setting goals in four areas that can help us to determine a course of action to find what we seek
and become better disciples of Jesus Christ.
This pattern can be found in the Gospel Living app. It is very simple, focusing on the four
parts of our lives identified by the way the Savior grew and developed in Luke 2:52. The
encouraged areas of growth are: Spiritual, Social, Physical, and Intellectual. We invite each of
you to consider setting at least one goal in each of these four areas and focusing your efforts to
become better this year. This has been a great blessing to the children and youth who have been
doing it for the last two years and we believe it will bless all of us to follow this pattern. You can
download the app and use the tools found there or use your best techniques for setting and
reaching your goals.
With this encouragement we would like to share with you the beginning of our vision for the
Highland Stake in 2023.
As a stake, we have been asked by President Nelson to make Gathering Israel on this side of the
veil one of our top priorities. To that end, we have set stake goals to (1) help others get on and
stay on the covenant path by making and keeping covenants with the Lord and (2) help others
return to and stay on the covenant path. We are working closely with the Idaho Pocatello
Mission to accomplish these goals and as part of that will be joining them in a mission wide fast
on January 8. Will each of you please join us in your fasting and prayer that day to petition the
Lord for His help and blessings to guide us in our efforts to love, share, and invite? We know He
can prepare and soften the hearts of those we associate with to receive our invitations. We trust
that great blessings will come to all of us as we engage in this most important work.
Another of our stake goals is to increase the unity of our stake. We are doing several things to
accomplish this through the careful planning and providing of wholesome activities. To
accomplish this, we need to improve the way we care for and use the Lord’s sacred buildings
which He has blessed us with to accomplish His purposes. We have shared an updated guide for
the use of our meeting houses. It is also attached to the message you received this document on
and will later be posted on our HighlandStake.org site. Will you each please carefully read it so
that you can understand the way that meeting houses will be used and appropriately scheduled in
the Highland Stake going forward in 2023? If you have questions or concerns, you are always
welcome to visit with your Bishop or any member of the Stake Council to help you understand it
better.
As we prepare for our Stake Conference January 21-22, we invite each of you to attend the
Temple as often as possible and prepare yourselves to receive the revelation that the Lord has for
you. Please make attending Stake Conference a priority and begin now preparing to invite
someone to come with you that otherwise would not attend.
We have great love for all of you and pray that the Lord will bless you and your families with all
that you need and the faith to trust Him. We wish you all a very happy new year and look
forward to great things to come in 2023.
With faith and love,
The Highland Stake Presidency
Timothy M. Campbell
Chris A. Sanford
David L. Francis