MIK - OK I do desire to live the gospel and serve the Lord. An opportunity however has come up that I am unsure of how to deal with. A conference relating to business that I've been waiting for over a long period of time is coming to town and I've registered for it! The problem is that it is on a Saturday AND Sunday. What's the best way to deal with something like this? I don't want to break the Sabbath/miss Church, but do I just allow opportunities to slip by like this?

JOEL - This is one of those questions you will have to answer for yourself. Is it essential for the success of your work and therefore impacts your ability to properly provide for your family? Or would it just be a nice thing to do that would only help a little? Could you get the information from someone else or in any other way so you would not have to physically be there?
Of course the perfect thing to do is to not go; but then nobody's perfect. We are all at our own levels of gospel living and obedience to God's commandments. Where are you? Obligations to our professions might sometimes interfere with our Sabbath day observance.
Here is a quote from Spencer W. Kimball:

"It is true that some people must work on the Sabbath. And, in fact, some of the work that is truly necessary—caring for the sick, for example—may actually serve to hallow the Sabbath. However, in such activities our motives are a most important consideration.
When men and women are willing to work on the Sabbath to increase their wealth, they are breaking the commandments; for money taken in on the Sabbath, if the work is unnecessary, is unclean money…. "(“The Sabbath—A Delight,” Ensign, Jan. 1978, 5).

Those are hard words but I guess we each just have to make up our minds for ourselves on what we will and will not do on the Sabbath Day and take it to God in prayer. It's your call.

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