Blessings of the Aaronic Priesthood, Part 4

The Aaronic Priesthood also holds the keys to repentance and baptism. Priests can baptize. They cannot, however, confer the gift of the Holy Ghost and confirm someone a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Baptism without confirmation is incomplete, just as the Aaronic Priesthood without the Melchizedek Priesthood is incomplete. A bishop, whose office is part of the Aaronic Priesthood, helps people repent if they have more serious sins.

As stated earlier, the Aaronic Priesthood is a prepatory priesthood. It prepares those who bear it for the Melchizedek Priesthood, which is the priesthood of higher ordinances, administration, and governing. Elder Hales spoke of these preparations:

“The Aaronic Priesthood is…given for this preparatory time in your life. How you bear that priesthood now will prepare you to make the most important decisions in the future. These decisions include receiving the Melchizedek Priesthood, going to the temple, serving a mission, getting an education, selecting an occupation, and choosing a companion and being sealed for time and for all eternity in the holy temple. There is a time and season for all of our decisions. Make sure you make decisions in the proper time and season. All of these life-altering decisions will be made in a very busy, relatively short period during your 20s—during what I call the 'Decade of Decision.'"

He continued:

“While training to be a jet fighter pilot, I prepared to make such vital decisions in a flight simulator. For example, I practiced deciding when to bail out of an airplane if the fire warning light came on and I began to spin out of control. I remember one dear friend who didn’t make these preparations. He would find a way out of simulator training and then go to play golf or swim. He never learned his emergency procedures! A few months later, fire erupted in his plane, and it spun toward the ground in flames. Noting the fire warning light, his younger companion, having developed a preconditioned response, knew when to bail out of the plane and parachuted to safety. But my friend who had not prepared to make that decision stayed with the plane and died in the crash.

In the decade ahead, your time for preparation will be limited. As you are Aaronic Priesthood bearers, it is important that you prepare now. You must develop your own preconditioned responses for the important decisions you will make in the next decade of your life. You must know what to do and when to do it when each decision presents itself. Remember that making no decision at all could be just as deadly as making the wrong decision. Many of the decisions you make or don’t make will have eternal consequences.” (Hales, Ensign, May 2007).