Simple words pack great power

It was once said of poet Randall Jarrell that his language was so direct, plain and simple that even dogs and cats could understand him.That thought came to me last Sunday as I listened while Elder Joseph W. Sitati — the newly sustained member of the First Quorum of the Seventy — addressed our stake conference in Brigham City.I don't know how the local cats and dogs fared, but everyone in the congregation — from 8 to 80 — listened with full attention.They hung on every word.His message was both elegant and simple.__IMAGE1__ It was this:The gospel can be profound and even mysterious at times, but the recipe for joy is unadorned:Bond with your God.Bond with your family.Bond with your neighbors.Bond with all God's children.And when that message gets delivered in classic Christian \"plain style,\" as Elder Sitati delivered it, the words pack amazing power.One of my favorite moments in the Book of Mormon is in 2 Nephi 25 — after Nephi has finished transcribing great swaths from the Book of Isaiah. He writes, \"Isaiah spake many things which were hard for many of my people to understand\" (some things never change). But he goes on to say, \"wherefore I shall prophesy according to the plainness which hath been with me ... for behold, my soul delighteth in plainness unto my people, that they may learn.\"Sometimes we forget that the truths lost in the early church were not the deep and mysterious truths, but the \"plain and precious truths.\" And they were likely lost because people stopped talking about them in a plain and simple manner.Simple doesn't mean shallow. Some simple ideas are deeper than the sea. I remember a ballplayer once telling me that baseball was fascinating because it was a game that little children could play, but great minds could never master.I believe the same can be said for all spiritual matters that endure.Prayer is that way, I think.So are faith, repentance and baptism.And so were the words that Elder Sitati — and his wife, Gladys — left us with last Sunday.As the Bolivian Saints used to tell the missionaries, \"Your words seeped into us like sugar.\"That was the taste I got on Sunday.And I left thinking there is no talent greater than the talent for sharing words of love in a sweet and simple way.Those words, I'm convinced, are words that even dogs and cats can understand.