Preserving the Heart’s Mighty Change

I gave this talk to my family in Aug 2011.
I documented this talk on Google Docs..

Moral Discipline

Read to family in Aug. 2011.

D. Todd Christofferson

Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

Moral discipline is the consistent exercise of agency to choose the right because it is right, even when it is hard.

During World War II, President James E. Faust, then a young enlisted man in the United States Army, applied for officer candidate school. He appeared before a board of inquiry composed of what he described as “hard-bitten career soldier[s].” After a while their questions turned to matters of religion. The final questions were these:

Moral Free Agency

by Daniel H. Ludlow

Adapted from Speeches of the Year, Brigham Young University Press, 1974, pp. 173–88.

There is a principle that is basic to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and yet it is not faith or repentance or the Atonement. But faith, repentance, the Atonement, and all the other principles, ordinances, and doctrines of the gospel are based on this principle—indeed they would be virtually inoperative and impossible of existence if it were not for this principle of moral free agency.

Temple Worship: The Source of Strength and Power in Times of Need

Read this to my family back in August.

Elder Richard G. Scott

Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

When we keep the temple covenants we have made and when we live righteously…, we have no reason to worry or to feel despondent.

Each member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is blessed to live in a time when the Lord has inspired His prophets to provide significantly increased accessibility to the holy temples. With careful planning and some sacrifice, the majority of the members of the Church can receive the ordinances of the temple for themselves and for their ancestors and be blessed by the covenants made therein.

Because My Father Read the Book of Mormon

I read this to my family on 9/8/2011.

Elder Marcos A. Aidukaitis
Of the Seventy

I invite all who hear me today to read the Book of Mormon and to apply the promise it contains. Those who do will know that the book is true.

Good morning, dear brothers and sisters. I feel a profound joy and honor in speaking to you today. I pray that God may guide my words and that His Spirit may be with us so that “he that preacheth and he that receiveth, [may] understand one another, and both [may be] edified and rejoice together” (D&C 50:22).

I consider June 2, 1940, to be a very important day in the history of my family. On this day my father was baptized into this Church.

Writing to his father, Elder Jack McDonald, one of the missionaries who baptized my father, described the day with these words:

Let Him Do It with Simplicity

Read this to my family on 9/25/2011

Elder L. Tom Perry
Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

In our search to obtain relief from the stresses of life, may we earnestly seek ways to simplify our lives.

Those of us who have been around a while—and Elder Wirthlin and I have been around for a long time—have recognized certain patterns in life’s test. There are cycles of good and bad times, ups and downs, periods of joy and sadness, and times of plenty as well as scarcity. When our lives turn in an unanticipated and undesirable direction, sometimes we experience stress and anxiety. One of the challenges of this mortal experience is to not allow the stresses and strains of life to get the better of us—to endure the varied seasons of life while remaining positive, even optimistic. Perhaps when difficulties and challenges strike, we should have these hopeful words of Robert Browning etched in our minds: “The best is yet to be” (“Rabbi Ben Ezra,” in Charles W. Eliot, ed., The Harvard Classics, 50 vols. [1909–10], 42:1103). We can’t predict all the struggles and storms in life, not even the ones just around the next corner, but as persons of faith and hope, we know beyond the shadow of any doubt that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true and the best is yet to come.

Sacrament Meeting and the Sacrament

Elder Dallin H. Oaks
Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

The ordinance of the sacrament makes the sacrament meeting the most sacred and important meeting in the Church.

We live in the perilous times prophesied by the Apostle Paul (see 2 Timothy 3:1). Those who try to walk the straight and narrow path see inviting detours on every hand. We can be distracted, degraded, downhearted, or depressed. How can we have the Spirit of the Lord to guide our choices and keep us on the path?

In modern revelation the Lord gave the answer in this commandment:

“And that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the world, thou shalt go to the house of prayer and offer up thy sacraments upon my holy day;

“For verily this is a day appointed unto you to rest from your labors, and to pay thy devotions unto the Most High” (D&C 59:9–10).

Unselfish Service

Elder Dallin H. Oaks
Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

Our Savior teaches us to follow Him by making the sacrifices necessary to lose ourselves in unselfish service to others.

Our Savior gave Himself in unselfish service. He taught that each of us should follow Him by denying ourselves of selfish interests in order to serve others.

“If any man will come after me [He said], let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it” (Matthew 16:24–25; see also Matthew 10:39).

I.

As a group, Latter-day Saints are unique in following that teaching—unique in the extent of their unselfish service.

Sacred Homes, Sacred Temples

Elder Gary E. Stevenson
Of the Seventy

Understanding the eternal nature of the temple will draw you to your family; understanding the eternal nature of the family will draw you to the temple.

What a wonderful conference it has been. How blessed we are to hear the counsel of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve, whom we sustain as prophets, seers, and revelators.

I remember a warm, sunny afternoon when spring was trying to nudge its way through a long winter in Cache Valley, Utah. My father, whose Saturdays were always filled with chores for his grandsons, stopped by our home with an offer to “go for a ride.” Always happy to ride in Grandpa’s truck, our four- and six-year-old sons scurried into the back jump seat, and I joined my father in the front. Our drive took us through the streets of downtown Logan, which wrap around the Logan Temple, prominently situated on a hill, centered beautifully in the city. As we moved further away from the city, we turned from paved, busy streets to seldom-used dirt roads, where we crossed old bridges and weaved through trees far into the country. We were far from any other traffic and all alone.

Honorably Hold a Name and Standing

Elder David A. Bednar 

Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

The fire of the covenant will burn in the heart of every faithful member of this Church who shall worship and honorably hold a name and standing in the Lord’s holy house.

Shortly after I was called to serve as a stake president in 1987, I talked with a good friend who recently had been released as a stake president. During our conversation I asked him what he would teach me about becoming an effective stake president. His answer to my question had a profound impact upon my subsequent service and ministry.

My friend indicated he had been called to serve as a temple worker soon after his release. He then said: “I wish I had been a temple worker before I was a stake president. If I had served in the temple before my call to serve as a stake president, I would have been a very different stake president.”