Israel, Israel, God Is Calling

Let's revisit a devotional Elder Jeffrey R. Holland gave in 2012:

Welcome to this devotional broadcast, wherever you are in this big, wide, wonderful Church. Thank you all for caring enough to be in attendance, including those of you who are here on the Dixie State College campus in my hometown.

There Have Been Many Calls to Leave Babylon

To invite the Spirit of the Lord to be with us, I requested the hymn we began this meeting with: "Israel, Israel, God Is Calling." It is one of the great classics of the Restoration and provides the framework for much of what I want to say to you tonight. We could have added "Ye Elders of Israel" for the same purpose. I love hearing the missionaries around the world cry out, "O Babylon, O Babylon, we bid thee farewell; we're going to the mountains of Ephraim to dwell." The message of those two hymns is essentially the same-that God is always calling to the children of Israel to a place where, ultimately, all will be well.

Israel, Israel, God is calling,

Calling thee from lands of woe.

Babylon the great is falling;

God shall all her tow'rs o'erthrow. ...

Come to Zion, come to Zion,

And within her walls rejoice. ...

Come to Zion, come to Zion!

Zion's walls shall ring with praise.

In effect, this has been Israel's history down through the ages. When things got too sinful, or there was too much secularization in society, or life with the Gentiles was destroying the moral code and commandments God had given, the children of the covenant would be sent fleeing into the wilderness to reestablish Zion and start all over again.

In Old Testament times Abraham, the father of this kind of covenant, had to flee for his life from Chaldea-literally Babylonia-in his quest for a consecrated life in Canaan (what we would now call the Holy Land). It wasn't many generations before the descendants of Abraham (and then Isaac and Jacob)-by then full-fledged Israelites-lost their Zion and were in bondage in far-off, pagan Egypt. So Moses had to be raised up to lead the children of promise into the wilderness again-this time in the middle of the night, without even time for their bread dough to rise! "Israel, Israel, God is speaking," they undoubtedly sang in their own way. "Hear your great Deliv'rer's voice!"

Not many centuries later, a story of special interest to us unfolded when one of those Israelite families, headed by a prophet named Lehi, was commanded to flee even beloved Jerusalem because, alas, Babylon was again at the door. Here we go again! Little did they know that they were going to an entirely new continent to establish a whole new concept of Zion, but so it would be. And little did they know that it had already happened just like this once before with a group of their forefathers called the Jaredites.

As noted, this is a worldwide broadcast to an increasingly international Church, but it is of interest to all who celebrate the Restoration of the gospel that the colonization of America was born of a group fleeing from their former homelands in order to worship as they wished. A distinguished scholar of the Puritan settlement in America described this experience as Christianity's "errand into the wilderness," the effort of modern Israelites to free themselves of Old World godlessness and once again seek the ways of heaven in a new land.

For tonight's purpose I remind you of one last flight, the flight for which our hymn tonight was actually written. It was our own Church, led by our own prophets, leading our own religious ancestors. With Joseph Smith being hounded through the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Missouri, and finally being murdered in Illinois, we were to see the latter-day reenactment of Israel's children again seeking for a place of seclusion. Brigham Young, the American Moses, as he has been admiringly called, led the Saints to the valleys of the mountains as those foot-weary Saints sang:

We'll find the place which God for us prepared,

Far away in the West,

Where none shall come to hurt or make afraid;

There the Saints will be blessed.

Zion. The promised land. The New Jerusalem. Where is it? Well, we are not sure, but we will find it. For more than 4,000 years of covenantal history, this has been the pattern: Flee and seek. Run and settle. Escape Babylon. Build Zion's protective walls.

Until now. Until tonight. Until this our day.

Our Call Is to Build Zion Where We Are

One of the many unique characteristics of our dispensation, this the dispensation of the fulness of times-the last and greatest of all dispensations-is the changing nature of how we establish the kingdom of God on earth. You see, one of the truly exciting things about this dispensation is that it is a time of mighty, accelerated change. And one thing that has changed is that the Church of God will never again flee. It will never again leave Ur in order to leave Haran, in order to leave Canaan, in order to leave Jerusalem, in order to leave England, in order to leave Kirtland, in order to leave Nauvoo, in order to go who knows where. No, as Brigham Young said for us all, "We have been kicked out of the frying-pan into the fire, out of the fire into the middle of the floor, and here we are and here we will stay."

Of course, that statement wasn't a comment about the Salt Lake Valley only or even the Wasatch Front generally; it became a statement for the members of the Church all over the world. In these last days, in this our dispensation, we would become mature enough to stop running. We would become mature enough to plant our feet and our families and our foundations in every nation, kindred, tongue, and people permanently. Zion would be everywhere-wherever the Church is. And with that change-one of the mighty changes of the last days-we no longer think of Zion as where we are going to live; we think of it as how we are going to live.

Three Incidents That Lead to Three Lessons

To frame this new task just a little, I wish to draw tonight upon three incidents Sister Holland and I have experienced within the fairly recent past. If time permitted I could cite dozens more, and so could you.

Number one: A few years ago a young friend of mine-a returned missionary-was on one of the college basketball teams in Utah. He was a great young man and a very good ballplayer, but he wasn't playing as much as he hoped he would. His particular talents and skills weren't exactly what that team needed at that stage of its development or his. That happens in athletics. So, with the full support and best wishes of his coaches and his teammates, my young friend transferred to another school where he hoped he might contribute a little more.

As fate would have it, things clicked at the new school, and my friend soon became a starter. And wouldn't you know it-the schedule (determined years before these events transpired) had this young man returning to play against his former team in Salt Lake City's then-named Delta Center.

What happened in that game has bothered me to this day, and I am seizing this unusual moment to get it off my chest. The vitriolic abuse that poured out of the stands on this young man's head that night-a Latter-day Saint, returned missionary, newlywed who paid his tithing, served in the elder's quorum, gave charitable service to the youth in his community, and waited excitedly for a new baby coming to him and his wife-what was said and done and showered upon him that night, and on his wife and their families, should not have been experienced by any human being anywhere anytime, whatever his sport, whatever his university, or whatever his personal decisions had been about either of them.

But here is the worst part. The coach of this visiting team, something of a legend in the profession, turned to him after a spectacular game and said: "What is going on here? You are the hometown boy who has made good. These are your people. These are your friends." But worst of all, he then said in total bewilderment, "Aren't most of these people members of your church?"

Incident number two: I was invited to speak in a stake single-adult devotional-one of those open-ended "18-and-over" sort of things. As I entered the rear door of the stake center, a 30-something young woman entered the building at about the same time. Even in the crush of people moving toward the chapel, it was hard not to notice her. As I recall, she had a couple of tattoos, a variety of ear and nose rings, spiky hair reflecting all the colors now available in snow cones, a skirt that was too high, and a blouse that was too low.

Three questions leapt to my mind: Was this woman a struggling soul, not of our faith, who had been led-or even better, had been brought by someone-to this devotional under the guidance of the Lord in an effort to help her find the peace and the direction of the gospel that she needed in her life? Another possibility: Was she a member who had strayed a bit maybe from some of the hopes and standards that the Church encourages for its members but who, thank heaven, was still affiliating and had chosen to attend this Church activity that night? Or a third option: Is this the stake Relief Society president? (Somehow I was sure she was not.)

Here is my third example: While participating in the dedication of the Kansas City Missouri Temple just a few months ago, Sister Holland and I were hosted by Brother Isaac Freestone, a police officer by profession and a wonderful high priest in the Liberty Missouri Stake. In our conversations he told us that late one evening he was called to investigate a complaint in a particularly rough part of the city. Over the roar of loud music and with the smell of marijuana in the air, he found one woman and several men drinking and profaning, all of them apparently totally oblivious of the five little children-aged about two through eight years of age-huddled together in one room, trying to sleep on a filthy floor with no bed, no mattress, no pillows, no anything. Brother Freestone looked in the kitchen cupboards and in the refrigerator to see if he could find a single can or carton or box of food of any kind-but he literally could find nothing. He said the dog barking in the backyard had more food than those children did.

In the mother's bedroom he found a bare mattress, the only one in the house. He hunted until he found some sheets (if you could call them that), put them on the mattress, and tucked all five children into the makeshift bed. With tears in his eyes he then knelt down, offered a prayer to Heavenly Father for their protection, and said good night.

As he arose and walked toward the door, one of the children, about age six, jumped out of bed, ran to him, grabbed him by the hand, and pled, "Will you please adopt me?" With more tears in his eyes, he put the child back in bed, then found the stoned mother (the men had long since fled) and said to her: "I will be back tomorrow, and heaven help you if some changes are not evident by the time I walk in this door. And there will be more changes after that. You have my word on it."

What do these three incidents have in common? Not much really, except that they happened to Sister Holland and me in the recent past. And they give three tiny, very different real-life examples of Babylon-one personal and as silly as deplorable behavior at a basketball game, one more cultural and indicative of one-on-one challenges with those who live differently than we do, and one very large and very serious matter, with legal implications and history so complex that it would seem to be beyond any individual one of us to address it.

In posing these three challenges, I intentionally did not use sensational cases of sexual transgression or physical violence or pornographic addiction, even though those might strike closer to home for some of you than the examples I have used. But you are smart enough to make unspoken applications.

Lesson 1: Never "Check Your Religion at the Door"

First, let's finish the basketball incident. The day after that game, when there was some public reckoning and a call to repentance over the incident, one young man said, in effect: "Listen. We are talking about basketball here, not Sunday School. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. We pay good money to see these games. We can act the way we want. We check our religion at the door."

" We check our religion at the door "? Lesson number one for the establishment of Zion in the 21st century: You never "check your religion at the door." Not ever.

My young friends, that kind of discipleship cannot be-it is not discipleship at all. As the prophet Alma has taught the young women of the Church to declare every week in their Young Women theme, we are "to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in," not just some of the time, in a few places, or when our team has a big lead.

"Check your religion at the door"! I was furious.

Lesson 2: Show Compassion, but Be Loyal to the Commandments

But let's stay with this for a minute because there is a second lesson on its way. Lesson number two in tonight's quest for Zion is that in my righteous indignation (at least we always say it is righteous) I have to make sure that I don't end up doing exactly what I was accusing this young fan of doing-getting mad, acting stupid, losing my cool, ranting about it, wanting to get my hands on him-preferably around his throat-until, before I know it, I have checked my religion at the door! No, someone in life, someone in the 21st century, someone in all of these situations has to live his or her religion because otherwise all we get is a whole bunch of idiots acting like moral pygmies.

It is easy to be righteous when things are calm and life is good and everything is going smoothly. The test is when there is real trial or temptation, when there is pressure and fatigue, anger and fear, or the possibility of real transgression. Can we be faithful then? That is the question because "Israel, Israel, God is calling." Such integrity is, of course, the majesty of "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" -right when forgiving and understanding and being generous about your crucifiers is the last thing that anyone less perfect than the Savior of the world would want to do. But we have to try; we have to wish to be strong. Whatever the situation or the provocation or the problem, no true disciple of Christ can "check his religion at the door."

That leads me to the woman with the rainbow hair and the many splendored rings. However one would respond to that young woman, the rule forever is that it has to reflect our religious beliefs and our gospel commitments. Therefore, how we respond in any situation has to make things better, not worse. We can't act or react in such a way that we are guilty of a greater offense than, in this case, she is. That doesn't mean that we don't have opinions, that we don't have standards, that we somehow completely disregard divinely mandated "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots" in life. But it does mean we have to live those standards and defend those "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots" in a righteous way to the best of our ability, the way the Savior lived and defended them. And He always did what should have been done to make the situation better-from teaching the truth, to forgiving sinners, to cleansing the temple. It is no small gift to know how to do such things in the right way!

So, with our new acquaintance of the unusual dress and grooming code, we start, above all, by remembering she is a daughter of God and of eternal worth. We start by remembering that she is someone's daughter here on earth as well and could, under other circumstances, be my daughter. We start by being grateful that she is at a Church activity, not avoiding one. In short, we try to be at our best in this situation in a desire to help her be at her best. We keep praying silently: What is the right thing to do here? And what is the right thing to say? What ultimately will make this situation and her better? Asking these questions and really trying to do what the Savior would do is what I think He meant when He said, "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment."

Having said that, I remind us all that while reaching out to and helping back a lamb who has strayed, we also have a profound responsibility to the 99 who didn't-and to the wishes and will of the Shepherd. There is a sheepfold, and we are all supposed to be in it, to say nothing of the safety and blessings that come to us for being there. My young brothers and sisters, this Church can never "dumb down" its doctrine in response to social goodwill or political expediency or any other reason. It is only the high ground of revealed truth that gives us any footing on which to lift another who may feel troubled or forsaken. Our compassion and our love-fundamental characteristics and requirements of our Christianity-must never be interpreted as compromising the commandments. As the marvelous George MacDonald once said, in such situations "we are not bound to say all that we [believe], but we are bound not even to look [like] what we do not [believe]."

Judge Righteous Judgments

In this regard-this call for compassion and loyalty to the commandments-there is sometimes a chance for a misunderstanding, especially among young people who may think we are not supposed to judge anything, that we are never to make a value assessment of any kind. We have to help each other with that because the Savior makes it clear that in some situations we have to judge, we are under obligation to judge-as when He said, "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine." That sounds like a judgment to me. The alternative is to surrender to the moral relativism of a deconstructionist, postmodern world which, pushed far enough, posits that ultimately nothing is eternally true or especially sacred and, therefore, no one position on any given issue matters more than any other. And that simply is not true.

In this process of evaluation, we are not called on to condemn others, but we are called upon to make decisions every day that reflect judgment-we hope good judgment. Elder Dallin H. Oaks once referred to these kinds of decisions as "intermediate judgments," which we often have to make for our own safety or for the safety of others, as opposed to what he called "final judgments," which can only be made by God, who knows all the facts. (Remember, in the scripture quoted earlier, that the Savior said these are to be "righteous judgments," not self-righteous judgments, which is a very different thing.)

For example, parents have to exercise good judgment regarding the safety and welfare of their children every day. No one would fault a parent who says children must eat their vegetables or who restricts a child from running into a street roaring with traffic. So why should a parent be faulted who cares, at a little later age, what time those children come home at night, or what the moral and behavioral standards of their friends are, or at what age they date, or whether or not they experiment with drugs or pornography or engage in sexual transgression? No, we are making decisions and taking stands and reaffirming our values-in short, making "intermediate judgments"-all the time, or at least we should be.

Some Issues and Laws Have Eternal Consequences

When we face such situations in complex social issues in a democratic society, it can be very challenging and, to some, confusing. Young people may ask about this position taken or that policy made by the Church, saying: "Well, we don't believe we should live or behave in such and such a way, but why do we have to make other people do the same? Don't they have their free agency? Aren't we being self-righteous and judgmental, forcing our beliefs on others, demanding that they act in a certain way?" In those situations you are going to have to explain sensitively why some principles are defended and some sins opposed wherever they are found because the issues and the laws involved are not just social or political but eternal in their consequence. And while not wishing to offend those who believe differently from us, we are even more anxious not to offend God, or as the scripture says, "not offend him who is your lawgiver" -and I am speaking here of serious moral laws.

But to make the point, let me use the example of a lesser law. It is a little like a teenager saying, "Now that I can drive, I know I am supposed to stop at a red light, but do we really have to be judgmental and try to get everyone else to stop at red lights? Does everyone have to do what we do? Don't others have their agency? Must they behave as we do?" You then have to explain why, yes, we do hope all will stop at a red light. And you have to do this without demeaning those who transgress or who believe differently than we believe because, yes, they do have their moral agency.

My young friends, there is a wide variety of beliefs in this world, and there is moral agency for all, but no one is entitled to act as if God is mute on these subjects or as if commandments only matter if there is public agreement over them. In the 21st century we cannot flee any longer. We are going to have to fight for laws and circumstances and environments that allow the free exercise of religion and our franchise in it. That is one way we can tolerate being in Babylon but not of it.

I know of no more important ability and no greater integrity for us to demonstrate in a world from which we cannot flee than to walk that careful path-taking a moral stand according to what God has declared and the laws He has given, but doing it compassionately and with understanding and great charity. Talk about a hard thing to do-to distinguish perfectly between the sin and the sinner. I know of few distinctions that are harder to make, or at least harder to articulate, but we must lovingly try to do exactly that. Believe me, brothers and sisters, in the world into which we are moving, we are going to have a lot of opportunity to develop such strength, display such courage, and demonstrate such compassion-all at the same time. And I am not speaking now of punk hairdos or rings in your nose.

Lesson 3: Use Gospel Values to Benefit Communities and Countries

Now lastly, the difficult story from Kansas City. Not many of us are going to be police officers or social service agents or judges sitting on a legal bench, but all of us should care for the welfare of others and the moral safety of our extended community. Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve devoted an entire general conference talk to this subject two years ago. In speaking of the need for us to influence society beyond the walls of our own home he said:

"In addition to protecting our own families, we should be a source of light in protecting our communities. The Savior said, 'Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.' ...

"In our increasingly unrighteous world, it is essential that values based on religious belief be [evident in] the public square. ...

"Religious faith is a store of light, knowledge, and wisdom and benefits society in a dramatic way."

If we don't take gospel blessings to our communities and our countries, the simple fact of the matter is we will never have enough policemen-there will never be enough Isaac Freestones-to enforce moral behavior even if it were enforceable. And it isn't. Those children in that home without food or clothing are sons and daughters of God. That mother, more culpable because she is older and should be more responsible, is also a daughter of God. Such situations may require tough love in formal, even legal ways, but we must try to help when and where we can because we are not checking our religion at the door, even as pathetic and irresponsible as some doors are.

We aren't going to solve every personal or social problem in the world here tonight. When we leave this evening, there will still be poverty, ignorance and transgression, unemployment and abuse, violence and heartache in our neighborhoods and cities and nations. No, we can't do everything, but as the old saying goes, we can do something. And in answer to God's call, the children of Israel are the ones to do it-not to flee Babylon this time but to attack it. Without being naive or Pollyannaish about it, we can live our religion so broadly and unfailingly that we find all kinds of opportunities to help families, bless neighbors, and protect others, including the rising generation.

Live Your Life to Reflect Your Love of Jesus Christ

I have not uttered the word missionary in this context for fear you would immediately think of white shirts and name tags. Don't limit me on this. Stay with the big picture-the huge need-to share the gospel always, whether you are a full-time missionary or not. Latter-day Saints are called upon to be the leaven in the loaf, the salt that never loses its savor, the light set upon a hill never to be hidden under a bushel. And your age group-18 to 30 for the most part-is the time in a person's life when your acquaintances are most likely to accept the gospel if it is presented to them. We know that. A number of studies conducted by the Church have told us that.

So start presenting! If we do right and talk right and reach out generously with our words and our deeds, then when the Savior cuts short His work in righteousness, says time is no more in this last, great dispensation and then comes in His glory, He will find us-you and me and all of us-doing our best, trying to live the gospel, trying to improve our lives and our Church and our society the best way we can. When He comes, I so want to be caught living the gospel. I want to be surprised right in the act of spreading the faith and doing something good. I want the Savior to say to me: "Jeffrey"-because He knows all of our names-"I recognize you not by your title but by your life, the way you are trying to live and the standards you are trying to defend. I see the integrity of your heart. I know you have tried to make things better first and foremost by being better yourself, and then by declaring my word and defending my gospel to others in the most compassionate way you could."

"I know you weren't always successful," He will certainly say, "with your own sins or the circumstances of others, but I believe you honestly tried. I believe in your heart you truly loved me."

I want to have something like that encounter someday as I want nothing else in this mortal life. And I want it for you. I want it for us all. Israel, Israel, God is calling-calling us to live the gospel of Jesus Christ personally in small ways as well as large, and then to reach out to those who may not look or dress or behave quite like we do, and then (where you can) go beyond that to serve in the widest community you can address.

To help you do that, I leave along with my testimony, an apostolic blessing on each of you this night. I bless you, by the power of the priesthood and the commission that I have received, to know that God loves you, that He needs you in this last and greatest dispensation when everything is accelerated and more and more is expected. I bless you, with apostolic authority, that your prayers offered in righteousness will be answered, that your personal fears will be lifted, that your backs and your shoulders and your hearts will be strong for the burdens that are placed upon them. I bless you as you strive to be pure in heart, offering yourselves as instruments in the hands of God for establishing Zion in these latter days everywhere you stand. I bless you to be true friends to each other and to those not of your circle to whom we should reach out. Above that, I bless you to be friends of the Savior of the world, to know Him personally, and to have confidence in His company.

I love the Lord Jesus Christ, whose servant I am trying to be. And I love our Heavenly Father, who cared enough to give Him to us. I know that, regarding that gift, God is calling to Israel in these latter days and that He expects us to respond to that call and to be more Christlike, to be more holy than we now are in our determination to live the gospel and establish Zion. I also know that He will give us both the strength and the holiness to be true disciples if we plead for it. I testify of the divinity of this work, of the love and grandeur of Almighty God, and the infinite Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ even down unto the least of each one of us. I bless you with this hope for happiness and holiness, tonight and tomorrow and forever, in the sacred name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Happy Birthday Ezra Taft Benson!

One of the things that President Benson is known for is his testimony of the Book of Mormon. To celebrate his birthday (and Throwback Thursday), let's review this talk from October 1988:

My beloved brethren and sisters, I rejoice to be with you in another glorious general conference of the Church. I am always filled with great anxiety as I approach these conferences. But I humbly pray that the Holy Spirit will be with us in rich abundance as we listen to the inspired counsel and messages of the Lord.

This has been a landmark year in the history of the Church in the use of the keystone of our religion-the Book of Mormon. This sacred volume of scripture has brought more souls to Christ, both within and without the Church, than ever before.

There are so many who could be commended for this progress, but time will permit mention of only a few.

We commend all those who had a part in producing and distributing the Church video on the Book of Mormon entitled How Rare a Possession. That video has had a powerful impact in the lives of its viewers, and tens of thousands of copies were distributed in the first weeks after its initial showing.

We commend you leaders and teachers of the various Church organizations for your inspired use of the Book of Mormon in helping to rear a generation that can redeem Zion. In many cases a little child has led a parent to the Lord through the Book of Mormon reading program in the Primary.

We commend the members of the Church who have participated in the family-to-family Book of Mormon program, placing their pictures and testimonies inside copies of the Book of Mormon. These testimonies have been translated into many languages, and the books have been given away by our missionaries around the world. This is helping to bring in tens of thousands of converts each year.

We commend those responsible for the excellent articles on the Book of Mormon which have appeared in our Church publications.

We commend the personnel of radio stations who broadcast excerpts from the Book of Mormon.

We commend those who have sponsored and supported faith-building Book of Mormon lectures and symposiums.

We commend many of you who in an edifying manner have taught classes, given talks, authored articles, and written books on the Book of Mormon.

And finally and most important, we commend that vast number of faithful Saints who individually and as families are changing their lives, cleansing the inner vessel, through the daily reading of the Book of Mormon.

The Book of Mormon is the instrument that God designed to "sweep the earth as with a flood, to gather out [His] elect." (Moses 7:62.) This sacred volume of scripture needs to become more central in our preaching, our teaching, and our missionary work.

At present, the Book of Mormon is studied in our Sunday School and seminary classes every fourth year. This four-year pattern, however, must not be followed by Church members in their personal and family study. We need to read daily from the pages of the book that will get a man "nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book." (History of the Church, 4:461.)

And when we are called upon to study or teach other scriptures, we need to strengthen that undertaking by frequent reference to the additional insights which the Book of Mormon may provide on the subject (see 1 Ne. 13:40, 2 Ne. 3:12).

The recent, well-done video on the Book of Mormon entitled How Rare a Possession carried many messages. First was the power of the Book of Mormon to convert men to Christ and hence to His church. Another message was that a man could study and preach the contents of the Book of Mormon for so many years without either his or his associates' knowing the name of the book or the Church which published it.

The time is long overdue for a massive flooding of the earth with the Book of Mormon for the many reasons which the Lord has given. In this age of the electronic media and the mass distribution of the printed word, God will hold us accountable if we do not now move the Book of Mormon in a monumental way.

We have the Book of Mormon, we have the members, we have the missionaries, we have the resources, and the world has the need. The time is now!

My beloved brothers and sisters, we hardly fathom the power of the Book of Mormon, nor the divine role it must play, nor the extent to which it must be moved.

"Few men on earth," said Elder Bruce R. McConkie, "either in or out of the Church, have caught the vision of what the Book of Mormon is all about. Few are they among men who know the part it has played and will yet play in preparing the way for the coming of Him of whom it is a new witness. ... The Book of Mormon shall so affect men that the whole earth and all its peoples will have been influenced and governed by it. ... There is no greater issue ever to confront mankind in modern times than this: Is the Book of Mormon the mind and will and voice of God to all men?" (Millennial Messiah pp. 159, 170, 179.) We testify that it is.

Now, my good Saints, we have a great work to perform in a very short time. We must flood the earth with the Book of Mormon-and get out from under God's condemnation for having treated it lightly. (See D&C 84:54-58.)

I challenge the members of the Church to participate in the family-to-family Book of Mormon program-to send copies of the Book of Mormon on a mission for you. Sister Benson and I have been doing this for some time now, and we intend to do more. We should be sending out millions of copies of the Book of Mormon to the missionaries every month.

I challenge our mission leaders to show their missionaries how to challenge their contacts to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. Missionaries need to know how to use the Book of Mormon to arouse mankind's interest in studying it, and they need to show how it answers the great questions of the soul. Missionaries need to read with those they teach various passages from the Book of Mormon on gospel subjects.

I challenge our Church writers, teachers, and leaders to tell us more Book of Mormon conversion stories that will strengthen our faith and prepare great missionaries. Show us how to effectively use it as a missionary tool, and let us know how it leads us to Christ and answers our personal problems and those of the world.

I challenge those who are in business and other professions to see that there are copies of the Book of Mormon in their reception rooms.

I challenge owners of cassette players to play Book of Mormon cassettes from time to time and to listen to them at home and while walking, jogging, or driving.

I challenge the homes of Israel to display on their walls great quotations and scenes from the Book of Mormon.

I challenge all of us to prayerfully consider steps that we can personally take to bring this new witness for Christ more fully into our own lives and into a world that so desperately needs it.

I have a vision of homes alerted, of classes alive, and of pulpits aflame with the spirit of Book of Mormon messages.

I have a vision of home teachers and visiting teachers, ward and branch officers, and stake and mission leaders counseling our people out of the most correct of any book on earth-the Book of Mormon.

I have a vision of artists putting into film, drama, literature, music, and paintings great themes and great characters from the Book of Mormon.

I have a vision of thousands of missionaries going into the mission field with hundreds of passages memorized from the Book of Mormon so that they might feed the needs of a spiritually famished world.

I have a vision of the whole Church getting nearer to God by abiding by the precepts of the Book of Mormon.

Indeed, I have a vision of flooding the earth with the Book of Mormon.

My beloved Saints, I am now entering my ninetieth year. I am getting older and less vigorous and am so grateful for your prayers and for the support of my younger Brethren. I thank the Lord for renewing my body from time to time so that I can still help build His kingdom.

I do not know fully why God has preserved my life to this age, but I do know this: That for the present hour He has revealed to me the absolute need for us to move the Book of Mormon forward now in a marvelous manner. You must help with this burden and with this blessing which He has placed on the whole Church, even all the children of Zion.

Moses never entered the promised land. Joseph Smith never saw Zion redeemed. Some of us may not live long enough to see the day when the Book of Mormon floods the earth and when the Lord lifts His condemnation. (See D&C 84:54-58.) But, God willing, I intend to spend all my remaining days in that glorious effort. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Religion in a Free Society

M. Russell Ballard gave the following address on July 5, 1992 at the Freedom Festival in Provo:

Recently a group of religious and political leaders and scholars from all around the world met in Budapest, Hungary, to discuss the practical challenges faced by the former communist nations that are moving toward some form of religious liberty. The concept of religious freedom is revolutionary for many countries, and they are struggling with many potentially divisive issues: To what extent should public schools recognize and teach religion? How much should the state regulate a church's charitable activities? Should churches be exempted from general laws? To what degree should church and state be separated? Should there be an official state church?

Do those issues sound familiar? They should. The Founding Fathers of the United States wrestled with them more than two hundred years ago, and they continue to be serious topics of discussion and debate to this very day.

The principles and philosophies upon which the U.S. constitutional law is based are not simply the result of the best efforts of a remarkable group of brilliant men. They were inspired by God, and the rights and privileges guaranteed in the Constitution are God-given, not man-derived. The freedom and independence afforded by the Constitution and Bill of Rights are divine rights-sacred, essential, and inalienable. In the 98th section of the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord indicates that the "law of the land which is constitutional, supporting that principle of freedom in maintaining rights and privileges, belongs to all mankind, and is justifiable before me." (D&C 98:5.)

I focus my comments on sixteen significant words found in the First Amendment to the Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

These words are simple and direct. Their message and meaning appear to be clear. But through the years presidents, Congress, and the courts have interpreted them in so many different ways that many people today have no sense of the perspective upon which they were based.

Believe it or not, at one time the very notion of government had less to do with politics than with virtue. According to James Madison, often referred to as the father of the Constitution: "We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon the power of the government-far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." (Russ Walton, Biblical Principles of Importance to Godly Christians, New Hampshire: Plymouth Foundation, 1984, p. 361.)

George Washington agreed with his colleague James Madison. Said Washington: "Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle." (James D. Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the President, 1789-1897, U.S. Congress, 1899, vol. 1, p. 220.)

Nearly one hundred years later, Abraham Lincoln responded to a question about which side God was on during the Civil War with this profound insight: "I am not at all concerned about that, for I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side." (Abraham Lincoln's Stories and Speeches, ed. J. B. McClure, Chicago: Rhodes and McClure Publishing Co., 1896, pp. 185-86.)

Madison, Washington, and Lincoln all understood that democracy cannot possibly flourish in a moral vacuum and that organized religion plays an important role in preserving and maintaining public morality. Indeed, John Adams, another of America's Founding Fathers, insisted: "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion." (John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles F. Adams, 1854.)

Yet that is precisely the position we find ourselves in today. Our government is succumbing to pressure to distance itself from God and religion. Consequently, the government is discovering that it is incapable of contending with people who are increasingly "unbridled by morality and religion." A simple constitutional prohibition of state-sponsored church has evolved into court-ordered bans against representations of the Ten Commandments on government buildings, Christmas manger scenes on public property, and prayer at public meetings. Instead of seeking the "national morality" based on "religious principle" that Washington spoke of, many are actively seeking a blind standard of legislative amorality, with a total exclusion of the mention of God in the public square.

Such a standard of religious exclusion is absolutely and unequivocally counter to the intention of those who designed our government. Do you think that mere chance placed the freedom to worship according to individual conscience among the first freedoms specified in the Bill of Rights-freedoms that are destined to flourish together or perish separately? The Founding Fathers understood this country's spiritual heritage. They frequently declared that God's hand was upon this nation, and that He was working through them to create what Chesterton once called "a nation with the soul of a church." (Richard John Neuhaus, "A New Order for the Ages," speech delivered at the Philadelphia Conference on Religious Freedom, 30 May 1991.) While they were influenced by history and their accumulated knowledge, the single most influential reference source for their work on the Constitution was the Holy Bible. Doubtless they were familiar with the Lord's counsel to the children of Israel as they struggled to become a great nation:

"And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth:

"And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God.

"Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field.

"Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep.

"Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store.

"Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out.

"The Lord shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face: they shall come out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways.

"The Lord shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and he shall bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

"The Lord shall establish thee an holy people until himself, as he hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in his ways." (Deut. 28:1-9.)

In other words, that nation that keeps God's commandments and walks in His ways will prosper. The framers of our Constitution knew that, and they tried to lay a solid moral foundation for a society that could be so blessed. As they did so, perhaps they thought of Roger Williams and others like him who made a heroic fight for religious freedom.

Roger Williams began his ministry in England, where his zealous work to free the church from the influence of the king brought the wrath of the government upon him. Eventually he and his young wife were forced to flee to the New World. But instead of finding himself among like-minded reformers in America, he encountered much of the same resistance and persecution until he established a new colony called Providence in Rhode Island. Here America had its first taste of true religious freedom, and the success of the Providence colony convinced many that the concept tasted good.

The Founding Fathers very likely were aware of the experiences of Roger Williams and others when they wrote in the First Amendment that the government cannot impede the free exercise of religion. They wrote that the church and the state were to be separate, independent entities, not to eliminate morality and God's law but to make sure that the power of government could never be used to silence religious expression or to persecute religious practice. Once again quoting George Washington: "If I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution, framed in the convention where I had the honor to preside, might possibly endanger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical society, certainly I would never have placed my signature to it." (Maxims of Washington, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1894, pp. 370-71.)

What would Washington have thought if he could have foreseen our day? Would he have signed the document?

I believe he would have been troubled to see a time when citizens are forbidden to pray in public meetings; when people claim that "you can't legislate morality," as if any law ever passed did not have at its heart some notion of right and wrong; when churches are called intruders when they speak out against public policy that is contrary to the commandments of God; when many people reject the correcting influence of churches if it infringes on daily living; when religion is accepted as a social organization but not as an integral part of national culture; when people bristle if representatives of churches speak in any forum except from the pulpit.

Indeed, some people now claim that the Founding Fathers' worst fear in connection with religion has been realized; that we have, in fact, a state-sponsored religion in America today. This new religion, adopted by many, does not have an identifiable name, but it operates just like a church. It exists in the form of doctrines and beliefs, where morality is whatever a person wants it to be, and where freedom is derived from the ideas of man and not the laws of God. Many people adhere to this concept of morality with religious zeal and fervor, and courts and legislatures tend to support it.

While you may think I am stretching the point a bit to say that amorality could be a new state-sponsored religion, I believe you would agree that we do not have to look far to find horrifying evidence of rampant immorality that is permitted if not encouraged by our laws. From the plague of pornography to the devastation caused by addiction to drugs, illicit sex, and gambling, wickedness rears its ugly head everywhere, often gaining its foothold in society by invoking the powers of constitutional privilege.

We see a sad reality of contemporary life when many of the same people who defend the right of a pornographer to distribute exploitive films and photos would deny freedom of expression to people of faith because of an alleged fear of what might happen from religious influence on government or public meetings. While much of society has allowed gambling to wash over its communities, leaving broken families and individuals in its soul-destroying wake, it reserves its harshest ridicule for those who advocate obedience to God's commandments and uniform, inspired standards of right and wrong.

As M. J. Sobran recently wrote: "A religious conviction is now a second-class conviction, expected to step deferentially to the back of the secular bus, and not to get uppity about it." (Human Life Review, Summer 1978, pp. 58-59.)

There are probably many reasons for the change in public attitudes toward religion. Certainly we've had too many wolves posing as shepherds, prompting a national skepticism toward any who profess to represent God. The news media, which rarely report on the good things churches are doing in the world, almost never miss an opportunity to tell people when active church members do wrong. We read about crimes that are committed by former Sunday School teachers, ministers, or missionaries. But when was the last time you read that a crime was committed by someone who hasn't stepped inside a church in forty years?

For that matter, when was the last time you saw religion or people of faith portrayed positively in any film or television program? For the most part, Hollywood's attitude toward religion is typified by the expression of cartoon character Bart Simpson, whose mealtime grace consisted of these words: "Dear God, we pay for all this stuff ourselves, so thanks for nothing." Can you imagine how embarrassed and disappointed our Founding Fathers would be to know of the blasphemous disregard many of those of the media have for God our Eternal Father. In fact, noted film critic Michael Medved accuses Hollywood of a deliberate attempt to undermine organized religion: "A war against standards leads logically and inevitably to hostility to religion, because it is religious faith that provides the ultimate basis for all standards." ("Popular Culture and the War against Standards," speech delivered at Hillsdale College, 18 Nov. 1990.)

Organized religion finds itself increasingly on the defensive. Not only are people questioning the right of the church-any church-to be involved in matters of public policy, but some are even beginning to wonder whether the church is entitled to exert any kind of meaningful influence on people's lives. As one churchgoer recently said on a radio talk show, "I think the world of my minister-as long as he doesn't try to tell me how to live my life."

Is it any wonder, then, that religion now finds itself under attack in legislative assemblies and in the courts? In fact, the United States Supreme Court recently discontinued the time-honored judicial standard that gave considerable legal latitude to the free exercise of religion. Allowing people of faith to practice their religion free from the burdening effects of public policy is, according to the court, "a luxury that can no longer be afforded." While the justices acknowledged that the ruling would "place at a relative disadvantage those religious practices that are not widely engaged in," they said it was "an unavoidable consequence of a democratic government." (Oregon Employment Division v. Smith, 1990.)

I do not promote the religious practice that was in question in that case but I am concerned with the long-term implications of the decision. Wherever religious groups are in the minority and are not considered part of the mainline religious community, the potential for state intrusion upon their religious practices is real. With legislative bodies responding most often to the will of the majority, the free exercise of religion by minority faith groups is in peril.

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (HR 2797) is presently before Congress. This important piece of legislation is designed to restore the protections for religious freedom that existed before this recent Supreme Court decision placed those protections in jeopardy. Because the Religious Freedom Restoration Act is necessary for the preservation of the free exercise of religion, it demands our support.

The constitutional provisions relating to government and religion were not intended to control the religious rights of people. Rather, they were intended to expand them and eliminate the fear of government intrusion. These provisions were meant to separate religion and government so that religion would be independent. The experiences of Roger Williams and other reformers provided the Founding Fathers of the U.S. with important facts to help them deal with the potential risks of a state religion corrupted by politics. Consequently, they drafted an article in the Bill of Rights to guarantee religious freedom from government as opposed to government freedom from religion.

In fact, the framers of the Constitution probably assumed that religious freedom would establish religion as a watchdog over government, and believed that free churches would inevitably stand and speak against immoral and corrupt legislation. All churches not only have the right to speak out on public moral issues, but they have the solemn obligation to do so. Religion represents society's conscience, and churches must speak out when government chooses a course that is contrary to the laws of God. To remove the influence of religion from public policy simply because some are uncomfortable with any degree of moral restraint is like the passenger on a sinking ship who removes his life jacket because it is restrictive and uncomfortable.

Today, the buzz words family values are being incorporated in almost every politician's thirty-second sound bite. But what does that phrase really mean? Whose values are we going to embrace: the values of politicians? The values the media tell us we should cherish? The values of special interest groups and organizations? The values of rank-and-file Americans, as determined by scientific survey? Obviously, it would not be politically expedient to say that the values that the Founding Fathers drew upon are eternal, unchanging values. But that is a fact. The values that made America great are, in reality, the commandments of God. They provide the foundation upon which the American republic was built. And if American democracy seems shaky today, it's only because that foundation has been eroded and weakened under the guise of separation of church and state.

Maybe Washington really was speaking of our day when he said, "If I could conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny and every species of religious persecution." (Maxims of Washington, p. 371.)

Samuel Adams, who is sometimes called the father of the American Revolution, wrote: "I thank God that I have lived to see my country independent and free. She may long enjoy her independence and freedom if she will. It depends upon her virtue." (Wells, The Life of Samuel Adams, 3:175.)

That means it depends on us. If we would maintain the independence and freedom the Founding Fathers intended, we must work to preserve and protect the moral foundation upon which they built the U. S. government. We must stand boldly for righteousness and truth, and must defend the cause of honor, decency, and personal freedom espoused by Washington, Madison, Adams, Lincoln, and other leaders who acknowledged and loved God. Otherwise, we will find ourselves in the same predicament President Lincoln observed in 1863.

Said Lincoln:"We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of their own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!" (A Proclamation "to designate and set apart a day for national prayer and humiliation.")

Let us resolve to make our own families truly free by teaching them that God holds us all accountable. His laws are absolutes; breaking them brings misery and unhappiness; keeping them brings joy, happiness, and the blessings of heaven. Let us teach our families and others the importance of moral responsibility based on the laws of God.

The freedom we give thanks for is at stake-for ourselves and for our posterity. No nation or people that rejects God or His commandments can prosper or find happiness. History and the scriptures are filled with examples of nations that rejected God. Let us be wise and remember the source of our blessings and not be timid or apologetic in sharing this knowledge with others.

The Divinely Inspired Constitution

Dallin H. Oaks gave the following talk in February 1992:

Not long after I began to teach law, an older professor asked me a challenging question about Latter-day Saints' belief in the United States Constitution. Earlier in his career he had taught at the University of Utah College of Law. There he met many Latter-day Saint law students. "They all seemed to believe that the Constitution was divinely inspired," he said, "but none of them could ever tell me what this meant or how it affected their interpretation of the Constitution." I took that challenge personally, and I have pondered it for many years.

I hope I will not be thought immodest if I claim a special interest in the Constitution. As a lawyer and law professor for more than twenty years, I have studied the United States Constitution. As legal counsel, I helped draft the bill of rights for the Illinois constitutional convention of 1970. And for three and one-half years as a justice of the Utah Supreme Court I had the sworn duty to uphold and interpret the constitutions of the state of Utah and the United States. My conclusions draw upon those experiences and upon a lifetime of studying the scriptures and the teachings of the living prophets. My opinions on this subject are personal and do not represent a statement in behalf of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Creation and Ratification

The United States Constitution was the first written constitution in the world. It has served Americans well, enhancing freedom and prosperity during the changed conditions of more than two hundred years. Frequently copied, it has become the United States' most important export. After two centuries, every nation in the world except six have adopted written constitutions, and the U.S. Constitution was a model for all of them. No wonder modern revelation says that God established the U.S. Constitution and that it "should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles." (D&C 101:77.)

George Washington was perhaps the first to use the word miracle in describing the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. In a 1788 letter to Lafayette, he said:

"It appears to me, then, little short of a miracle, that the delegates from so many different states (which states you know are also different from each other in their manners, circumstances, and prejudices) should unite in forming a system of national Government, so little liable to well-founded objections."

It was a miracle. Consider the setting.

The thirteen colonies and three and one-half million Americans who had won independence from the British crown a few years earlier were badly divided on many fundamental issues. Some thought the colonies should reaffiliate with the British crown. Among the majority who favored continued independence, the most divisive issue was whether the United States should have a strong central government to replace the weak "league of friendship" established by the Articles of Confederation. Under the Confederation of 1781, there was no executive or judicial authority, and the national Congress had no power to tax or to regulate commerce. The thirteen states retained all their sovereignty, and the national government could do nothing without their approval. The Articles of Confederation could not be amended without the unanimous approval of all the states, and every effort to strengthen this loose confederation had failed.

Congress could not even protect itself. In July 1783, an armed mob of former Revolutionary War soldiers seeking back wages threatened to take Congress hostage at its meeting in Philadelphia. When Pennsylvania declined to provide militia to protect them, the congressmen fled. Thereafter Congress was a laughingstock, wandering from city to city.

Unless America could adopt a central government with sufficient authority to function as a nation, the thirteen states would remain a group of insignificant, feuding little nations united by nothing more than geography and forever vulnerable to the impositions of aggressive foreign powers. No wonder the first purpose stated in the preamble of the new United States Constitution was "to form a more perfect union."

The Constitution had its origin in a resolution by which the relatively powerless Congress called delegates to a convention to discuss amendments to the Articles of Confederation. This convention was promoted by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, two farsighted young statesmen still in their thirties, who favored a strong national government. They persuaded a reluctant George Washington to attend and then used his influence in a letter-writing campaign to encourage participation by all the states. The convention was held in Philadelphia, whose population of a little over 40,000 made it the largest city in the thirteen states.

As the delegates assembled, there were ominous signs of disunity. It was not until eleven days after the scheduled beginning of the convention that enough states were represented to form a quorum. New Hampshire's delegation arrived more than two months late because the state had not provided them travel money. No delegates ever came from Rhode Island.

Economically and politically, the country was alarmingly weak. The states were in a paralyzing depression. Everyone was in debt. The national treasury was empty. Inflation was rampant. The various currencies were nearly worthless. The trade deficit was staggering. Rebelling against their inclusion in New York State, prominent citizens of Vermont had already entered into negotiations to rejoin the British crown. In the western territory, Kentucky leaders were speaking openly about turning from the union and forming alliances with the Old World.

Instead of reacting timidly because of disunity and weakness, the delegates boldly ignored the terms of their invitation to amend the Articles of Confederation and instead set out to write an entirely new constitution. They were conscious of their place in history. For millennia the world's people had been ruled by kings or tyrants. Now a group of colonies had won independence from a king and their representatives had the unique opportunity of establishing a constitutional government Abraham Lincoln would later describe as "of the people, by the people, and for the people."

The delegates faced staggering obstacles. The leaders in the thirteen states were deeply divided on the extent to which the states would cede any power to a national government. If there was to be a strong central government, there were seemingly irresolvable differences on how to allocate the ingredients of national power between large and small states. As to the nature of the national executive, some wanted to copy the British parliamentary system. At least one delegate even favored the adoption of a monarchy. Divisions over slavery could well have prevented any agreement on other issues. There were 600,000 black slaves in the thirteen states, and slavery was essential in the view of some delegates and repulsive to many others.

Deeming secrecy essential to the success of their venture, the delegates spent over three months in secret sessions, faithfully observing their agreement that no one would speak outside the meeting room on the progress of their work. They were fearful that if their debates were reported to the people before the entire document was ready for submission, the opposition would unite to kill the effort before it was born. This type of proceeding would obviously be impossible today. There is irony in the fact that a constitution which protects the people's "right to know" was written under a set of ground rules that its present beneficiaries would not tolerate.

It took the delegates seven weeks of debate to resolve the question of how the large and small states would be represented in the national congress. The Great Compromise provided a senate with equal representation for each state, and a lower house in which representation was apportioned according to the whole population of free persons in the state, plus three-fifths of the slaves. The vote on this pivotal issue was five states in favor and four against; other states did not vote, either because no delegates were present or because their delegation was divided. Upon that fragile base, the delegates went forward to consider other issues, including the nature of the executive and judicial branches, and whether the document should include a bill of rights.

It is remarkable that the delegates were able to put aside their narrow sectional loyalties to agree on a strong central government. Timely events were persuasive of the need: the delegates' memories of the national humiliation when Congress was chased out of Philadelphia by a mob, the recent challenge of Shay's rebellion against Massachusetts farm foreclosures, and the frightening prospect that northern and western areas would be drawn back into the orbit of European power.

The success of the convention was attributable in large part to the remarkable intelligence, wisdom, and unselfishness of the delegates. As James Madison wrote in the preface to his notes on the Constitutional Convention:

"There never was an assembly of men, charged with a great and arduous trust, who were more pure in their motives, or more exclusively or anxiously devoted to the object committed to them." Truly, the U.S. Constitution was established "by the hands of wise men whom [the Lord] raised up unto this very purpose." (D&C 101:80.)

The drafting of the Constitution was only the beginning. By its terms it would not go into effect until ratified by conventions in nine states. But if the nation was to be united and strong, the new Constitution had to be ratified by the key states of Virginia and New York, where the opposition was particularly strong. The extent of opposition coming out of the convention is suggested by the fact that of seventy-four appointed delegates, only fifty-five participated in the convention, and only thirty-nine of these signed the completed document.

It was nine months before nine states had ratified, and the last of the key states was not included until a month later, when the New York convention ratified by a vote of thirty to twenty-seven. To the "miracle of Philadelphia" one must therefore add "the miracle of ratification."

Ratification probably could not have been secured without a commitment to add a written bill of rights. The first ten amendments, which included the Bill of Rights, were ratified a little over three years after the Constitution itself.

That the Constitution was ratified is largely attributable to the fact that the principal leaders in the states were willing to vote for a document that failed to embody every one of their preferences. For example, influential Thomas Jefferson, who was in Paris negotiating a treaty and therefore did not serve as a delegate, felt strongly that a bill of rights should have been included in the original Constitution. But Jefferson still supported the Constitution because he felt it was the best available. Benjamin Franklin stated that view in these words:

"When you assemble a number of men to have the advantage over their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does. ... The opinions I have had of its errors, I sacrifice to the public good."

In other words, one should not expect perfection-one certainly should not expect all of his personal preferences-in a document that must represent a consensus. One should not sulk over a representative body's failure to attain perfection. Americans are well advised to support the best that can be obtained in the circumstances that prevail. That is sound advice not only for the drafting of a constitution but also for the adoption and administration of laws under it.

Inspiration

It was a miracle that the Constitution could be drafted and ratified. But what is there in the text of the Constitution that is divinely inspired?

Reverence for the United States Constitution is so great that sometimes individuals speak as if its every word and phrase had the same standing as scripture. Personally, I have never considered it necessary to defend every line of the Constitution as scriptural. For example, I find nothing scriptural in the compromise on slavery or the minimum age or years of citizenship for congressmen, senators, or the president. President J. Reuben Clark, who referred to the Constitution as "part of my religion," also said that it was not part of his belief or the doctrine of the Church that the Constitution was a "fully grown document." "On the contrary," he said, "We believe it must grow and develop to meet the changing needs of an advancing world."

That was also the attitude of the Prophet Joseph Smith. He faulted the Constitution for not being "broad enough to cover the whole ground." In an obvious reference to the national government's lack of power to intervene when the state of Missouri used its militia to expel the Latter-day Saints from their lands, Joseph Smith said,

"Its sentiments are good, but it provides no means of enforcing them. ... Under its provision, a man or a people who are able to protect themselves can get along well enough; but those who have the misfortune to be weak or unpopular are left to the merciless rage of popular fury." 8 This omission of national power to protect citizens against state action to deprive them of constitutional rights was remedied in the Fourteenth Amendment, adopted just after the Civil War.

I see divine inspiration in what President J. Reuben Clark called the "great fundamentals" of the Constitution. In his many talks on the Constitution, he always praised three fundamentals: (a) the separation of powers into three independent branches of government in a federal system; (b) the essential freedoms of speech, press, and religion embodied in the Bill of Rights; and (c) the equality of all men before the law. I concur in these three, but I add two more. On my list there are five great fundamentals.

1. Separation of powers. The idea of separation of powers was at least a century old. The English Parliament achieved an initial separation of legislative and executive authority when they wrested certain powers from the king in the revolution of 1688. The concept of separation of powers became well established in the American colonies. State constitutions adopted during the Revolution distinguished between the executive, legislative, and judicial functions. Thus, a document commenting on the proposed Massachusetts Constitution of 1778, speaks familiarly of the principle "that the legislative, judicial, and executive powers are to be lodged in different hands, that each branch is to be independent, and further, to be so balanced, and be able to exert such checks upon the others, as will preserve it from dependence on, or a union with them."

Thus, we see that the inspiration on the idea of separation of powers came long before the U.S. Constitutional Convention. The inspiration in the convention was in its original and remarkably successful adaptation of the idea of separation of powers to the practical needs of a national government. The delegates found just the right combination to assure the integrity of each branch, appropriately checked and balanced with the others. As President Clark said:

"It is this union of independence and dependence of these branches-legislative, executive and judicial-and of the governmental functions possessed by each of them, that constitutes the marvelous genius of this unrivalled document. ... As I see it, it was here that the divine inspiration came. It was truly a miracle."

2. A written bill of rights. This second great fundamental came by amendment, but I think Americans all look upon the Bill of Rights as part of the inspired work of the Founding Fathers. The idea of a bill of rights was not new. Once again, the inspiration was in the brilliant, practical implementation of preexisting principles. Almost six hundred years earlier, King John had subscribed the Magna Charta, which contained a written guarantee of some rights for certain of his subjects. The English Parliament had guaranteed individual rights against royal power in the English Bill of Rights of 1689. Even more recently, some of the charters used in the establishment of the American colonies had written guarantees of liberties and privileges, with which the delegates were familiar.

I have always felt that the United States Constitution's closest approach to scriptural stature is in the phrasing of our Bill of Rights. Without the free exercise of religion, America could not have served as the host nation for the restoration of the gospel, which began just three decades after the Bill of Rights was ratified. I also see scriptural stature in the concept and wording of the freedoms of speech and press, the right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures, the requirements that there must be probable cause for an arrest and that accused persons must have a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury, and the guarantee that a person will not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. President Ezra Taft Benson has said, "Reason, necessity, tradition, and religious conviction all lead me to accept the divine origin of these rights."

The Declaration of Independence had posited these truths to be "self-evident," that all men "are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights," and that governments are instituted "to secure these Rights." This inspired Constitution was established to provide a practical guarantee of these God-given rights (see D&C 101:77), and the language implementing that godly objective is scriptural to me.

3. Division of powers. Another inspired fundamental of the U.S. Constitution is its federal system, which divides government powers between the nation and the various states. Unlike the inspired adaptations mentioned earlier, this division of sovereignty was unprecedented in theory or practice. In a day when it is fashionable to assume that the government has the power and means to right every wrong, we should remember that the U.S. Constitution limits the national government to the exercise of powers expressly granted to it. The Tenth Amendment provides:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to it by the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people."

This principle of limited national powers, with all residuary powers reserved to the people or to the state and local governments, which are most responsive to the people, is one of the great fundamentals of the U.S. Constitution.

The particular powers that are reserved to the states are part of the inspiration. For example, the power to make laws on personal relationships is reserved to the states. Thus, laws of marriage and family rights and duties are state laws. This would have been changed by the proposed Equal Rights Amendment (E.R.A.). When the First Presidency opposed the E.R.A., they cited the way it would have changed various legal rules having to do with the family, a result they characterized as "a moral rather than a legal issue." 12 I would add my belief that the most fundamental legal and political objection to the proposed E.R.A. was that it would effect a significant reallocation of law-making power from the states to the federal government.

4. Popular sovereignty. Perhaps the most important of the great fundamentals of the inspired Constitution is the principle of popular sovereignty: The people are the source of government power. Along with many religious people, Latter-day Saints affirm that God gave the power to the people, and the people consented to a constitution that delegated certain powers to the government. Sovereignty is not inherent in a state or nation just because it has the power that comes from force of arms. Sovereignty does not come from the divine right of a king, who grants his subjects such power as he pleases or is forced to concede, as in Magna Charta. The sovereign power is in the people. I believe this is one of the great meanings in the revelation which tells us that God established the Constitution of the United States,

"That every man may act ... according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment.

"Therefore, it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another.

"And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land." (D&C 101:78-80.)

In other words, the most desirable condition for the effective exercise of God-given moral agency is a condition of maximum freedom and responsibility. In this condition men are accountable for their own sins and cannot blame their political conditions on their bondage to a king or a tyrant. This condition is achieved when the people are sovereign, as they are under the Constitution God established in the United States. From this it follows that the most important words in the United States Constitution are the words in the preamble: "We, the people of the United States ... do ordain and establish this Constitution."

President Ezra Taft Benson expressed the fundamental principle of popular sovereignty when he said, "We [the people] are superior to government and should remain master over it, not the other way around." The Book of Mormon explains that principle in these words:

"An unrighteous king doth pervert the ways of all righteousness. ...

"Therefore, choose you by the voice of this people, judges, that ye may be judged according to the laws. ...

"Now it is not common that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right; but it is common for the lesser part of the people to desire that which is not right; therefore this shall ye observe and make it your law-to do your business by the voice of the people." (Mosiah 29:23-26.)

Popular sovereignty necessarily implies popular responsibility. Instead of blaming their troubles on a king or other sovereign, all citizens must share the burdens and responsibilities of governing. As the Book of Mormon teaches, "The burden should come upon all the people, that every man might bear his part." (Mosiah 29:34.)

President Clark's third great fundamental was the equality of all men before the law. I believe that to be a corollary of popular sovereignty. When power comes from the people, there is no legitimacy in legal castes or classes or in failing to provide all citizens the equal protection of the laws.

The delegates to the Constitutional Convention did not originate the idea of popular sovereignty, since they lived in a century when many philosophers had argued that political power originated in a social contract. But the United States Constitution provided the first implementation of this principle. After two centuries in which Americans may have taken popular sovereignty for granted, it is helpful to be reminded of the difficulties in that pioneering effort.

To begin with, a direct democracy was impractical for a country of four million people and about a half million square miles. As a result, the delegates had to design the structure of a constitutional, representative democracy, what they called "a Republican Form of Government."

The delegates also had to resolve whether a constitution adopted by popular sovereignty could be amended, and if so, how.

Finally, the delegates had to decide how minority rights could be protected when the government was, by definition, controlled by the majority of the sovereign people.

A government based on popular sovereignty must be responsive to the people, but it must also be stable or it cannot govern. A constitution must therefore give government the power to withstand the cries of a majority of the people in the short run, though it must obviously be subject to their direction in the long run.

Without some government stability against an outraged majority, government could not protect minority rights. As President Clark declared:

"The Constitution was framed in order to protect minorities. That is the purpose of written constitutions. In order that the minorities might be protected in the matter of amendments under our Constitution, the Lord required that the amendments should be made only through the operation of very large majorities-two-thirds for action in the Senate, and three-fourths as among the states. This is the inspired, prescribed order."

The delegates to the Constitutional Convention achieved the required balance between popular sovereignty and stability through a power of amendment that was ultimately available but deliberately slow. Only in this way could the government have the certainty of stability, the protection of minority rights, and the potential of change, all at the same time.

To summarize, I see divine inspiration in these four great fundamentals of the U.S. Constitution:

• the separation of powers in the three branches of government;

• the Bill of Rights;

• the division of powers between the states and the federal government; and

• the application of popular sovereignty.

5. The rule of law and not of men. Further, there is divine inspiration in the fundamental underlying premise of this whole constitutional order. All the blessings enjoyed under the United States Constitution are dependent upon the rule of law. That is why President J. Reuben Clark said, "Our allegiance run[s] to the Constitution and to the principles which it embodies, and not to individuals." The rule of law is the basis of liberty.

As the Lord declared in modern revelation, constitutional laws are justifiable before him, "and the law also maketh you free." (D&C 98:5-8.) The self-control by which citizens subject themselves to law strengthens the freedom of all citizens and honors the divinely inspired Constitution.

Citizen Responsibilities

U.S. citizens have an inspired Constitution, and therefore, what? Does the belief that the U.S. Constitution is divinely inspired affect citizens' behavior toward law and government? It should and it does.

U.S. citizens should follow the First Presidency's counsel to study the Constitution. They should be familiar with its great fundamentals: the separation of powers, the individual guarantees in the Bill of Rights, the structure of federalism, the sovereignty of the people, and the principles of the rule of the law. They should oppose any infringement of these inspired fundamentals.

They should be law-abiding citizens, supportive of national, state, and local governments. The twelfth Article of Faith declares:

"We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law."

The Church's official declaration of belief states:

"We believe that governments were instituted of God for the benefit of man; and that he holds men accountable for their acts in relation to them. ...

"We believe that all men are bound to sustain and uphold the respective governments in which they reside." (D&C 134:1, 5.)

Those who enjoy the blessings of liberty under a divinely inspired constitution should promote morality, and they should practice what the Founding Fathers called "civic virtue." In his address on the U.S. Constitution, President Ezra Taft Benson quoted this important observation by John Adams, the second president of the United States:

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

Similarly, James Madison, who is known as the "Father of the Constitution," stated his assumption that there had to be "sufficient virtue among men for self-government." He argued in the Federalist Papers that "republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form."

It is part of our civic duty to be moral in our conduct toward all people. There is no place in responsible citizenship for dishonesty or deceit or for willful law breaking of any kind. We believe with the author of Proverbs that "righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people." (Prov. 14:34.) The personal righteousness of citizens will strengthen a nation more than the force of its arms.

Citizens should also be practitioners of civic virtue in their conduct toward government. They should be ever willing to fulfill the duties of citizenship. This includes compulsory duties like military service and the numerous voluntary actions they must take if they are to preserve the principle of limited government through citizen self-reliance. For example, since U.S. citizens value the right of trial by jury, they must be willing to serve on juries, even those involving unsavory subject matter. Citizens who favor morality cannot leave the enforcement of moral laws to jurors who oppose them.

The single word that best describes a fulfillment of the duties of civic virtue is patriotism. Citizens should be patriotic. My favorite prescription for patriotism is that of Adlai Stevenson:

"What do we mean by patriotism in the context of our times? ... A patriotism that puts country ahead of self; a patriotism which is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime."

I close with a poetic prayer. It is familiar to everyone in the United States, because U.S. citizens sing it in one of their loveliest hymns. It expresses gratitude to God for liberty, and it voices a prayer that he will continue to bless them with the holy light of freedom:

Our fathers' God, to thee,

Author of liberty,

To thee we sing;

Long may our land be bright

With freedom's holy light.

Protect us by thy might,

Great God, our King!

Latter-day Saints Keep on Trying

This week's Throwback Thursday takes us to Dale G. Renlund's talk in the April 2015 General Conference:

My dear brothers and sisters, in December 2013 the world mourned the death of Nelson Mandela. After 27 years of imprisonment for his role in the antiapartheid struggle, Mandela was the first democratically elected president of South Africa. His forgiveness of those who had imprisoned him was remarkable. He received widespread acclaim and praise. Mandela frequently deflected accolades by saying, "I'm no saint-that is, unless you think a saint is a sinner who keeps on trying."

This statement-"a saint is a sinner who keeps on trying"-should reassure and encourage members of the Church. Although we are referred to as "Latter-day Saints," we sometimes flinch at this reference. The term Saints is commonly used to designate those who have achieved an elevated state of holiness or even perfection. And we know perfectly well that we are not perfect.

Our theology does teach us, though, that we may be perfected by repeatedly and iteratively "relying wholly upon" the doctrine of Christ: exercising faith in Him, repenting, partaking of the sacrament to renew the covenants and blessings of baptism, and receiving the Holy Ghost as a constant companion to a greater degree. As we do so, we become more like Christ and are able to endure to the end, with all that that entails. In less formal terms, God cares a lot more about who we are and who we are becoming than about who we once were. He cares that we keep on trying.

The comedy As You Like It, written by the English playwright William Shakespeare, depicts a dramatic change in a character's life. An older brother attempts to have his younger brother killed. Even knowing this, the younger brother saves his wicked brother from certain death. When the older brother learns of this undeserved compassion, he is totally and forever changed and has what he calls a "conversion." Later several women approach the older brother and ask, "Was't you that did so oft contrive to kill [your brother]?"

The older brother answers, "'Twas I; but 'tis not I: I do not shame to tell you what I was, since my conversion so sweetly tastes, being the thing I am."

For us, because of God's mercy and the Atonement of Jesus Christ, such a change is not just literary fiction. Through Ezekiel, the Lord declared:

"As for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turneth from his wickedness. ...

"... If he turn from his sin, and do that which is lawful and right;

"... Restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, walk in the statutes of life, without committing iniquity; he shall surely live. ...

"None of his sins that he hath committed shall be mentioned unto him: he hath done that which is lawful and right."

In His mercy, God promises forgiveness when we repent and turn from wickedness-so much so that our sins will not even be mentioned to us. For us, because of the Atonement of Christ and our repentance, we can look at our past deeds and say, "'Twas I; but 'tis not I." No matter how wicked, we can say, "That's who I was. But that past wicked self is no longer who I am."

President Thomas S. Monson has taught, "One of God's greatest gifts to us is the joy of trying again, for no failure ever need be final." Even if we've been a conscious, deliberate sinner or have repeatedly faced failure and disappointment, the moment we decide to try again, the Atonement of Christ can help us. And we need to remember that it is not the Holy Ghost that tells us we're so far gone that we might as well give up.

God's desire that Latter-day Saints keep on trying also extends beyond overcoming sin. Whether we suffer because of troubled relationships, economic challenges, or illnesses or as a consequence of someone else's sins, the Savior's infinite Atonement can heal even-and perhaps especially-those who have innocently suffered. He understands perfectly what it is like to suffer innocently as a consequence of another's transgression. As prophesied, the Savior will "bind up the brokenhearted, ... give ... beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, [and] the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." No matter what, with His help, God expects Latter-day Saints to keep on trying.

Just as God rejoices when we persevere, He is disappointed if we do not recognize that others are trying too. Our dear friend Thoba shared how she learned this lesson from her mother, Julia. Julia and Thoba were among the early black converts in South Africa. After the apartheid regime ended, black and white members of the Church were permitted to attend church together. For many, the equality of interaction between the races was new and challenging. One time, as Julia and Thoba attended church, they felt they were treated less than kindly by some white members. As they left, Thoba complained bitterly to her mother. Julia listened calmly until Thoba had vented her frustration. Then Julia said, "Oh, Thoba, the Church is like a big hospital, and we are all sick in our own way. We come to church to be helped."

Julia's comment reflects a valuable insight. We must not only be tolerant while others work on their individual illnesses; we must also be kind, patient, supportive, and understanding. As God encourages us to keep on trying, He expects us to also allow others the space to do the same, at their own pace. The Atonement will come into our lives in even greater measure. We will then recognize that regardless of perceived differences, all of us are in need of the same infinite Atonement.

Some years ago a wonderful young man named Curtis was called to serve a mission. He was the kind of missionary every mission president prays for. He was focused and worked hard. At one point he was assigned a missionary companion who was immature, socially awkward, and not particularly enthusiastic about getting the work done.

One day, while they were riding their bicycles, Curtis looked back and saw that his companion had inexplicably gotten off his bike and was walking. Silently, Curtis expressed his frustration to God; what a chore it was to be saddled with a companion he had to drag around in order to accomplish anything. Moments later, Curtis had a profound impression, as if God were saying to him, "You know, Curtis, compared to me, the two of you aren't all that different." Curtis learned that he needed to be patient with an imperfect companion who nonetheless was trying in his own way.

My invitation to all of us is to evaluate our lives, repent, and keep on trying. If we don't try, we're just latter-day sinners; if we don't persevere, we're latter-day quitters; and if we don't allow others to try, we're just latter-day hypocrites. As we try, persevere, and help others to do the same, we are true Latter-day Saints. As we change, we will find that God indeed cares a lot more about who we are and about who we are becoming than about who we once were.

I am deeply grateful for the Savior, for His infinite Atonement, and for latter-day prophets who encourage us to be Latter-day Saints, to keep on trying. I witness of the Savior's living reality in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Your Holy Places

Ann M. Dibb spoke about holy places in the April 2013 General Conference:

Our 2013 Mutual theme comes from the 87th section of the Doctrine and Covenants. This instruction is found in three separate sections; obviously the admonition is important. It explains how we can receive protection, strength, and peace in unsettling times. The inspired instruction is to "stand ye in holy places, and be not moved."

As I have pondered this theme, I can't help but wonder, "What are the 'holy places' Heavenly Father is referring to?" President Ezra Taft Benson counseled, "Holy places include our temples, our chapels, our homes, and the stakes of Zion, which are ... 'for a defense, and for a refuge.'" In addition to these, I believe we can each find many more places. We might first consider the word place as a physical environment or a geographic location. However, a place can be "a distinct condition, position, or state of mind." This means holy places can also include moments in time-moments when the Holy Ghost testifies to us, moments when we feel Heavenly Father's love, or moments when we receive an answer to our prayers. Even more, I believe any time you have the courage to stand for what is right, especially in situations where no one else is willing to do so, you are creating a holy place.

Throughout Joseph Smith's short but magnificent life, he truly "[stood] in holy places" and was not moved. As a young teenager, he was troubled by the religious turmoil in his community and wanted to know which of all the churches was true. The wooded area close to his home became a holy place as he knelt among the trees and offered his first vocal prayer. His prayer was answered, and today Latter-day Saints refer to these woods as the Sacred Grove.

Young women around the world stand in holy places in nature at Young Women camp. A leader shared with me the story of one young woman's experience. This girl was less active and was a bit skeptical about having a spiritual experience in the woods. After the first day, she reported to the leader, "I'm having a great time, but could we please cut out all of the talk about the Spirit? I'm here to camp, enjoy nature, be with my friends, and have some fun!" However, at the concluding testimony meeting, this same girl tearfully admitted, "I don't want to go home. How can I have what I am feeling right now, this Spirit, with me all the time?" She had discovered a holy place.

Another holy place in Joseph Smith's life was his own bedroom. This may be hard to believe because, like many of you, he shared his bedroom with siblings. It became a holy place when he prayed with great faith, humility, and need. He explained, "After I had retired to my bed for the night, I betook myself to prayer and supplication to Almighty God for forgiveness of all my sins and follies." The three years which had passed since Joseph had the vision in the Sacred Grove had not been easy. Seventeen-year-old Joseph had endured endless mockery, ridicule, and bullying. But that night in Joseph's bedroom, the angel Moroni appeared in answer to his pleadings. Joseph received knowledge and comfort. That night, his bedroom became a holy place.

While watching a Mormon Message for Youth, I witnessed another bedroom that had become a holy place. The video shows Ingrid Delgado, a young woman from El Salvador, sharing her feelings about the temple. She says, "It is good to know we have a place where we can get away from the things of the world and receive sacred ordinances and help those who couldn't receive them in this life." As she speaks, the video shows Ingrid reading her scriptures, surrounded by Mormonads, quotations, a Personal Progress book, pictures of her family and the temple, and yes, her favorite stuffed animals. Perhaps without even realizing it, she has created her holy place away from the things of the world. I wonder how many times Ingrid has read her scriptures, felt the Spirit, and received answers to her prayers in her holy place.

Yet another unexpected holy place in Joseph Smith's life was Liberty Jail. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said, "There was no more burdensome time in Joseph's life than this cruel, illegal, and unjustified incarceration." Elder Holland went on to explain that Liberty Jail has been referred to as a "prison-temple" because of the sacred experiences the Prophet Joseph Smith had there.

Some of you young women may be experiencing your own Liberty Jail, a place where you face humiliation, a place where you feel no loving-kindness, a place where you are mocked, bullied, or even physically harmed. To you young women I offer Elder Holland's words: "You can have sacred, revelatory, profoundly instructive experiences with the Lord in the most miserable experiences of your life ..., while enduring the most painful injustices, when facing the most insurmountable odds and opposition you have ever faced." In other words, just like the Prophet Joseph Smith, you can create and stand in holy places even in the hardest times you have ever experienced.

A young adult, Kirsten, shared with me her painful experience. High school had been her Liberty Jail. Fortunately, the band room provided relief. She said: "When I stepped into this room, it was as if I stepped into a safe place. There were no degrading or belittling remarks, no profanity. Instead, we heard words of encouragement and love. We exercised kindness. It was a happy place. The band room was filled with the Spirit as we practiced and performed music. The room was like this in large measure because of the influence of the band instructor. He was a good Christian man. Looking back, high school was a refining place. It was difficult, but I learned resilience. I will forever be grateful for my refuge, my holy place, the band room."

Tonight, have you been reflecting upon your holy places? I've asked hundreds of young women to share their holy places with me. Whether they are geographic or moments in time, they are equally sacred and have incredible strengthening power. Here are nine of their tender responses:

One: "I was in the hospital, holding my new baby brother."

Two: "Each time I read my patriarchal blessing, I feel I am known and loved by my Heavenly Father."

Three: "The day I turned 12, the young women in the ward decorated my door with paper hearts. I felt loved, accepted, and happy!"

Four: "As I was reading my scriptures one day, a phrase 'popped out.' I had found an answer to my prayers."

Five: "I walked into a party where people were drinking and participating in other unacceptable activities. The Spirit told me to turn around and go home. I did, and yes, there were social consequences. However, that moment gave me the confidence I needed to know that I could live the gospel."

Six: "During the sacrament, I was thinking about the Atonement. I recognized I needed to forgive someone I was angry with. My choosing to forgive was a positive action that would bring the Atonement into my daily life."

Seven: "After attending New Beginnings with my mom, she kissed me on the cheek and told me she loved me. This was the first time I could remember her doing this."

Eight: "With my bishop's assurance, I knew that the promise the scriptures provided was true: 'Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.' I felt hope and knew I could begin my lengthy process of repentance."

Lastly: "One evening, I summoned the courage to share my feelings about the gospel and a Book of Mormon with my best friend. Later, it was a privilege to attend her baptism. Now we attend church together."

May I share with you one of my holy places? Once, I was feeling overwhelmed, fearful, and completely alone. Silently, I prayed: "Heavenly Father, I do not know how to do this. Please, please, help me!" Soon, an individual unexpectedly came forward, placed a hand on my shoulder, and offered sincere, encouraging words. In that moment, I felt peace. I felt acknowledged. Everything had changed. The words of President Spencer W. Kimball came to mind: "God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs." For me, that moment, that place, had become holy.

Dear young women, there are countless other holy places I wish we could share with one another. When you return home tonight, I encourage you to record in your journal those places which you are recognizing and remembering. It is clear to me that thousands of you are standing in holy places. These places are providing you with protection, strength, and peace in unsettling times. Your testimonies are becoming stronger because you are standing for truth and righteousness in glorious ways.

You, the noble youth of the Church, are my heroes. I love you. I feel Heavenly Father's incredible love for you, and I bear you my testimony that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true. He is waiting, ready to buoy you up as you "stand ... in holy places, and be not moved." I love and sustain President Thomas S. Monson, our true and encouraging prophet. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Stand in the Sacred Grove

In May of 2012, Marlin K. Jensen spoke to the Young Adults about one of my favorite places in the world:

(Photo taken by Lauren Elizabeth on June 12, 2007 at sunrise.)

Good evening, brothers and sisters. I feel very grateful but also very humble to have been given this choice assignment by the First Presidency to speak to you tonight. To begin, I want you to know that I was once wrinkle-free, dark-headed, and full of life like you-a part of what the scriptures call the "rising generations." I'm not sure what the correct antonym or opposite of rising is-perhaps "sinking" or "declining"-but whatever it is, it describes the stage of life I am now in, and it doesn't sound very promising to me!

Although I'm speaking to you from a beautiful chapel near the Sacramento California Temple, I can see in my mind's eye the tens of thousands of you-speaking nearly 40 different languages-who are assembled all across the world. I have been blessed to visit many of your countries, to hear you speak and bear testimony in your native tongues, and to witness firsthand your faith and devotion to the Lord. I love and commend you for your righteousness. I know life at your age can be challenging, and I know we sometimes err and have need to repent. But I sincerely thank you for seeking to stand firm in your faith in Christ and His restored gospel. My fondest wish tonight is that I might be blessed to speak by the power of the Holy Ghost and thereby contribute to an increase of your faith.

Sacred Places

There are places on this earth that have been made sacred by what happened there. According to the Old Testament, one of these places is Sinai, Horeb, or "the mountain of God" (Exodus 3:1; see also Exodus 3:12; 34:2), where the Lord appeared to Moses in the burning bush. As Moses approached the bush, the Lord said to him, "Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground" (Exodus 3:5).

My family and I were once blessed to live in a sacred place. In 1993-four years after my call to the Seventy-we were asked to serve for two years in the Church's New York Rochester Mission. That mission includes the town of Palmyra (where Joseph Smith and his family lived during much of the 1820s) and Fayette (where the Church was organized in April 1830). About 110 miles south of Palmyra, in the state of Pennsylvania, is the site of Harmony (where Joseph Smith met Emma Hale and where they lived as a newly married couple while much of the Book of Mormon was translated in the late 1820s). This general area is known as the "Cradle of the Restoration," as this is where the Church was born. It is picturesque country, characterized by rolling, wooded hills; clear lakes and streams; and warm, colorful people. It is also a place made sacred by what happened there.

The Sacred Grove

In a grove of towering beeches, oaks, maples, and other trees, about one quarter of a mile west of the Joseph and Lucy Mack Smith family home near Palmyra, 14-year-old Joseph Smith saw in vision God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, in the spring of 1820. This divine manifestation, in response to Joseph's prayer to know the truth concerning religion and how he might obtain a remission of his sins, began the Restoration of the gospel in this final dispensation. It also made that grove of trees a revered place in the history of our Church-a place we honor with the name "Sacred Grove."

While I served as mission president, my family and I came to love that grove of trees and to feel of its sacredness. We went there often. Each month as new missionaries arrived and as those finishing their missions departed, we took them there. Our practice was to gather at an entrance to the grove, and after singing tonight's opening hymn-"Joseph Smith's First Prayer" 1 -we invited the elders and sisters to disperse and find a secluded place in the grove where they could each commune with God in prayer and make and report on their personal commitments to Him. These visits to the Sacred Grove were and remain treasured experiences for all who were blessed to have them.

I realize, however, that only a small number of you will ever be able to visit the Sacred Grove in person. For this reason, in this, the spring of 2012-192 years after Joseph Smith's First Vision-I want you to come with me virtually into the Sacred Grove. Stand with me there while I share with you some visual scenes of the grove, the reasons for my love of that sacred place, and the valuable life's lessons one can learn there.

I am indebted to Brother Robert Parrott, a forester and naturalist employed by the Church, who lives in Palmyra, for bringing to my attention some of the insights about the Sacred Grove that I will share. Though not yet a member of our faith, Brother Parrott reveres the Sacred Grove and gives it tender and very professional care.

Scriptural Imagery Involving Trees

As I have reverently walked through the Sacred Grove or sat in thought on the benches that are provided there, I have often reflected on the abundance of scriptural imagery involving trees, branches, roots, seeds, fruits, and forests. Adam and Eve, our first parents, undoubtedly received the first lesson in tree husbandry. The prophet Jacob, quoting Zenos in the Book of Mormon, shares an intricate allegory or story of tame and wild olive trees as he teaches about the scattering and gathering of Israel (see Jacob 5). And who among us hasn't read, reread, and prayerfully pondered the seed of faith Alma invites us to plant that, with patient care and proper nourishment, becomes "a tree springing up unto everlasting life"? (Alma 32:41; see verses 27-43).

So it is with the Sacred Grove. A careful observer of nature-especially when he is accompanied by a naturalist of the caliber of Brother Robert Parrott-can learn some significant lessons from the ecosystem that exists there. I wish to briefly share four of those lessons with you tonight.

Life's Lessons from the Sacred Grove

Lesson number 1: Trees always grow toward the light.

One interesting phenomenon to be observed in the Sacred Grove is the trees growing on the edge of the original forest, as well as those lining many of the interior pathways. They have grown outward to escape the overshadowing foliage above them, and then upward to absorb the greatest possible sunlight. Their crooked trunks and branches stand in stark contrast to neighboring trees that grow almost perfectly straight. Trees, like almost all living organisms, need light to survive and to thrive. They will do all in their power to soak in as much sunlight as possible to promote photosynthesis-the process of converting light energy into chemical energy, or the "fuel" used by almost all living organisms.

I'm sure your young, bright minds already know where this metaphor from the Sacred Grove is taking us! Light is an even more important catalyst in the spiritual realm than it is in nature. This is so because light is essential to our spiritual growth and the realization of our full potential as God's sons and daughters.

Darkness is the opposite of light and represents the forces in the world that seek to separate us from God and to frustrate His divine plan for our lives. It is usually after dark or in dark places that the forces of evil exert their greatest influence. At your stage in life, breeches of the law of chastity, acts of stealing, gambling, violations of the Word of Wisdom, and other behaviors forbidden by our Heavenly Father are usually engaged in under cover of darkness. Even when we choose to do wrong during broad daylight-for example, by cheating on an examination, plagiarizing in writing a paper, maliciously gossiping about someone, using profanity, or lying-we can't help but have feelings of darkness.

Fortunately, the Spirit of Christ "giveth light to every man that cometh into the world; and the Spirit enlighteneth every man through the world, that hearkeneth to the voice of the Spirit.

"And every one that hearkeneth to the voice of the Spirit cometh unto God, even the Father" (D&C 84:46-47).

This passage from the Doctrine and Covenants beautifully describes the upward reach of man, the natural God-given spiritual instinct we all have-if we don't stifle it-to go toward the light and, in so doing, to go toward God and His Son and to become more like Them. Of Himself, Christ said, "I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life" (John 8:12).

In understanding scripture, you can tell a lot about a word by the company that it keeps. In your scripture study, notice how often the words light, Spirit, truth, and Jesus Christ are found in close proximity. They are nearly synonymous, and all draw us upward to a higher and more holy way of life.

With all my heart I urge you to avoid the darkness of sin in all its vile forms and to fill your lives with Spirit, truth, and the light of our Savior, Jesus Christ. You can do this by seeking after noble friends, inspiring music and art, knowledge out of the best books (especially the scriptures), moments of sincere prayer, quiet times in nature, wholesome activities and conversations, and a life centered on Christ and His teachings of love and service. Remember always, and especially in seeking an eternal companion, the Lord's declaration that "truth embraceth truth; virtue loveth virtue; light cleaveth unto light" (D&C 88:40). This principle of goodness being attracted to goodness provides hope that if we live a life in the light of the gospel, we will eventually find a companion walking a parallel path of righteousness. I know the more we endeavor to fill our own lives with light, the less room there is for darkness and the closer we will eventually come to being like Christ, the Light of the World.

Because of the special blessing that is mine tonight to speak to you exceptional young Latter-day Saints, I want to raise a voice of warning but also a voice of encouragement and hope concerning the darkness that will inevitably invade your life if you become involved with pornography. Using pornographic material in any way offends God and violates His command that we not commit adultery "nor do anything like unto it" (D&C 59:6). Use of pornography almost always leads to additional violations of the law of chastity. Repeated exposure to pornographic materials and participation in the forms of sexual transgression that usually follow can create an addiction that must be dealt with and treated with the same care that is given to addictions to alcohol or drugs.

If pornography has already plagued your life and is a persistent and recurring problem, I beg of you to seek both ecclesiastical and professional help. Please know that a pornography addiction is not just "a little problem" that you can conquer in secrecy with prayer, scripture study, and greater self-control.

Because an addiction to pornography can diminish your willpower to choose good over evil, you will need meekness and humility to embrace the Atonement of Jesus Christ and be blessed by the Atonement's enabling power. What this means, in practical terms, is that if you exert your own best efforts-which include going through a repentance process with your bishop's or branch president's help to gain forgiveness of sin and going through a recovery process involving professional counseling and possibly group support to overcome your addiction-the enabling power of the Atonement (which the Bible Dictionary describes as a divine means of help or strength 2 ), will assist you to overcome the compulsion of a pornography addiction and, over time, to heal from its corrosive effects. Through the power of the Atonement, both forgiveness of sin and recovery from addiction are possible, and both are wonderful.

Please, shun darkness and, like trees, always seek to grow toward the light.

Lesson number 2: Trees require opposition to fulfill the measure of their creation.

Various schools of thought about forest management have been followed through the years in caring for the Sacred Grove. At one time a test plot was selected and a practice known as "release thinning" was employed. It worked this way: The foresters identified what they felt were potentially the largest and healthiest young trees in the test plot, and then they cut and pruned out the less-promising trees and the competing undergrowth. The supposition was that by removing much of the competition for water, sunlight, and soil nutrients, the chosen trees would be "released" to grow and develop in extraordinary ways.

After some years it became obvious that just the opposite was occurring. Once freed from competition, the chosen trees became complacent. Instead of stretching upward toward the light, they slowed their vertical growth, put out many lower limbs that would eventually become useless when the canopy closed, and became fatter. Meanwhile, the trees that were removed resprouted as multistemmed bushes, which would not become viable trees but continued to use water and nutrients. These bush-like trees continued to compete with the chosen trees, but not in a way that would bring about positive growth in either of them. As a result, none of the trees in the test plot compared in size or vitality to the trees left to grow more naturally and that had to compete and overcome opposition in order to survive and to thrive.

As you know, one of the key doctrines of the Book of Mormon is that there must be an opposition in all things. A world with opposites provides choices between good and evil so that agency can operate. Equally important, however, is the principle that opposition must exist for spiritual growth to occur-or, as father Lehi put it, for "holiness" to be brought to pass (2 Nephi 2:11). I want to stress that understanding this principle-that spiritual growth requires opposition and adversity-and even embracing this principle at your age is a key to accepting and being generally happy with life. It is also critical to experiencing needed personal growth and development.

Sooner or later, all of us will encounter opposition and adversity. Some of it will come simply as a result of being here in mortality in a fallen world. It is the common lot of all mankind. Such opposition can take many forms. It may involve forces of nature. It may consist of illness and disease. (I seem to be able to contract the flu even when vaccinated against it!) It may come in the form of temptations. For some it will mean unmet expectations. (I would have loved to be 6 feet 5 inches tall, but I have learned to be happy with the 5 feet 9 inches that I was allotted-and with the inevitable lowering of the pulpit whenever I have a talk to give.) It may be in the form of loneliness or physical or mental imperfections and disabilities-the list of opposing forces is nearly endless, and so are the blessings of personal growth and development if we have the faith to take the long view and endure it all well. I take great solace from the Lord's words to Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail at a time when Joseph's burdens were nearly unbearable: "Know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good" (D&C 122:7).

Sometimes opposition and hardship come because of our own misguided choices. The poor health or injury that may result from a reckless lifestyle, the anguish and sorrow that come from breaking God's laws, the regret we later feel when we fail to make the most of the time and talents given to us-all are conditions of our own making. How grateful we should all be to our Savior, whose Atonement provides a way for us to mend everything that is broken.

I've noticed that when faced with opposition we often ask "why"-Why me? Why now? Why this?-when to ask "what" would be more constructive. I once sent a letter of comfort to a couple in distress because the husband was dying of an incurable illness. Their reply was humbling: they enumerated the blessings God had given them in their many years together and then faithfully wondered "what" it was that God was trying to teach them in this final tutorial.

There are trees in the Sacred Grove that Brother Parrott calls "character trees." These are trees that demonstrate that opposition can work to our benefit and that in our extremity there is often much to be gained. These trees have had to react and adapt to and sometimes recover from various forms of opposition or adversity-a lightning strike, a powerful gust of wind, a heavy accumulation of snow or ice, the encroachment and abuse of careless humans, and even sometimes the aggression of a neighboring tree! Out of these adverse circumstances have come some of the sturdiest and most visually interesting trees in the grove. What they may lack in symmetrical beauty, they more than make up for in resoluteness and in character.

From my own life's experience, I can testify that opposition, hardship, and adversity produce character and growth. Some of the most challenging and demanding experiences of my own life-feelings of inadequacy and self-consciousness during my adolescence, my mission to Germany as a young man and the learning of the German language, the earning of a law degree and passing the bar examination, my efforts to be an acceptable husband and father and to provide both spiritually and temporally for our family of eight children, the loss of my parents and other loved ones, even the public and often stressful nature of my service as a General Authority (including the preparation and giving of this address to you tonight)-all this and more, though challenging and hard, has given me experience and has been for my good!

I know it's not an easy case to make to you young people that a little pain is good for you, but it honestly is. If we are ever going to receive "all that [the] Father hath" (D&C 84:38), it's not going to happen without giving all that we have in return. Our Heavenly Father desires noble sons and daughters, and as Lehi taught, holiness can only be brought to pass through adversity and testing. People, like trees, require opposition to fulfill the measure of their creation.

Lesson number 3: Trees are best grown in forests, not in isolation.

If you think about it, in nature it's very unusual to see a tree standing alone. They almost always congregate in groves, and over time, groves may become forests. The Sacred Grove, however, is much more than just a group of trees. It is a complicated ecosystem that includes numerous species of flora and fauna. There is an observable interconnectedness among all the different varieties of wildflowers, bushes, shrubs, trees, fungi, mosses, birds, rodents, rabbits, deer, and other creations that are there. These species interact and rely on one another for food, shelter, and a synergistic and social environment where they can all experience their cycle of life.

God's plan for our lives contemplates a similar interconnectedness and sociality for us. We are to work out our salvation together, not in isolation. The Church builds meetinghouses, not hermitages. We are asked to attend a specific ward or branch-not to pick and choose our congregation, as in some faiths. This wise policy requires us to learn to get along with each other and to be accountable to our bishop or branch president for our behavior, not to run and hide when the going gets tough! We're commanded to love our neighbors (which includes our family members), and learning to love those closest to us is often much more difficult than remotely loving "all the world." From the beginning of the Restoration, the command has been for the Saints to "come to Zion" and to gather in communities where we can learn to live in harmony and mutually support one another by honoring our baptismal covenant "to bear one another's burdens, ... to mourn with those that mourn; ... and comfort those that stand in need of comfort" (Mosiah 18:8-9). As God's children, we can no more prosper in isolation than a solitary tree can. Healthy trees need an ecosystem; healthy people need each other.

Thankfully, there is in all of us a longing for sociality, for companionship, for loyal friends. As members of God's eternal family, we all yearn for the satisfaction and security that close and lasting relationships can provide. You will learn that the creation of such relationships takes time, effort, and an abundance of charity. As Mormon expressed it, "charity ... seeketh not her own" (Moroni 7:45)-not her own agenda, not her own interests, and certainly not her own pleasure. Although the Internet and social networking sites undoubtedly provide for a form of sociality, they are no substitute for the honest, open, and face-to-face communication that must occur for authentic and lasting relationships to be established.

Certainly the earliest and best laboratory for learning to get along with others is the home. It is at home that we learn the lessons of service, unselfishness, forgiveness, and patience that are essential to the formation of lasting relationships with others. I think it is for this reason that a part of being "temple worthy" is the requirement that we live in love and harmony with members of our family.

Happily, the inspired organization of the Church also provides opportunities and settings where we can develop socially. From our youngest to our oldest years, we belong to a ward or branch and are in situations where relationships with others and sociality can flourish. In Church callings, meetings, classes, quorums, councils, activities, and a variety of other opportunities for association, we develop the attributes and social skills that help prepare us for the social order that will exist in heaven. In speaking of this higher order, the Lord, through Joseph Smith, said: "And that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy" (D&C 130:2).

If we hope to enjoy the sociality of heaven and its associated glory in the world to come, we need continually to mature socially as well as spiritually while here on earth. People, like trees, are best grown in communities, not in isolation.

Lesson number 4: Trees draw strength from the nutrients created by previous generations of trees.

There was a period of time in caring for the Sacred Grove when those in charge decided that the grove should have a well-groomed appearance. Service projects for youth and missionaries were periodically organized to clear the grove of fallen trees and limbs, undergrowth, and even stumps and dead leaves. Under this practice, it wasn't long before the vitality of the grove began to diminish. Tree growth slowed, fewer new trees sprouted, some species of wildflowers and plants began to disappear, and numbers of wildlife and birds decreased.

When Brother Parrott took over the care of the grove some years ago, he recommended that the grove be left in as natural a state as possible. Fallen trees and limbs were left to decompose and enrich the soil. Leaves were left lying where they fell. Visitors were asked to stay on marked pathways so that the grove would be less disturbed and the soil within the grove less compacted. Within just a few years, the grove began to regenerate and renew itself in a remarkable way. Today it flourishes in a nearly pristine state, with lush vegetation and an abundance of wildlife.

The lesson to be learned from this experience in forest management is dear to my heart. For seven years now it has been my privilege to serve as the Church historian and recorder. This is an office that was created by the Prophet Joseph Smith in response to the Lord's command to him on the day the Church was organized: "Behold, there shall be a record kept among you" (D&C 21:1). From that day-beginning with the appointment of Oliver Cowdery as the first Church historian and recorder and continuing until the present time-a remarkable record of our Church's history has been kept. John Whitmer replaced Oliver Cowdery and was told by the Lord to keep "a history of all the important things ... which shall be for the good of the church, and for the rising generations that shall grow up on the land of Zion" (D&C 69:3, 8).

Why do record keeping and the collection, preservation, and sharing of history enjoy such importance in the Church of Jesus Christ? Why is it critical for you, as part of today's "rising generations," to be mindful of and draw strength from past generations?

In response, I suggest that it is impossible to live fully in the present-much less to plan for our future destiny-without the foundation of the past. This truth was brought forcefully to my attention some months ago in meeting a wonderful couple who had experienced a most unusual trial, which I share with permission. After some years of marriage and the birth of several children, the wife was involved in a serious accident. She remained in the hospital several weeks in an unconscious state. When she came to, she had suffered a complete loss of her memory! She had, in effect, no history. Without memory of her past, she had no point of reference. She didn't know her husband, her children, or her parents! As the husband related this story to me, he confided that in those early months following the accident, he worried that his wife would wander off if left unattended. He also feared that his wife wouldn't fall in love with him again. During courtship he had been a trim, athletic young man with a full head of hair. Now, at midlife, he was more portly and had much less hair!

Fortunately for all concerned, at least a partial record had been kept. The husband had saved letters written by his wife before and during his mission. These provided evidence that the two of them had indeed been in love. He also had kept a journal that contained helpful entries. Gradually, over some years, the wife has had much of her past restored to her through the sharing of that history by her loved ones.

This unique and tender situation illustrates well the important relationship of the past to the present and to the future. It helps us more fully appreciate the Lord's definition of truth as revealed to Joseph Smith: "Truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come" (D&C 93:24). The knowledge we have of our past because of the records that have been kept and of our future because of the scriptures and the prophetic teachings of living prophets provide us the context that allows wise use of our agency during our present existence. In effect, this knowledge gives us a more godly perspective because it brings us closer to His ability to have "all things ... present before [His] eyes" (D&C 38:2).

As members of the Church from many nations, we all share the early history of the Church in common. It is important for all of us to become familiar with our Church's history, especially what I will call its "founding stories." These stories-Joseph Smith's First Vision, the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, angelic visitations by John the Baptist, Peter, James, and John, Elijah, Elias, and others-contain the foundational truths upon which the Restoration of the gospel is based.

Regrettably, in this technological age where information abounds-some of it critical of events and people in the Church's history-some Latter-day Saints become shaken in their faith and begin to question long-held beliefs. To such questioning individuals I extend love and understanding and the assurance that if they will abide by gospel principles and prayerfully pursue their study of Church history-studying sufficiently to gain a more comprehensive rather than a fragmentary or incomplete knowledge-the Holy Ghost will confirm their faith in the essential events in Church history by speaking peace to their minds. In this way they can become settled in their convictions concerning the history of the restored Church and "be no more ... carried about with every wind of doctrine" (Ephesians 4:14). I have staked the course of my entire life on just such feelings of peace concerning Joseph Smith's First Vision and other seminal events of the restored gospel, as have many of you, and I know we will never be disappointed.

History in its most basic form is a record of people and their lives, and from those lives come stories and lessons that can reinforce what we believe, what we stand for, and what we should do in the face of adversity. Not all of the stories that make up our history are of the epic nature of Joseph Smith's First Vision or of Wilford Woodruff's mission to England. In fact, some truly remarkable stories come from the lives of very ordinary Latter-day Saints, which most of us are. They are especially dear and helpful to us when the stories involve our own ancestors.

For instance, in the 1920s my grandfather and grandmother Jensen-despite toiling long hours-were forced to give back to the seller a farm they were buying and on which they lived in the state of Idaho. They wanted to return with their young children to their hometown in Utah but couldn't leave Idaho until they cleared $350 in debt. This seems like a small amount today, but it was significant then. Grandfather tried to borrow the money from men who had it, but with no success. Borrowing from a bank was out of the question because of their destitute circumstances. He and Grandmother prayed for help every day. One Sunday morning at priesthood meeting, a man Grandfather hardly knew approached him and told him he had heard of his trouble and would lend Grandfather the $350 with the expectation that when Grandfather got back to Utah, he would repay the man as soon as possible. Their agreement was consummated with a handshake, and Grandfather kept his word.

This simple story recorded by my grandmother Jensen is a family treasure. It inspires me by illustrating attributes of hard work, honesty, overcoming adversity, family solidarity, and most significantly, it shows the hand of God in the lives of my faithful grandparents. I draw great strength and encouragement from their example and from the example of others, both the great and the common, of past generations.

You may find similar stories in your own land and in your own families. Where they exist, I urge you to collect these stories, to preserve them, and to share them. Take care to pass them on from one generation to another. My children (and mostly now my grandchildren) always love it when I tell them stories about "when I was a little boy"! I have heard it said that a people can be no greater than its stories, and I believe the same is true of families. Good stories-if true-make good history. Remember, people, like trees, draw strength from the nutrients created by previous generations.

Conclusion

Now, as I conclude, I want you to return with me to the Sacred Grove and stand with me there near one of the so-called "witness trees." These are trees that were growing in the grove 192 years ago at the time of Joseph Smith's First Vision. There are three of them still living in the grove and three dead witness trees that remain standing through the skillful preservation efforts of Brother Parrott.

When we were serving our mission near Palmyra, I used to sometimes go into the Sacred Grove alone and stand in reverence next to my favorite witness tree. I used to imagine that if that tree could talk it would tell me what it witnessed that spring day in 1820. But I really didn't need that tree to tell me-I already knew. By virtue of spiritual experiences and feelings beginning in my youth and continuing to this very hour, I have come to know, independent of any other person, that God, our Father, lives. I know, too, that His Son, Jesus Christ, is the Savior and Redeemer of all mankind. I know these two glorified Beings appeared to Joseph Smith in the Sacred Grove in the spring of 1820. They raised Joseph up as the founding prophet of this, the final gospel dispensation. Working under Their divine direction, Joseph translated the Book of Mormon, received priesthood keys and authority, and organized Christ's Church again in these latter days. We are tremendously blessed to be living at this time and to be members of Christ's Church.

These glorious truths of which I have testified have their beginning in the Sacred Grove. As you have figuratively stood with me in the Sacred Grove tonight, so stand always in your minds and in your hearts in that sacred place and live true to the truths that God began to reveal there.

Remember, too, the life's lessons that the Sacred Grove teaches:

1. When powers of darkness seek to destroy you-as they once did an inquiring young Joseph Smith, stand in the Sacred Grove and remember the pillar of light, "above the brightness of the sun" (see Joseph Smith-History 1:15-17).

2. When opposition and adversity hedge up your way and hope dims, stand in the Sacred Grove and remember that "all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good" (D&C 122:7).

3. When loneliness and isolation are your lot and you struggle to establish fulfilling human relationships, stand in the Sacred Grove with the community of Latter-day Saints who have covenanted to help bear your burdens and comfort you in your need.

4. And when experiences or people or conflicting truth claims challenge your faith and create doubt concerning the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ, stand in the Sacred Grove and take strength and encouragement from the generations of faithful Latter-day Saints who have steadfastly stood there before you.

This is my prayer for you, my young friends, and I offer it with love and in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Are You Sleeping Through The Restoration?

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf gave this talk I fell in love with in the April 2014 General Conference. It was given during the Priesthood Session, but it can apply to all of us. I loved it so much, I used it while teaching English when I taught at an LDS based private school. Here is the incredible talk:

Nearly 200 years ago, the American short story "Rip Van Winkle" became an instant classic. The main character, Rip, is an unambitious man who is very good at avoiding two things: work and his wife.

One day, while wandering in the mountains with his dog, he discovers a group of strangely dressed men drinking and playing games. After accepting some of their liquor, Rip becomes drowsy and closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens his eyes again, he is surprised to find that his dog is gone, his rifle has rusted, and he now has a long beard.

Rip makes his way back to his village only to discover that everything has changed. His wife has died, his friends are gone, and the portrait of King George III in the tavern has been replaced by a portrait of someone he does not recognize-by General George Washington.

Rip Van Winkle had been sleeping for 20 years! And in the process, he had missed one of the most exciting periods in the history of his country-he had slept through the American Revolution.

In May 1966, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used this story as an illustration for his speech "Don't Sleep Through the Revolution."

Today, I would like to take the same theme and propose a question to all of us who hold God's priesthood: are you sleeping through the Restoration?

We Are Living in the Time of the Restoration

Sometimes we think of the Restoration of the gospel as something that is complete, already behind us-Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon, he received priesthood keys, the Church was organized. In reality, the Restoration is an ongoing process; we are living in it right now. It includes "all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal," and the "many great and important things" that "He will yet reveal." Brethren, the exciting developments of today are part of that long-foretold period of preparation that will culminate in the glorious Second Coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

This is one of the most remarkable periods of the world's history! Ancient prophets yearned to see our day.

When our time in mortality is complete, what experiences will we be able to share about our own contribution to this significant period of our lives and to the furthering of the Lord's work? Will we be able to say that we rolled up our sleeves and labored with all our heart, might, mind, and strength? Or will we have to admit that our role was mostly that of an observer?

I suppose there are a variety of reasons why it is easy to become a bit sleepy with regard to building the kingdom of God. Let me mention three major ones. As I do, I invite you to ponder if any might apply. If you see room for improvement, I ask you to consider what could be done to change for the better.

Selfishness

First, selfishness.

Those who are selfish seek their own interests and pleasure above all else. The central question for the selfish person is "What's in it for me?"

Brethren, I am sure you can see that this attitude is clearly contrary to the spirit required to build God's kingdom.

When we seek self-service over selfless-service, our priorities become centered on our own recognition and pleasure.

Past generations had their struggle with variations of egotism and narcissism, but I think today we are giving them serious competition. Is it any coincidence that the Oxford Dictionary recently proclaimed "selfie" as the word of the year?

Naturally, we all have a desire for recognition, and there is nothing wrong with relaxing and enjoying ourselves. But when seeking the "gain and praise of the world" is a central part of our motivation, we will miss the redemptive and joyful experiences that come when we give generously of ourselves to the work of the Lord.

What is the remedy?

The answer, as always, lies in the words of Christ:

"Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

"For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it."

Those who wholeheartedly turn their lives over to our Savior and serve God and fellowman discover a richness and fulness to life that the selfish or egotistic will never experience. The unselfish give of themselves. These may be small gifts of charity that have a grand impact for good: a smile, a handshake, a hug, time spent in listening, a soft word of encouragement, or a gesture of caring. All these acts of kindness can change hearts and lives. When we take advantage of the unlimited opportunities to love and serve our fellowmen, including our spouse and family, our capacity to love God and to serve others will greatly increase.

Those who serve others will not sleep through the Restoration.

Addictions

Another thing that may cause us to sleepwalk through this significant season of the world is addiction.

Addictions often begin subtly. Addictions are thin threads of repeated action that weave themselves into thick bonds of habit. Negative habits have the potential to become consuming addictions.

These binding chains of addiction can have many forms, like pornography, alcohol, sex, drugs, tobacco, gambling, food, work, the Internet, or virtual reality. Satan, our common enemy, has many favorite tools he uses to rob us of our divine potential to accomplish our mission in the Lord's kingdom.

It saddens our Heavenly Father to see how willingly some of His noble sons extend their wrists to accept the chains of devastating addictions.

Brethren, we bear the eternal priesthood of Almighty God. We are truly sons of the Most High and are endowed with unspeakable potential. We are designed to soar freely through the heavens. We are not meant to be shackled to the earth, imprisoned in straitjackets of our own making.

What is the remedy?

The first thing we must understand is that addictions are so much easier to prevent than to cure. In the Savior's words, "Suffer none of these things to enter into your heart."

Several years ago, President Thomas S. Monson and I were offered an opportunity to tour Air Force One-the magnificent aircraft that transports the president of the United States. There were painstaking security checks by the Secret Service, and I smiled a little as agents searched our dear prophet prior to boarding.

Then the pilot in command invited me to take the captain's seat. It was a remarkable experience to again sit at the helm of a wonderful flying machine like the kind I had flown for so many years. Memories of flights across oceans and continents filled my heart and mind. I envisioned exciting takeoffs and landings at airports all over the world.

Almost unconsciously, I placed my hands on the four throttles of the 747. Just then, a beloved and unmistakable voice came from behind-the voice of Thomas S. Monson.

"Dieter," he said, "don't even think about it."

I'm not admitting to anything, but it just may be that President Monson read my mind.

When we are tempted to do things we should not do, let us listen to the loving warning of trusted family and friends, our beloved prophet, and always the Savior.

The best defense against addiction is never to start.

But what of those who find themselves in the grip of addiction?

Please know, first of all, that there is hope. Seek help from loved ones, Church leaders, and trained counselors. The Church provides addiction recovery help through local Church leaders, the Internet,7 and in some areas, LDS Family Services.

Always remember, with the Savior's help, you can break free from addiction. It may be a long, difficult path, but the Lord will not give up on you. He loves you. Jesus Christ suffered the Atonement to help you change, to free you from the captivity of sin.

The most important thing is to keep trying-sometimes it takes several attempts before people find success. So don't give up. Don't lose faith. Keep your heart close to the Lord, and He will give you the power of deliverance. He will make you free.

My dear brethren, always keep far away from habits that could lead to addiction. Those who do so will be able to devote their heart, might, mind, and strength to the service of God.

They will not sleep through the Restoration.

Competing Priorities

A third obstacle that prevents us from fully engaging in this work is the many competing priorities we face. Some of us are so busy that we feel like a cart pulled by a dozen work animals-each straining in a different direction. A lot of energy is expended, but the cart doesn't go anywhere.

Often we devote our best efforts in pursuit of a hobby, a sport, vocational interests, and community or political issues. All these things may be good and honorable, but are they leaving us time and energy for what should be our highest priorities?

What is the remedy?

Once again, it comes from the words of the Savior:

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

"This is the first and great commandment.

"And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

Everything else in life should be secondary to these two great priorities.

Even in Church service, it is easy to spend a lot of time just going through the motions without the heart or the substance of discipleship.

Brethren, we as priesthood bearers have committed to be a people who love God and our neighbor and who are willing to demonstrate that love through word and deed. That is the essence of who we are as disciples of Jesus Christ.

Those who live up to these principles will not sleep through the Restoration.

A Call to Awaken

The Apostle Paul wrote, "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light."

My dear friends, know that you are sons of light.

Don't allow selfishness! Don't allow habits that could lead to addiction! Don't allow competing priorities to lull you into indifference or detachment from blessed discipleship and ennobling priesthood service!

There is too much at stake for us as individuals, as families, and as Christ's Church to give only a halfhearted effort to this sacred work.

Being a disciple of Jesus Christ is not an effort of once a week or once a day. It is an effort of once and for all.

The Lord's promise to His true priesthood holders is almost too grand to comprehend.

Those who are faithful unto the Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthoods and magnify their callings "are sanctified by the Spirit unto the renewing of their bodies." Therefore, all that our Father has will be given unto them.

I testify that the cleansing power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the transformative power of the Holy Ghost can heal and rescue mankind. It is our privilege, our sacred duty, and our joy to heed the Savior's call to follow Him with a willing mind and full purpose of heart. Let us "shake off the chains with which [we] are bound, and come forth out of obscurity, and arise from the dust."

Let us be awake and not be weary of well-doing, for we "are laying the foundation of a great work," even preparing for the return of the Savior. Brethren, when we add the light of our example as a witness to the beauty and power of restored truth, we will not sleep through the Restoration. Of this I testify and leave you my blessing in the sacred name of our Master, even Jesus Christ, amen.

Safety For The Soul

I remember specifically where I was in October 2009 when Elder Jeffrey R. Holland gave this talk. I believe this is one of the most powerful talks I've ever heard. That is why I've picked it for our first Throwback Thursday!

Prophecies regarding the last days often refer to large-scale calamities such as earthquakes or famines or floods. These in turn may be linked to widespread economic or political upheavals of one kind or another.

But there is one kind of latter-day destruction that has always sounded to me more personal than public, more individual than collective-a warning, perhaps more applicable inside the Church than outside it. The Savior warned that in the last days even those of the covenant, the very elect, could be deceived by the enemy of truth.1 If we think of this as a form of spiritual destruction, it may cast light on another latter-day prophecy. Think of the heart as the figurative center of our faith, the poetic location of our loyalties and our values; then consider Jesus's declaration that in the last days "men's hearts [shall fail] them."

The encouraging thing, of course, is that our Father in Heaven knows all of these latter-day dangers, these troubles of the heart and soul, and has given counsel and protections regarding them.

In light of that, it has always been significant to me that the Book of Mormon, one of the Lord's powerful keystones in this counteroffensive against latter-day ills, begins with a great parable of life, an extended allegory of hope versus fear, of light versus darkness, of salvation versus destruction-an allegory of which Sister Ann M. Dibb spoke so movingly this morning.

In Lehi's dream an already difficult journey gets more difficult when a mist of darkness arises, obscuring any view of the safe but narrow path his family and others are to follow. It is imperative to note that this mist of darkness descends on all the travelers-the faithful and the determined ones (the elect, we might even say) as well as the weaker and ungrounded ones. The principal point of the story is that the successful travelers resist all distractions, including the lure of forbidden paths and jeering taunts from the vain and proud who have taken those paths. The record says that the protected "did press their way forward, continually [and, I might add, tenaciously] holding fast" to a rod of iron that runs unfailingly along the course of the true path. However dark the night or the day, the rod marks the way of that solitary, redeeming trail.

"I beheld," Nephi says later, "that the rod of iron ... was the word of God, [leading] ... to the tree of life; ... a representation of the love of God." Viewing this manifestation of God's love, Nephi goes on to say:

"I looked and beheld the Redeemer of the world, ... [who] went forth ministering unto the people. ...

"... And I beheld multitudes of people who were sick, and who were afflicted with all manner of diseases, and with devils and unclean spirits; ... and they were healed by the power of the Lamb of God; and the devils and the unclean spirits were cast out."

Love. Healing. Help. Hope. The power of Christ to counter all troubles in all times-including the end of times. That is the safe harbor God wants for us in personal or public days of despair. That is the message with which the Book of Mormon begins, and that is the message with which it ends, calling all to "come unto Christ, and be perfected in him." That phrase-taken from Moroni's final lines of testimony, written 1,000 years after Lehi's vision-is a dying man's testimony of the only true way.

May I refer to a modern "last days" testimony? When Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum started for Carthage to face what they knew would be an imminent martyrdom, Hyrum read these words to comfort the heart of his brother:

"Thou hast been faithful; wherefore ... thou shalt be made strong, even unto the sitting down in the place which I have prepared in the mansions of my Father.

"And now I, Moroni, bid farewell ... until we shall meet before the judgment-seat of Christ."

A few short verses from the 12th chapter of Ether in the Book of Mormon. Before closing the book, Hyrum turned down the corner of the page from which he had read, marking it as part of the everlasting testimony for which these two brothers were about to die. I hold in my hand that book, the very copy from which Hyrum read, the same corner of the page turned down, still visible. Later, when actually incarcerated in the jail, Joseph the Prophet turned to the guards who held him captive and bore a powerful testimony of the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon. Shortly thereafter pistol and ball would take the lives of these two testators.

As one of a thousand elements of my own testimony of the divinity of the Book of Mormon, I submit this as yet one more evidence of its truthfulness. In this their greatest-and last-hour of need, I ask you: would these men blaspheme before God by continuing to fix their lives, their honor, and their own search for eternal salvation on a book (and by implication a church and a ministry) they had fictitiously created out of whole cloth?

Never mind that their wives are about to be widows and their children fatherless. Never mind that their little band of followers will yet be "houseless, friendless and homeless" and that their children will leave footprints of blood across frozen rivers and an untamed prairie floor. Never mind that legions will die and other legions live declaring in the four quarters of this earth that they know the Book of Mormon and the Church which espouses it to be true. Disregard all of that, and tell me whether in this hour of death these two men would enter the presence of their Eternal Judge quoting from and finding solace in a book which, if not the very word of God, would brand them as imposters and charlatans until the end of time? They would not do that! They were willing to die rather than deny the divine origin and the eternal truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.

For 179 years this book has been examined and attacked, denied and deconstructed, targeted and torn apart like perhaps no other book in modern religious history-perhaps like no other book in any religious history. And still it stands. Failed theories about its origins have been born and parroted and have died-from Ethan Smith to Solomon Spaulding to deranged paranoid to cunning genius. None of these frankly pathetic answers for this book has ever withstood examination because there is no other answer than the one Joseph gave as its young unlearned translator. In this I stand with my own great-grandfather, who said simply enough, "No wicked man could write such a book as this; and no good man would write it, unless it were true and he were commanded of God to do so."

I testify that one cannot come to full faith in this latter-day work-and thereby find the fullest measure of peace and comfort in these, our times-until he or she embraces the divinity of the Book of Mormon and the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom it testifies. If anyone is foolish enough or misled enough to reject 531 pages of a heretofore unknown text teeming with literary and Semitic complexity without honestly attempting to account for the origin of those pages-especially without accounting for their powerful witness of Jesus Christ and the profound spiritual impact that witness has had on what is now tens of millions of readers-if that is the case, then such a person, elect or otherwise, has been deceived; and if he or she leaves this Church, it must be done by crawling over or under or around the Book of Mormon to make that exit. In that sense the book is what Christ Himself was said to be: "a stone of stumbling, ... a rock of offence," a barrier in the path of one who wishes not to believe in this work. Witnesses, even witnesses who were for a time hostile to Joseph, testified to their death that they had seen an angel and had handled the plates. "They have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man," they declared. "Wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true."

Now, I did not sail with the brother of Jared in crossing an ocean, settling in a new world. I did not hear King Benjamin speak his angelically delivered sermon. I did not proselyte with Alma and Amulek nor witness the fiery death of innocent believers. I was not among the Nephite crowd who touched the wounds of the resurrected Lord, nor did I weep with Mormon and Moroni over the destruction of an entire civilization. But my testimony of this record and the peace it brings to the human heart is as binding and unequivocal as was theirs. Like them, "[I] give [my name] unto the world, to witness unto the world that which [I] have seen." And like them, "[I] lie not, God bearing witness of it."

I ask that my testimony of the Book of Mormon and all that it implies, given today under my own oath and office, be recorded by men on earth and angels in heaven. I hope I have a few years left in my "last days," but whether I do or do not, I want it absolutely clear when I stand before the judgment bar of God that I declared to the world, in the most straightforward language I could summon, that the Book of Mormon is true, that it came forth the way Joseph said it came forth and was given to bring happiness and hope to the faithful in the travail of the latter days.

My witness echoes that of Nephi, who wrote part of the book in his "last days":

"Hearken unto these words and believe in Christ; and if ye believe not in these words believe in Christ. And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will believe in these words, for they are the words of Christ, ... and they teach all men that they should do good.

"And if they are not the words of Christ, judge ye-for Christ will show unto you, with power and great glory, that they are his words, at the last day."

Brothers and sisters, God always provides safety for the soul, and with the Book of Mormon, He has again done that in our time. Remember this declaration by Jesus Himself: "Whoso treasureth up my word, shall not be deceived"-and in the last days neither your heart nor your faith will fail you. Of this I earnestly testify in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

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