Sacrament Meeting Talks Worth Rereading

My dear sisters and brothers, fellow members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, fellow disciples of Jesus Christ, and all those who are redeemed by and worship the Son of God, the Savior of the World, I add my testimony to that of our modern prophet, Russell M. Nelson, that the complete and correct name of the Church organized by Christ on the earth today is a critically important part of that Church. In the very few minutes allotted to me this evening, I would like to offer you five points to ponder regarding the significance of the correct name of the Church. First: Obedience . On August 16th this year, President Russell M. Nelson announced a revelatory commandment from the Lord. If you have not read the short statement, I urge you to do so, for President Nelson leaves no doubt that this message comes directly from Heavenly Father and is a critically important instruction in the nature of “thus sayeth the Lord.” “The Lord has impressed upon my mind the importance o...

In my last ward I had the opportunity to work with the young women. As I prepared lessons I tried always to include voices of women. Sometimes I had to do a lot of digging to find them because recorded sermons by women are few and far between but I felt it was worth the effort.  I wanted the young women to know that they have a rich legacy of strong spiritual giants some of whom also happen to be female. Alma 32:23 is about how the Lord teaches His people.  It says: " And now, he imparteth his word by angels unto men, yea, not only men but women also." A lot of our history within and without the church has neglected the voices of women, but this is not because women have not been saying important things. The text of the class was the book, At the Pulpit, 185 years of discourses by Latter-Day Saint Women.  After studying the book it is clear that these sermons have been collected not just because they were spoken by women but because they are wise, inspired and they l...

Sometimes I feel an upward pull, a desire to be better than I am. Perhaps you, like I, have wondered if there’s more to life than this, if we can be better than we are. We go to school, to work, to our recreation. We talk with people we love, we try to find ways to serve others, and we try to read the good books always being recommended to us. These are the manifestations of the good desires within us. But we are flawed, too. We drop our pencils; we barely remember to take out the garbage, resenting that tomorrow or the next day, it will have to be done again; we miss appointments, are late, forget birthdays and the lyrics to even the songs we like. Amidst this—the good things in life and in ourselves, amidst the mundane, and, sometimes, the horrible—we wonder: Is this all life is? Is this all I am? Surely, there must be something better than this, even all of this. Surely, I can be better. Henry B. Eyring, current First Counselor of the First Presidency of our church and a former pr...