Henry B. Eyring

It is never too early to help a child grow their testimony in Jesus Christ. Young children are often more sensitive to the Spirit than we realize. Daily family prayer, family scripture study, and sharing your testimony in sacrament meeting are easier and more effective when children are young. When they are older, they will remember the hymns they sang with you. Even more than recalling music, they will remember the words of scripture and testimony. The Holy Ghost can bring all things to their remembrance, but the words of scriptures and hymns will last the longest. When trials come, those memories will be a source of strength throughout their life.

My dear brothers and sisters, opportunities await each of us this Christmas season to reach out and show kindness with Christlike love and compassion and to make a difference.

The Lord is preparing His Church and His people, those who bear His name, to receive Him. As part of our preparation for His coming, He will lift each of us so we may rise to spiritual challenges and opportunities unlike any seen in the history of this world. How, then, can each of us participate in this work of such magnitude and grandeur? When we take repentance as a joyful opportunity because of our growing faith that Jesus is the Christ, when we understand and believe that Heavenly Father hears our every prayer, when we strive to obey and live the commandments, we grow in our power to receive continuing revelation. The Holy Ghost can be our constant companion. A feeling of light will stay with us even as the world around us becomes darker. As we pray and grow our faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior and our Heavenly Father as our loving Father, we become a vital part in the Lord’s work as He prepares the world for His Second Coming.

God knows you. He knows the trials you face. He is with you. He will not forsake you. Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He is our strength, our Redeemer, our hope. If we trust Him, He will make our spiritual power equal to every trial we are called to bear.

We rejoice in remembering our Savior, Jesus Christ. He was born in humble circumstances. Heavenly angels heralded His birth. He preached the gospel of repentance, hope, and everlasting life. He opened the eyes of the blind, made the deaf to hear, healed all manner of afflictions, and raised the dead. He is the Only Begotten of our Father in Heaven, the Firstborn of God’s spirit children. Through His sacrifice and infinite Atonement, we can be reconciled with God by obedience and repentance. In this season of light and goodwill, we rejoice in Jesus Christ and in His eternal plan of happiness. We invite you to seek Him and the blessings of His peace. Merry Christmas!

There is something we can choose to do in our daily life that will provide a constant protection against spiritual hazards. It is simply to remember who God is and what it means to be His child. When we remember the Savior we see Him as the creator of all things. We remember our dependence on His sacrifice when we think of the fall of man and of our own sins. We remember His unfailing love for us and His arms extended in invitation to us when we think of the little we understand of what He did to atone for our sins. Those memories, if we choose to invite them, can produce a powerful blend of courage and meekness. No problem is too hard for us with His help. No price is too great to pay for what He offers us.

There is nothing more important than honoring the covenants you have made or may make in the temple. Trials, challenges, and heartaches will surely come to all of us. Yet, as we attend the temple and remember our covenants, we can prepare to receive personal direction from the Lord. We can be reminded of the eternal nature of our spirits, our relationship with the Father and His Divine Son, and our ultimate desire to return to our heavenly home. All will be well because of temple covenants.

To our young friends, please know that you have a Heavenly Father who loves you. He’s provided a plan for you.

I cannot express the gratitude that I feel for the trust from the Lord and the trust that President Oaks has shown to me. I love him and can testify that I know that he is the head of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by inspiration. I have seen the power of God come upon Him. I’m so grateful for the people whose faith I know will sustain us in this great work of the restoration and the final preparation of the Lord’s Church for His coming. I bear you my testimony that preparation is occurring and that President Oaks is the perfect one to the do the things that I know the Lord will want done. I am grateful to be at his side. I testify Jesus is the Christ.

We learn that while in the garden of Gethsemane, the Savior did ask the Father if the trial could pass over Him—but then He also said that if it was the Father’s will, then the Savior would do it. In other words, the Savior even took on doubt and uncertainty, but He had faith in His Heavenly Father. Brothers and sisters, your proving and strengthening will come. It may come quietly, through the trials of family life. It may come through illness, or disappointment, or grief, or loneliness. These moments are not evidence that the Lord has abandoned you. Rather, they are evidence that He loves you enough to refine and strengthen you. He is making you strong enough to carry the weight of eternal life. If we remain faithful in our service, the Lord will refine us. He will strengthen us. And one day, we will look back and see that those very trials were evidence of His love. We will see that He was shaping us to be able to stand with Him in glory. #GeneralConference

I observed President Russell M. Nelson’s love for all of God’s children. He taught of our Savior and Redeemer, encouraging all to emulate Him. My prayer is that we will follow President Nelson’s prophetic counsel to trust in the Lord’s revealed guidance to His servants and his example of love.

It is one of the great opportunities of my life to serve alongside President Russell M. Nelson. Time and again, I have witnessed how he humbly seeks and faithfully receives direction from the Lord. He is, for me, an example of seeking that direction with the determination to follow it. I am inspired by and grateful for the Christlike love and care he has for all of God’s children. I know that he is called of God to lead the Lord’s true Church. #PresidentNelson101

The family unit is not only fundamental to society and to the Church, but to our hope for eternal life. We begin to practice in the family, the smaller unit, what will spread to the Church and to the society in which we live in this world, and what then will be what we practice in families bound together forever by covenants and faithfulness.

Our mortal life is designed by a loving God to be a test and source of growth for each of us. Since the beginning, the tests have not been easy. We face trials that come from having mortal bodies. All of us live in a world where Satan’s war against truth and against our personal happiness is becoming more intense. The world and your life can seem to you to be in increasing commotion. My reassurance is this: the loving God who allowed these tests for you also designed a sure way to pass through them. Heavenly Father so loved the world that He sent His Beloved Son to help us. His Son, Jesus Christ, gave His life for us. Jesus Christ bore in Gethsemane and on the cross the weight of all our sins. He experienced all the sorrows, the pains, and the effects of our sins so that He could comfort and strengthen us through every test in life. As this truth sinks deep into your heart, may your faith in Him increase, may you feel more hope and optimism, and may you feel the pure love of Christ for others and for yourself.

“If you want to get revelation, do your homework.” Those were the wise and loving words President Harold B. Lee once shared with me when I was earnestly seeking to understand how to receive answers to my prayers. The Savior taught the same principle to Oliver Cowdery and to you and to me when He said: “Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me. But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right” (Doctrine and Covenants 9:7–8). The words “study it out” mean a degree of patience, of labor, of persistence. When I seek guidance from the Lord, I often begin by asking in prayer, “Heavenly Father, is this what the Lord would have me do?” And then, I will wait upon Him until I know. Then I might say, “Please, while I am working at it, can I remember that I am doing it for the Lord?” I promise you that if you will be patient and diligent, you will have a blessing come to you that you will know that you are doing what the Lord would have you do. He will answer your prayers for help beyond your human understanding.

The Savior has used the word “always” in two settings: You promise always to remember Him when you partake of the sacrament. And He warns you to pray always. I am not wise enough to know all of His purposes in giving us a covenant to always remember Him and in His warning us to pray always lest we be overcome. But I know one. It is because He knows perfectly the powerful forces that influence us and also what it means to be human. Jesus Christ foresees perfectly the growing power of opposing forces. He knows the mistake we can so easily make. And so He offers us the covenant to always remember Him and the warning to pray always so that we will place our reliance on Him, our only safety. His promises are sure: If you will let your heart be drawn to the Savior and to our Heavenly Father in prayer, you will always have the Spirit to be with you.

Every child of Heavenly Father who has chosen to enter through the gate of baptism is under covenant to be a witness of the Savior and to care for those in need throughout our mortal lives. This commitment was made plain for us by the great Book of Mormon prophet Alma centuries ago at the Waters of Mormon: “As ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; “Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places …, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, … that ye may have eternal life.” It will be a time of great joy for those, in this life, who have drawn close to Him in His service and can eagerly anticipate to hear His words: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”

For more than twenty years, my dear mother wore a small pin inscribed with the simple yet powerful words “Charity Never Faileth,” a pin she would one day pass on to me. The enduring legacy my mother left her family was more than the pin. It was her love and the Lord’s love, which I saw and felt in the simple things she did. I saw the same divine love in my beloved wife, Kathleen. She displayed the Savior’s love through her compassion, her faithfulness, and her service. She embraced the sacred role of a mothering influence not only for our children, but for more than a hundred members of our direct family members and for many hundreds more whom she welcomed into her motherly heart. While I do not fully know all the Lord’s purposes in giving the primary responsibility for nurturing to faithful sisters, I believe it is because of their divine capacity to love. To love in such a way that the needs of others are felt more deeply than their own—that is charity. That is the pure love of Christ. This Mother’s Day, I express heartfelt gratitude to the mothers who love with Christlike charity, who strengthen faith, and who build the rising generation with hope and tenderness. You are the heart of the Lord’s work.

As we celebrate this sacred Easter season, let us remember the profound love and sacrifice of our Savior, Jesus Christ. His Resurrection brings hope, renewal, and the promise of eternal life. Through His triumph over death, we are given the assurance that we too can overcome our trials and find everlasting joy. May we find peace in His teachings and strive to follow His example of compassion and service. #GreaterLove

There are times we feel close to the Savior, Jesus Christ. And yet, sometimes during our mortal trials, we may feel some distance from Him and wish for an assurance that He knows what is in our heart and loves us as individuals. The Savior’s invitation includes the way to feel that assurance. Draw near Him by always remembering Him. Seek Him diligently through scripture study. Ask through heartfelt prayer to Heavenly Father to feel closer to His Beloved Son. There is a simple way to think about it. It is what you would do if you were separated for a time from dear friends. You would find a way to communicate with them. You would cherish any message you received from them. And you would do all you could to help them. The more that happened, the longer it lasted, the deeper the bond of affection would be strengthened, and you would feel yourselves drawing ever nearer to each other. If much time passed without the cherished communication, and the opportunity to help one another, the bond would weaken. Jesus Christ loves each of us. He offers the opportunity to draw closer to Him. As with a loving friend, you will do it in much the same way by communicating through prayer, listening for cherished guidance from the Holy Ghost, and serving others for the Savior cheerfully. Soon you would feel that blessing of drawing nearer to Him. As you do this, you will feel His love and find joy in being drawn closer to Him. #GeneralConference #GreaterLove