Latter-day Saints around the world are looking forward to general conference next weekend and the opportunity to listen to the prophet and apostles and other Church leaders. But in the meantime, gospel messages have already been shared this week in devotionals and on social media that might be just the thing to help members get in the right mindset for conference.
“God loves all of His children, and He understands that life is an experience for all of us,” President Ballard wrote on Facebook. “We’re not perfect. We’re going to make mistakes. He has given us His Son, Jesus Christ, to help us change and see us through mortality.”
Elder Holland also testified on Facebook that while we may at times feel lonely and helpless, we are not alone.
“As wonderful as the gift of life is—and it is a wonderful gift—it also comes with many challenges. Some are small, while others may feel as if they are completely insurmountable. We can often feel lonely and helpless,” he said. “But I testify we are never on our own. Because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so.”
Read more of these testimonies and see what other Church leaders have shared with Latter-day Saints this week below.
By Sydney Walker, Church News
Brigham Young University is a unique institution with an “unparalleled community of academic and spiritual excellence that could only be possible as a result of the Restoration,” said Elder Paul B. Pieper, a General Authority Seventy.
“By choosing Brigham Young University and by virtue of your acceptance, students, professors and administrators agree to become part of a religious academic community united by a common commitment to seek both secular and religious learning by study and also by faith,” he said.
During a campus devotional in the Marriott Center on Tuesday, Sept. 21, Elder Pieper emphasized that a decision to join the BYU community triggers both access to the benefits of and responsibility to honor the commitment to sustain its values and purposes.
He invited students and faculty to ask themselves, “What can I do to strengthen Brigham Young University?” and identified three ways they can “work as one” to realize the full power and strength of BYU.
Read more of Elder Pieper’s devotional address at Church News.
By Rachel Sterzer Gibson, Church News
During the most recent general conference, in April, President Russell M. Nelson made an unusual appeal to the Church and to all the world, noted Brother Ahmad S. Corbitt during the BYU–Idaho campus devotional on Tuesday, Sept. 21.
Brother Corbitt pointed out that the Prophet’s “unusual appeal” was not an invitation, teaching or urging but a call “to start today to increase your faith.”
Speaking from the BYU–Idaho Center on the Rexburg, Idaho, campus during the first live devotional since the onset of pandemic restrictions, Brother Corbitt, first counselor in the Young Men general presidency, said he felt impressed to help his listeners continue to accept and magnify President Nelson’s call.
Brother Corbitt began his remarks by asking a sobering question: “Do you know and love someone who once had a testimony of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ—a seemingly strong youth or even a returned missionary or older adult—who abandoned his/her faith in Christ and left the Church?”
Read the rest of Brother Corbitt’s address at Church News.
Focus on preparing 3 ‘needful things,’ Elder Gong teaches missionaries
By Scott Taylor, Church News
Citing the Lord’s invitation—used twice, in Doctrine and Covenants sections 88 and 109—to “prepare every needful thing,” Elder Gerrit W. Gong invited full-time missionaries to focus on preparing three needful things to become faithful and valiant in their sacred missionary service.
The member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles—who spoke with his wife, Sister Susan Gong, in a Provo Missionary Training Center devotional Tuesday night, Sept. 21—detailed three needful things:
- Seek perfection in Christ, not the perfectionism of the world;
- Follow the doctrine of Christ and invite others to do so as well;
- Preach Christ Jesus the Lord and the fulness of His restored gospel and Church, including as found in “Preach My Gospel,” chapter 3.
“These needful things will bless you, your companions, the friends and investigators you will find, teach and baptize. They will bless you and the members and leaders you will come to love and work with in unity.”
Read more of Elder Gong’s address as well as Sister Gong’s address to missionaries at Church News.