Mormon Musings

An answer given by another person usually is not remembered for very long, if remembered at all.  But an answer we discover or obtain through the exercise of faith, typically, is retained for a lifetime.  The most important learnings in life are caught--not taught. Elder David E. Bednar, Address to CES Religious Educators, February 3, 2006

More people have obtained a testimony while standing up trying to bear it than down on their knees praying for it. Brigham Young (Improvement Era, June 1925, p. 715)

The best way to obtain truth and wisdom is not to ask it from books, but to go to God in prayer, and obtain divine teaching. Joseph Smith, History of the Church, 4:425

Brethren and sisters, I rejoice exceedingly with you in this glorious Gospel. If there is anything on the earth that can satisfy the human soul in its desires for excellence, virtue, exaltation and greatness, it certainly is this Gospel of the kingdom. If there is anything in the world that can satisfy the hungry soul for knowledge, it is the revelations of the Lord Jesus Christ, which open up continually line upon line, and precept upon precept; here a little and there a little; indeed there is nothing else can satisfy the longing of the human soul. Franklin D. Richards, Journal of Discourses 25:236

All of us have problems.  We face them every day.  How grateful I am that we have difficult things to wrestle with.  They keep us young, if that is possible.  They keep us alive.  They keep us going.  They keep us humble.  They pull us down to our knees to ask the God of Heaven for help in solving them.  Be grateful for your problems, and know that somehow there will come a solution. President Gordon B. Hinckley, CES Training, February 7, 2003

The scriptures that are never read will never help us. Elder L. Tom Perry

How important it is during troubled times, when we are tested, that we do not do anything to lose the Holy Ghost's gentle persuasions, comfort, peace, and direction.  This peace will give us assurance to make correct choices in life in order to weather the storms and bring us closer to God's ways. Elder Robert D. Hales, Address to CES Religious Educators, February 1, 2002

My faith is, when we have done all we can, then then Lord is under obligation, and will not disappoint the faithful; He will perform the rest. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 4:91 I cannot save you.  I can tell you how to save yourselves, but you must do the will of God. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 10:317 Seek diligently to know the will of God.  How can you know it?  In matters pertaining to yourselves as individuals, you can obtain it directly from the Lord; but in matters pertaining to public affairs, his will is ascertained through the proper channel, and may be known by the general counsel that is given you from the proper source.   Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 1:78

“Would a frequent housecleaning be in order for all of us? “I may not be able to eliminate pornographic trash, but my family and I need not buy or view it. “I may not be able to close disreputable businesses, but I can stay away from areas of questioned honor and ill repute. “I may not be able to greatly reduce the divorces of the land or save all broken homes and frustrated children, but I can keep my own home a congenial one, my marriage happy, my home a heaven, and my children well adjusted. “I may not be able to stop the growing claims to freedom from laws based on morals, or change all opinions regarding looseness in sex and growing perversions, but I can guarantee devotion to all high ideals and standards in my own home, and I can work toward giving my own family a happy, interdependent spiritual life. “I may not be able to stop all graft and dishonesty in high places, but I myself can be honest and upright, full of integrity and true honor, and my family will be trained likewise

...being in an increasingly secularized world, we should recognize the truth of Paul’s words, “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). Many individuals refuse to be informed by the Spirit. However, as we all know, when speaker and hearer—writers and readers—are spiritually conjoined, it is a special thing, as revelatory reciprocity occurs: “Therefore, why is it that ye cannot understand and know, that he that receiveth the word by the Spirit of truth receiveth it as it is preached by the Spirit of truth? “Wherefore, he that preacheth and he that receiveth, understand one another, and both are edified and rejoice together” (D&C 50:21–22). John Taylor confirmed this by saying: “There is no man living, and there never was a man living, who was capable of teaching the things of God only as he was taught, instructed and directed by the spirit