Mormon Musings

As we go through pains, sicknesses, afflictions, and temptations of every kind, our Savior will be there to succor us.  He has paid the price through His atoning sacrifice to know us and to know how to help us.  He knows how to delivery us safely back home.  He is our Deliverer--our all! Marilyn S. Bateman

Your future is not determined by the conditions around you.  It is determined by your faith, your choices and your efforts. Elder Paul V. Johnson

Brother Kimball referred to Zion’s Camp going to Missouri.  When I returned from that mission to Kirkland, a brother said to me, “Brother Brigham, what have you gained by this journey?”  I replied, “Just what we went for; but I would not exchange the knowledge I have received this season for the whole of the Geauga County; for property and mines of wealth are not to be compared to the worth of knowledge.”  Ask those brethren and sisters who have passed through scenes of affliction and suffering for years in the Church what they would take in exchange for their experience, and be placed back where they were, were it possible.  I presume they would tell you that all the wealth, honors, and riches of the world could not buy the knowledge they had obtained, could they barter it away.  Let the brethren be contented, if you have trials and must have hard times, learn to acknowledge the hand of the Lord in it all.  He directs the affairs of this world… Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 2:1

  The Atonement: All for All Bruce C. Hafen Of the First Quorum of the Seventy When the Savior’s all and our all come together, we will find not only forgiveness of sin, … “we shall be like him.” In recent years, we Latter-day Saints have been teaching, singing, and testifying much more about the Savior Jesus Christ. I rejoice that we are rejoicing more. As we “talk [more] of Christ,” 1  the gospel’s doctrinal fulness will come out of obscurity. For example, some of our friends can’t see how our Atonement beliefs relate to our beliefs about becoming more like our Heavenly Father. Others  mistakenly  think our Church is moving toward an understanding of the relationship between grace and works that draws on Protestant teachings. Such misconceptions prompt me to consider today the Restoration’s unique Atonement doctrine. The Lord restored His gospel through Joseph Smith because there had been an apostasy. Since the fifth century, Christianity taught that Adam and Eve’s Fall was a tragic

In its simplest terms, self-mastery is doing those things we should do and not doing those things we should not do. President James E. Faust April 2000 General Conference

When we pray, we are not conveying any information to God that he does not already have.  Nor, when we confess our sins before Him, is it news to Him that we have misbehaved.  More than we realize, being honest with God in our prayers helps us be more honest with ourselves. Elder Neal A. Maxwell

  While faith is not a perfect knowledge, it brings a deep trust in God, whose knowledge is perfect! Otherwise, one’s small data base of personal experience permits so few useful generalizations! But by searching the holy scriptures, we access a vast, divine data bank, a reservoir of remembrance. In this way, the scriptures can, as the Book of Mormon says, enlarge the memory. (See  Alma 37:8 .) Elder Neal A. Maxwell, April 1991 General Conference