I am grateful that I can bear a solemn but happy witness that these men, and all others who have held this highest office in the Lord’s Church, are true servants of our living Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son.

Throughout your life you will have opportunities each day to be reminded of the admonition that was followed by a prophet of the Lord: “Whate’er thou art, act well thy part.”

Your spiritual destiny will have obstacles, delays, and equipment malfunctions. There will be mistakes. You may wonder if you are going to make it. Don’t be discouraged! You will also have moments of hope and faith as doors open and obstacles are overcome.

Hold tight to that rod of iron! Be true to everything that you are and everything you can become. It is so worth it. It will bring you joy and happiness now and forever. It will bring you full circle back to Him.

Besides a sincere apology, repentance includes striving to forsake our shortcomings and weaknesses. We strive to keep our promises to do the dishes. We focus on not being grumpy and not snapping at our spouse. We endeavor to become better listeners and less judgmental. As we continually repent, we constantly try to improve ourselves.

To endure well and not give up amidst the challenges in our journey will require us to have strength beyond our own. We cannot do it alone, but with the Lord’s help our success is assured.

I invoke the blessings of heaven upon each and every one of you of the rising generation and pray that your righteous thoughts and deeds will overcome any susceptible disposition to do evil and that the Holy Spirit will be your constant companion in helping you to develop a disposition to do good continually.

Perhaps in the struggle to defend religious liberty for our churches and for all Americans, our greatest weapon is neither the voting booth nor the legal brief but the prayers that we and our worshipping communities lift up to Almighty God week after week on behalf of our nation.

We don’t have to be perfect—after all we can do, the Savior does the rest. When we repent we choose to be changed, to be spiritually stronger, and to come closer to the Savior.

You live in a time when you have more opportunities and options available to you than any other women have had throughout the history of mankind. Some of these options will complement your God-given natures. Others will chip away at it.

“Thy friends do stand by thee, and they shall hail thee again with warm hearts and friendly hands.” I reaffirm this promise given by the Lord in the early days of the Restoration of this Church. I pray that each of us will have the privilege of enjoying righteous friendships and mentoring relationships as we grow together in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

May we all remember that gospel gifts typify our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ; that they may be given to us by God or by our fellow mortals; that the giving and receiving of gospel gifts are two separate actions; that our true receipt of a gospel gift is manifested by keeping the gift; and that giving thanks for our gospel gifts is itself a gospel gift because giving thanks also typifies Jesus Christ.

The Lord’s program is to make bad men and women good and good men and women better as He prepares us for eternal life. Participation in His kingdom here on earth can change us in wonderful ways if we are faithful.

Our test is to learn to serve one another and to attain personal holiness. All the commandments of God tend to one, or usually both of these ends at the same time.

Just like waiting until the clock reads double zero, you have prepared for the proper educational plays, emerged victorious, and received your hard-earned degree.

One of the blessings of your BYU experience is that you should be familiar with the promise of the Lord that “I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart.”

“If your eye be single to my glory, your whole bodies shall be filled with light, and there shall be no darkness in you; and that body which is filled with light comprehendeth all things.” He will help us in our quest for knowledge if we will—as we have done here at Brigham Young University—center our learning on Him.

Branches separated from their roots wither and die, but when they are connected, they receive nourishment, which brings abundant life.

If we show tenacious faith and are prepared to lose ourselves in service, our Father in Heaven will prepare the way for us to accomplish all that He asks of us. I pray that we can be instruments in our Father in Heaven’s hands in doing His will and that we will find great and eternal joy in His service.

“The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” We can find sanctuary in good times and bad in the open, loving arms of a Father in Heaven and a Savior who love us both for who we are and who we may become.

When it comes to asking what our calling in life is, Jesus Christ is in the answer. The grace of Christ, that same power that helps us do things we otherwise couldn’t, is what will guide us to our callings and enable us to excel in them.

Heavenly Father is intimately interested in hearing from us and that He is omnipresent and available to listen at all times.

As we make and keep these sacred covenants with the Lord, He will keep His promises to us. Our lives will be built on that sure foundation, and there will be no need to fear.

I…have chosen to see the hand of the Lord not only in our history but also in the discovery of new understandings of His handiwork in the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ in these latter days.

The admonitions that we receive from our leaders to attend church, pray, read the scriptures, and remain worthy of the influence of the Holy Ghost can be viewed as reminders to regularly correct our courses by reference to divine standards.

Faith in Jesus Christ has the power to help us get our stories straight, and I pray that, like Zoram, we will see that our life’s circumstances are often the very conditions in which God has chosen to bless us as He helps us work out our lives.

There is so much to learn. So be curious. Keep your sense of wonder about the world. We have been given a great promise over and over again. Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find.

May your lives be your promised lands, worthy in every way for the promised blessings of heaven. With those blessings, may you find a promised land wherever you are, wherever you go, and all the time.

Just like waiting until the clock reads double zero, you have prepared for the proper educational plays, emerged victorious, and received your hard-earned degree.

We know how things in the big picture will turn out and have great confidence that you also in your individual lives and careers will turn out as you wish and as heaven intends.

The awareness of God’s love for us, of His unreserved guidance and support, should inspire us to likewise extend our reach to those who look to us for direction and relief.

Sometimes life’s greatest lessons come to us at the most dreadful times of our lives. How we respond at such times of crisis determines if such challenges will be times for progression or merely times of suffering.

I rejoice with you in knowing that there is indeed strength and peace beyond our tears. I rejoice in and bear testimony of the divinity of Jesus Christ. I know He lives. I know that because He lives there is no death but only change and “better worlds and greater light.”

Our BYU mission is chartered in the great opportunity and challenge to be learning and teaching all the time in a world of change while remaining true and firm in our values and moral compass, which do not change.

An education that edifies does not destroy innocence but pushes back ignorance. It does not eradicate faith but enables educated believers to articulate reasons for the hope that is in them.

My counsel to you…is to be clear in your priorities, in your understanding, in your faith, and in all your endeavors.

All of you are sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father. He loves you and has given you many blessings to help you build a testimony of Him and His teachings. Find your gifts and talents, acknowledge them in the spirit of thankfulness, develop them, and use them to serve others as well as His kingdom.

I have found that the best way to live life is to seek to know the will of the Lord as guided by the Holy Spirit. He knows what is best for you.

In our fast-paced world, we are sometimes impatient for His plan to unfold. Popular culture tells us, “Get a life.” My advice to all of us is, “Get an eternal life.” By making right choices today, tomorrow, and for the rest of our time on earth, that eternal goal means the most to us.

Only Jesus can save us. The clearest expression of this is given by King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon: “There shall be no other name given nor any other way nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of men, only in and through the name of Christ.”

As we negotiate the challenging and dangerous paths of this life, we can draw on the power of the sacred, holy, divine, awe-inspiring, sanctified, and hallowed.

If we are looking, we will see the caring hands of the Gardener of Gethsemane shaping our lives in ways we cannot now imagine. I pray that we might yield to this pruning so that we can become the people God would have us be.

Even when turbulence caused by the storms of life naturally comes our way in this mortal existence, we can be led by the lighthouse of the gospel and by our testimonies of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Live the doctrine of Christ, the simple and basic principles of the gospel, each day—have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, repent, honor the covenant of baptism, live worthy of the Holy Ghost as your companion, and endure to the very end.

Both the heart and the mind must be fully engaged in this holy process. The conversion of our soul and the ongoing refinement of our life, as we adopt the attributes of godliness, is our earthly mission and is rewarded with “eternal life, which gift is the greatest of all the gifts of God.”

An important part of being self-aware is to understand how we influence for good or ill others around us by how we act, speak, and respond.

As you take the sacrament each Sunday, you do it in remembrance of the Savior and the covenants you made at your baptism. You are recommitting to serve as His witness to the world. It is a time for you to remember your baptismal covenants and let them guide your lives each day so that you do not forget as John did.

The Lord’s invitation to seek our daily bread at our Heavenly Father’s hand speaks of a loving God, aware of even the small, daily needs of His children and anxious to assist them, one by one.

When you hold a personal morning devotional every day, I promise you again that your life will be changed. Joseph Smith also promised us: “If you will obey the Gospel with honest hearts, I promise you in the name of the Lord, that the gifts as promised by our Saviour will follow you.”

Skilled performance is a very important manifestation of human knowledge. It is a kind of knowledge that improves with use. We begin learning as a novice and gain new capability every time we exercise a skill.

Throughout the uncertainties of life, only Christ and His love are constant. There is no more perfect example of love than the Atonement itself. Its power and promises are the “hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast.”

Because of the Restoration and because of a true and fuller understanding of mankind’s origin and destiny, we know that we are not predestined to anything. Each one of us is in fact foreordained unto salvation and exaltation.

Recognizing that you, as students, have come to BYU for more than academic rigor, I have made it a point to share a spiritual thought in each section I teach every day I am in the classroom.

I challenge you to become “the greatest generation” by assisting our Father in Heaven’s children to return to their Christian faith and to the strong religious foundation that is so necessary to enjoy peace of mind and real happiness in this period of mortal probation.

It’s important to remember that we should not try to judge another’s motives. But we can judge our own motives. We need to look inside and take stock. Are we doing what we do out of love? Or has some other motive taken over?

When he discovered the power of stories, Michael Flaherty used his love of teaching and of God to build a film company devoted to spreading good.

Brothers and sisters, Heavenly Father did not send us to this earth without also sending the Holy Ghost to guide and protect us. One of the most important skills we must learn in this life is to receive and recognize the quiet whisperings of the Spirit.

Brothers and sisters, you are the light of the world and the future mileposts in the timeline of technology. May we recognize a loving Heavenly Father’s hand in the miracles of the technologies around us and remember that He gave them to us to bless us and our families and to advance His purposes.

Hopefully, while listening in lectures, attending presentations, researching, writing, and creating, we have come away with a method of learning that is portable and personal. Hopefully we will take with us the ability to continue to learn, even when the scaffolding that held us up here has fallen away.

BYU is here to help us all serve the world better. Look for opportunities in your life to be the one who makes the difference in the life of another. Bring light and goodness wherever you are through your service.

We believe with great confidence and conviction that you are optimally prepared for long lives of continued learning and substantial service in all that you do. We are proud of you and your accomplishments.

God has given you the capacity to exercise faith so that you may find peace, joy, and purpose in life. However, to employ its power, that faith must be rooted in something secure. There is no more solid foundation than faith in the love Heavenly Father has for you, faith in His plan of happiness, and faith in the willingness and power of Jesus Christ to fulfill all of His promises.

Indeed, we know that persuasion is a theme that cuts across many different academic and professional fields. In an even larger sense, persuasion is at the core of the learning process because it changes the way we perceive and understand reality, influencing our attitudes and creating our vision of the world.

As Elder Holland and Elder Scott suggest, let us all, both personally and collectively, look at our traditions and the established way we do things and make sure they are in line with how the Lord would have us live and, if necessary, establish new traditions.

In the end the BYU Mission Statement calls on us to “have a strong effect on the course of higher education” and to “be an influence in a world we wish to improve.” In this, our uniqueness can be an asset.

As wonderful as modern technology is, it still pales in comparison to God’s power and ability. We get to view the wonders of the universe; He gets to create them.

If we do all we can to be obedient, if we truly accept the Atonement—which, after all, is the most magnificent offer of reconciliation ever made—the day will come when the Saviour will petition the Father on our behalf. And I am confident that there is absolutely nothing that the Father will refuse His Only Begotten.

It is easy in life to become busy with all kinds of things, even things that are important, but we have to be careful not to neglect those things that are essential; otherwise, none of the other things will really matter.

I have pondered the analogous circumstances in which many of the recorded prophets found themselves faced with commands from God that were, if anything, counterintuitive. How and why did they respond?

Learning how to receive is an antidote to pride. King Benjamin asked, “Are we not all beggars?” The answer is yes. He continued, “Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have?” Again the answer is yes.

La gracia no se logra en algún momento del futuro. Se recibe justo aquí y justo ahora. No es un toque final; es el toque del consumador.

Grace is not achieved somewhere down the road. It is received right here and right now. It is not a finishing touch; it is the Finisher’s touch.

Perhaps instead the Lord expects that we acknowledge that we are weak, that we have much to learn through the experiences we have, and that we make mistakes, and then prove to Him that we will repent and put our whole heart into doing better.

Parenting teens is hard, but Laura Walker aims to make it easier by sharing the pros and cons of different parenting approaches found in her research.

No one else can do what you can do. Please do not compare yourselves to others. Rather, bloom where you’re planted!

Today, as you look to the future—as your future “commences,” if you will—the words of an often-quoted Chinese proverb are worth taking seriously: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

BYU is here to help all of us serve the world better. Look for opportunities in your life to be the one who makes the difference in the life of another. Bring light and goodness wherever you are through your service.

The interconnected nature of the spiritual and secular learning that takes place at Brigham Young University is one of the defining characteristics of a BYU education.

Whatever your circumstance, it will work out well eventually if you do your best to cause it to happen. Sometimes these trials are blessings in disguise, and what the Lord may have in store for you later could be dramatically better than your current conception of optimal achievement.

The scriptures themselves are our best sources on learning and teaching—the Savior being the perfect model of a learner/teacher.

As this group all appreciates, BYU is absolutely unique in the universe of American higher education. Not everyone—individuals or institutions—understands or appreciates who and what we are. Because we are different, aspiring for greatness in both our religious and academic missions, it is absolutely essential that we represent ourselves in the very best and most accurate light.

A look at BYU’s past has a powerful effect, providing context and guiding our vision of BYU’s future. The life-threatening challenges with facilities and financing are largely behind us, and we can focus with little distraction on fulfilling the destiny of the university.

One area of confusion not rare among us is the notion that worthiness is synonymous with perfection. It is not! One can be fully worthy in a gospel sense and yet still be growing while dealing with personal imperfections.

You have loved ones in your past who created pathways and bridges to connect you to them and thus enable you to benefit from their dreams, experiences, sacrifices, and teachings—necessary components of bridge building.

Our tolerance and respect for others and their beliefs does not cause us to abandon our commitment to the truths we understand and the covenants we have made.

Honesty, integrity, and truth are eternal principles that significantly shape our experience in mortality and help determine our eternal destiny. For a disciple of Christ, honesty is at the very heart of spirituality.

In a world where we are trained to expect the worst, Gregg Easterbrook shares research concerning the potential for a positive future global economy.

All of us will experience difficult challenges in life. How you deal with and overcome adversity is what is important.

Today I would like to share three lessons that I have learned from the experiences from my life. I do so with the sincere hope that these lessons might in some way be helpful to you.

In American history this sublime and ­serious combination of religion and democracy has overall been a force for great good. Some of the most important movements of conscience in our history emerged from the convictions of religious people and used the language and liturgy of faith to build popular support.

As you keep the flame of testimony burning brightly, you will become a beacon of righteousness—even a light—for all to see.

I know words carried by the gift of the Holy Ghost can bring to your understanding “the truth of all things.” All truth is worth knowing. Some truths are more useful, but there are truths that are most worth knowing.

Our challenge then is to overcome our natural-man reluctance to interact with those who come from different languages, dialects, and cultural backgrounds and to treat them as no more strangers but actual, or potential, fellow citizens with the Saints in the household of God.

The creator actively remembers His creation. Closely linked to His remembrance of us is the loving attention associated with it. He not only remembers you; He cares deeply about where you are, what you are doing, who you are becoming, and what you are feeling.

What is our role as redemptive turbulence literally shakes people out of the kingdoms of the world? We must stand with our arms open, ready to catch them, accepting the Lord’s invitation to “come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers [or catchers] of men.”

Civil War historian James McPherson details important events from history that show how and why the Civil War still matters today.

Integrity is the very core of our being. It is who we really are. When all the scaffolding is removed, it is our integrity that both defines us and identifies us.