Hugh Nibley speaks about the history and theology surrounding the highly coveted city of Jerusalem and the hope for peace there one day.

Repentance means that we have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that we forsake our sins, that we come into the church and kingdom of God on earth and receive the Holy Ghost.

Sinless and flawless as Jesus was in mortality, we should remember that he viewed his own state of physical perfection as being yet in the future (see Luke 13:32). Even he had to endure to the end. Can you and I be expected to do any less?

“Will our faith be tested? I believe so. Might we see disappointment and heartache and calamity? Again, I believe so. But we live with the ringing reassurance from the Savior both in this sermon and elsewhere that He is in charge.”

Al registrar los sentimientos que tuvo al salir de la Arboleda y en los días subsiguientes, José dejó registrada esta oración: “Mi alma se llenó de amor, y por muchos días pude regocijarme con gran gozo, y el Señor estaba conmigo, pero no pude encontrar a ninguno que creyera mi visión celestial”.

Joseph had no training in theology, no doctor of divinity degree; his formal education was at best scanty. And yet through him comes light that dissolves the profoundest paradoxes and strengthens and edifies me through my own personal trials.

Recording the feelings he had on leaving the Grove and on the subsequent days, Joseph left on record this sentence: “My soul was filled with love and for many days I could rejoice with great joy and the Lord was with me but [I] could find none that would believe the heavenly vision.”

I want to focus not so much on his prophetic character and gifts as on the characteristics observed by those who surrounded him—on Joseph Smith the man.

I have gone through the life of Joseph Smith and singled out instances in that life when these gifts were manifest. It is no surprise that he did, in fact, experience all the spiritual gifts.

In all of this Joseph struggled both to endure and to overcome. That is the tension we all face. What must we simply go through, and what, through our faith and worthiness, can we overcome?

The Kirtland Temple was an unprecedented sacrifice, and it was met with an unprecedented divine outpouring.

There is a difference between speaking, testifying, and teaching, and that setting in which soul is alone with soul. And in this again the Prophet was a master.

The Nauvoo era also was the period of a life-and-death struggle, for there were many who by that time were organized against the Church and who swore they would bring Joseph Smith and his kingdom of blockheads to naught.

Like many of the prophets of ancient times, the prophet of the last dispensation was martyred for the Lord’s cause.

Few men have been privileged to see God the Father and Christ while in mortal life as did the Prophet Joseph Smith. Few have been so honored with the many manifestations as he was.

[Joseph Smith] is one of the great dispensation heads, and a dispensation head is a revealer for his age and his period of the knowledge of Christ and of salvation.

Where do you stand? Do you love the cause of Christ, and will you stand firm, no matter what difficulty you face . . . ?

When discussing Joseph Smith’s role as a translator, many only associate the Prophet with his role in the translation of the Book of Mormon. However, he successfully translated at least three additional ancient texts.

Joseph Smith was foreordained to be the duly appointed leader of this, the greatest and final of all dispensations.

From Joseph Smith, one unlearned and untrained in theology, more printed pages of scripture have come down to us than from any other mortal—in fact, as President Holland has pointed out, more than the combined pages, as available at present, from Moses, Paul, Luke, and Mormon.

Joseph Smith did not write the Book of Mormon. Rather, “by the gift and power of God” he translated the writings of many authors who wrote at different times and under various circumstances.

The Prophet Joseph Smith taught us how to serve the Lord as the Lord would have us serve him. In fact, he said if we aren’t drawing near the Lord in principle, we are going from him and drawing towards the devil.

Joseph Smith lived the life of a prophet. He suffered the life of a prophet. He died the death of a prophet.

Both the Savior and the Prophet Joseph gave their lives in a divine cause.

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.”

Only from Jesus Christ, the Lord and Savior of this world, can we obtain the living water whose partaker shall never thirst again, in whom it will be “a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”

The joy is not in arriving, but in getting better each time a new challenge is thrown your way, each time you learn in a new situation.

Joyful living in the here and now is an important antecedent to the complete joy that we know can be ours in the eternities, which is made possible by the presence with us of our families in the company of the Father and the Son.

There are so many opportunities for lifelong learning. If we do our best and seek Heavenly Father’s help, He will strengthen us beyond our natural abilities and help us to learn.

God wants you to find and keep joy in this world and in the world to come. You have been specially endowed with a celestial nature that is to grow into a fullness of joy.

We want to be ready when the Lord asks—for He will ask. He said to John the Revelator, “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.” The Lord is so gracious.