humility follows

Look to the needs of others, and humility follows.

President Dallin H. Oaks

"Coming Closer to Jesus Christ," BYU Speeches. February 10, 2026. See also Russell M. Nelson, “Revelation for the Church, Revelation for Our Lives,” Ensign, May 2018.

challenges often come in multiple doses

Just when all seems to be going right, challenges often come in multiple doses applied simultaneously. When those trials are not consequences of your disobedience, they are evidence that the Lord feels you are prepared to grow more (see Prov. 3:11–12). He therefore gives you experiences that stimulate growth, understanding, and compassion which polish you for your everlasting benefit. To get you from where you are to where He wants you to be requires a lot of stretching, and that generally entails discomfort and pain.

Richard G. Scott

"Trust in the Lord" General Conference October 1995

more abundantly in your life

If you would like to feel the love of God more abundantly in your life, may I invite you to consider the following:

• First, pause frequently to remember that you are a child of God and think of the things you are grateful for.
• Second, pray daily, asking Heavenly Father to help you know who around you needs to feel His love.
• Third, ask sincerely what you can do to help that individual to feel the love of God.
• And fourth, act promptly on the inspiration you receive.

If we consistently pray and ask on the behalf of others, God will show us the people we can help. And if we act promptly, we can become the means through which He answers their prayers. By doing so, in time, we will receive answers to our prayers and we will feel God’s love in our own lives.

Benjamin M. Z. Tai

"The Love of God", General Conference April 2025

to have eyes to see and a heart to feel

[T]he Savior’s perfect love is focused on enabling all of God’s children to fulfill our divine potential that we may “partake of his salvation, and the power of his redemption.” As we become more like our Master, our desire to help our brothers and sisters along the covenant path will naturally increase.

For instance, we can uplift and befriend those who feel offended or forgotten, help those who are new to our congregation feel welcome, or invite friends to worship with us at sacrament meeting—perhaps this coming Easter. There are countless ways to encourage and assist others in their progression if we deliberately and prayerfully seek heaven’s help to have eyes to see and a heart to feel how Jesus Christ sees and feels for them.

Michael B. Strong

"Charity—a Sign of True Discipleship", General Conference April 2025

the Lord saw these individuals for who they were

When the scribes and the Pharisees saw the woman taken in adultery, what did they see? A depraved woman, a sinner worthy of death. When Jesus saw her, what did He see? A woman who had temporarily succumbed to the weakness of the flesh but could be reclaimed through repentance and His Atonement. When people saw the centurion whose servant was sick with palsy, what did they see? Perhaps they saw an intruder, a foreigner, one to be despised. When Jesus saw him, what did He see? A man concerned for the welfare of a member of his household, who sought the Lord in candor and faith. When people saw the woman with an issue of blood, what did they see? Perhaps an unclean woman, an outcast to be shunned. When Jesus saw her, what did He see? A sickly woman, lonely and alienated due to circumstances she did not control, who hoped to be healed and to belong again.

In every case, the Lord saw these individuals for who they were and accordingly ministered to each one. As Nephi and his brother Jacob declared:

“He inviteth them all to come unto him … , black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God.”

“The one being is as precious in his sight as the other.”

May we likewise not let our eyes, our ears, or our fears mislead us but open our hearts and minds and minister freely to those around us as He did.

Christophe G. Giraud-Carrier

"We Are His Children," General Conference October 2023

increase in compassion, capacity, and humility

When I ask local Church leaders what concerns them, both brothers and sisters say, “Some of our members are not accepting Church calls.” Calls to serve the Lord and each other in His Church give opportunity to increase in compassion, capacity, and humility. As we are set apart, we can receive the Lord’s inspiration to lift and strengthen others and ourselves. Of course, the changing circumstances and seasons of our lives may affect our ability to serve, but hopefully never our desire. With King Benjamin, we say, “If I had I would give” and offer all we can.

Stake and ward leaders, let’s do our part. As we call (and release) brothers and sisters to serve in the Lord’s Church, let’s please do so with dignity and inspiration. Help each feel appreciated and that they can be successful. Please counsel with and listen to sister leaders. May we remember, as President J. Reuben Clark taught, in the Lord’s Church we serve where called, “which place one neither seeks nor declines.”

When Sister Gong and I were married, Elder David B. Haight counseled: “Always hold a calling in the Church. Especially when life is busy,” he said, “you need to feel the Lord’s love for those you serve and for you as you serve.” I promise that love is spoken here, there, and everywhere as we answer yes to Church leaders to serve the Lord in His Church by His Spirit and our covenants.

Gerrit W. Gong

"Love Is Spoken Here" General Conference October 2023

live your life while grieving

You can still live your life while grieving. You can still go to work, go to the gym, spend time with your family. The loss doesn't have to consume you. It doesn't have to drag you down or hold you back or send your life off in a direction from which you'll never recover. Sure, you need space; sure, you need compassion and understanding, but you also need a future, a life where you have learned to be with that loss so that you can explore life at new levels. 

Gary John Bishop

Unfu*k Yourself 2023 Day-to-Day Calendar: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life. October 30

take them by the hand

Nothing is so much calculated to lead people to forsake sin as to take them by the hand, and watch over them with tenderness. When persons manifest the least kindness and love to me, O what power it has over my mind, while the opposite course has a tendency to harrow up all the harsh feelings and depress the human mind.... The nearer we get to our Heavenly Father the more are we disposed to look with compassion on perishing souls to take them upon our shoulders and cast their sins behind our back.

Joseph Smith

The Words of Joseph Smith, p.183 as quoted in Not My Will, but Thine by Neal A. Maxwell. 2008. Deseret Book. p. 87

to pray for others

One of the most powerful experiences in a life of compassion is the expansion of our hearts into a world-embracing space of healing from which no one is excluded. When, through discipline, we have overcome the power of our impatient impulses to flee or to fight, to become fearful or angry, we discover a limitless space into which we can welcome all the people of the world. Prayer for others, therefore, cannot be seen as an extraordinary exercise that must be practiced from time to time. Rather, it is the very beat of a compassionate heart. To pray for a friend who is ill, for a student who is depressed, for a teacher who is in conflict; for people in prisons, in hospitals, on battlefields; for those who are victims of injustice, who are hungry, poor, and without shelter; for those who risk their career, their health, and even their life in the struggle for social justice for leaders of church and state – to pray for all these people is not a futile effort to influence God’s will, but a hospitable gesture by which we invite our neighbors into the center of our hearts.

To pray for others means to make them part of ourselves. To pray for others means to allow their pains and sufferings, their anxieties and loneliness, their confusion and fears to resound in our innermost selves. To pray, therefore, is to become those for whom we pray, to become the sick child, the fearful mother, the distressed father, the nervous teenager, the angry student, and the frustrated striker. To pray is to enter into a deep inner solidarity with our fellow human beings so that in and through us they can be touched by the healing power of God’s Spirit. When, as disciples of Christ, we are able to bear the burdens of our brothers and sisters, to be marked with their wounds, and even be broken by their sins, our prayer becomes their prayer, our cry for mercy becomes their cry. In compassionate prayer, we bring before God those who suffer not merely “over there,” not simply “long ago,” but here and now in our innermost selves. And so it is in and through us that others are restored; it is in and through us that they receive new light, new hope, and new courage; it is in and through us that the Spirit touches them with God’s healing presence.



Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Only Necessary Thing: Living A Prayerful Life, Compiled & Edited by Wendy Wilson Greer. 1999. p. 144, 145. Originally quoted in Compassion. 1982.

there but for the grace of God go I

These images [of hardships in New Orleans immediately after Hurricane Katrina] were not, and are not, abstractions. These are the neighbors and friends and family of everyone in New Orleans - and, by extension, in the United States. The expression "There but for the grace of God go I" has fallen into some disuse recently, but it is useful, whatever your God looks like. The person who suffers is you.


Tom Piazza, Why New Orleans Matters. Harper Perennial, 2008. p. xvii

canned-food mormons

I am deeply impressed by the way our Church members extend themselves to others. As we hear of your selfless sacrifice and overwhelming compassion, our hearts swell with gratitude and happiness. You are a shining light to the world, and you are known for your goodness and compassion all around the globe.


Unfortunately, from time to time we also hear of Church members who become discouraged and subsequently quit coming to and participating in our Church meetings because they think they don’t fit in.

When I was a young boy, during the aftermath of World War II, Germany was broken and in ruins. Many people were hungry, sick, and dying. I remember well the humanitarian shipments of food and clothing that came from the Church in Salt Lake City. To this day, I can still remember the smell of the clothing, and I can still taste the sweetness of the canned peaches.

There were some who joined the Church because of the goods they received at that time. Some members looked down on these new converts. They even called them an offensive name: Büchsen Mormonen, or “Canned-Food Mormons.” They resented these new members because they believed that once their temporal needs had been met, they would fall away.

While some did leave, many stayed—they came to church, tasted the sweetness of the gospel, and felt the tender embrace of caring brothers and sisters. They discovered “home.” And now, three and four generations later, many families trace their Church membership back to these converts.

I hope that we welcome and love all of God’s children, including those who might dress, look, speak, or just do things differently. It is not good to make others feel as though they are deficient. Let us lift those around us. Let us extend a welcoming hand. Let us bestow upon our brothers and sisters in the Church a special measure of humanity, compassion, and charity so that they feel, at long last, they have finally found home.

When we are tempted to judge, let us think of the Savior, who “loveth the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all men unto him. …



President Dieter F. Uchtdorf. “You Are My Hands.” General Conference, April 2010

this terrible solitude

Her [Sasaki-san’s] greatest gift, she found, was her ability to help inmates to die in peace. She had seen so much death in Hiroshima after the bombing, and had seen what strange things so many people did when they were cornered by death, that nothing now surprised or frightened her. The first time she stood watch by a dying inmate, she vividly remembered a night soon after the bombing when she had lain out in the open, uncared for, in dreadful pain, beside a young man who was dying. She had talked with him all night, and had become aware, above all, of his fearful loneliness. She had watched him die in the morning. At deathbeds in the home, she was always mindful of this terrible solitude. She would speak little to the dying person but would hold a hand or touch an arm, as an assertion, simply, that she was there.


Hiroshima by John Hersey. Vintage Books. 1989. p.124, 125

causes v. instruments of total war

The White Chrysanthemum, with space for forty orphans, stood near an American Army base; on one side was an exercise field for the soldiers, and on the other were officers’ houses. After the Korean War began, the base and the orphanage were packed. From time to time, a woman would bring in an infant whose father was an American soldier, never saying that she was the mother – usually that a friend had asked her to entrust the baby to the orphanage. Often, at night, nervous young soldiers, some white, some black, having sneaked off the base without leave, would come begging to see their offspring. They wanted to stare at the babies’ faces. Some of them tracked down the mothers and married them, though they might never again see the children.

Sasaki-san felt compassion both for the mothers, some of whom were prostitutes, and for the fathers. She perceived the latter as confused boys of nineteen and twenty who as draftees were involved in a war they did not consider theirs, and who felt a rudimentary responsibility – or, at the very least, guilt – as fathers. These thoughts led her to an opinion that was unconventional for a hibakusha: that too much attention was paid to the power of the A-bomb, and not enough to the evil of war. Her rather bitter opinion was that it was the more lightly affected hibakusha and power-hungry politicians who focused on the A-bomb, and that not enough thought was given to the fact that warfare had indiscriminately made victims of Japanese who had suffered atomic and incendiary bombings, Chinese civilians who had been attacked by Japanese, reluctant young Japanese and American soldiers who were drafted to be killed and maimed, and, yes, Japanese prostitutes and their mixed-blood babies. She had firsthand knowledge of the cruelty of the atomic bomb, but she felt that more notice should be given to the causes than to the instruments of total war.


Hiroshima by John Hersey. Vintage Books. 1989. p.121, 122

After war we must help rebuild. There is but one race-humanity. We can hardly have a heaven in our own country and leave a hell outside. If we have peace now it must be a world peace. If we have economic security and individual liberty here we must export it to all other countries. The young men of other countries share also our desire for a better world with equal justice and liberty for all.


Spencer W. Kimball, The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, edited by Edward L. Kimball [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1982] p.417

administer comfort and show compassion

The ward is organized to minister to the needs of those who face even the most difficult and heartbreaking trials. The bishop, often considered the 'father' of the ward, is there to provide counsel and resources. But also close at hand are Melchizedek and Aaronic Priesthood leaders, the Relief Society presidency, home teachers, visiting teachers, and the ward members--always the ward members. All are there to administer comfort and show compassion in times of need.

Richard C. Edgley, "Enduring Together," Ensign, Nov. 2007, 10

home teaching is an inspired program

My good brethren of the Melchizedek Priesthood and the Aaronic Priesthood, home teaching is an inspired program.

• It is the heart of caring, of loving, of reaching out to the one—both the active and the less active.
• It is priesthood compassionate service.
• It is how we express our faith in practical works.
• It is one of the tests of true discipleship.
• It is the heart of the activation effort of the Church.
• It is a calling that helps to fulfill the scriptural injunction: "Out of small things proceedeth that which is great" (D&C 64:33).

There is no greater Church calling than that of a home teacher. There is no greater Church service rendered to our Father in Heaven's children than the service rendered by a humble, dedicated, committed home teacher.

Ezra Taft Benson, "To the Home Teachers of the Church," Ensign, May 1987, 48

Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.


Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965, German Born Medical Missionary, Theologian, Musician, and Philosopher)

true gratitude

True gratitude is the ability to humbly see, feel, and even receive love. Gratitude is a form of returning love to God. Recognize His hand, tell Him so, express your love to Him. As you come to truly know the Lord, you will find an intimate, sacred relationship built on trust. You will come to know He understands your anguish and will, in compassion, always respond to you in love.

Gene R. Cook

"Charity: Perfect and Everlasting Love," Ensign, May 2002, 83.