surround yourself with people who believe

I share the experience of a wise stake president here on this campus. He was approached by a young man in his stake who admired him and asked him to mentor him in business.

After a few weeks, the young man confided, “I should share with you that I have decided to step away from the Church. I no longer believe.”

The surprised stake president immediately began to share his profound testimony of the gospel that had brought him so much joy, peace, and inspiration.

The young man sat stunned, staring back at the stake president with tears in his eyes. He said, “I have not heard anyone speak like that in months. I have been hanging out with friends who don’t believe.”

I say to all of you, as that wise stake president said to this young man, seek friends and associates who are striving to follow the Lord—friends and associates with whom you can feel the Spirit and with whom you can reinforce your faith.

Surround yourself with people who believe.

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.

delusional confidence

But for a camp* that included Durant, Stephen Curry and LeBron James, his biggest lesson came from someone six years younger than him.

“Delusional confidence is the greatest thing. I learned that last year and I saw that with Anthony Edwards,” Hayes-Davis said. “He is the walking embodiment of delusional confidence.”

That’s something he carries now he wish he had before. When speaking on that, Hayes-Davis sprinkled in some great advice you should take on yourself into whatever you’re trying to achieve, whether it’s as big as trying to get back to the NBA or not.

“That’s the one thing I would tell to younger Nigel, is delusional confidence will take you a long way in this life, whatever avenue of life you want to do,” Hayes-Davis said. “Having that will set you up to avoid doubt in yourself, it will set you up from making bad decisions, it will set you up from feeling too high or too low about yourself, it will set you up to not worry about when things go wrong, because they do go wrong. But with that, it will keep you on track.”

Kellan Olson

"Nigel Hayes-Davis back in NBA as a completely new player with Suns," Arizona Sports. September 28, 2025

*Nigel was invited to be one of the practice players working with Team USA as they prepared for the 2024 Summer Olympics

faith is not faith if never tested

Faith is not faith if never tested. Faith is not strong if never opposed. So don’t despair if you have trials of faith or unanswered questions.

Dieter F. Uchtdorf

"Nourish the Roots, and the Branches Will Grow" General Conference October 2024

The Lord knew—in this fast-paced world full of distractions and in commotion—that making quality time for Him would be one of the major challenges of our day. Speaking through the prophet Isaiah, He provided these words of counsel and caution, which can be likened unto the tumultuous days in which we live:

“In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not.

“But ye said, No; for we will flee upon horses; therefore shall ye flee: and, We will ride upon the swift; therefore shall they that pursue you be swift.”

In other words, even though our salvation depends on returning to Him often and resting from the cares of the world, we do not. And even though our confidence will come from a strength developed in quiet times sitting with the Lord in meditation and reflection, we do not. Why not? Because we say, “No, we are busy with other things”—fleeing upon our horses, so to speak. Therefore, we will get further and further away from God; we will insist on going faster and faster; and the faster we go, the swifter Satan will follow in pursuit.

Perhaps this is why President Nelson has repeatedly pled with us to make time for the Lord in our lives—“each and every day.” He reminds us that “quiet time is sacred time—time that will facilitate personal revelation and instill peace.” But to hear the still voice of the Lord, he counseled, “you too must be still.”

Being still, however, requires more than just making time for the Lord—it requires letting go of our doubtful and fearful thoughts and focusing our hearts and minds on Him. Elder David A. Bednar taught, “The Lord’s admonition to ‘be still’ entails much more than simply not talking or not moving.” To be still, he suggested, “may be a way of reminding us to focus upon the Savior unfailingly.”

Being still is an act of faith and requires effort. Lectures on Faith states, “When a man works by faith he works by mental exertion.” President Nelson declared: “Our focus must be riveted on the Savior and His gospel. It is mentally rigorous to strive to look unto Him in every thought. But when we do, our doubts and fears flee.” Speaking of this need to focus our minds, President David O. McKay said: “I think we pay too little attention to the value of meditation, a principle of devotion. … Meditation is one of the … most sacred doors through which we pass into the presence of the Lord.”

There is a word in Japanese, mui, that, for me, captures this more faith-filled, contemplative sense of what it means to be still. It is comprised of two characters (無為). The one on the left means “nothing” or “nothingness,” and the one on the right means “to do.” Together they mean “non-doing.” Taken literally, the word could be misinterpreted to mean “to do nothing” in the same way “to be still” can be misinterpreted as “not talking or moving.” However, like the phrase “to be still,” it has a higher meaning; for me it is a reminder to slow down and to live with greater spiritual awareness.

L. Todd Budge

"Seek Him with All Your Heart" General Conference October 2024

your covenants are with me

A sister does her best each day, after her husband was unfaithful to her and the children. I deeply admire her and others like her. One day while folding laundry, her hand on a stack of garments, she sighed to herself, “What’s the point?” She felt a tender voice assure her, “Your covenants are with me.”

Gerrit W. Gong

"Holiness to the Lord in Everyday Life" General Conference October 2024

trusting their own judgment

In Capernaum, the Savior taught about His identity and mission. Many found His words difficult to hear, leading them to turn their backs and “[walk] no more with him.”

Why did they walk away?

Because they did not like what He said. So, trusting their own judgment, they walked away, denying themselves blessings that would have come had they stayed.

It is easy for our pride to come between us and eternal truth. When we don’t understand, we can pause, let our feelings settle, and then choose how to respond. The Savior urged us to “look unto [Him] in every thought; doubt not, fear not.” When we focus on the Savior, our faith can start to overcome our concerns.

As President Dieter F. Uchtdorf encouraged us to do: “Please, first doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith. We must never allow doubt to hold us prisoner and keep us from the divine love, peace, and gifts that come through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.”

David P. Homer

"Trusting Our Father", General Conference October 2024

He is near us

If despite your best efforts life is overcast, if you feel that your prayers are not heard, or if you can’t feel God’s love, please know that your every effort matters and, as certain as the stars above us, that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ know, hear, and love you.

On one occasion, when His disciples were in a boat being “tossed [by the] waves,” the Savior walked towards them on the water and assured them, saying, “Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.” When Peter wanted to walk to the Savior on the water, Jesus beckoned to him, saying, “Come.” And when Peter lost his focus and began to sink, the Savior immediately reached out His hand to catch him and led him to safety while saying, “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?”

When the winds are against us in our lives, are we willing to be cheerful and courageous? How can we remember that the Savior does not forsake us and that He is near us, perhaps in ways we don’t yet recognize? Are we willing to go to Him in faith, especially when the path before us seems impossible? And in what ways does He lift us to safety when we flounder? How can we faithfully look unto Him in every thought, without doubt or fear?

Benjamin M. Z. Tai

"The Love of God", General Conference April 2025

walk to the boundary of your understanding

“Faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith” (Ether 12:6). Thus, every time you try your faith—that is, act in worthiness on an impression—you will receive the confirming evidence of the Spirit. As you walk to the boundary of your understanding into the twilight of uncertainty, exercising faith, you will be led to find solutions you would not obtain otherwise.

“The Transforming Power of Faith and Character,” by Richard G. Scott, General Conference October 2010

heaven is at the feet of your mother

When she tried to explain it to friends and family, Kathy fumbled. But she knew that in Islam she had found calm. The doubt sewn into the faith gave her room to think, to question. The answers the Qur’an provided have her a way forward. Even her view of her family softened through the lens of Islam. She was less aggressive. She had always fought with her mother, but Islam taught her that “heaven is at the feet of your mother,” and this reined her in. She stopped talking back and learned to be more patient and forgiving. It brought back a purity in me, she would say.

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers. Random House, Inc. 2010.

bless him to know perfectly

After finishing our mission assignment, I was called by President Gordon B. Hinckley to serve as a Seventy in the Church. Part of my early training as a new General Authority included an opportunity to sit with members of the Twelve as they assigned missionaries to serve in one of the 300-plus missions of this great Church.


With the encouragement and permission of President Henry B. Eyring, I would like to relate to you an experience, very special to me, which I had with him several years ago when he was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve. Each Apostle holds the keys of the kingdom and exercises them at the direction and assignment of the President of the Church. Elder Eyring was assigning missionaries to their fields of labor, and as part of my training, I was invited to observe.

I joined Elder Eyring early one morning in a room where several large computer screens had been prepared for the session. There was also a staff member from the Missionary Department who had been assigned to assist us that day.

First, we knelt together in prayer. I remember Elder Eyring using very sincere words, asking the Lord to bless him to know “perfectly” where the missionaries should be assigned. The word “perfectly” said much about the faith that Elder Eyring exhibited that day.

As the process began, a picture of the missionary to be assigned would come up on one of the computer screens. As each picture appeared, to me it was as if the missionary were in the room with us. Elder Eyring would then greet the missionary with his kind and endearing voice: “Good morning, Elder Reier or Sister Yang. How are you today?”

He told me that in his own mind he liked to think of where the missionaries would conclude their mission. This would aid him to know where they were to be assigned. Elder Eyring would then study the comments from the bishops and stake presidents, medical notes, and other issues relating to each missionary.

He then referred to another screen which displayed areas and missions across the world. Finally, as he was prompted by the Spirit, he would assign the missionary to his or her field of labor.

From others of the Twelve, I have learned that this general method is typical each week as Apostles of the Lord assign scores of missionaries to serve throughout the world.

Having served as a missionary in my own country in the Eastern States Mission a number of years ago, I was deeply moved by this experience. Also, having served as a mission president, I was grateful for a further witness in my heart that the missionaries I had received in New York City were sent to me by revelation.

After assigning a few missionaries, Elder Eyring turned to me as he pondered one particular missionary and said, “So, Brother Rasband, where do you think this missionary should go?” I was startled! I quietly suggested to Elder Eyring that I did not know and that I did not know I could know! He looked at me directly and simply said, “Brother Rasband, pay closer attention and you too can know!” With that, I pulled my chair a little closer to Elder Eyring and the computer screen, and I did pay much closer attention!

A couple of other times as the process moved along, Elder Eyring would turn to me and say, “Well, Brother Rasband, where do you feel this missionary should go?” I would name a particular mission, and Elder Eyring would look at me thoughtfully and say, “No, that’s not it!” He would then continue to assign the missionaries where he had felt prompted.

As we were nearing the completion of that assignment meeting, a picture of a certain missionary appeared on the screen. I had the strongest prompting, the strongest of the morning, that the missionary we had before us was to be assigned to Japan. I did not know that Elder Eyring was going to ask me on this one, but amazingly he did. I rather tentatively and humbly said to him, “Japan?” Elder Eyring responded immediately, “Yes, let’s go there.” And up on the computer screen the missions of Japan appeared. I instantly knew that the missionary was to go to the Japan Sapporo Mission.

Elder Eyring did not ask me the exact name of the mission, but he did assign that missionary to the Japan Sapporo Mission.

Privately in my heart I was deeply touched and sincerely grateful to the Lord for allowing me to experience the prompting to know where that missionary should go.

At the end of the meeting Elder Eyring bore his witness to me of the love of the Savior, which He has for each missionary assigned to go out into the world and preach the restored gospel. He said that it is by the great love of the Savior that His servants know where these wonderful young men and women, senior missionaries, and senior couple missionaries are to serve. I had a further witness that morning that every missionary called in this Church, and assigned or reassigned to a particular mission, is called by revelation from the Lord God Almighty through one of these, His servants.




Elder Ronald A. Rasband, "The Divine Call of a Missionary." General Conference, April 2010

unbelievers asking for signs

Some unbelievers are asking for signs. They are here promised signs, but not unto salvation. The Prophet Joseph relates an incident which may be of interest in this connection. He was holding a meeting in Philadelphia on one occasion, when a man asked for a sign. The Prophet writes: “After the sermon he again asked for a sign. I told the congregation the man was an adulterer; that a wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after signs; and that the Lord had said to me in a Revelation, that any man who wanted a sign was an adulterous person. ‘It is true,’ cried one…. And the man afterwards confessed” (History of the Church, Vol. V., P.268).


Doctrine and Covenants Commentary by Hyrum M. Smith and Janne M. Sjodahl. Deseret Book. 1965. p.367

unbelievers want to argue

D&C 63:6 …let the wicked take heed, and let the rebellious fear and tremble; and let the unbelieving hold their lips, for the day of wrath shall come upon them as a whirlwind and all flesh shall know that I am God.

It is a general characteristic of unbelievers that they want to argue with others and tear up the foundations of the faith of others. Unbelief loves a discussion for the sake of the controversy itself, not as a means of the discovery of truth. The Lord warns quarrelsome unbelievers of the coming of His day, when the truth will be manifest.


Doctrine and Covenants Commentary by Hyrum M. Smith and Janne M. Sjodahl. Deseret Book. 1965. p.376

douby in the face of overwhelming evidence

These verses (D&C 19:13-38) contain special instructions to Martin Harris. Notwithstanding the many manifestations he had received concerning the Book of Mormon, he was still tormented with doubts, to such an extent that it became sinful. Skepticism has its legitimate use, in so far as it prompts one to investigate, but to doubt in the face of overwhelming evidence is perversity.


Doctrine and Covenants Commentary by Hyrum M. Smith and Janne M. Sjodahl. Deseret Book. 1965. p.96

we all must deal with adversity

With all the differences in our lives, we have at least one challenge in common. We all must deal with adversity. There may be periods, sometimes long ones, when our lives seem to flow with little difficulty. But it is in the nature of our being human that comfort gives way to distress, periods of good health come to an end, and misfortunes arrive. Particularly when the comfortable times have gone on for a while, the arrival of suffering or the loss of material security can bring fear and sometimes even anger.

The anger comes at least in part from a feeling that what is happening is unfair. The good health and the serene sense of being secure can become to seem deserved and natural. When they vanish, a feeling of injustice can come. Even a brave man I knew wept and cried out in his physical suffering to those who ministered to him: “I have always tried to be good. How could this happen?”

That aching for an answer to “How could this happen?” becomes even more painful when those struggling include those we love. And it is especially hard for us to accept when those afflicted seem to us to be blameless. Then the distress can shake faith in the reality of a loving and all-powerful God. Some of us have seen such doubt come to infect a whole generation of people in times of war or famine. Such doubt can grow and spread until some may turn away from God, whom they charge with being indifferent or cruel. And if unchecked, those feelings can lead to loss of faith that there is a God at all.

My purpose today is to assure you that our Heavenly Father and the Savior live and that They love all humanity. The very opportunity for us to face adversity and affliction is part of the evidence of Their infinite love. God gave us the gift of living in mortality so that we could be prepared to receive the greatest of all the gifts of God, which is eternal life. Then our spirits will be changed. We will become able to want what God wants, to think as He thinks, and thus be prepared for the trust of an endless posterity to teach and to lead through tests to be raised up to qualify to live forever in eternal life.

It is clear that for us to have that gift and to be given that trust, we must be transformed through making righteous choices where that is hard to do. We are prepared for so great a trust by passing through trying and testing experiences in mortality. That education can come only as we are subject to trials while serving God and others for Him.

In this education we experience misery and happiness, sickness and health, the sadness from sin and the joy of forgiveness. That forgiveness can come only through the infinite Atonement of the Savior, which He worked out through pain we could not bear and which we can only faintly comprehend.

It will comfort us when we must wait in distress for the Savior’s promised relief that He knows, from experience, how to heal and help us. The Book of Mormon gives us the certain assurance of His power to comfort. And faith in that power will give us patience as we pray and work and wait for help. He could have known how to succor us simply by revelation, but He chose to learn by His own personal experience.



Henry B. Eyring, "Adversity," Ensign, May 2009

endure being underwhelmed, unused and unsung

Though we can endure being abused, can we endure being underwhelmed, unused and unsung? Can we endure almost uninterrupted unresponsiveness?

The prophet Ether endured a time in which he preached the gospel from "the morning, even to the going down of the sun" but went unheeded (Ether 12:3).

As commanded, Mormon even endured the unusual circumstance of being an "idle witness" in order to manifest certain things to the world (Mormon 3:16).

Whether the test is illness, pain, deprivation, or being passed over, being ignored, being underwhelmed, or working one's way through doubts, what are to be sustained are trust and faith in God and in His plan-including in His timing.

Sustained discipleship includes resisting, and chopping back again and again, the encroaching crabgrass cares of the world. These cares, along with temptation, persecution, and tribulation, are what usually cause us to slacken and give up.
Thus with increasing understanding we see that, while enduring is more than simply waiting, it includes waiting. But even waiting can be used to facilitate our becoming more like Jesus. Therefore, we should be "anxiously engaged," even when it seems to us we are doing no more than waiting. Thus we can be about our Father's business even when it seems for the moment that we are overcome by ordinariness and routine. Our enduring is easier if we see it as a part of God's unfolding.

Besides, we were never promised precision in this life. Nor should the gospel be expected to lend itself to glib mortal explanations in all circumstances-it is too divinely comprehensive for that. We endure even when we cannot explain, and it is silence that bespeaks certitude.


Neal A. Maxwell, Not My Will, But Thine, p.123 Ether 12:3

Do not all men, at some time in their lives, face that dilemma - the reason of the world versus faith in Jesus Christ?

Moses experienced it. He had just freed the children of Israel. He now led them on a seemingly suicidal course direct for the Red Sea. The Egyptian armies were in hot pursuit. The powers of reason no doubt cried out: "Veer to the left or to the right. To proceed straight ahead is a death trap - pinned against the wall of the Red Sea on the one side, the fast-approaching Egyptian army on the other." But Moses was steadfast in his course. March they would, directly toward the Red Sea. The Israelites, seeing their fate, fearfully cried out, "It had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness" (Exodus 14:12). Moses was alone. The power of reason and the power of the people combined against him with a raging fury. But deep within his soul was a power that far exceed the powers known to man, a power that drove him on against the world, against all seeming odds, against all that was rational and reasonable in life. It was the power of faith. It proved to be his - and his people's temporal and spiritual salvation.


Tad R. Callister, The Infinite Atonement. 2000. p.109

Men have stood at pulpits and elsewhere - great men - and have testified that their knees have never buckled, that as one said of another, 'He had nothing to hide.' We have had monumental men who did not need redemption as much as they needed power, and who never fell very far from the communing light of which I have spoken. I cannot bear that kind of testimony. But if there are some of you who have been tricked into the conviction that you have gone too far, that you have been weighed down with doubts on which you alone have a monopoly, that you have had the poison of sin which makes it impossible ever again to be what you could have been - then hear me.

I bear testimony that you cannot sink farther than the light and sweeping intelligence of Jesus Christ can reach. I bear testimony that as long as there is one spark of the will to repent and to reach, he is there. He did not just decend to your condition; he decended below it, 'that he might be in all and through all things, the lights of truth' (D&C 88:6).


Truman Madsen. Christ and the Inner Life. 14. as quoted in Tad R. Callister, The Infinite Atonement. 2000. p.100, 101