Jamming of the channels of communication

Pornography “creates a disconnection from God, from spouse and even from self-identity,” President (Emily Belle) Freeman, (Young Women general president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) said, referencing President Boyd K. Packer’s teaching as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles that a “trend to more noise” was “not coincidental nor innocent.” 

“The first ordered issued by a commander mounting a military invasion,” President Packer said, “is the jamming of the channels of communication of those he intends to conquer.”

Jacob Hess

President Freeman calls pornography ‘the plague of our time’ during Utah Coalition Against Pornography gathering” Deseret News. March 16, 2026

swallowed up in the will of God

So many of us are kept from eventual consecration because we mistakenly think that, somehow, by letting our will be swallowed up in the will of God, we lose our individuality (see Mosiah 15:7). What we are really worried about, of course, is not giving up self, but selfish things—like our roles, our time, our preeminence, and our possessions. No wonder we are instructed by the Savior to lose ourselves (see Luke 9:24). He is only asking us to lose the old self in order to find the new self. It is not a question of one’s losing identity but of finding his true identity! Ironically, so many people already lose themselves anyway in their consuming hobbies and preoccupations but with far, far lesser things.

Neal A. Maxwell

“Swallowed Up in the Will of the Father”, General Conference October 1995

children of God

If we know "who" we are, esteeming ourselves as children of God, then we know the true identify of others, esteeming them. If ignorant, we are more likely to use them, abuse them, lie to them, or be blinded to their poverty. 

Neal A. Maxwell

Not My Will, but Thine by Neal A. Maxwell. 2008. Deseret Book. p. 90