real intent means that one really intends to follow

Asking questions and searching for meaning are a natural and normal part of our mortal experience. At times, not readily having complete answers can bring us to the edge of our understanding, and those limitations can feel frustrating or overwhelming. Wondrously, Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness for all of us is designed to help us progress despite our limitations and accomplish what we cannot accomplish on our own, even without a complete knowledge of all things. God’s plan is merciful toward the limitations of our humanity; provides us with our Savior, Jesus Christ, to be our Good Shepherd; and inspires us to use our agency to choose Him.

Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf has taught that “asking questions isn’t a sign of weakness,” but rather “it’s a precursor of growth.” Speaking directly to our personal effort as seekers of truth, our prophet, President Russell M. Nelson, has taught that we must have “a deep desire” and “ask with a sincere heart [and] real intent, having faith in [Jesus] Christ.” He has further taught that “‘real intent’ means that one really intends to follow the divine direction given.”

Tracy Y. Browning

"Seeking Answers to Spiritual Questions" General Conference October 2024

oh, how it mattered!

It was a crisp fall day when I first heard the words “You have cancer.” My husband and I were stunned! As we drove home in silence, processing the news, my heart turned to our three sons.

In my mind I asked Heavenly Father, “Am I going to die?”

The Holy Ghost whispered, “Everything is going to be OK.”

Then I asked, “Am I going to live?”

Again, the answer came: “Everything is going to be OK.”

I was confused. Why did I receive the exact same answer whether I lived or died?

Then suddenly every fiber of my being filled with absolute peace as I was reminded: We did not need to hurry home and teach our children how to pray. They knew how to receive answers and comfort from prayer. We did not need to hurry home and teach them about the scriptures or words of living prophets. Those words were already a familiar source of strength and understanding. We did not need to hurry home and teach them about repentance, the Resurrection, the Restoration, the plan of salvation, eternal families, or the very doctrine of Jesus Christ.

In that moment every family home evening lesson, scripture study session, prayer of faith offered, blessing given, testimony shared, covenant made and kept, house of the Lord attended, and Sabbath day observed mattered—oh, how it mattered! It was too late to put oil in our lamps. We needed every single drop, and we needed it right now!

Amy A. Wright

"Abide the Day in Christ," General Conference October 2023

this life - a hopeful context

The Book of Mormon teaches that “this life is the time for [us] to prepare to meet God.” Alma 34:32 But that challenging limitation to “this life” was given a hopeful context (at least to some extent for some persons) by what the Lord revealed to President Joseph F. Smith, now recorded in Doctrine and Covenants section 138. “I beheld,” the prophet wrote, “that the faithful elders of this dispensation, when they depart from mortal life, continue their labors in the preaching of the gospel of repentance and redemption, through the sacrifice of the Only Begotten Son of God, among those who are in darkness and under the bondage of sin in the great world of the spirits of the dead.

“The dead who repent will be redeemed, through obedience to the ordinances of the house of God,

“And after they have paid the penalty of their transgressions, and are washed clean, shall receive a reward according to their works, for they are heirs of salvation.” D&C 138:57-59

In addition, we know that the Millennium, the thousand years that follow the Second Coming of the Savior, will be a time to perform the required ordinances for those who have not received them in their mortal lives. D&C 29:11

Dallin H. Oaks

"Kingdoms of Glory," General Conference October 2023

what a crucial nanosecond

Mortal lifetime is barely a nanosecond compared with eternity. But what a crucial nanosecond it is! Consider carefully how it works: During this mortal life you get to choose which laws you are willing to obey—those of the celestial kingdom, or the terrestrial, or the telestial—and, therefore, in which kingdom of glory you will live forever. What a plan! It is a plan that completely honors your agency.

President Russell M. Nelson

Russell M. Nelson, Heart of the Matter (2023), 45. as found in "Kingdoms of Glory," General Conference October 2023

leaves many decisions for our personal choices

A desire to be led by the Lord is a strength, but it needs to be accompanied by an understanding that our Heavenly Father leaves many decisions for our personal choices. Personal decision making is one of the sources of the growth we are meant to experience in mortality. Persons who try to shift all decision making to the Lord and plead for revelation in every choice will soon find circumstances in which they pray for guidance and don’t receive it. For example, this is likely to occur in those numerous circumstances in which the choices are trivial or either choice is acceptable.

We should study things out in our minds, using the reasoning powers our Creator has placed within us. Then we should pray for guidance and act upon it if we receive it. If we do not receive guidance, we should act upon our best judgment. Persons who persist in seeking revelatory guidance on subjects on which the Lord has not chosen to direct us may concoct an answer out of their own fantasy or bias, or they may even receive an answer through the medium of false revelation. Revelation from God is a sacred reality, but like other sacred things, it must be cherished and used properly so that a great strength does not become a disabling weakness.

Dallin H. Oaks

"Our Strengths Can Become Our Downfall," Ensign October 1994. From an address given at a Brigham Young University eighteen-stake fireside on 7 June 1992 in Provo, Utah.

the great news of God’s plan

Here is the great news of God’s plan: the very things that will make your mortal life the best it can be are exactly the same things that will make your life throughout all eternity the best it can be!

President Russell M. Nelson

"Think Celestial" October 2023 General Conference

this mortal micro-dot

By developing faith enough to know "who" we are and "why" we are here, we can better resist the tempting taunt, "Why not?" and the devilishly democratic, "Everybody does it!" If we know the realities of "things as they really are," we will view daily life differently. Deciding and acting out of eternal considerations, we can keep this mortal micro-dot in perspective. Jesus' disciples are not like everybody else.

Neal A. Maxwell

Not My Will, but Thine by Neal A. Maxwell. 2008. Deseret Book. p. 82

this precious micro-dot on the canvas of eternity

Mortality, this precious micro-dot on the canvas of eternity, is such a brief moment. While in it, we are to prepare ourselves for the time when there will be no time.

Neal A. Maxwell

Not My Will, but Thine by Neal A. Maxwell. 2008. Deseret Book. p. 12

all will suffer until they obey Christ himself

Faith is strongest when it is without illusions. Realistic faith alone provides allowance for the testing and proving dimensions of this mortal experience (D&C 98:12; Abraham 3:25). We undergo afflictions such as are "common to man" (1 Corinthians 10:13). Additionally, God will deliberately give curriculum common to man and on into uncommon graduate studies or even post-doctoral discipleship. These trials are often the most difficult to bear. Our Father is full of pressing, tutorial love: "The Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea, he trieth their patience and their faith" (Mosiah 23:21). Nevertheless we are assured that "all these things shall give [us] experience, and shall be for [our] good," if we endure them well and learn from them (D&C 122:7; 121:8). For we are to learn much by our own experience. 

Thus life itself does not do all of the inflicting. Indeed, some trials come directly from God or with His assent. On the final record will be the incontestable evidence as to whether we are "willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon [us], even as a child doth submit to his father" (Mosiah 3:19). 

Having taken his yoke upon us, then, we will experience - though on our small and lesser scale - certain things which permit us to learn of Jesus: loving when our love is not reciprocated or is even rejected, as with the wicked in His day; serving when our service is not appreciated, as with the nine lepers (Luke 17:12-19); seeing erring loved ones who are free to choose but who are choosing unwisely, as when He lamented, "O, Jerusalem..." (Matthew 23:37): watching in some the root of bitterness spring up to trouble and defile others (Hebrews 12:15); experiencing anguish as a result of what is happening to us and around us, but, as with Nephi, still knowing that God loves us (1 Nephi 11:17); being mocked and despised by the world, perhaps even betrayed, and feeling aloneness - all part of suffering in order to learn obedience (Hebrews 5:8).

The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that "all will suffer until they obey Christ himself." Indeed, some suffering actually comes in striving to become like Christ as well as in obeying Him.

Neal A. Maxwell

Not My Will, but Thine by Neal A. Maxwell. 2008. Deseret Book. p. 5,6

keep me in your heart for awhile

Shadows are falling and I'm running out of breath

Keep me in your heart for awhile

If I leave you it doesn't mean I love you any less
Keep me in your heart for awhile

When you get up in the morning and you see that crazy sun
Keep me in your heart for while

There's a train leaving nightly called when all is said and done
Keep me in your heart for while



Warren Zevon - Keep Me In Your Heart, The Wind 2003.

the most important condition of mortality

Being mistreated is the most important condition of mortality, for eternity itself depends on how we view those who mistreat us.


The Peacegiver by James L. Ferrell. 2004. p. 33

everything presses on

Time wastes too fast: every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity life follows my pen. The days and hours of it are flying over our heads like clouds of a windy day never to return more - everything presses on -


Martha Jefferson, Note accompanied by a lock of Martha's hair, kept by daughter Patsy until her death in 1836. This verse was extracted nearly verbatim from Laurence Sterne's Tristam Shandy. Quoted in Understanding Thomas Jefferson by E.M. Halliday, 2001. p.50

A wound gives strange dignity to him who bears it. Well men shy from this new and terrible majesty. It is as if the wounded man's hand is upon the curtain which hangs before the revelations of all existence, the meaning of ants, potentates, wars, cities, sunshine, snow, a feather dropped from a bird's wing, and the power of it sheds radiance upon a bloody form, and makes the other men understand sometimes that they are little.


Stephen Crane - (1871-1900) American writer. An Episode of War, 1899.