Manifestations of the Holy Ghost

Other God-given helps for making right choices are the manifestations of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is the third member of the Godhead. His function, defined in scripture, is to testify of the Father and the Son, to teach us, to bring all things to our remembrance, and to guide us into all truth. The scriptures include many descriptions of the manifestations of the Holy Ghost, such as a spiritual witness in response to an inquiry about the truth of the Book of Mormon. A manifestation is not to be confused with the gift of the Holy Ghost, which is conferred following baptism.

One of the most significant of God’s helps for His faithful children is the gift of the Holy Ghost. The importance of this gift is evident in the fact that it is formally conferred after repentance and baptism by water, “and then [the scriptures explain] cometh a remission of your sins by fire and by the Holy Ghost” (⁠2 Nephi 31:17⁠). Persons who have this remission of sins—and then regularly renew their cleansing by daily repentance and living according to the covenants they make through the ordinance of the sacrament—qualify for the promise that the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of the Lord, “may always … be with them” (⁠Doctrine and Covenants 20:77⁠).

Thus, President Joseph F. Smith taught that the Holy Ghost will “enlighten the minds of the people with regard to the things of God, to convince them at the time of their conversion of their having done the will of the Father, and to be in them an abiding testimony as a companion through life, acting as the sure and safe guide into all truth and filling them day by day with joy and gladness, with a disposition to do good to all men, to suffer wrong rather than to do wrong, to be kind and merciful, long suffering and charitable. All who possess this inestimable gift, this pearl of great price, have a continual thirst after righteousness. Without the aid of the Holy Spirit,” President Smith concluded, “no mortal can walk in the straight and narrow way.”

Dallin H. Oaks

"Divine Helps for Mortality", General Conference April 2025

but for what the Lord knew the person needed

Holiness to the Lord in everyday life looks like a young returning missionary who learned to let God prevail in his life. Earlier, when asked to bless someone who was very sick, this missionary said, “I have faith; I will bless him to recover. Yet,” the returning missionary says, “I learned in that moment to pray not for what I wanted but for what the Lord knew the person needed. I blessed the brother with peace and comfort. He later passed away peacefully.

Gerrit W. Gong

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

the fundamental spiritual maintenance plan

We all know examples of the unprepared: returned missionaries who have interrupted their spiritual growth by periods of inactivity, youth who have jeopardized their spiritual growth by separating themselves from Church teaching and activities, men who have postponed their ordination to the Melchizedek Priesthood, men and women—sometimes the posterity of noble pioneers or worthy parents—who have departed the covenant path short of making and keeping covenants in the holy temple.

Many of such deviations occur when members fail to follow the fundamental spiritual maintenance plan of personal prayer, regular scripture study, and frequent repentance. In contrast, some neglect weekly renewal of covenants by not partaking of the sacrament. Some say the Church is not meeting their needs; those substitute what they perceive as their future needs ahead of what the Lord has provided in His many teachings and opportunities for our essential service to others.

Dallin H. Oaks

"Divine Helps for Mortality", General Conference April 2025

consistent, personal, private acts of devotion

If we are wise, we receive the truth by accepting the gospel of Jesus Christ through priesthood ordinances and covenants. Next, we strive to remain worthy of having the Holy Ghost always with us. This capability must be acquired individually and personally, drop by drop. Consistent, personal, private acts of devotion invite the Holy Ghost to guide us.

Dale G. Renlund

"Personal Preparation to Meet the Savior", General Conference April 2025

Alan’s boys

One bishop taught his new deacons quorum presidency these duties. So the young presidency began to talk about what that might look like in their quorum and in their ward. They decided they should start visiting elderly ward members to see what they needed and then do that.

Among those they served was Alan, a rough, often profane, and sometimes hostile neighbor. Alan’s wife, Wanda, became a member of the Church, but Alan was, as we say, something of a piece of work.

Still, the deacons went to work, comically ignoring his insults, while they shoveled snow and took out trash. Deacons can be hard to hate, and Alan eventually began to love them. At some point they invited him to church.

“I don’t like church,” he responded.

“Well, you like us,” they said. “So come with us. You can just come to our quorum meeting if you want.”

And with the bishop’s approval, he came—and he kept coming.

The deacons became teachers, and as they continued to serve him, he taught them to work on cars and to build things. By the time these deacons-turned-teachers became priests, Alan was calling them “my boys.”

They were earnestly preparing for missions and asked him if they could practice missionary lessons with him. He swore that he would never listen and never believe, but, yeah, they could practice at his house.

And then Alan got sick. And he softened.

And one day in quorum meeting, he tenderly asked them to pray for him to quit smoking, and so they did. But then they followed him home and confiscated all of his tobacco stash.

As his failing health put Alan into hospitals and rehab centers, “his boys” served him, quietly exuding powers of priesthood and of love unfeigned (see Doctrine and Covenants 121:41).

The miracle continued when Alan asked to be baptized—but then he passed away before it could happen. At his request, his deacons-turned-priests were the pallbearers and the speakers at his funeral, where they—fittingly—warned, expounded, exhorted, taught, and invited all to Christ.

And later, in the temple, it was one of “Alan’s boys” who baptized that erstwhile deacons quorum president in proxy for Alan.

Everything John the Baptist said to do, they did. They did what deacons, teachers, and priests do all over this Church and all over this world.

Steven J. Lund

"Divine Authority, Sublime Young Men", General Conference April 2025

find themselves in consequential times

These [priesthood] ordinations launch these young men into lifetimes of service as they will find themselves in consequential times and places where their presence and prayers and the powers of the priesthood of God they hold will profoundly matter.

Steven J. Lund

"Divine Authority, Sublime Young Men", General Conference April 2025

it would have been worth all that it has cost

I have said many times that if nothing else came out of all of the sorrow and travail and pain of the restoration than the sealing power of the holy priesthood to bind together families forever, it would have been worth all that it has cost.

Gordon B. Hinckley

Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley (1997), 475–76. As found in "The Sealing Power," by D. Todd Christofferson. General Conference October 2023

a perfect manifestation

The validity that the sealing power gives to priesthood ordinances includes, of course, vicarious ordinances performed in the place designated by the Lord—His temple. Here we see the majesty and sacredness of the sealing power—it makes individual salvation and family exaltation universally available to the children of God wherever and whenever they may have lived on the earth. No other theology or philosophy or authority can match such an all-inclusive opportunity. This sealing power is a perfect manifestation of the justice, mercy, and love of God.

D. Todd Christofferson

"The Sealing Power," 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

turned her loving concerns over to Heavenly Father

Years ago I received a phone call from a distraught mother. She told me that her daughter had moved far from home. She sensed from the little contact she had with her daughter that something was terribly wrong. She pleaded with me to help.

I found out who the daughter’s home teacher was. You can tell by that name that it was a long time ago. I called him. He was young. Yet he told me that he and his companion both had been awakened in the night with not only concern for the daughter but with inspiration that she was about to make choices that would bring sadness and misery. With only that inspiration of the Spirit, they went to see her.

At first she did not want to tell them about her situation. Under inspiration, they pleaded with her to repent and choose the path the Lord had for her. She realized then, I believe by the Spirit, that the only way they could have known what they knew about her life was from God. A mother turned her loving concerns over to Heavenly Father and the Savior. The Holy Ghost had been sent to those home teachers because they were willing to serve the Lord. They had followed the counsel and promise found in the Doctrine and Covenants:

“Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven.

“The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever.”

Henry B. Eyring

"Our Constant Companion" General Conference October 2023

Respect can happen. It's within reach, it is possible. The Church might need a revelation to ordain women, but we could respect women more by listening to women's opinions, including  more women as speakers, quoting women, and including more women in more councils. 

Living on the Inside of the Edge by Christian Kimball. Common Consent Press. 2023. p. 208

leave it alone

My life was changed by a saintly patriarch. He married his sweetheart. They were deeply in love, and soon she was expecting their first child. 

The night the baby was born, there were complications. The only doctor was somewhere in the countryside tending to the sick. After many hours of labor, the condition of the mother-to-be became desperate. Finally, the doctor was located. In the emergency, he acted quickly and soon the baby was born, and the crisis, it appeared, was over. But some days later, the young mother died from the very infection that the doctor had been treating at another home that night.

The young man’s world was shattered. As the weeks wore on, his grief festered. He thought of little else, and in his bitterness he became threatening. Today, no doubt, he would have been pressed to file a malpractice suit, as though money would solve anything.

One night a knock came at his door. A little girl said simply, “Daddy wants you to come over. He wants to talk to you.”

“Daddy” was the stake president. The counsel from that wise leader was simply “John, leave it alone. Nothing you do about it will bring her back. Anything you do will make it worse. John, leave it alone.”

This had been my friend’s trial. How could he leave it alone? A terrible wrong had been committed. He struggled to get hold of himself and finally determined that he should be obedient and follow the counsel of that wise stake president. He would leave it alone.

He said, “I was an old man before I understood and could finally see a poor country doctor—overworked, underpaid, run ragged from patient to patient, with little medicine, no hospital, few instruments, struggling to save lives, and succeeding for the most part. He had come in a moment of crisis, when two lives hung in the balance, and had acted without delay. I finally understood!” He said, “I would have ruined my life and the lives of others.”

Many times he had thanked the Lord on his knees for a wise priesthood leader who counseled simply, “John, leave it alone.”

Boyd K. Packer, "Guided by the Holy Spirit." April 2011 General Conference

a future man

Who touches a boy by the Master’s plan

Is shaping the course of a future man.

Poem from Author Unknown. Thomas S. Monson, “The Army of the Lord,” Ensign, May 1979, 35 as quoted in To the Rescue: The Biography of Thomas S. Monson by Heidi Swinton, Deseret Book. 2010.

we hold the real keys

Many years ago President Spencer W. Kimball and several other Church leaders visited the small cathedral in Copenhagen, Denmark, that houses Bertel Thorvaldsen’s famous statues of Jesus Christ and the Twelve Apostles. Speaking of this experience, Elder Rex D. Pinegar said: “As we looked at those beautiful works of art we noted that Peter was sculptured with large keys in his hands. … As we were ready to leave the cathedral, the Danish caretaker … was standing near the door awaiting our departure. President Kimball shook his hand [and] thanked him for his kindness in letting us visit the cathedral. Then the president began an explanation of the church established by Jesus Christ and of its importance to us. … Gathering President Tanner, Elder Monson, and Elder Packer closer to him, the president continued, ‘We are living apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are Twelve Apostles and three others who are the presidency of the Church. We hold the real keys, as Peter did, and we use them every day. They are in use constantly’”



Conference Report, Oct. 1976, 104; or Ensign, Nov. 1976, 69, as quoted in "Lesson 13: “I Will Give unto Thee the Keys of the Kingdom”," New Testament Gospel Doctrine Teacher’s Manual, (2002)

a special shield

Our family consisted of our parents and six children. The three oldest were girls and three youngest were boys. My brothers and I shared the same bedroom. As we advanced in age we graduated from prayers at Mother’s knee to personal prayers at our bedside. Mother continued to supervise the process until she was certain we were sufficiently mature to handle it on our own. As we retired, we always had a consciousness of the nearness of Mother. She would stand outside our door until the right combination of sounds verified the fact that her sons had been on their knees to thank the Lord for his blessings of that day. If we were forgetful we would hear her voice, “Boys, have you said your prayers?” If we had remembered, then after prayers were completed and we jumped into bed, we would hear her footsteps going downstairs to complete her day’s activities.

Mother assumed the responsibility each morning of turning the backs of the chairs toward the table as a reminder to have family prayers before partaking of the first nourishment of the day. How we enjoyed hearing our father pour out his heart to the Lord asking for the protection of his family! It was as if a special shield had been placed around us by a father bearing the priesthood as we would embark on our daily activities at the beginning of each day.



L. Tom Perry, “Knowing and Accepting Answers to Prayer,” Prayer. Deseret Book Company, Salt Lake City, UT. 1978. P.53

we are so easily distracted

We are to learn our duty from the Lord, and then we are to act in all diligence, never being lazy or slothful. The pattern is simple but not easy to follow. We are so easily distracted. Studying the daily news can appear more interesting than the priesthood lesson manual. Sitting down to rest can be more attractive than making appointments to visit those who need our priesthood service.

When I find myself drawn away from my priesthood duties by other interests and when my body begs for rest, I give to myself this rallying cry: “Remember Him.” The Lord is our perfect example of diligence in priesthood service. He is our captain. He called us. He goes before us. He chose us to follow Him and to bring others with us.


Henry B. Eyring, "Act in All Diligence", Ensign, May 2010, 60–63

we need everyone

We need everyone. The tired or worn out or lazy and even those who are bound down with guilt must be restored through repentance and forgiveness. Too many of our priesthood brethren are living below their privileges and the Lord’s expectations.

President Boyd K. Packer, "The Power of the Priesthood." General Conference April 2010.

they would call that a battlefield commission

I was in a distant city. After a conference we were ordaining and setting apart leaders. As we concluded, the stake president asked, “Can we ordain a young man to be an elder who is leaving for the mission field?” The answer, of course, was yes.

As the young man came forward, he motioned for three brethren to follow and stand in for his ordination.

I noticed on the back row a carbon copy of this boy, and I asked, “Is that your father?”

The young man said, “Yes.”

I said, “Your father will ordain you.”

And he protested, “But I’ve already asked another brother to ordain me.”

And I said, “Young man, your father will ordain you, and you’ll live to thank the Lord for this day.”

Then the father came forward.

Thank goodness he was an elder. Had he not been, he soon could have been! In the military they would call that a battlefield commission. Sometimes such things are done in the Church.

The father did not know how to ordain his son. I put my arm around him and coached him through the ordinance. When he was finished, the young man was an elder. Then something wonderful happened. Completely changed, the father and son embraced. It was obvious that had never happened before.
The father, through his tears, said, “I didn’t get to ordain my other boys.”

Think how much more was accomplished than if another had ordained him, even an Apostle.


President Boyd K. Packer, "The Power of the Priesthood". General Conference. April 2010.

that's just where joseph smith was

I’m often asked, “I understand the Muslim’s believe that Mohammed was a prophet. Could that be true?” Well, let me ask you a question from your understanding of church history and the life and mission of Joseph Smith. Let’s go back to the early spring of 1829 when Joseph Smith had just completed his translation of the Book of Mormon. It was being published and ready to start being distributed, missionaries were ready to go forth with it. He of course had had great visions. He had had an angelic messenger, Moroni, that had visited him for four years in succession. Would you consider him to be a prophet at that time? If so, you might give serious consideration as to how you might define Mohammed as a prophet. He claimed to have had visions. He claimed that he had an angelic messenger – Gabriel was his name, and we understand Gabriel to be the premortal name of the great patriarch and prophet Noah. And he brought forth a work of scripture much smaller than the Book of Mormon and about the size of the New Testament called the Koran. Although during his lifetime it wasn’t really prepared and written - it was presented and passed-on orally. So again; visions, angelic messenger, inspired writings or words that came forth. That’s just where Joseph Smith was say in April, 1829. Now Mohammed never claimed to have received priesthood. That didn’t happen to the prophet Joseph until May 1829, and then later as he received the Aaronic and Melchezdik priesthood, and then most importantly after the completion of the Kirkland temple he received important keys from Moses and Elijah and Elias and others that really established his authority and his power as a restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Well Mohammed never had priesthood, he never tried to establish a church or religion, but it followed him – much like later the Lutheran church would follow Martin Luther, he never wanted to establish a church, he just wanted to reform the mother church, but this often happens when you get great, inspired charismatic leaders, that their followers want to identify together as a religious community.


Latter-Day Insights: The Middle East by Victor L. Ludlow. Covenant Communications.

sacrifice in the future

It is generally supposed that sacrifice was entirely done away with, when the great Sacrifice was offered up, and that there will be no necessity for the ordinance of sacrifice in the future; but those who assert this are certainly not acquainted with the duties, privileges, and authority of the Priesthood, or with the Prophets. The offering of sacrifice has ever been connected with, and forms a part of the duties of the Priesthood. It began with the Priesthood and will be continued until after the coming of Christ, from generation to generation.


Joseph Smith, History of the Church, Vol. IV., p.207 as found in Doctrine and Covenants Commentary by Hyrum M. Smith and Janne M. Sjodahl. Deseret Book. 1965. p.504