My beloved young friends, it is a thrill for
Sister Holland and for me to be with you tonight
for this worldwide satellite broadcast.
It’s always a thrill to be in the Marriott
Center.
I wish it were possible for us to be in each
of your individual locations, seeing you personally
and being able to shake your hands.
We haven’t figured out a way to do that
yet, but we send our love and greeting to
all of you wherever you are in the world.
In spite of the vastness of our global audience,
we hope all of you are individually able to
feel the love we have for you tonight and
that each of you can gain something from our
message that is applicable in your personal
lives.
One of the great blessings of our assignments
as General Authorities is the chance to visit
members of the Church in various locations
around the world and to glean from the history
that our members have experienced across the
globe.
In that spirit I wish to share with you tonight
some feelings that came to me during a Church
assignment I had last spring when I was assigned
to visit the Platte City stake in western
Missouri, here in the United States.
The Platte City Missouri Stake lies adjacent
to the Liberty Missouri Stake, now a very
famous location in Church history encompassing
several important Church history sites, including
the ironically named Liberty Jail.
From your study of Church history, you will
all know something of the experience the Prophet
Joseph Smith and his brethren had while imprisoned
in that facility during the winter of 1838–39.
This was a terribly difficult time in our
history for the Church generally and certainly
for the Prophet Joseph himself, who bore the
brunt of the persecution in that period.
Indeed, I daresay that until his martyrdom
five and a half years later, there was no
more burdensome time in Joseph’s life than
this cruel, illegal, and unjustified incarceration
in Liberty Jail.
Time does not permit a detailed discussion
of the experiences that led up to this moment
in Church history, but suffice it to say that
problems of various kinds had been building
ever since the Prophet Joseph had received
a revelation in July of 1831 designating Missouri
as the place “consecrated for the gathering
of the saints” and the building up of “the
city of Zion."
By October of 1838, all-out war seemed inevitable
between Mormon and non-Mormon forces confronting
each other over these issues.
After being driven from several of the counties
in the western part of that state and under
the presumption they had been invited to discuss
ways of defusing the volatile situation that
had developed, five leaders of the Church,
including the Prophet Joseph, marching under
a flag of truce, approached the camp of the
Missouri militia near the small settlement
of Far West, located in Caldwell County.
As it turned out, the flag of truce was meaningless,
and the Church leaders were immediately put
in chains and placed under heavy guard.
The morning after this arrest, two more Latter-day
Saint leaders, including the Prophet’s brother
Hyrum, were taken prisoner, making a total
of seven in captivity.
Injustice swiftly moved forward toward potential
tragedy when a military “court” convened
by officers of that militia ordered that Joseph
Smith and the six other prisoners all be taken
to the public square at Far West and summarily
shot.
To his eternal credit, Brigadier General Alexander
Doniphan, an officer in the Missouri forces,
boldly and courageously refused to carry out
the inhumane, unjustifiable order.
In a daring stand that could have brought
him his own court-martial, he cried out against
the commanding officer:
It is cold-blooded murder.
I will not obey your order.
. . . And if you execute these men, I will
hold you responsible before an earthly tribunal,
so help me God.
In showing such courage and integrity, Doniphan
not only saved the lives of these seven men
but endeared himself forever to Latter-day
Saints in every generation.
Their execution averted, these seven Church
leaders were marched on foot from Far West
to Independence, then from Independence to
Richmond.
Parley P. Pratt was remanded to nearby Daviess
County for trial there, and the other six
prisoners, including Joseph and Hyrum, were
sent to Liberty, the county seat of neighboring
Clay County, to await trial there the next
spring.
They arrived in Liberty on December 1, 1838,
just as winter was coming on.
The jail, one of the few and certainly one
of the more forbidding of such structures
in that region, was considered escape proof,
and it probably was.
It had two stories.
The top or main floor was accessible to the
outside world only by a single small, heavy
door.
In the middle of that floor was a trapdoor
through which prisoners were then lowered
into the lower floor or dungeon.
The outside walls of the prison were of rough-hewn
limestone two feet thick, with inside walls
of 12-inch oak logs.
These two walls were separated by a 12-inch
space filled with loose rock.
Combined, these walls made a formidable, virtually
impenetrable barrier four feet thick.
In the dungeon the floor-to-ceiling height
was barely six feet, and inasmuch as some
of the men, including the Prophet Joseph,
were over six feet tall, this meant that when
standing they were constantly in a stooped
position, and when lying it was mostly upon
the rough, bare stones of the prison floor
covered here and there by a bit of loose,
dirty straw or an occasional dirty straw mat.
The food given to the prisoners was coarse
and sometimes contaminated, so filthy that
one of them said they “could not eat it
until [they] were driven to it by hunger.”
On as many as four occasions they had poison
administered to them in their food, making
them so violently ill that for days they alternated
between vomiting and a kind of delirium, not
really caring whether they lived or died.
In the Prophet Joseph’s letters, he spoke
of the jail being a
hell, surrounded with demons . . . where we
are compelled to hear nothing but blasphemous
oaths, and witness a scene of blasphemy, and
drunkenness and hypocrisy, and debaucheries
of every description.
“We have . . . not blankets sufficient to
keep us warm,” he said, “and when we have
a fire, we are obliged to have almost a constant
smoke.”
“Our souls have been bowed down” and “my
nerve trembles from long confinement.”
“Pen, or tongue, or angels,” Joseph wrote,
could not adequately describe “the malice
of hell” that he suffered there.
And all of this occurred during what, by some
accounts, was considered then the coldest
winter on record in the state of Missouri.
It is not my purpose to make this a speech
about the sorrow and difficulty these men
confronted in Liberty Jail, so let me put
a few photos on the screen and conclude this
little introductory portion of my message.
I promise I have something else in mind to
say.
Here is a photo of the jail pretty much as
it stood at the time Joseph and his brethren
were incarcerated there.
Here is a photo taken some years later when
officers and historians from the Church visited
the location.
I’m not sure if that fellow on top is trying
to get out or get in.
Here is a cross section of the Church’s
reconstruction of the prison, which can now
be seen at our visitors’ center there.
Note the two-story arrangement with a rope
and bucket, the only link between the dungeon
and the upper floor.
Here is a painting by Liz Lemon Swindle showing
Joseph in prayer.
Note the forlorn, longing look on Joseph’s
face.
And here’s a portrayal by Greg Olsen showing
how Joseph may have written some of the revelations
that came during this imprisonment.
And this is my final photo, which leads me
to the real message I have come to give tonight.
Most of us, most of the time, speak of the
facility at Liberty as a “jail” or a “prison”—and
certainly it was that.
But Elder Brigham H. Roberts, in recording
the history of the Church, spoke of the facility
as a temple, or, more accurately, a “prison-temple.”
Elder Neal A. Maxwell used the same phrasing
in some of his writings.
Certainly it lacked the purity, the beauty,
the comfort, and the cleanliness of our true
temples, our dedicated temples.
The speech and behavior of the guards and
criminals who came there was anything but
templelike.
In fact, the restricting brutality and injustice
of this experience at Liberty would make it
seem the very antithesis of the liberating,
merciful spirit of our temples and the ordinances
that are performed in them.
So in what sense could Liberty Jail be called
a “temple”—or at least a kind of temple—in
the development of Joseph Smith personally
and in his role as a prophet?
And what does such a title tell us about God’s
love and teachings, including where and when
that love and those teachings are made manifest?
As we think on these things, does it strike
us that spiritual experience, revelatory experience,
sacred experience can come to every one of
us in all the many and varied stages and circumstances
of our lives if we want it, if we hold on
and pray on, and if we keep our faith strong
through our difficulties?
We love and cherish our dedicated temples
and the essential, exalting ordinances that
are performed there.
We thank heaven and the presiding Brethren
that more and more of them are being built,
giving more and more of us greater access
to them.
They are truly the holiest, most sacred structures
in the kingdom of God, to which we all ought
to go as worthily and as often as possible.
But tonight’s message is that when you have
to, you can have sacred, revelatory, profoundly
instructive experience with the Lord in any
situation you are in.
Indeed, let me say that even a little stronger:
You can have sacred, revelatory, profoundly
instructive experience with the Lord in the
most miserable experiences of your life—in
the worst settings, while enduring the most
painful injustices, when facing the most insurmountable
odds and opposition you have ever faced.
Now let’s talk about those propositions
for a moment.
Every one of us, in one way or another, great
or small, dramatic or incidental, is going
to spend a little time in Liberty Jail—spiritually
speaking.
We will face things we do not want to face
for reasons that may not have been our fault.
Indeed, we may face difficult circumstances
for reasons that were absolutely right and
proper, reasons that came because we were
trying to keep the commandments of the Lord.
We may face persecution; we may endure heartache
and separation from loved ones; we may be
hungry and cold and forlorn.
Yes, before our lives are over we may all
be given a little taste of what the prophets
faced often in their lives.
But the lessons of the winter of 1838–39
teach us that every experience can become
a redemptive experience if we remain bonded
to our Father in Heaven through that difficulty.
These difficult lessons teach us that man’s
extremity is God’s opportunity, and if we
will be humble and faithful, if we will be
believing and not curse God for our problems,
He can turn the unfair and inhumane and debilitating
prisons of our lives into temples—or at
least into a circumstance that can bring comfort
and revelation, divine companionship and peace.
Let me push this just a little further.
I’ve just said that hard times can happen
to us.
President Joseph Fielding Smith, grandnephew
of the Prophet Joseph and grandson of the
incarcerated Hyrum, said something even stronger
than that when he dedicated the Liberty Jail
Visitors’ Center in 1963.
Alluding to the kind of history we’ve reviewed
tonight and looking on the scene where his
grandfather and granduncle were so unjustly
held, he said perhaps such things have to
happen—not only can they happen, perhaps
they have to.
Said he:
As I have read the history of those days,
the days that went before and days that came
after, I have reached the conclusion that
the hardships, the persecution, the almost
universal opposition [toward the Church at
that time] were necessary.
At any rate they became school teachers to
our people.
They helped to make [them] strong.
Well, without trying to determine which of
these kinds of experiences in our life are
“mandatory” and which are “optional”
but still good for us, may I suggest just
a very few of the lessons learned at Liberty—those
experiences that were “school teachers”
to Joseph and can be to us, experiences that
contribute so much to our education in mortality
and our exaltation in eternity.
In selecting these lessons I note yet another
kind of blessing that came out of this adversity.
To make the points that I am now going to
try to make in my message to you, I have drawn
directly upon the revelatory words that came
from the lips of Joseph Smith during this
heartbreaking time, words that we now have
canonized as sacred scripture in the Doctrine
and Covenants.
I guess we’re not supposed to have favorite
scriptures, and I have enough of them that
you won’t be able to pin me down to one
or two, but certainly any list of my favorite
scriptures would have to include those written
from the darkness of Liberty Jail.
So what we instantly learn is that God was
not only teaching Joseph Smith in that prison
circumstance but He was teaching all of us,
for generations yet to come.
What a scriptural gift!
And what a high price was paid for it!
But how empty would our lives as Latter-day
Saints be if we did not have sections 121,
122, and 123 of the Doctrine and Covenants.
If you have not read them recently, I want
you to read them tonight, or tomorrow at the
latest—no later.
That is your homework assignment, and I will
be checking on you!
They are contained in total on a mere six
pages of text, but those six pages will touch
your heart with their beauty and their power.
And they will remind you that God often “moves
in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.”11
In any case, He certainly turned adversity
into blessing in giving us those sacred writings
and reflections, so pure, noble, and Christian
in both tone and content, yet produced in
such an impure, ignoble, and unchristian setting.
Now then, three lessons from Liberty Jail:
May I suggest that the first of these is inherent
in what I’ve already said—that everyone,
including (and perhaps especially) the righteous,
will be called upon to face trying times.
When that happens we can sometimes fear God
has abandoned us, and we might be left, at
least for a time, to wonder when our troubles
will ever end.
As individuals, as families, as communities,
and as nations, probably everyone has had
or will have an occasion to feel as Joseph
Smith felt when he asked why such sorrow had
to come and how long its darkness and damage
would remain.
We identify with him when he cries from the
depth and discouragement of his confinement:
O God, where art thou?
How long shall thy hand be stayed . . . ?
Yea, O Lord, how long shall [thy people] suffer
. . . before . . . thy bowels be moved with
compassion toward them?
That is a painful, personal cry—a cry from
the heart, a spiritual loneliness we may all
have occasion to feel at some time in our
lives.
Perhaps you have had such moments already
in your young lives.
If so, I hope you have not had too many.
But whenever these moments of our extremity
come, we must not succumb to the fear that
God has abandoned us or that He does not hear
our prayers.
He does hear us.
He does see us.
He does love us.
When we are in dire circumstances and want
to cry “Where art Thou?” it is imperative
that we remember He is right there with us—where
He has always been!
We must continue to believe, continue to have
faith, continue to pray and plead with heaven,
even if we feel for a time our prayers are
not heard and that God has somehow gone away.
He is there.
Our prayers are heard.
And when we weep He and the angels of heaven
weep with us.
When lonely, cold, hard times come, we have
to endure, we have to continue, we have to
persist.
That was the Savior’s message in the parable
of the importuning widow.
Keep knocking on that door.
Keep pleading.
In the meantime, know that God hears your
cries and knows your distress.
He is your Father, and you are His child.
When what has to be has been and when what
lessons to be learned have been learned, it
will be for us as it was for the Prophet Joseph.
Just at the time he felt most alone and distant
from heaven’s ear was the very time he received
the wonderful ministration of the Spirit and
wonderful, glorious answers that came from
his Father in Heaven.
Into this dismal dungeon and this depressing
time, the voice of God came, saying:
My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity
and thine afflictions shall be but a small
moment;
And then, if thou endure it well, God shall
exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over
all thy foes.
Even though seemingly unjust circumstances
may be heaped upon us and even though unkind
and unmerited things may be done to us—perhaps
by those we consider enemies but also, in
some cases, by those whom we thought were
friends—nevertheless, through it all, God
is with us.
That is why we had our marvelous choir sing
tonight Sarah Adams’ traditional, old Christian
hymn “Nearer, My God, to Thee” with that
seldom-sung fourth verse, which they sang
so beautifully:
Out of my stony griefs
Bethel I’ll raise;
So by my woes to be
Nearer, my God, to thee.
We are not alone in our little prisons here.
When suffering, we may in fact be nearer to
God than we’ve ever been in our entire lives.
That knowledge can turn every such situation
into a would-be temple.
Regarding our earthly journey, the Lord has
promised:
I will go before your face.
I will be on your right hand and on your left,
and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and
mine angels round about you, to bear you up.
That is an everlasting declaration of God’s
love and care for us, including—and perhaps
especially—in times of trouble.
Secondly, we need to realize that just because
difficult things happen—sometimes unfair
and seemingly unjustified things—it does
not mean that we are unrighteous or that we
are unworthy of blessings or that God is disappointed
in us.
Of course sinfulness does bring suffering,
and the only answer to that behavior is repentance.
But sometimes suffering comes to the righteous,
too.
You will recall that from the depths of Liberty
Jail when Joseph was reminded that he had
indeed been “cast . . . into trouble,”
had passed through tribulation and been falsely
accused, had been torn away from his family
and cast into a pit, into the hands of murderers,
nevertheless, he was to remember that the
same thing had happened to the Savior of the
world, and because He was triumphant, so shall
we be.
In giving us this sober reminder of what the
Savior went through, the revelation from Liberty
Jail records: “The Son of Man hath descended
below them all.
Art thou greater than he?"
No.
Joseph was not greater than the Savior, and
neither are we.
And when we promise to follow the Savior,
to walk in His footsteps and be His disciples,
we are promising to go where that divine path
leads us.
And the path of salvation has always led one
way or another through Gethsemane.
So if the Savior faced such injustices and
discouragements, such persecutions, unrighteousness,
and suffering, we cannot expect that we are
not going to face some of that if we still
intend to call ourselves His true disciples
and faithful followers.
And it certainly underscores the fact that
the righteous—in the Savior’s case, the
personification of righteousness—can be
totally worthy before God and still suffer.
In fact, it ought to be a matter of great
doctrinal consolation to us that Jesus, in
the course of the Atonement, experienced all
of the heartache and sorrow, all of the disappointments
and injustices that the entire family of man
had experienced and would experience from
Adam and Eve to the end of the world in order
that we would not have to face them so severely
or so deeply.
However heavy our load might be, it would
be a lot heavier if the Savior had not gone
that way before us and carried that burden
with us and for us.
Very early in the Prophet Joseph’s ministry,
the Savior taught him this doctrine.
After speaking of sufferings so exquisite
to feel and so hard to bear, Jesus said:
I, God, have suffered these things for all,
that they [and that means you and I and everyone]
might not suffer if they would repent.
In our moments of pain and trial, I guess
we would shudder to think it could be worse,
but the answer to that is clearly that it
could be worse and it would be worse.
Only through our faith and repentance and
obedience to the gospel that provided the
sacred Atonement is it kept from being worse.
Furthermore, we note that not only has the
Savior suffered, in His case entirely innocently,
but so have most of the prophets and other
great men and women recorded in the scriptures.
Name an Old Testament or Book of Mormon prophet,
name a New Testament Apostle, name virtually
any of the leaders in any dispensation, including
our own, and you name someone who has had
trouble.
My point?
If you are having a bad day, you’ve got
a lot of company—very, very good company.
The best company that has ever lived.
Now, don’t misunderstand.
We don’t have to look for sorrow.
We don’t have to seek to be martyrs.
Trouble has a way of finding us even without
our looking for it.
But when it is obvious that a little time
in Liberty Jail waits before you (spiritually
speaking), remember these first two truths
taught to Joseph in that prison-temple.
First, God has not forgotten you, and second,
the Savior has been where you have been, allowing
Him to provide for your deliverance and your
comfort.
As the prophet Isaiah wrote, the Lord has
“graven thee upon the palms of [His] hands,"
permanently written right there in scar tissue
with Roman nails as the writing instrument.
Having paid that price in the suffering that
They have paid for you, the Father and the
Son will never forget nor forsake you in your
suffering.
They have planned, prepared, and guaranteed
your victory if you desire it, so be believing
and “endure it well."
In the end it “shall be for thy good," and
you will see “everlasting dominion” flow
unto you forever and ever “without compulsory
means."
Thirdly, and tonight lastly, may I remind
us all that in the midst of these difficult
feelings when one could justifiably be angry
or reactionary or vengeful, wanting to return
an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,
the Lord reminds us from the Liberty Jail
prison-temple that
the rights of the priesthood are inseparably
connected with the powers of heaven, and that
the powers of heaven cannot be controlled
nor handled only [or “except”] upon the
principles of righteousness.
Therefore, even when we face such distressing
circumstances in our life and there is something
in us that wants to strike out at God or man
or friend or foe, we must remember that “no
power or influence can or ought to be maintained
[except] by persuasion, by long-suffering,
by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned;
. . . without hypocrisy, and without guile."
It has always been a wonderful testimony to
me of the Prophet Joseph’s greatness and
the greatness of all of our prophets, including
and especially the Savior of the world in
His magnificence, that in the midst of such
distress and difficulty they could remain
calm and patient, charitable, and forgiving—that
they could even talk that way, let alone live
that way.
But they could, and they did.
They remembered their covenants, they disciplined
themselves, and they knew that we must live
the gospel at all times, not just when it
is convenient and not just when things are
going well.
Indeed, they knew that the real test of our
faith and our Christian discipleship is when
things are not going smoothly.
That is when we get to see what we’re made
of and how strong our commitment to the gospel
really is.
Surely the classic example of this is that
in the most painful hours of the Crucifixion
the Savior could say, “Father, forgive them;
for they know not what they do."
That is a hard thing to ask when we’re hurting.
That is a hard thing to do when we’ve been
offended or are tired or stressed out or suffering
innocently.
But that is when Christian behavior may matter
the most.
Remember, “the powers of heaven cannot be
controlled nor handled [except] upon the principles
of righteousness.”
And do we need the powers of heaven with us
at such times!
As Joseph was taught in this prison-temple,
even in distress and sorrow we must “let
[our] bowels . . . be full of charity towards
all men . . . ; then [and only then] shall
[our] confidence wax strong in the presence
of God; and . . . the Holy Ghost shall be
[our] constant companion."
Remaining true to our Christian principles
is the only way divine influence can help
us.
The Spirit has a near-impossible task to get
through to a heart that is filled with hate
or anger or vengeance or self-pity.
Those are all antithetical to the Spirit of
the Lord.
On the other hand, the Spirit finds instant
access to a heart striving to be charitable
and forgiving, long-suffering and kind—principles
of true discipleship.
What a testimony that gospel principles are
to apply at all times and in all situations
and that if we strive to remain faithful,
the triumph of a Christian life can never
be vanquished, no matter how grim the circumstance
might be.
How I love the majesty of these elegant, celestial
teachings taught, ironically, in such a despicable
setting and time.
As a valedictory to the lessons from Liberty
Jail, I refer to the last verse of the last
section of these three we have been referring
to tonight.
In this final canonized statement of the Liberty
Jail experience, the Lord says to us through
His prophet, Joseph Smith:
Therefore, dearly beloved brethren [and sisters,
when we are in even the most troubling of
times], let us cheerfully do all things that
lie in our power; and then may we stand still,
with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation
of God, and for his arm to be revealed.
What a tremendously optimistic and faithful
concluding declaration to be issued from a
prison-temple!
When he wrote those lines, Joseph did not
know when he would be released or if he would
ever be released.
There was every indication that his enemies
were still planning to take his life.
Furthermore, his wife and children were alone,
frightened, often hungry, wondering how they
would fend for themselves without their husband
and father.
The Saints, too, were without homes and without
their prophet.
They were leaving Missouri, heading for Illinois,
but who knew what tragedies were awaiting
them there?
Surely, to say it again, it was the bleakest
and darkest of times.
Yet in these cold, lonely hours, Joseph says
let us do all we can and do it cheerfully.
And then we can justifiably turn to the Lord,
wait upon His mercy, and see His arm revealed
in our behalf.
What a magnificent attitude to maintain in
good times or bad, in sorrow or in joy!
My beloved young friends, as part of my concluding
testimony to you tonight, I wish to give you
a blessing.
It seems to me that as our apostolic witnesses
are taken into the world, we have two opportunities
and, indeed, perhaps obligations.
One is to testify and bear witness, as I have
been trying to do and will conclude in doing.
The other is to bless—as the ancient Apostles
did when the Savior invited them to do as
He had done, except that it would be in all
the world.
So for every one of you in attendance tonight—here
in this vast auditorium or in other locations
around the world—I bless every one of you,
each one of you in your individual circumstances,
as if my hands were on your head.
I offer that to you as honestly as I offer
my testimony.
I bless you in the name of the Lord that God
does love you, does hear your prayers, is
at your side, and will never leave you.
I bless the brethren that you—that we—will
be worthy of the priesthood we bear, that
we will live true to the discipleship to which
we have been called, in that great order,
the Holy Priesthood, after the Order of the
Son of God.
I bless you that we will really be like the
Master—that we will think more like He thinks,
that we will talk more like He talks, and
that we will do more of what He did.
I bless you brethren as you strive to be faithful
that you will have all the blessings of the
priesthood, many of which we have quoted tonight
from these very sections from the Doctrine
and Covenants.
I bless the sisters within this audience and
within the sound of my voice.
I would have you know how much we cherish
you, how much God cherishes you, and how much
the flag of faith has been flown by the sisters
of this Church from the beginning.
In every generation, it would seem, from the
beginning of time down to the present hour
and beyond, so often it has been the women
in our lives—our grandmothers, our mothers,
our wives, our daughters, our sisters, our
granddaughters—who have taken that torch
of faith and that banner of beautiful living
and have carried gospel principles wherever
it would take them, against whatever hardship,
into their own little equivalent of Liberty
Jails and difficult times.
Sisters, we love you and honor you and bless
you.
We ask that every righteous desire of your
heart, tonight and forever, be answered upon
your head and that you will walk away from
this devotional with the understanding and
the knowledge firmly in your heart as to how
much God and heaven and the presiding Brethren
of this Church love you and honor you.
I salute you young adults of this Church in
this great CES congregation and say that the
future is in your hands.
Those of us of my generation have to, in the
very near future, pass the baton to you.
God bless you to face those times with the
valor, the honesty, and the integrity we have
spoken of here tonight.
In closing, I testify that the Father and
the Son do live.
And I testify that They are close, perhaps
even closest via the Holy Spirit, when we
are experiencing difficult times.
I testify (and as our closing musical number,
“My Kindness Shall Not Depart from Thee,”
will testify, quoting the prophet Isaiah)
that heaven’s kindness will never depart
from you, regardless of what happens.
I testify that bad days come to an end, that
faith always triumphs, and that heavenly promises
are always kept.
I testify that God is our Father, that Jesus
is the Christ, that this is the true and living
gospel—found in this, the true and living
Church.
I testify that President Thomas S. Monson
is a prophet of God, our prophet for this
hour and this day.
I love him and sustain him as I know you do.
In the words of the Liberty Jail prison-temple
experience, my young friends, “Hold on thy
way.
. . . Fear not . . . , for God shall be with
you forever and ever."
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
