Robert W. Cantwell -Church Auditing Department Report, 2006
F. Michael Watson -Statistical Report, 2006
- Total Membership -12,868,606
- Full-Time Missionaries -53,164
Richard G. Scott -Using the Supernal Gift of Prayer
- Prayer is a supernal gift of our Father in Heaven to every soul. Think of it: the absolute Supreme Being; the most all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful personage, encourages you and me, as insignificant as we are, to converse with Him as our Father. Actually, because He knows how desperately we need His guidance, He commands, "Thou shalt pray vocally as well as in thy heart; yea, before the world as well as in secret, in public as well as in private."
- It matters not our circumstance, be we humble or arrogant, poor or rich, free or enslaved, learned or ignorant, loved or forsaken, we can address Him. We need no appointment. Our supplication can be brief or can occupy all the time needed. It can be an extended expression of love and gratitude or an urgent plea for help. He has created numberless cosmos and populated them with worlds, yet you and I can talk with Him personally, and He will ever answer.
- Don't worry about your clumsily expressed feelings. Just talk to your compassionate, understanding Father. You are His precious child whom He loves perfectly and wants to help. As you pray, recognize that Father in Heaven is near and He is listening.
- Never feel you are too unworthy to pray.
- "It is true that the answers to our prayers may not always come as direct and at the time, nor in the manner, we anticipate; but they do come, and at a time and in a manner best for the interests of him who offers the supplication." Be thankful that sometimes God lets you struggle for a long time before that answer comes. Your character will grow; your faith will increase. There is a relationship between those two: the greater your faith, the stronger your character; and increased character enhances your ability to exercise even greater faith.
- On occasion, the Lord will give you an answer before you ask. This can occur when you are unaware of a danger or may be doing the wrong thing, mistakenly trusting that it is correct.
- You are asked to look for an answer to your prayers. Obey the Master's counsel to "study it out in your mind." Often you will think of a solution; as you seek confirmation that your answer is right, help will come. It may be through your prayers, or as an impression of the Holy Ghost, and at times by the intervention of others.
- What do you do when you have prepared carefully, have prayed fervently, waited a reasonable time for a response, and still do not feel an answer? You may want to express thanks when that occurs, for it is an evidence of His trust. When you are living worthily and your choice is consistent with the Savior's teachings and you need to act, proceed with trust.
- When you are living righteously and are acting with trust, God will not let you proceed too far without a warning impression if you have made the wrong decision.
Jay E. Jensen -The Nourishing Power of Hymns
- Hymns are "an essential part of our church meetings. [They] invite the Spirit of the Lord." They often do this quicker than anything else we may do.
- "We get nearer to the Lord through music than perhaps through any other thing except prayer."
John B. Dickson -Commitment to the Lord
- Some individuals may not understand your standards as you follow righteous principles and keep your commitments, but they will truly respect and admire you and wish that they were more like you.
Jeffrey R. Holland -The Tongue of Angels
- It is by words ... [that] every being works when he works by faith."
- "The stroke of the whip maketh marks in the flesh: but the stroke of the tongue breaketh the bones."
- But if any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man.
- Then James make his point: "The tongue is [also] a little member. ... [But] behold, how great a [forest (Greek)] a little fire [can burn.]
- "Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be."
- "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man."
- The sin of verbal abuse knows no gender. Wives, what of the unbridled tongue in your mouth, of the power for good or ill in your words? How is it that such a lovely voice which by divine nature is so angelic, so close to the veil, so instinctively gentle and inherently kind could ever in a turn be so shrill, so biting, so acrid and untamed? A woman's words can be more piercing than any dagger ever forged, and they can drive the people they love to retreat beyond a barrier more distant than anyone in the beginning of that exchange could ever have imagined. Sisters, there is no place in that magnificent spirit of yours for acerbic or abrasive expression of any kind, including gossip or backbiting or catty remarks. Let it never be said of our home or our ward or our neighborhood that "the tongue is a fire, world of iniquity ... [burning] among our members."
- Be constructive in your comments to a child--always. Never tell them, even in whimsy, that they are fat or dumb or lazy or homely. You would never do that maliciously, but they remember and may struggle for years trying to forget--and to forgive. And try not to compare your children, even if you think you are skillful at it. You may say most positively that "Susan is pretty and Sandra is bright," but all Susan will remember is that she isn't bright and Sandra that she isn't pretty. Praise each child individually for what that child is, and help him or her escape our culture's obsession with comparing, competing, and never feeling we are "enough."
- In all of this, I suppose it goes without saying that negative speaking so often flows from negative thinking, including negative thinking about ourselves. We see our own faults, we speak--or at least think--critically of ourselves, and before long that is how we see everyone and everything. No sunshine, no roses, no promise of hope or happiness. Before long we and everybody around us are miserable.
- Speak hopefully, Speak encouragingly, including about yourself. Try not to complain and moan incessantly. As someone once said, "Even in the golden age of civilization someone undoubtedly grumbled that everything looked too yellow."
- No misfortune is so bad that whining about it won't make it worse.
- "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but [only] that which is good ... [and] edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
- "And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."
David A. Bednar -Ye Must Be Born Again
- Sporadic and shallow dipping in the doctrine of Christ and partial participation in His restored Church cannot produce the spiritual transformation that enables us to walk in a newness of life.
Thomas S. Monson -I Know That My Redeemer Lives!
- "Death is not what some people imagine. It is only like going into another room. In that other room we shall find ... that dear women and men and the sweet children we have loved and lost."
Until you next see these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!
-Sarnic Dirchi
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