October 2002 General Conference Saturday Afternoon

Thomas S. Monson -The Sustaining of Church Officers

David B. Haight -Were There Not Ten Cleansed?

• Good people influence your life and help I molding your own personality and character and help you to mingle out in society and live the way that you should live. They help you carry on worthwhile enterprises, and they lift you onto a higher plane.

Robert D. Hales -Tithing: A Test of Faith with Eternal Blessings

• If a man has not faith enough to attend to these little things, he has not faith enough to save himself and his friends.
• Tithing develops and tests our faith.
• Tithing also teaches us to control our desires and passions for the things of this world. Payment of tithing encourages us to be honest in our dealings with our fellowmen. We learn to trust that what we have been given, through the blessings of the Lord and our own diligent efforts, is sufficient for our needs.
• Members who freely give a full 10 percent of their annual income receive all of the promised blessings of tithing, whether the amount is a widow's mite or a king's ransom.
• The Lord desires that all His children have the blessings of tithing. Too often we as parents do not teach and encourage our children to live this law because their contribution only amounts to a few cents. But without a testimony of tithing, they are vulnerable. In their teenage years, they become attracted to clothes, entertainment, and expensive possessions and risk losing the special protection that tithing provides.

Lance B. Wickman -But If Not

• Please know that grief is the natural by-product of love. One cannot selflessly love another person and not grieve at his suffering or eventual death. The only way to avoid the grief would be to not experience the love; and it is love that gives life its richness and meaning. Hence, what a grieving parent can expect to receive from the Lord in response to earnest supplication may not necessarily be an elimination of grief so much as a sweet reassurance that, whatever his or her circumstances, one's child is in the tender care of a loving Heavenly Father.
• We mortals quite naturally want to know the why. Yet, in pressing too earnestly for the answer, we may forget that morality was designed, in a manner of speaking, as the season of unanswered questions. Mortality has a different, more narrowly defined purpose: It is a proving ground, a probationary state, a time to walk by faith, a time to prepare to meet God.
• The Lord has not left us comfortless or without any answers. As to the healing of the sick, He has clearly said: "And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death; shall be healed." All too often we overlook the qualifying phrase "and is not appointed unto death" ("or," we might add, "unto sickness or handicap.") Please do not despair when fervent prayers have been offered and priesthood blessings performed and your loved one makes no improvement or even passes from mortality. Take comfort in the knowledge that you did everything you could. Such faith, fasting, and blessing could not be in vain! That your child did not recover in spite of all that was done in his behalf can and should be the basis for peace and reassurance to all who love him! The Lord--who inspires the blessings and who hears every earnest prayer--called him home nonetheless. All the experiences of prayer, fasting, and faith may well have been more for our benefit than for his.

Robert K. Dellenbach -Sacrifice Brings Forth the Blessings of Heaven

• Peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment.
• Our challenge is to unselfishly sacrifice all that we have been given.

Jeffrey R. Holland -Called to Serve

• A religion that does not include covenants of sacrifice cannot have the power to bring the promise of eternal life.

Russell M. Nelson -"Blessed Are the Peacemakers"

• :Scornful men bring a city into a snare: but wise men turn away wrath."
• "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."
• Scripture asks parents to teach children not to "fight and quarrel one with another, and serve the devil, who is the master of sin." Instead, we "teach them to love one another, and to serve one another."
• "But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses."
• Men really are brothers because God really is our Father.
• Scriptures are studded with stories of contention and combat. They strongly condemn wars of aggression but sustain obligations of citizens to defend their families and their freedoms.
• "The state is responsible for the civil control of its citizens or subjects, for their political welfare, and for the carrying forward of political policies, domestic and foreign. ... But the Church itself, as such, has no responsibility for these policies, [other] than urging its members fully to render ... loyalty to their country."
• Peace is possible.
• "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
• We should keep our principles on a high level and stand for the right.
• "Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yeah, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness."

Until you next read these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi