“Finding Answers,” New Era, Nov. 2009, 12–15

Finding Answers

If you listen to general conference, you can often find answers to the questions that concern you.

How can I recognize the promptings of the Spirit?

Impressions of the Spirit can come in response to urgent prayer or unsolicited when needed. Sometimes the Lord reveals truth to you when you are not actively seeking it, such as when you are in danger and do not know it. However, the Lord will not force you to learn. You must exercise your agency to authorize the Spirit to teach you. As you make this a practice in your life, you will be more perceptive to the feelings that come with spiritual guidance. …

The inspiring influence of the Holy Spirit can be overcome or masked by strong emotions, such as anger, hate, passion, fear, or pride. When such influences are present, it is like trying to savor the delicate flavor of a grape while eating a jalapeño pepper. Both flavors are present, but one completely overpowers the other. In like manner, strong emotions overcome the delicate promptings of the Holy Spirit.

Elder Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

How can I help improve the feeling in my home?

Why should I serve a full-time mission?

The Savior, through His prophet today, President Thomas S. Monson, has renewed the call as he declared:

“Our keynote was sounded by our Lord and our Savior, who stands at the head of the great army of missionaries worldwide. After His Resurrection, He appeared to His 11 disciples. He could have given them any counsel, any expression, any warning that He chose to give. But what did He say? It’s recorded in Matthew 28:18–20. He said as follows: …

“‘Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

“‘Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.’”

President Monson continued:

“What a promise! If we respond affirmatively to that sacred call, that binding authority, ‘I will be with you alway, even unto the end of the world.’ I can’t think of a greater promise” (“The Five M’s of Missionary Work,” New Era, Mar. 2007, 42).

Elder Brent H. Nielsen of the Seventy

How can I keep from being discouraged?

How can I believe God loves me? I don’t feel worthy of His love.

How should I react to the bad economic times we are in?

Where can I get help in coping with peer pressure?

Why is education so important?

How can I get answers to my prayers?

How can I receive personal revelation?

Sometimes I doubt my testimony. How can I stay strong?

How can I know I’m making the right decisions?

How can I know the Book of Mormon is true?

For 179 years this book has been examined and attacked, denied and deconstructed, targeted and torn apart like perhaps no other book in modern religious history—perhaps like no other book in any religious history. And still it stands. Failed theories about its origins have been born and parroted and have died—from Ethan Smith to Solomon Spaulding to deranged paranoid to cunning genius. None of these frankly pathetic answers for this book has ever withstood examination because there is no other answer than the one Joseph gave as its young unlearned translator. In this I stand with my own great-grandfather, who said simply enough, “No wicked man could write such a book as this; and no good man would write it, unless it were true and he were commanded of God to do so.” …

… Now, I did not sail with the brother of Jared in crossing an ocean, and settling in a new world. I did not hear King Benjamin speak his angelically delivered sermon. I did not proselyte with Alma and Amulek nor witness the fiery death of innocent believers. I was not among the Nephite crowd who touched the wounds of the resurrected Lord, nor did I weep with Mormon and Moroni over the destruction of an entire civilization. But my testimony of this record and the peace it brings to the human heart is as binding and unequivocal as was theirs. Like them, “[I] give [my name] unto the world, to witness unto the world that which [I] have seen.” And like them, “[I] lie not, God bearing witness of it.”

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles