Dwan J. Young

Primary General President (April 5, 1980 – April 4, 1988)

General Conference Addresses

• April 1988 General Conference
  • Teach Children the Gospel
    • “In this kind of an environment, we must take time to teach the children about the important things of life—about Heavenly Father, the Savior, and the Holy Ghost. We must teach them about repentance, baptism, honesty, and doing good to others.”
• October 1986 General Conference
  • The Light of Hope
    • “Like an early morning sunrise or a happy child’s face, we all want our lives to be touched with light—because darkness has no power against the light.”
    • “The Lord wants us to be filled with hope—not just because it points us to a brighter tomorrow, but because it changes the quality of our lives today. Hopeless may be the saddest word in our language. Despair is the enemy of our souls. It can paralyze us, halt our progress, and cause us to lose our way. But hope awakens us like a light shining in the darkness.”
    • “Hope means we really trust the Lord.”
• October 1985 General Conference
  • Draw Near to Him in Prayer
    • “Some people say they don’t know how to pray, but there are just four steps to take when you want to talk with your Father in Heaven:”
    • “The first one is to prepare. Remember who it is with whom you are speaking. We are to come to our Father with humility and meekness, ready to listen as well as to talk. We should always remember that this is our Eternal Father we are speaking with, and so, whenever possible, we kneel.”
    • “The second step is to be grateful. Remember to thank your Heavenly Father for his blessings. This is a very important step, not just because Heavenly father wants us to be grateful, but because it does so much for us.”
    • “The third step is to seek. Ask for his help, but ask with an open, searching spirit. Plead for guidance to meet the challenges you have been given.”
    • “The fourth and last step to prayer is to close. Remember to offer your prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. He is our emissary, our representative, to the Father. That is why we offer our prayers in his name. It is our acknowledgement of him as our Savior.”
• October 1984 General Conference
  • Keeping the Covenants We Make at Baptism
    • “Baptism is the beginning of a new life for each one of us, a life of purpose. The Lord is very clear as to what it means to keep his commandments, come into his fold, and be called his people.”
• October 1983 General Conference
  • Prepare to Teach His Children
    • “It is not enough to know; we must also act on knowledge with wisdom.”
    • “To have faith and understand that each of us is truly a child of God gives assurance to our sense of worth. These are the important things which he has asked us to teach our children.”
    • “We need to recommit ourselves to the daily tasks of living the gospel. We need to learn to pray by praying every day. We need to learn to hear the word of the Lord by studying the scriptures every day.”
    • “Preparing for gospel living really is very much like learning the piano after all. We cannot learn the notes from afar. Our fingers have to touch the keys time after time after time. Our teachers have to direct our learning experience. We have to give children opportunities to make decisions, to give love and service until they know how to do it on their own. We have to show them how to seek the Lord’s help in bearing grief and pain and seek his direction and his sustaining power.”

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