S. Dilworth Young

First Quorum of the Seventy (October 1, 1976 – September 30, 1978)
First Council of the Seventy (April 6, 1945 – October 1, 1976)

General Conference Addresses

  • October 1978 General Conference
    • “He Hath Showed Thee, O Man, What Is Good”
      • “We teach children they must not lie and steal, but do little to have them understand that adolescent rebellion is a flagrant breaking of the commandment to honor parents. To make the teaching effective, parents must live to deserve the honor children are commanded to give them. It is devastating to a child to learn that his father does not have integrity.”
  • October 1976 General Conference
    • “I Have Gained”
      • “The only limit to my personal service, which I myself originate, is my strength of body, facility of mind, and compassion of heart.”
  • April 1976 General Conference
    • The Still Small Voice
      • “There are many times as our youth grow when they will need to seek the Spirit to know how to act or what to do. When do all parents start to teach them? How? Home evenings? Yes, but far more important, when the need is on them, at the moment they need it. Then they understand that, if righteous, the voice of the Lord comes into their minds with a certain feeling in the breast, accompanied by a peace. They are receiving the word of the Lord to them.”
  • April 1975 General Conference
    • Scouters: Lead Them to a Mission
      • “One of your great obligations is to teach in the environment of the out-of-doors that every grove can be a sacred grove, every mountaintop a Sinai, where the boy may receive his revelations. Teach him how to know when these come.”
  • October 1974 General Conference
    • “For Thy Servant Heareth”
      • “We invite all people in the earth to put this witness to the test. Obtain a copy of the Book of Mormon; read it with a desire to know of its truth. If you do as one of the prophets said—ponder it in your heart, and then ask the Lord if it be true—the Lord will “manifest the truth of it” unto you by the power of the Holy Ghost. If you make that test, you will know that Joseph, the modern prophet, bearing a common surname—Smith—was indeed the prophet he proved to be. If you know that truth by the power of the Holy Ghost, you will not rest until you have come into the kingdom of God and into the rest of the great Jehovah, even the Lord Jesus Christ, and have joined with the Latter-day Saints.”
  • April 1974 General Conference
    • That the Scriptures Might Be Fulfilled
      • “There have been prophecies about men in these latter days of equal import. Given by pure inspiration to loyal and pure people, they are as prophetic as if they were made by the major prophets.”
  • October 1973 General Conference
    • The Witnesses of Christ
      • “And now in our day, our message is that once more the voice of God, the Eternal Father, has been heard. In this dispensation he has revealed himself in his own glory, his majesty, his person. With him also was revealed his Beloved Son Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, the Counseler and Wonderful of Isaiah; the Lord who met Moses on the mountain amid thunderings and lightnings; the Lord who stood transfigured with glory before Peter and James and John on the mount; who, having arisen on the third day, after suffering the most painful death ever devised by man, appeared to Mary, then to the eleven apostles, and later to upwards of 500; and who, after a cloud had received him out of their sight, sent an angel to tell them that he would return even as he had ascended into heaven.”
  • April 1973 General Conference
    • When I Read, I Am There
      • “There are many events in the life of the Lord in which I experience exquisite joy as I read of them, and there are others which bow me down with the tragedy of his suffering and of his sacrifice.”
  • October 1972 General Conference
  • April 1972 General Conference
    • Missionary Training Begins Early
      • “Give him responsibility, and teach him to forget himself in service to others. These, coupled with obedience, will help him to find true humility—all of which are vital factors for his reception of the Holy Ghost.”
      • “Just as surely as he walks, his manner, his attitude, his clothing, his complete self will be concrete evidence of what he is in his soul. He cannot conceal himself. Teach him, then, that these things reveal his spirit and show what he really is and that the success of his mission will be found in how his spirit speaks to the spirits of those he meets.”
      • “The Lord has said that to bring one soul to him brings joy and that to bring many souls gives proportionately greater joy. The prepared youth will find that joy on his mission. It will sustain him through his life.”
  • October 1971 General Conference
    • “By Love, Serve One Another”
      • “Each of us has the same general calling. Each of us has the same responsibility as a result of entering into the waters of baptism and making the covenant. The Lord will not hold us blameless if we allow organizational responsibility, or the lack of it, to interfere with this special calling.”
      • “There are many lonely people, people whose loneliness is hidden. We need to seek them out and relieve them. There are those who feel they are not accepted, who need to be built up in spirit and helped to find themselves. There are unmarried girls away from home who think no one cares. There are those troubled in spirit. It occurs to me that family home evening could occasionally be timed to bring in some of the lonely ones, some of the fearful, some of the downhearted, some of those troubled in spirit.”
      • “You may come nearer your heaven by the unobtrusive help you render those standing in need of comfort, succor, and attention. You won’t feel important to the organization, but the angels will be smiling as they record the hours of church service given to those whom the Lord loves and to whom he personally directed his own effort—the poor, the downtrodden, the needy, the ill, the discouraged.”
  • April 1971 General Conference
    • “When Thou Art Converted”
      • “Conversion brings strength, determination to defend the work of the Lord on earth and to expand it. This conversion comes when one receives the baptism of fire, the witness of the Holy Ghost.”
      • “Now with correlation established, we have returned to the original premise. Families are involved. Father, mother, and children unite in the grand and noble effort to seek out those who may be persuaded to listen. And with their effort will come the strengthening by which Peter was admonished to perform. As they seek those to whom they preach, they themselves will be strengthened and in their turn will convert and strengthen other brethren until the happy day that all men see the glory of the Son of God and witness the fulfillment of his word that the gospel should roll forth until it has filled all the earth.”
      • “I look at the First Presidency and the Twelve, who direct us. I see in their actions the result of their conversion, and witness to you that they stand in their places as did Peter, filled and inspired by the Holy Ghost. They are the leaders appointed by the Lord in this day. Let us follow their guidance and by our own conversion in our turn strengthen our brethren.”
  • April 1970 General Conference
    • Applying the Missionary Program
      • “The moral is clear, I suppose. Don’t leave your cow horses in the corral or hitch them to wagons doing other things if you want them to find and round up the cattle.”
  • October 1969 General Conference
    • The Work of the Seventy
      • “Every quorum of the priesthood is alert to the needs of its members. Children of these members may go on missions. They know that they will be supported. No worthy member in the stakes of North America when ready for a mission will be refused. In their prosperity the quorums can easily take up the slack for those unable to bear the complete cost of the mission. They will be helped by their united brethren, and the burden is light.”
      • “By our merely living the principles of the gospel, people cannot help seeing the light shining on the hilltop, and seeing will want to partake of the good fruit of the gospel that it illuminates.”
  • April 1969 General Conference
    • A Wayfaring Man Need Not Err
      • “An earthly father shows his love for his children by giving them all the earthly advantage within his power. How much greater is the love of the Christ, who becomes our Father by our acceptance of his offer to us not only of earthly development but also of salvation, exaltation, and eternal lives. In the gospel of Christ he offers us the opportunity to become not just gazers into the wonders of the heavens, but creators of them. We sing unto heaven paeans of joy for our opportunity.”
      • “A vital requirement, often overlooked, is that a man be sealed in eternal marriage to a woman who has the same desire as does he to be exalted.”
      • “You and I will not win the mansions of our Father by waiting until after we leave this life, but rather each degree of glory is anchored to our actions on the earth.”
      • “When will he reach the goal? Not in this life, although he may have a foretaste of its magnitude in this life. But he lays the foundation of character and love in this life upon which his eternal being is constructed. He is watched by the angels. His record of accomplishment toward the goal is recorded, and his reward is sure.”
  • October 1968 General Conference
    • The Work of the Seventy
      • “They cultivate the honest in heart; they serve as home teachers to part-member families; they fellowship new members, acting as their home teachers. The seventies group in the ward is now the fundamental unit to assist the stake missionary program.”
  • April 1968 General Conference
    • The Seventies as Missionaries
      • “But most of all we have the witness which enters into the heart of each of us, the living testimony given by the power of the Holy Ghost. Let us not fail to bear that witness. And, too, let us not fail to make it possible for the witness to be borne through the warming love of friendship.”
  • April 1967 General Conference
    • The Principle of Obedience
      • “They do more than that, for at the bidding of the newly sustained president—or bishop, as the case may be—they respond to his call and serve faithfully. These may not have been assured that the call came from the Lord, but they are sure that the call came from the servant of the Lord and, for reasons known to themselves, believe that their personal call to service by this new servant came from the Lord. And so it will ever be.”
  • October 1966 General Conference
    • Obedience—the First Law of Heaven
      • “We have learned that in order to obey the Lord we must obey his servants. Each presiding officer is to be obeyed in righteousness, in the field of his presidency. And so it is clear that we obey the President of the Church, the president of the stake, the bishop of the ward, and president of the quorum each in his field of service. And finally, forgotten by many as a requirement of heaven, is the necessity of obedience to our parents.”
      • “Too many of our children do not realize that obedience to parents is a principle of the gospel.”
      • “Let children learn this law of God as a commandment to be obeyed. Let us also teach them that this is the great restoration of the gospel promised by ancient prophets. Let us teach them that obedience to their parents, and to those who preside over them, from the quorum leader to the president of the Church, is the foundation of their future success in this world and their exaltation in the world to come.”
  • April 1965 General Conference
    • The Book of Mormon: Its Own Silent Witness
      • “The young missionaries bear their solemn witness; but as they do it, they do not stand alone, nor does a listening person need to pin his hopes on their word alone. In their hands as they speak is the Book of Mormon which bears its own witness.”
      • “Anyone who reads it with sincere purpose and genuine desire to know the truth will have it borne into his soul that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the Creator and Redeemer of the world. He will also know that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of the Living God, called by the Lord as the human agent for the restoration of the gospel in the last days. It will be a witness to a work so marvelous that wonder and joy will spring into the hearts of men as they respond to its message and its testimony.”
  • October 1963 General Conference
    • Determination to Serve Him
      • “That is the word, and that is what we need today — determination — voluntary determination to serve him at all hazards. This is the lost word which is not lost, but which many of us have not known.”
  • April 1963 General Conference
    • Ye Have Heard My Voice
      • “The thing that impresses me about this is, and I have never thought of it before, when I read a verse in the Doctrine and Covenants I am hearing the voice of the Lord as well as reading his words, if I hear by the Spirit.”
      • “Now I have heard it said many times by men that they have often asked the Lord for a special testimony and oftentimes haven’t had it. They seem to want to hear the voice of the Lord. I confess I have often wanted to hear the voice of the Lord, without knowing that all these years I have been hearing it with deaf ears. This woke me up.”
  • April 1962 General Conference
    • Parents Are Responsible for Their Children
      • “Now, however, the test is directed at the children. They are being deceived into believing that they can think and act with maturity long before they are mature. In this they are much deceived, and rebellious against parental restraint. They are ripe fruit for the plucking.”
      • “Today our test is with our families and the false ideals of the day. We need not succumb to it. Parents can protect their children if they will, but it takes time and effort; but parents are still the most potent and sure protection and defense, provided they are righteous parents, alert and informed.”
      • “I think the Lord draws sharp lines and declares that whatever leads to evil is evil. It is the evil in us which leads us to want to compromise a little and to be earthy as well as earthly.”
      • “If I as a holder of the priesthood of the Son of God attempt to compromise by accepting some of the gray evils, saying they will do no harm because I am an adult and can control them, I have betrayed his generation which indeed must be taught to draw the sharp line if we are to survive.”
  • October 1961 General Conference
    • When the Spirit Speaks
      • “I used to wonder why Nephi didn’t say “hear his words.” Now I know that one doesn’t hear them with his ears, as Brother Romney said. But into a person’s mind there come words. These seem to be his own words, but with the Spirit upon him, are not his words. With these words comes a feeling. One actually feels the words, just as Nephi said. These brothers had lost that feeling, and therefore could not detect words given by the Spirit as apart from their own thoughts.”
      • “Anybody who cannot learn to hear by feeling will not go very far in the Church, in my humble opinion, for I believe that to be the way the majority of us know if these things are true.”
      • “I would ask only one thing, that each of us as we leave this conference ask ourselves if during any of these meetings, we felt in our hearts the whispering, and had the words form into our minds as the whispering became feeling, and the message came clearly into our minds that the speaker has spoken truly. “That is true doctrine. He is speaking truth to us,” it tries to say.”
  • April 1961 General Conference
    • Young People Away from Home
      • “It seems to me that we can do no better work for those of our young folk who are away from home, than to take this simple expedient of picking up a telephone and calling the bishop, and asking him to watch out for our children. No greater work could be done to safeguard them. You would be surprised at the great number who are immediately brought into activity in the wards to which they go.”
  • April 1960 General Conference
    • Responsibility to Teach the Gospel
      • “These things consistently carried out by parents in the home, with others which they will think of as problems arise, will be the greatest factors that can be given in our day to preserve our children in faith.”
  • October 1959 General Conference
    • Concern for Our Children
      • “I would like to add that we should also teach children ethical living. I believe that the tendency of the times and the forces of evil around us are so great that unless we unite on our objectives, and obtain a program to which we can expose our children and have them unite with us, we can easily fail in this great project of keeping our children in the Church. Unity of ideals and purposes is hard to achieve.”
      • “I expressed myself quite vehemently on the subject and said I thought it was wicked, really, for a parent either to set an example of breaking or allow a child to break the law—not because of that particular law being either good or bad,—but because the tendency to break law would be implanted in that child, and perhaps sometime he would choose to flaunt a law more serious and important.”
      • “Now, fathers must make decisions. Mothers must make decisions. But so must sons and daughters. If the sons and daughters do not make correct decisions, they are more at fault than their fathers and mothers, if their parents have taught them what is right. A most important purpose of this Church is to bring up children in righteousness and to keep parents righteous also.”
  • April 1959 General Conference
    • Heed the Whisperings of the Spirit
      • “We have to find out the technique by which the Spirit whispers in our hearts. We have to learn to hear it and to understand it and to know when we have it, and that sometimes takes a long time.”
  • October 1958 General Conference
    • Teach Your Children
      • “If I had a loaded gun in my closet, and ignored the possibility of my children using it, I would be a derelict parent. And if I said, in addition to that, “Why doesn’t the Church do something about it?” I would be thought a fool, and justly, too. If I as a father knew of a condition which, though it might not be able to kill the body as a gun might, could slay my son’s spirit eternally, and did nothing to change it, to the extent that I remained passive, the sin would be upon my head. Then if I should say, in addition to that, “I cannot understand why the Church doesn’t do something about it,” I would be vain, for so far as my family is concerned I am the Church. It is my responsibility to protect my family and not depend upon anyone else to do it. I may ask for help from Church members and others, but I am the primary protector.”
  • April 1958 General Conference
    • Teaching Children
      • “The family is probably the greatest element in our lives today. Without the family we shall not attain exaltation, as I understand exaltation to be. And of course without children the family would not be very much.”
      • “Teach youth to play fair and square, to play hard and to win modestly, to lose gracefully, but, above all things, protect them from evil men until they are old enough to protect themselves. That is a vital thing.”
      • “Finally, keep always in mind the ultimate goal, exaltation in the presence of the Father and the Son. Do nothing to cloud this goal in the minds of children, my brethren. Do everything to keep its guiding light brightly shining.”
  • April 1957 General Conference
    • The First Vision
      • “I cannot remember the time when I have not heard the story, quoted by Brother Bennion, concerning the coming of the Father and the Son to the Prophet Joseph Smith. I am convinced as I grow older and become proportionately wiser that if boys and girls in our Church could keep that story uppermost in their hearts, believing it, having a testimony of it, much of the ills of our youth which President Richards so graphically portrayed this morning would not be.”
  • October 1956 General Conference
    • Teach By Example
      • “It is the burden of the Church, if any such thing can be a burden, to testify of things “seen and heard.” How are we to teach children? They do not know all that an adult should know, but they should have no doubt as to where adults stand.”
      • “Children are not well taught by just being told.”
      • “Children are not horses, or even like horses, and we cannot teach them by fear because that has a bad effect upon them, but teach them we can and teach them we must.”
      • “One does not learn by the words spoken, but rather by the attitude and spirit in what they are spoken. One does not always learn by action, but by the happiness with which the action is performed.”
      • “The point is, by the time the child is twenty, he should be so companionable with his father that he can talk to him about anything he wants to. The way to do it is to be companionable at every age of his life, from the beginning. That is why it is important to learn how to handle a baby, fathers, and do all the things that a baby requires.”
      • “No parent in this Church is doing his duty unless he makes the Sabbath what it should be. It should be a happy day together, with the whole family participating.”
  • April 1956 General Conference
    • The First Vision
      • “You see, it could not very well be that the Father and the Son could come and reveal themselves to a boy and have the world believe that boy unless the third member of the Grand Presidency of Heaven also played his part and bore witness to our souls with such sureness we could not fail to accept the fact that what he said was true. It was the still, small voice, not loud, not contentious. We just knew.”
  • October 1955 General Conference
    • A Testimony for the Children
      • “The power to bear testimony, the ability and the feeling of being able to say that one knows that Jesus is the Christ and that the restoration of the gospel has come through the hands of Joseph Smith, comes entirely by the power of the Holy Ghost. That power does not come through any education or through any special preparation on the part of the recipient in earthly things, but rather it whispers into the heart of the one who wants to know, and once whispered and once understood, that person may stand and say as surely as I or anyone else may stand and say it, that he knows that Jesus is the Christ. For the Spirit bears the witness, and it comes to everyone that in truth desires it.”
      • “One of the most noble witnesses and one of the most assuring and convincing witnesses is the lives of your own parents. Watch them live, watch how the gospel touches their hearts and makes them gentle and kind. That is the surest evidence that it is a power beyond any earthly conception—its effect upon the lives of your own folk and those you see around you who are trying to work righteousness.”
      • “One more thing—you will have evidence of the whispering of the Spirit. You will hear testimony borne by others that there sits on this stand one who is not only the President of the Church but who is the Prophet of the Living God. That evidence can be borne into your hearts no matter how young you are, that the Lord has seen to it that his power has been carried forward from the days of Joseph Smith.”
  • April 1955 General Conference
    • Joys of Childhood
      • “Exposing children, small children particularly, to the constant barrage of situations which can affect their outlook on the matters on which they must make decisions is a subtle way to bring them into evil later. I suspect, it is no different with large children. Nowadays the home is one place where the child meets this test.”
      • “Do not allow your children to have in their hands things which will keep them from learning the art of reading, and which in addition will also give them evil from pictures which you have not censored yourselves.”
  • October 1954 General Conference
    • Responsibilities of Teachers
      • “I should like to call to your attention the fact that the best teaching is subtle.”
      • “Do you scoutmasters realize that every time you pass a grove of trees in your hiking programs and in your camping out, that it is possible for your boys to duplicate in a measure the experience of the Prophet Joseph? What a lovely thing it would be if a scoutmaster could subtly teach a boy that whenever he came into a grove or passed a grove, if he cared to go in there and kneel down and offer a prayer to his Father, perhaps the Father would hear the prayer. He might not show Himself to him, but he would reveal Himself to him by a method which we have been told is sure, by the Holy Ghost.”
  • April 1954 General Conference
    • Be Engaged in a Good Cause
      • “We have been a long time learning how to use presiding authority. Officers have been appointed by the hundreds and have not known what to do with their appointments. I believe there is, and has been going on for some time, a new awakening in the hearts of the men who handle the great organization of the priesthood. They are learning how to preside and to conduct their affairs so that the body of the priesthood is beginning to take its place.”
      • “In this Church, men have been taught to wait until they are appointed to do something; men normally do not volunteer to hold office or perform service. That is a traditional method. So if you want these men to work, brethren, you must go after them, you must meet them, you must visit them, and you must make them feel necessary and wanted. Then watch them respond.”
  • October 1953 General Conference
    • Fulfill Your Responsibilities
      • “Now, brethren, statistically you have about fifty men in your quorums available for assignment. You young elders’ presidencies, you young men who have enthusiasm but not yet much practice in the business of doing Church work, if you are to lead fifty men and can lead them into righteousness, if you do it successfully, the Lord will enlarge you and will bring upon you greater leadership, until finally you will find place among those to whom he referred when he spoke to Abraham as being among those who would become his leaders.”
      • “Let us not, therefore, brethren, fall down in that responsibility. Let us not worry, brethren of the quorums about the men whom the bishops call. Those men are taken care of, they have something to do. But let us not rest until the men who do not have exact responsibility are given such responsibility through quorum activity. Then we shall grow and then we shall flourish upon the mountain. Great will be our joy, for we shall sing praises and hosannas to the most high God, as we see his great work coming to fruition.”
  • April 1953 General Conference
    • Building up the Missions
      • “The actual builders of the characters of your children are not the organizations, but you parents: you can build into your children whatever you want to. Do you want your children to become missionary-minded? Do you want them to believe they ought to be missionaries when they grow up? Then have them do things now which will bring to their minds the work of our missionary system.”
  • October 1952 General Conference
    • A Testimony
      • “I am a member of the Church. I have been all my life. I accept its teachings. I am convinced in my own soul that I am a child of our Father in heaven, and that the Lord Jesus Christ is the author of my salvation, and that he lives.”
  • April 1952 General Conference
    • To Obey Is Better than Sacrifice
      • “I recognize the fact that this Church is a Church of revealed principle. From the Lord come the revelations which establish the principles. I should like to bear my witness that there must be an interpreter for the Church of those principles. If we had no revelator to do it for us, each man and each woman would interpret, explain, and take into his own life only that portion of each principle which he would wish for himself, and this people would be disunited and divergent in its views. I do thank my Lord that there sits on this stand a Prophet of the Lord, who, with his Counselors and the Twelve, are empowered to tell us how as a united body we are to explain and entertain the principles.”
      • “The matter of having a principle explained is one thing, teaching its application is another thing, but getting obedience to it is a third thing.”
      • “I have observed that never do the prophetic leaders tell the people what they must do but rather advise them what it is wise and expedient to do.”
      • “As we come to crisis after crisis, as the events of the world make changes necessary in policy, the leaders will speak, and those who are wise will give unquestioning obedience. I did not say unintelligent obedience. I said unquestioning obedience.”
  • October 1951 General Conference
    • Mission to the Indians
      • “When the Prophet read the revelation, I do not know what was stirred up in his mind, but I know what he did. He read that the gospel had to be taken to the remnants of the House of Israel in this land. One of the first acts that he performed was to begin this work. He sent Oliver Cowdery, Parley P. Pratt, Ziba Peterson, and Peter Whitmer, Jr., on a mission to the Indian people.”
      • “It was a tough, long haul they had in winter, on foot, through the wilderness from where they were at that time to the borders of Missouri, but the hazards of the journey did not stop them. What did they accomplish? Perhaps not much. They were able to talk to an Indian chief; they made the tribe quite excited; and then the Indian agent and the ministers of the surrounding territory descended upon them and drove them out. But one thing they did do from which we can take a lesson. They tried to fulfil a prophecy. It becomes our duty now to continue and try again to fulfill that prophecy; a prophecy that the gospel would go in the last days to these people until the time that they would take their proper place in the establishment of the Center Place and of Zion itself.
  • April 1950 General Conference
    • Supporting Missionaries
      • “I have learned from experience that I might speak to you of myself, but I cannot instruct or edify you or myself without the Spirit of the Lord.”
      • “Not only must I love and enjoy the country in which I labor, but I must also learn to love and enjoy the people. I cannot have one feeling of ill-will toward any man in the New England Mission if I am to be a missionary in that mission.”
      • “”The Spirit whispers peace.” That boy has found the key to work in this Church. If he can keep it all of his life, he will be a power for good wherever he goes.”
      • “When you have a problem facing you, and you can pray to the Lord God about it, and the comforting influence of the Holy Spirit comes to you, and the Spirit whispers peace, then you know that you are on the right track. May all missionaries find quickly that Spirit that whispers peace.”
  • April 1949 General Conference
    • Report from New England
      • “The business of getting a testimony is a growth which must be taken step by step, and it comes rapidly or slowly according to how the person who takes those steps, moves.”
  • April 1948 General Conference
    • Without Purse or Scrip
      • “Any boy who goes into the mission field with an idea that he is going to get personal development out of it will fail. If he goes into the mission field forgetting himself, with only the idea that he is going to do something for the people of the world, that his message is the most sacred trust that he can possibly have, he cannot fail.”
  • April 1947 General Conference
    • Being Called to the Work
      • “The other day in the Tooele Stake a sister came to me and said that a certain member of the stake wanted to go on a mission but that the family concerned was sitting back waiting for the inspiration of the Lord to tell the bishop of this particular person’s desire. Well, I think the Lord will eventually inspire the bishop to feel that way about it, but it would be a lot easier if the person concerned would go to the bishop and express his desires, thereby putting himself in line with what these brethren did over a hundred years ago.”
      • “What does the Lord want in our behalf? He wants us to serve him and do all things which his servants, the leaders of the Church, ask.”
  • October 1946 General Conference
    • The Life of a Mission President
      • “Anyone who thinks that a mission is a vacation at the expense of the Church for three years would certainly have his eyes opened if he followed the president around for two or three weeks. You mission presidents have my profound admiration.”
  • April 1946 General Conference
    • Going on a Mission
      • “I like that, and I say to you young men you can have the same experience if you want it. All you have to do is to want it badly enough because you can’t “see-saw” around with it; either it is so or it is not so. If you make up your minds it is so and ask the Lord to give you a testimony, if you ask in sincerity and truth, you will receive that testimony. Those men obeyed the prophet of God. You may obey the present-day prophet of God, and you may get the same thrill and happiness out of doing it. He needs courage to go on, the same as you do, and the men who have been sustained by this conference as prophets, seers, and revelators—sixteen in number—need it also. They have their discouraging moments, but the thing that gives them courage to go on is your faithfulness.”
      • “Have you ever heard of Zera Pulsipher? Many of you have not; some of you may have. As I read in the History of the Church, I learn about many of the great ones who have risen and whose biographies have been written, but if one reads in the books carefully, he will see that a large proportion first heard the gospel through Zera Pulsipher, and, as likely as not, he was the one who baptized them. His name is mentioned repeatedly in the histories as a man who was out preaching the gospel. Do you know anything about him? Nobody does. It was not his job to become the president of the Church; it was not his prerogative to preside over any of the great councils of the Church, but as a young man, about twenty-two years of age, hearing the Prophet’s voice, he obeyed and went out spreading the glad tidings to the children of men. Because he believed it, because he was sincere in it, the Lord blessed him, and he was the instrument by which many great ones came into the Church.”
      • “I have talked to any number of young men lately who want to accept the call. Wilford Woodruff wanted to accept. He wanted to join Zion’s Camp; he was warned that he might die, that he would probably lose his life. He said: “I don’t care. I want to go anyhow.” Lorenzo Snow wanted to go on a mission. The moment he was baptized and confirmed and had the Aaronic Priesthood conferred upon him, he packed his grip and went on foot to the missionaries, you’ve got to want to go.”
      • “In the name of the Living God I’ll take his word and with his power on my shoulders I’ll go to the whole earth, wherever I am sent, and bear witness to the world that the gospel has been restored and that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and that President George Albert Smith is a prophet, and that this Church is the true kingdom of God.”
  • October 1945 General Conference
    • Who Will Preach It?
      • “You will soon be faced with a decision— a most important one, I can assure you, for the gospel of the kingdom must be preached in all the world. And who will preach it? You, my brethren of the returning hosts, you will preach it.”
      • “Can you believe that the God who sustained you as you came into the battle, can supply you with your needs if you go about his business? Do you think that you will lose time, or college, or money, or business, if you place yourselves in his service for a year or two or three?”
      • “I think I know the timbre and the temper of the youth of Zion, and when the question is asked: “Will you go forth now to build up Zion?” the affirmative roar of assent will be so great that the earth will tremble at its power and beauty. And in power you will teach salvation to the world—and in giving your lives to this service you will cleanse the world from its bath of blood and justify the sacrifice to liberty of your fallen comrades.”
  • April 1945 General Conference
    • A New Call
      • “Perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but when I reached home last night, I received a call from a very close friend who said, “Well, that’s fine for you, but what will the poor Boy Scouts do?” I can assure you that there are dozens of professional men in scouting who are Latter-day Saints, humble, honest, upright men who could step into the position I hold and do a much better job than I am doing or have done, so you need not fear, my friends of the Ogden area. When the time comes for me to step down from that position and take another, there will rise up, at the hands of those who elect him, one who will do a better job than I, and one with whom you will be satisfied, I am sure.”

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