To improve your relationships, don't look to others to change and don't look to easy, step-by-step shortcut, sunshine formulas that do not strike at the roots. Look to yourself. Be honest with yourself first - the roots of your problems are spiritual. So also, therefore, are the root solutions. The key lies in your own heart. "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." (Proverbs 4:23)

You are called to be a light, not a judge. Build your own character and relationships on the light of this world. Build your home and family around him.

Relationship problems begin with the individual.

When Adam and his posterity were cut off from the presence of God for transgression, man's insecurity began. Whenever you or I sin against the light we've been given, we become estranged from God and his spirit. Further, we become split within and lose our wholeness and unity, our integrity. We feel insecure. 

I have a complete confidence in the aggregate wisdom of the ... people, if they are given and made to understand the facts. he wisdom of the mass is always greater than the wisdom of the individual or of the group. The few may be more subtle, more agile-minded, more resourceful; they may for a time push to the front and scamper ahead in the march; they may on occasion and for a time entice us down the wrong highway at the crossroads. 

But the great slow-moving, deliberate-thinking mass plods along over the years down the Divinely appointed way. Led astray, they slowly, cumberously swing back to the right road, no matter what the toil or the sacrifice may be, and when they start the return, they crush whatever lies in their path. So has humanity come up through the ages.

Everything that we do in the Church should point us as individuals and as families to temple ordinances. All of the ordinances of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ invite us to improve our lives and to come to the Savior.

Self-mastery is a challenge for every individual. Only we can control our appetites and passions. Self-mastery cannot be bought by money or fame. It is the ultimate test of our character. It requires climbing out of the deep valleys of our lives and scaling our own Mount Everests.

It was all part of God’s plan—the coming of Columbus, the colonization, wise men raised up to frame the Constitution, Joseph Smith prepared for his part in the restoration of the gospel, even the persecution which drove the Saints to the Rocky Mountains where the Church could continue to grow.

What does all this mean to you and me as individuals? It means that God, as our Father, made all these arrangements for you and me. We were part of his eternal scheme. And so it is not enough merely to observe these various anniversaries, but we must recommit and rededicate ourselves to uphold the convictions and the principles upon which the blessings we enjoy are predicated. We too must be prepared to sacrifice, where necessary, to keep our freedoms inviolate. My father used to say: “The true way to honor the past is to improve upon it.”

Therefore, we should love God more. We should serve our fellowmen better. We should keep all the commandments. We should be better prepared as parents to teach our children to pray and to walk uprightly before the Lord, and to assume their responsibilities. It would be tragic if for fear of the challenge involved the descendants of those who gave so liberally and sacrificed so much shrank from the duties of their day and time.

I suppose that we can divide the realm of inquiry into an intellectual field and a spiritual field. While we are in school we are seeking knowledge primarily in the intellectual field, which knowledge probably comes in most instances by reason and through the senses.

This is a tremendously vital and important thing—we encourage it and we urge it upon all people who desire to progress and have enlightenment and advancement in their lives.

But my suggestion is that we need to devote an increasingly large portion of our time in the actual pursuit of knowledge in the spiritual realm. When we deal with spiritual realities, we are not talking about gaining something by reason alone, we are not talking about conveying in some way knowledge to the mind or the spirit that is within us through the senses alone, but we are talking about revelation. We are talking about learning how to come to a knowledge of the things of God by attuning the spirit that we have to the eternal Spirit of God. Such a course, primarily, is the channel and way that revelation comes to an individual.

It does not concern me very much that somebody writes or evaluates or analyzes either a doctrinal or a Church problem of any sort when he does it from the standpoint of the intellect alone. No one questions that everything in the spiritual realm is in total and complete accord with the intellectual realities that we arrive at through reason, but when the two are compared and evaluated and weighed as to their relative merits, the things that are important are in the spiritual realm and not the intellectual. The things of God are known only by the Spirit of God.

It is true that you can reason about doctrinal matters, but you do not get religion into your life until it becomes a matter of personal experience—until you feel something in your soul, until there has been a change made in your heart, until you become a new creature of the Holy Ghost. Providentially, every member of the Church has the opportunity to do this because, in connection with baptism, every member of the Church has the hands of a legal administrator placed on his head, and he is given the promise, “Receive the Holy Ghost.” He thus obtains “the gift of the Holy Ghost” which, by definition, means that he then has the right to the constant companionship of this member of the Godhead, based upon his personal righteousness and faithfulness.

Job’s example should caution us not to assume that promises made to groups of people automatically mean prosperity for every individual in that group. Individuals often live out personal tragedies quite apart from the general prosperity and happiness of their larger communities. The book of Job tells of the plight of a particular individual, not an entire covenant people. This is significant.

If we look carefully at the Bible or the Book of Mormon or modern Church history, we can find many instances of good individuals who, like Job, suffer. Think of the martyred women and children who were burned before the eyes of Alma and Amulek. (See Alma 14:7–11.) Complicating the simplistic view of retribution expressed by Job’s comforters is the fact that sometimes “the Lord suffereth the righteous to be slain that his justice and judgment may come upon the wicked.” (Alma 60:13.)

Job’s example, then, corrects unwarranted assumptions based upon the true doctrine of retribution. It reminds us that the Lord’s plan of rewards and punishment does not guarantee that only the wicked will suffer, nor does it insulate the righteous from adversity or assure them material rewards in this life. Christ, though blameless, suffered more than has any other man. If the Lord, who was perfect, had to endure affliction, should we, who are imperfect, expect to be spared from it? The only reward for righteousness that the Lord holds out unfailingly to individuals is “peace in this world, and eternal life in the world to come.” (D&C 59:23.) But even this peace must be found amid persecutions, not in their absence. (See John 14:27; John 15:20.)

It seems to me that the rights of the state can be nothing but the regularizing of pre-existent personal rights. For my part, I cannot conceive a collective right that does not have its foundation in an individual right or presuppose it. Hence, to know whether the state is legitimately invested with a right, we must ask whether the individual has that right in virtue of his nature and in the absence of all government.

The second fundamental to effective home teaching is to know well the message you are to deliver in each home. And know that it is the particular message the Lord would have you give to the families and individuals you have been asked to serve.

Home teachers should have a purpose or goal in mind and should plan each visit to help meet that purpose. Before making their visits, home teaching partners should meet together to pray, to review instructions from their leaders, to go over the message they will take to the families, and to discuss any special needs.

Home teachers should present an important message that they have prepared or that they bring from priesthood leaders. We strongly recommend that the home teachers use the monthly message from the First Presidency printed in the Ensign and the Church's international magazines. The head of the family may also request a special message for family members.

And, as a vital part of that message, whenever possible, read together the scriptures with the families you home teach. Make this a regular part of your visit. Especially read together verses from the Book of Mormon that will fortify your message, always remembering the words of the Prophet Joseph, that "a man would get nearer to God by abiding by [the] precepts [of the Book of Mormon], than by any other book" (Book of Mormon Introduction). Your families need the continual strength of the Book of Mormon.