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.

Why is the atonement so important to your marriage? No relationship is so demanding as marriage. To properly fulfill the divine purpose of marriage, that of bringing spirits into the world and raising them in the nurture of the Lord, we require the upmost in self-discipline, self-sacrifice, courage, love, humility, and integrity (self-unity). Again, Christ taught, "I am the way." He was the perfect example of these character traits and instructs us to follow in his footsteps. In addition, the very nature of the process of receiving the divine gift of the atonement develops these character traits.

It is significant that there is no permanent marriage outside the gospel of Jesus Christ. Why is an eternal marriage found only in the highest degree of the celestial kingdom? I believe it is because a truly successful marriage, which can sustain any storm, must be a three-way divine partnership. The Savior and his atonement are the foundation of this harmonious partnership, this beautiful marriage. He is the Savior of the family relationship as well as the individual soul.

So it is with our relations with others. Again, he is "the way." We forgive because he forgave. We love him because he first loved us.

Sisters, in His sacrament, the Lord gives us glimpses of ourselves. And in self-examination we are most blessed when we see ourselves as we are seen by Him and know ourselves as we are known by Him, then, knowledge of the Savior and self-knowledge increase together. In this world, we do not really grasp who we are until we know whose we are. And week after week the Master invites us to take upon us His name so that we will never forget whose we are. We are His. Isaiah asks, "Can a woman forget her nursing child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?" Sadly, the answer is: yes. She may forget. But the Lord says, "I will not forget you. I have graven you on the palms of my hands" (Isaiah 49:15). He will never forget us nor our real identity. It is in this spirit that President Harold B. Lee said again and again, "Begin now to show an increased self-respect and reverence for the temple of God: your human body wherein dwells a heavenly spirit" (Harold B. Lee, Stand Ye in Holy Places, p.15). Over and over he repeated: "Be loyal to the royal within you." President David O. McKay used to say to his teenage daughters and granddaughters, not "What an awkward thing you are!" but, "What a queen you are becoming!"

This man (Elder Haight), shortly before, after a heart attack, had been clinging to life, unconscious in a hospital, and was given a repeated dream-vision of Jesus' last week on earth. Now, gratefully, we listened to him and he spoke in a way that left us breathless. He said what he had said in General Conference: "I heard no voices but was conscious of being in a Holy Presence and atmosphere. The first scene was of the Savior and his apostles in the upper chamber on the eve of betrayal. Following the Passover supper he instructed and prepared the sacrament for his dearest friends as a remembrance of his coming sacrifice. It was so impressively portrayed to me—the overwhelming love of the Savior for each. I witnessed his thoughtful concern for significant details: the washing of the dusty feet of each apostle; his breaking and blessing of the loaf of dark bread and blessing of the wine; and then his dreadful disclosure that one would betray him. Then followed the Savior's solemn discourse when he said to the eleven: 'These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.'" (Conference Report, October 1989).

Then Elder Haight turned to me and said, "We do not appreciate the sacrament enough. It happened! It is real! It is our access to the Savior." And we could read the same message in Ruby's eyes. One does not forget such a moment nor the resolve to search deeper.

Because the Savior knows all things (see 1 Ne. 9:6; Abr. 3:19), He can give us greater light and understanding than is possible to attain on our own (see Moro. 7:15–18; D&C 88:6–13; John 1:9). The Savior’s words can enlarge our souls, expand our minds, and enlighten our understanding (see Alma 32:28, 34). What could be more enlightening than to be firm, steadfast, and free?

His life asked and answered the question “Do you believe God speaks to man?” In all else that he accomplished in his brief 38 and a half years, Joseph left us above all else the resolute legacy of divine revelation—not a single, isolated revelation without evidence or consequence, and not “a mild sort of inspiration seeping into the minds of all good people” everywhere, but specific, documented, ongoing directions from God. As a good friend and faithful LDS scholar has succinctly put it, “At a time when the origins of Christianity were under assault by the forces of Enlightenment rationality, Joseph Smith [unequivocally and singlehandedly] returned modern Christianity to its origins in revelation.”

We do “thank thee, O God, for a prophet to guide us in these latter days,” because many of those days will be windblown and tempest-tossed. We give thanks for that morning in the spring of 1820 when the Father and the Son appeared in glory to a 14-year-old boy. We give thanks for that morning when Peter, James, and John came to restore the keys of the holy priesthood and all the offices in it. And in our generation we give thanks for the morning of September 30, 1961, 43 years ago this weekend, when (then) Elder Gordon B. Hinckley was called to the apostleship, the 75th man in this dispensation to be so named. And so it goes down to a day such as this, and so it will go continually until the Savior comes.

In a world of unrest and fear, political turmoil and moral drift, I testify that Jesus is the Christ—that He is the living Bread and living Water—still, yet, and always the great Shield of safety in our lives, the mighty Stone of Israel, the Anchor of this His living Church. I testify of His prophets, seers, and revelators, who constitute the ongoing foundation of that Church and bear witness that such offices and such oracles are at work now, under the guidance of the Savior of us all, in and for our very needful day. Of these truths and of the divinity of this work I bear witness. Of them I am a witness, in the sacred name of Jesus Christ, amen.

So why should we bear frequent and powerful testimony of Christ as Savior, as Redeemer, as Atoning Lamb of God? Because doing so invites and becomes part of the divine power of testimony borne by God the Father and by the Holy Ghost, a testimony borne on wings of fire to the very hearts of investigators. Such a divine testimony of Christ is the rock upon which every new convert must build. Only this testimony of the atoning Anointed, Victorious One will prevail against the gates of hell. So saith the Son of God Himself.

So why should we bear frequent and powerful testimony of Christ as Savior, as Redeemer, as Atoning Lamb of God? Because doing so invites and becomes part of the divine power of testimony borne by God the Father and by the Holy Ghost, a testimony borne on wings of fire to the very hearts of investigators. Such a divine testimony of Christ is the rock upon which every new convert must build. Only this testimony of the atoning Anointed, Victorious One will prevail against the gates of hell. So saith the Son of God Himself.

My dear brothers and sisters, when pain, tests, and trials come in life, draw near to the Savior. “Wait upon the Lord, … look for him” (Isa. 8:17; 2 Ne. 18:17). “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint” (Isa. 40:31). Healing comes in the Lord’s time and the Lord’s way; be patient.

Our Savior waits for us to come to Him through our scripture study, pondering, and prayer to our Heavenly Father. Great blessings and lessons come from overcoming adversity. As we are strengthened and healed, we can then lift and strengthen others with our faith. May we be instruments in the Lord’s hands in blessing the lives of those in pain. I give you my testimony that God lives and that Jesus is the Christ and that He waits for us to come to Him to give us counsel and compassionate caring.

The greater and more intense suffering of the Lord was not physical—not the trial nor the mocking, not the beating or being spat upon; it was not even being betrayed by a beloved associate or rejected by those whom He loved, nor was it the physical act of crucifixion. Although all of these things happened and each action was very painful, the Savior’s greatest pain during the Atonement was endured to help the transgressor to be healed:

“For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent;

“But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I;

“Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit” (D&C 19:16–18).

It is interesting to note that, other than in the book of Job and a few other places, there are very few scriptural references to physical or mortal pain. The pain most frequently spoken of in the scriptures is the pain and anguish of the Lord and His prophets for the disobedient souls.