No son or daughter of our Heavenly Father can afford to partake of things that will weaken the mind, the body, or the eternal spirit. These include drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and pornography. You cannot be involved in immoral activity. You cannot do these things and be valiant as warriors in the cause of the Lord in the great, everlasting contest that goes on for the souls of our Father's children.

Neutrality in the teaching of values can only lead to an absence of values.

We build too many walls and not enough bridges.

As you serve Him, you will come to know better the voice by which you shall be called. When you go to sleep at the end of a day, the words may come back in memory: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things." I pray for that benediction on this day, on every day, and on our lives.

The afternoon my mother died, we went to the family home from the hospital. We sat quietly in the darkened living room for a while. Dad excused himself and went to his bedroom. He was gone for a few minutes. When he walked back into the living room, there was a smile on his face. He said that he'd been concerned for Mother. During the time he had gathered her things from her hospital room and thanked the staff for being so kind to her, he thought of her going into the spirit world just minutes after her death. He was afraid she would be lonely if there was no one to meet her.
He had gone to his bedroom to ask his Heavenly Father to have someone greet Mildred, his wife and my mother. He said that he had been told in answer to his prayer that his mother had met his sweetheart. I smiled at that too. Grandma Eyring was not very tall. I had a clear picture of her rushing through the crowd, her short legs moving rapidly on her mission to meet my mother.

Dad surely didn't intend at that moment to teach me about prayer, but he did. I can't remember a sermon from my mother or my father about prayer. They prayed when times were hard and when they were good. And they reported in matter-of-fact ways how kind God was, how powerful and how close. The prayers I heard most were about what it would take for us to be together forever. And the answers which will remain written on my heart seem most often to be the assurances that we were on the path.

Correct conduct under stress is more likely when one has correct expectations about life.

To err by having naive expectations concerning the purposes of life is to err everlastingly. Life is neither a pleasure palace through whose narrow portals we pass briefly, laughingly, and heedlessly before extinction, nor is life a cruel predicament in an immense and sad wasteland. It is the middle (but briefest) estate of the three estates in man's carefully constructed continuum of experience.

No "natural" resource is more precious and to be used more wisely than time. These mortal moments matter more than we know. There are no idle hours; there are only idle people. In true righteousness there is serenity, but there is an array of reminders that the "sacred present" is packed with possibilities which are slipping by us, which are going away from us each moment.

On one of those rare occasions when the U.S. Marines had been driven back and were surrounded, the general commanding that particular unit, instead of sending off a despairing and discouraging communique to the commandant of the corps, sent this interesting message: "At last we have the enemy just where we want him. We are surrounded and we can fire in every direction!" I say to you, at last The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has the world just where we want it--we can serve in every direction! Not only these young men and women present who are now in the Language Training Mission, but each of us. There is always more to be done than we have time to do it in. Rejoice, for though we may seem to be encircled, in fact we are not.

I remember a BYU movie a few years ago in which there was a line something like this: "Some men never recover from the ignorance of their mothers." Conversely, one cannot fully appreciate the Prophet Joseph Smith without noting the remarkable qualities of his outstanding mother, Lucy Mack Smith. We give to our children what we are. The more a mother brings to a nest, the more nutritive the nest.

It is very important that we genuinely encourage the full development of women in the Church, so that they can carry out their unique roles effectively and articulately--in the nursery and neighborhood, and in the classroom as well as in cookery.

Brethren, marry a woman who is your better in some respects; and, sisters, do likewise, so that your eternal partnership is one of compensating competencies. This is certainly the case in my own marriage, so far as certain attributes are concerned. I am gladdened--not threatened--by my wife's superior qualities. I am grateful for her traits and qualities that excel my own in some critical dimensions of our partnership.