Sunday morning’s session of the 191st Semiannual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints concluded with President Russell M. Nelson urging the members to build their lives on firm foundations of faith and obedience.
Church President Russell M. Nelson opened the two-day gathering Saturday by thanking members who have heeded the faith’s COVID-19 counsel, which has included vaccinations, masking and social distancing.
If recent trends and traditions hold, Nelson also will announce where new temples will be built.
On Saturday, The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square sang at the opening session, its first live conference performance in two years. The scaled-back choir — with all members vaccinated, tested and physically distanced — also sang Sunday morning.
Here are the latest talks and news from the conference (view summaries of Saturday’s sessions here):
Sunday morning session
President Russell M. Nelson: ‘How firm is your (spiritual] foundation?’
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) President Russell M. Nelson speaks at General Conference on Sunday, Oct. 3, 2021.
President Russell M. Nelson opened his Sunday morning sermon with an update on the ongoing renovation of the Salt Lake Temple, including a video presentation in which the 97-year-old president stood below what was once the Garden Room, and said into the camera, “As I examine the craftsmanship of this entire building, I marvel at what the pioneers accomplished. I am totally in awe when I consider that they built this magnificent temple with only tools and techniques available to them more than a century ago.”
Back at the Conference Center pulpit, the 97-year-old Nelson said, “We are sparing no effort to give this venerable temple, which had become increasingly vulnerable, a foundation that will withstand the forces of nature into the millennium. In like manner, it is now time that we each implement extraordinary measures — perhaps measures we have never taken before — to strengthen our personal spiritual foundations. Unprecedented times call for unprecedented measures.”
He took the temple as a metaphor for a spiritual foundation.
“If you and I are to withstand the forthcoming perils and pressures, it is imperative that we each have a firm spiritual foundation built upon the rock of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ,” he said. “So, I ask each of you, ‘How firm is your foundation? And what reinforcement to your testimony and understanding of the gospel is needed?’”
The temple “lies at the center of strengthening our faith and spiritual fortitude because the Savior and his doctrine are the very heart of the temple,” Nelson said. “Everything taught in the temple, through instruction and through the Spirit, increases our understanding of Jesus Christ. His essential ordinances bind us to him through sacred priesthood covenants. Then, as we keep our covenants, he endows us with his healing, strengthening power.”
Temple ordinances are ancient, but they have been “gradually refined,” Nelson said. Procedures change, but the covenants “remain the same.” He noted that principles and doctrines can only be changed by revelation from the Lord.
Current adjustments in temple procedures, “and others that will follow, are continuing evidence that the Lord is actively directing his church,” he said. “He is providing opportunities for each of us to bolster our spiritual foundations more effectively by centering our lives on him and on the ordinances and covenants of his temple.”
Nelson urged members to enter and return often to temples, which the faithful view as Houses of the Lord and where they participate in the faith’s holiest religious rites.
“If I could speak with each husband and wife who have still not been sealed [for eternity] in the temple, I would plead with you to take the necessary steps to receive that crowning, life-changing ordinance,” he said. “Will it make a difference? Only if you want to progress forever and be together forever. Wishing to be together forever will not make it so. No other ceremony or contract will make it so.”
When renovations on the Salt Lake Temple wrap up, Nelson said, “there will be no safer place during an earthquake in the Salt Lake Valley than inside that temple.”
And whenever any kind “of upheaval occurs in your life,” he promised, “the safest place to be spiritually is living inside your temple covenants.”
Apostle Quentin L. Cook laments lack of civility
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Apostle Quentin L. Cook speaks at General Conference on Sunday, Oct. 2, 2021.
Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles recalled a visit to Missouri’s Liberty Jail, where Joseph Smith Jr., his brother Hyrum and others were “unjustly imprisoned. ... One of the reasons for the violent opposition to our members was most of them were opposed to slavery.”
This “extreme example of the unrighteous exercise of agency that can impact righteous people,” Cook said, " … is not evidence of the Lord’s disfavor, nor a withdrawal of his blessings.”
He went on to say, “In my lifetime, I have never seen a greater lack of civility. We are bombarded with angry, contentious language and provocative, devastating actions that destroy peace and tranquility. ... However, personal peace can be achieved despite the anger, contention and division that blights and corrupts our world today.”
Cook counseled church members to “love God” and “live his commandments and forgive everyone”; “seek the fruits of the spirit”; “choose righteousness”; “build Zion in our hearts and homes”; and “follow … the prophet.”
General authority Vaiangina Sikahema: Order your life
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) General authority Seventy Vaiangina Sikahema speaks at General Conference on Sunday, Oct. 3, 2021.
God expects church members to “live your life in order,” said general authority Seventy Vaiangina Sikahema, and “in proper sequence.”
Sikahema said he was taught that he should serve a mission before he got married, and get married before he had children. “If you choose to live your life out of sequence, you will find life more difficult and chaotic. … Sequential order is a simple, natural and effective way for the Lord to teach us, as his children, important principles.”
Sikahema, a former football star at Brigham Young University and later with the Philadelphia Eagles and other NFL teams, went on to say that “miracles operate according to sequential order. Miracles occur when we first exercise faith. Faith precedes the miracle.”
Apostle Dale G. Renlund: ‘Unity requires effort’
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Apostle Dale G. Renlund speaks at General Conference on Sunday, Oct. 3, 2021.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been “a global stress test,” said apostle Dale G. Renlund, a former cardiologist. “The test has shown mixed results. Safe and effective vaccines have been developed. Medical professionals, teachers, caregivers and others have sacrificed heroically — and continue to do so. Many people have displayed generosity and kindness — and continue to do so. Yet, underlying disadvantages have been manifest. Vulnerable individuals have suffered—and continue to do so.”
Renlund, who contracted and recovered from COVID-19, released a headline-making video in December in which he urged people to wear masks, emphasizing that doing so is “a sign of Christlike love for our brothers and sisters.”
On Sunday, the apostle said the pandemic represents “a spiritual stress test for the Savior’s church and its members,” he said. “The results are likewise mixed.”
Many have provided compassionate help and comfort during these difficult times and continue to do so, he said. “Yet, in some instances, the spiritual stress test has shown tendencies toward contention and divisiveness.”
This suggests that Latter-day Saints “have work to do, to change our hearts, and to become unified as the Savior’s true disciples. This is not a new challenge but it is a critical one.”
Unity, Renlund said, “requires effort.”
He told the story of the long-standing enmity between Finland and Russia and how members in both countries dealt with it when a temple was being built in Finland.
The temple committee, made up of exclusively Finnish members, decided that “Russian saints would be traveling several days to attend [the dedication] and might hope to receive their temple blessings before returning home,” said Renlund, whose father was a Finn who hated Russians. “Faithful Latter-day Saint Finns delayed their temple blessings to accommodate Russian saints.”
When Renlund relayed this kindness to his dad, the apostle reported, “his heart melted and he wept, a very rare occurrence for that stoic Finn. From that time until his death three years later, he never expressed another negative sentiment about Russia.”
The gesture did not make Finns less Finnish, nor the Russians less Russian, Renlund said. “...Neither group abandoned their culture, history or experiences to banish enmity. They did not need to. Instead, they chose to make their discipleship of Jesus Christ their primary consideration.”
If they could do that, “so can we,” he said. “...Even former enemies can become united in their discipleship of the Savior.”
President Camille N. Johnson: Write your own story
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) President Camille N. Johnson, who oversees the children's Primary worldwide, speaks at General Conference on Sunday, Oct. 3, 2021.
In her first General Conference talk since being named general president of the children’s Primary in April, Camille N. Johnson encouraged church members to listen to the Holy Ghost.
“We know that the manifestations of the Holy Ghost are reliable,” she said. “Why, then, are we sometimes resistant to asking for this kind of heavenly help, truth manifest to us by the Holy Ghost? Why do we put off asking a question to which we do not know the answer when the witness is not only friendly, but will always tell the truth?”
Johnson, the fourth woman to speak at this weekend’s conference said, “We will be judged by our book of life,” and church members can “choose to write a comfortable narrative for ourselves” or allow God to “write our story for us” and let that “take precedence over other ambitions.”
Apostle Dieter F. Uchtdorf: ’Introspection is an opportunity for recalibration’
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Apostle Dieter F. Uchtdorf speaks at General Conference on Sunday, Oct. 3, 2021.
Without reliable landmarks, humans have trouble walking a straight line and “drift off course,” said apostle Dieter F. Uchtdorf. “Isn’t it interesting how small, seemingly insignificant factors can make a major difference in our lives?”
Drawing as usual on his experience as a pilot, the popular German said, “Every time I started the approach to an airport, I knew that much of my remaining work would consist of making constant minor course corrections to safely direct the aircraft to our desired landing runway.”
It also applies to spirituality, he said. “Most of the changes in our spiritual lives — both positive and negative — happen gradually, a step at a time.”
Sometimes this falling away from the correct course happens in a matter of years or even months, Uchtdorf said. Sometimes it takes generations.
Everyone is susceptible, he warned. “No matter how strong our spiritual experiences have been in the past, as human beings we tend to wander. That has been the pattern from the days of Adam until now.”
There are “reliable, visible landmarks that we can use to evaluate our course,” Uchtdorf said. “...Surely they include daily prayer and pondering the scriptures...Each day, we can approach the throne of God in humility and honesty. We can ponder our actions and review the moments of our day — considering our will and desires in light of his. If we have drifted, we plead with God to restore us, and we commit to do better.”
This “time of introspection is an opportunity for recalibration,” he said. “It is a garden of reflection where we can walk with the Lord and be instructed, edified and purified by the written and spirit-revealed word of our Heavenly Father. It is a sacred time when we remember our solemn covenants to follow the gentle Christ, when we assess our progress and align ourselves with the spiritual landmarks God has provided for his children.”
Small steps can lead to big life changes. “Do you want to change the shape of your life?” the apostle asked. “Change the shape of your day. Do you want to change your day? Change this hour.”
Think of it as “your personal, daily restoration,” Uchtdorf urged his listeners. “...We all drift from time to time. But we can get back on course.”
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