The Goates Notes (tm)

The Fickle Fates of Sports Fandom

2026-10-20T14:37:25.319-06:00

This last weekend saw two outcomes for the local teams. BYU defeated Notre Dame 28-24, and Utah defeated Colorado 27-24. The AP poll after that ranked BYU at No. 2, and Utah at No. 10, the first time perhaps ever that our two perpetual in-state rivals have ranked that high simultaneously. Both teams remain undefeated. Importantly, as I look back on these pages historically, almost everything I have ever written about sports has now expired and is forgotten. And so will this last weekend’s results. Remember, the fickle fates of even our most ardent fandom passions are here today, gone tomorrow.

At our two-hour block during our Sunday meetings there were smiles all around, and nobody made the usual jabs at each other. Everyone had a smile on their face, and the games were openly discussed with eager anticipation now of the upcoming rivalry game in two weeks.

I reflected this morning on what has happened to me over the years. I used to be much more invested in sports than I am right now. Frankly, the interruptions with ads now prolong the games of all sorts to a point that it’s almost unwatchable. I’m admitting it here and now - I’m now content to just look up the scores after it’s all said and done.

My interest is now mostly tangential at best. I thought it was instructive to have called on a good brother in the ward for a prayer in Sunday School, only to be turned down because he had lost his voice after attending the BYU-Notre Dame game in person and yelling so much his voice had disappeared come Sunday morning. (I won’t name names).

That prompts this thought in me today:

“What is it that you are so passionate about these days that you could shout your voice into oblivion?”

Here’s some food for thought. When Moses went to the mountain to talk to the Lord, he was gone for 40 days (see Exodus 24:18). The Israelites, who had seen wonderful miracles but were still growing their faith, feared Moses was never coming back. They rebelled against God and asked Aaron to make them a golden calf so they could worship that instead of the Lord (see Exodus 32).

In other words, when things got tough, they panicked, turned away from God, and reverted to their sinful ways.

We all have moments of uncertainty. Sometimes it may not seem clear what the Lord wants us to do. Sometimes we pray for answers and get impatient when they don’t come right away.

What do we do then? We hold onto our faith. We cling to what we already know while waiting to learn more.

The Golden Calf

You might not be tempted to build an idol to worship when you get discouraged. But what about the temptation to do things that bring more immediate gratification instead of lasting joy?

Don’t fall into that trap! Wait on the Lord for as long as it takes. Choose to trust Him. He will always deliver on His promises.

Now, what do we hear in the gospel which we have received? A voice of gladness! A voice of mercy from heaven; and a voice of truth out of the earth; glad tidings for the dead; a voice of gladness for the living and the dead; glad tidings of great joy. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those that bring glad tidings of good things, and that say unto Zion: Behold, thy God reigneth! As the dews of Carmel, so shall the knowledge of God descend upon them! (D&C 128:19, emphasis mine).

Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy. (2 Nephi 2:25).

For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. (Isaiah 55:12).

Lindon Temple

Each time I attend a temple endowment session these days, I am reminded how we all shouted for joy in our premortal life when we heard God’s plan of happiness, and we continue to shout for joy here as we live according to His plan. These simple truths, it seems to me, easily trump our sports addiction, whichever choice we embrace, whether BLUE or RED here in Utah.

I know, I know, Grandpa, it just isn’t fair to pit the gospel plan against our enthusiasm for sports teams. I get it, and I still love the Yankees too, regardless of their long-lasting dearth in recent years from appearances in the World Series. However, as I come closer to the veil between this life and the next, I must admit my predilection for gospel truths as my enthusiasm for sports fandom wanes proportionately.

Don’t let me dissuade you in any way from your own wild and perhaps irrational love of sports today. Just be prepared for a shift in priorities that may or may not occur for each of you too. I admit it freely here on this page today.

Because God considered these eternal truths to be among His highest and holiest blessings, He instructed that sacred buildings be erected where He could confer these precious gifts upon His children. These buildings would be His home on our planet Earth. These buildings would be temples where that which was sealed or bound on earth in His name, by His word, and with His authority would be bound in the heavens.

As members of the Church today, some of us may find it easy to take these glorious eternal truths for granted. They have become second nature to us. We mistakenly think we can somehow win the world over with our enthusiastic fandom in Provo, Utah, at LaVell Edwards Stadium. Sometimes it is helpful when we see them through the eyes of those who learn about them for the very first time.

LaVell Edwards

President Russell M. Nelson has taught: “The time is coming when those who do not obey the Lord will be separated from those who do. Our safest insurance is to continue to be worthy of admission to His holy house.”

All it takes to get into LaVell Edwards Stadium is a purchased ticket. Our admission to the temple is secured by a “ticket” with three signatures - ours and two additional witnesses. No money exchanges hands for a temple recommend.

President Nelson also taught: “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. 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. And oh, how we will need His power in the days ahead.” (Emphasis mine).

Hands were laid on the heads of our new Woodland Ward Elders Quorum Presidency on Sunday by our stake presidency. They were told it was being done in the “power and authority” of the Holy Priesthood. I have written in years past about the differences between those two words “power” and “authority.” They are NOT synonymous. I refer you to those writings rather than laying it all out again here this morning. What do you think the difference might be? Do a search on these pages to learn more.

Kirtland Temple

How fitting is it that on Palm Sunday of 1836, the Kirtland Temple was being dedicated. We do something called the “Hosanna Shout” at temple dedications, waving white handkerchiefs overhead. We’re symbolically shouting for joy. On that occasion the disciples of Jesus Christ were rejoicing as well. In that dedicatory prayer, the Prophet Joseph Smith declared these words of praise:

“O Lord God Almighty, hear us … and answer us from heaven, … where thou sittest enthroned, with glory, honor, power, majesty, [and] might. …

“… Help us by the power of thy Spirit, that we may mingle our voices with those bright, shining seraphs around thy throne, with acclamations of praise, singing Hosanna to God and the Lamb!

“And let these … thy saints shout aloud for joy.” (Doctrine and Covenants 109:77, 79–80, emphasis mine).

That’s enough to make the point, isn’t it? Someday our true shouts of acclamation will transcend sports enthusiasm. I pray we may not always be riveted in the chains of our favorite sports teams, that may have even descended into betting on our favorite teams. President D. Todd Christofferson recently counseled against gambling in all its forms in General Conference.

Ty Detmer and the 1984 national football championship at BYU are now long gone in a distant memory. Even if 2026 sees a repeat of that glorious championship we must still seek to bring willing souls to Christ and THAT eventuality will happen more probably through the instrumentality of our 18-year-old missionaries now flooding the Earth today. I pray constantly for our current crop of seven missionary grandchildren, Jonny, Bryson, Noah, Chloe, Aleyah, Matthew and Amelia.

Their labors among truth seekers “out there” are REALLY worth shouting about!

Comparisons and Judgments

2026-10-09T10:07:12.735-06:00

This morning I was in the Jordan River Temple for an endowment session. I officiated for Michael Jackson (no, not THAT one), born 1875 in Oregon. No one had performed temple ordinances for him since 2004! It was thrilling to be there in a full house session filled with octogenarians. I counted four people with something other than white hair.

The Beach Boys, circa 60s

For some unknown reason I had the Beatles and the Beach Boys on my mind this morning. To the uninitiated, those were the two rival bands competing for the affections of my teenaged counterparts in the Sixties while we were in high school. The debates raged on and on among us over which was the better band. I favored the clean-cut California Beach Boys to the mop-haired Beatles from Liverpool, England. The Beatles were an acquired taste for me that became more palatable when I became a missionary assigned to the Wirral Peninsula near Liverpool as a member of the Mormon Yankees baseball team. I toured all their haunts in and around Liverpool where they all hailed from.

The Beatles

This morning reminded me once again, as I always am, that our Father in Heaven had a choice to make between two sons who would put themselves forward to implement the Father’s plan for His children. His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, offered simply, “Father, send me. Thy will be done.” Lucifer offered his guarantee that “not one soul would be lost.” Moral agency, the freedom to CHOOSE, was favored in the implementation of the Father’s plan, and He chose Jehovah accompanied by the law of sacrifice to ensure our moral agency. The Atonement was the outcome.

Humorously, after the session had concluded, I was in the restroom washing my hands as I was leaving. An elderly temple ordinance worker said, noting which basin I had used, “Was the water colder down there?” To which I replied, “Yes.” “Well, up on this end,” he informed me, “the water’s warmer because this end represents the Celestial Kingdom, but down there you were in the Telestial Kingdom.” Have to admit, no one had EVER explained that phenomenon to me before!

In the chapel before the session began, I was sitting quietly listening to organ music of the hymns being played by an elderly little sister who is blind. It was heavenly to listen to her as not one flawed note came out of her! I was so grateful that at her advanced age she was sharing her talents with all of us.

In this life we are confronted with choices to make, mostly insignificant and unimportant little choices that amount to nothing more than personal preferences over a myriad of topics. It’s trivial pursuit at its finest.

However, have you noticed the tendency of others around you to make comparisons about nearly everything out there? Sometimes they will compare people against one another. Often the comparisons are harsh and unforgiving. You know what I’m talking about, because when you hear others make those comparisons pitting one person against another, you often just cringe and want to withdraw immediately rather than engage in the unfairness of it all. It just doesn’t feel right, does it? And when that happens you can’t get out of the conversation quickly enough.

If those comparisons persist unchecked, particularly as it pertains to our Father in Heaven’s children, or worse, our dearest family members, then harsh judgments can often ensue and then alienation creeps in to our thinking. Often we reject them for a season and refuse to engage further. Judgments can hurt and are often unforgiving and frequently permanent. I know children in my extended family who are now completely alienated from their parents and haven’t spoken to them for many years now. I plead with all of us this afternoon to beware and be cautious that such comparisons and judgments do not overtake our love for one another.

Over a space of twenty years Patsy and I produced offspring, resulting in thirteen live births and six miscarriages. To say she was prolific would be an understatement! As a result, our family is an outstanding representation of personalities, characteristics, talents and tendencies that is truly magnificent and diverse to behold at this point as they have all matured into capable adults. We now have grandchildren and great-grandchildren who perpetuate this marvelous array of spirits among us.

Rather than seeking for unanimity of sameness and conformity with some unwieldy standard of homogeneity, I pray we may continue to enthusiastically embrace one another despite our obvious and unique differences. It is the gold standard of gospel covenants that I encounter in the temple each time I attend that must be the governing principles we seek.

The law of obedience.

The law of sacrifice.

The law of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The law of chastity.

The law of consecration.

These are the five laws I routinely review each time I attend the temple, as I did today.

Jordan River Temple

Yes, that’s an ambulance you can see parked outside the temple. In our jam-packed session a good brother collapsed as he attempted to join the prayer circle. Dramatic happening, but he was seated again when he recovered consciousness and was later taken away in the ambulance for observation. I was told he completed the session after I had gone through the veil.

I heard two brethren in the Celestial Room discussing the relative merits of their walkers. They were comparing and contrasting (sounded more like a debate to me) the various features, not the most spiritual topic they could have selected for their surrounding environs, but that’s just me making a judgment, isn’t it?

Then as I was exiting the parking lot, I noted my near-empty gas tank crying out for attention with a blinking light. I drove past several gas stations posting competing prices between $4.99 down to $4.79 along my way to Costco, where today’s price was a “paltry” $4.49. My easy comparisons led to an informed judgment for the winning low price.

Let me conclude with one final thought for each of us. When you are tempted to speak out loud a comparison between two family members you love, even something that might seem like it’s trivial, stop yourself and ask, “If I speak this thought out loud right now, am I being judgmental to the detriment of this person and the one to whom I’m speaking?” I might gently suggest your judgments are not always based upon all the facts that, if fully known to you, would render a different conclusion.

One of my Mother’s well-worn mantras was, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all!”

Thumper said it. . .

She was quoting Bambi’s forest companion Thumper. Still pretty good advice today, though none of you would know anything about Bambi and Thumper, just like few of you would remember seeing the Beach Boys live in concert at Lagoon like I did back in the days when they performed there.

"While one portion of the human race are judging and condemning the other without mercy, the great parent of the universe looks upon the whole of the human family with a fatherly care, and paternal regard; he views them as his offspring; and without any of these contracted feelings that influence the children of men, causes 'his sun to rise on the evil and the good; and sends his rain on the just and unjust.'” - Prophet Joseph Smith

Sister Amelia Goates Teaches the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Her Farewell Message to Her Ward

2026-09-28T14:09:03.816-06:00

I am the grandfather of Sister Amelia Goates, leaving soon for the Michigan Detroit Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Amelia and her friend Avery Crawford had just played a piano duet medley of missionary favorite hymns, and then she commenced her final farewell message to her home ward, the Daniel 2nd Ward, on September 27, 2026. She is joining an unprecedented number of 90,000 young missionaries now serving, mostly because of the increased number of sister missionaries due to the reduced age of 18 recently announced. I can’t begin to express my gratitude for all those among the Goates Kids who have answered this clarion call from God’s living Prophet, President Dallin H. Oaks. I turned over the program and noted all the missionaries serving worldwide from their ward.

Worldwide Representation

* * *

One of the songs we just played was “I Hope They Call Me on a Mission.” I remember how much fun singing this song was in Primary because of all the missionaries I knew that were out serving, whether it was cousins, friends or neighbors. The first verse says, “I hope they call me on a mission, when I have grown a foot or two. I hope by then I will be ready to preach and teach and work as missionaries do.” While I’m still waiting to grow that “foot or two,” I am so excited to “preach and teach and work as missionaries do” for the next 18 months. I never in a million years thought that those lyrics I sang as a little kid would be what I am doing now.

Sister Amelia Goates with Grandpa

As I’ve been preparing over the last couple of months to serve in the Michigan Detroit Mission, I’ve thought a lot about how the Lord has guided me. Guided me to reach out to that one friend, send that one text, make that one phone call, buy that one bouquet of flowers, smile at that one person, sit next to that one person, go on that one walk, that one drive, play that one sport, apply for that one job, try that one new thing that I wouldn’t have tried otherwise, take that one AP class, make that one blanket, be that one temple worker so excited to go to her shift, or leave on that one mission.

I was talking to my Mom last week about how much I have felt loved. Loved by my amazing family and friends and loved by my Savior. Looking back, all I can say is thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being people that the Lord has guided me to because I definitely wouldn’t be standing here without the amazing people all of you are. Thank you for being the answer to many of my unspoken prayers. I am so blessed to have friends who feel like family, and a family I am grateful to call my own.

My Aunt [Dianne] has a sign hung in her living room right as you walk in the door, that says, “He is,” so naturally every time I am at her house, I see it. I have noticed this sign for a while now, but I only just talked to my Aunt about why she has this sign in her house that seems almost incomplete. We started talking about it and what she said changed how I view my Savior.

She was telling me that that sign means so much to her because each day “He is” whatever we need Him to be. Yes, “He is Risen” but “He is” also Merciful, my Advocate, my Comforter, my Refuge, my Safe Place, my Example, my Deliverer, my Teacher, or any of the other names of Christ you love. Each day “He is” whatever I need. He is my Healer when I am broken. He is my Peace when I am overwhelmed and anxious. He is my Strength when I feel weak. He is my Hope when I am discouraged. He is my best friend when I need to rant. He is my Good Shepherd when I am lost and need guidance. He is my Savior, my Redeemer, and Song.

After some thoughtful consideration, I’ve decided that my new favorite name of my Savior is “He is” because he really is whoever I need him to be. And most of the time “He is” 20 things to me all at once. After thinking about the phrase “He is,” I have realized that the Lord has shown me who “He is” in a lot of different ways. But one of the most consistent ways He has helped me recognize Him is through music.

John 10:27 says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me.” I have learned my Shepherd’s voice in the scriptures, but I have FOUND his voice in music. Music has the power to move you, change you. I feel such a calmness when I am hearing Him through music. Because at the end of the day music and hymns are Jesus.

One song that I haven’t been able to get out of my head since getting my mission call is one that I remember singing in Primary. It says,

I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I know who I am.
I know God’s plan.
I’ll follow in his ways.
I believe in the Savior Jesus Christ.
I’ll honor His name.
I’ll do what is right.
I’ll follow His light.
His truth I will proclaim.

I think it is so cool that from such a young age we can sing these truths. I loved singing time and while I didn’t have the greatest voice, I always had the biggest smile. I didn’t even realize what I was singing at 6 years old.

As I have thought about the lyrics to this song over the last couple months, I realized how crazy it is that the lyrics never changed but the person reading them did. Simple lines that were so easy for me to sing at 6 became a lot harder for me as I was going through high school. Did I belong in the Church? Who was I? What was going on in my life because it seemed like I never had a clue. Did I believe in the Savior Jesus Christ? What was right? Where could I find hope? And while I didn’t know the answer to all my questions in high school, I know now with a surety that I do belong in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I know who I am. I know God’s plan. I’ll follow in His ways. I believe in the Savior Jesus Christ. I’ll honor His name. I’ll do what is right. I’ll follow His light. His truth I will proclaim.

I get to be a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and proclaim His truth. The word “proclaim” means to announce or declare something publicly, clearly, and with authority. I won’t just be sharing His truth, but I will be announcing it publicly, clearly, and with authority for all to hear. I will be proclaiming his word and living the words that I have sung my whole life.

Another Primary song that has helped guide me which also happens to be one of my family’s favorites is, “Give Said the Little Stream.” Another banger if I do say so myself. This was always a go-to song during Family Home Evening growing up. If I ever got to pick the song, I would almost always pick this one. The whole song is so good, but my favorite verse is the last verse that says,

“Give then as Jesus gives, Give oh give, Give oh give.
Give then as Jesus gives; There is something all can give.
Do as the streams and blossoms do: For God and others live.
Singing, singing all the day, Give away, oh Give away.
Singing, singing all the day, give oh give oh give away.”

I am not giving up 18 months; I am giving 18 months. I get to give as Jesus gives. I get to give because He lives. There is something all can give, and it doesn’t have to be a mission. I can give a smile, I can give a hug, I can give my time, my kindness, my love, my effort, my patience, and my whole heart. There is always something I can give. But the reason I want to give is because Jesus Christ gave first. A good shepherd gives constantly. He gives protection, direction, patience, and care. Jesus Christ gave everything for us. In John 10:11 it says, “The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.” Because He gave His life for me, I want to give my life back to Him, not just for18 months but every day.

Primary songs are so amazing, and they are some of the best songs to go back to and look at. I haven’t just found my Savior in Primary songs though. I have found Him in hymns, instrumental music, Christian music and even in everyday songs that I love to listen to. God is truly everywhere if we just look for Him.

Music has helped me find comfort in the unknown. My favorite artist has a song that sums the unknown up in a simple chorus. He says,

Although I guess if I knew tomorrow, I guess I wouldn’t need faith.
I guess if I never fell, I guess I wouldn’t need grace.
I guess if I knew His plans, I guess He wouldn’t be God, God, God
So maybe I don’t know
Maybe I don’t know
Maybe I don’t know
Maybe I don’t know
But maybe that’s okay
Maybe that’s okay
Maybe that’s okay
Maybe I don’t know, maybe I don’t know
But maybe that’s okay.

We aren’t supposed to know everything. I definitely don’t. I didn’t even know why I was going on a mission for a while. I still don’t know exactly why I changed my whole plan of going to golf in college, to a mission. There is so much uncertainty about what my future will hold and it’s a little terrifying sometimes.

In John 14:18 it says, “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” I am not alone in my uncertainty, because He will not leave me comfortless and will come to me like the Good Shepherd, He is. He is my Comforter and my Peace.

If I knew everything I wouldn’t be standing up here. I need to have the uncertainty in my life because I need Him. I need to have faith, and His grace and trust that He has a plan just for me.

So maybe I don’t know. Maybe I don’t exactly know why I am going to Detroit. Maybe I don’t know what I am doing. Maybe I don’t know how hard it is going to actually be. Maybe I don’t know how my life will change with serving a mission. Maybe I don’t know who I am supposed to meet. Maybe I don’t know who my companions will be. Maybe I don’t even know what I will say. But maybe that’s okay. Sometimes we just need to listen to John and trust that God knows. Maybe it’s okay that only He knows why I am going to Detroit, or who I need to meet, or how I will change on my mission. Maybe it’s okay that I know almost absolutely nothing because He knows. He knows what he is doing and it’s okay that I don’t have the answers. The Lord is my Shepherd, and knows what I will know. He’s got me. I know that on my best day, I’m a Child of God. On my worst day, I’m a Child of God. Oh, every day is a good day. And You’re the reason why I’m so blessed, I’m so blessed. I am so blessed to have the life that I have with the people I have it with. Life isn’t about what you go through, it’s about who you do it with. I have the best people to do life with. I am so blessed.

I would like to close by sharing my testimony. I am Amelia Goates, soon to be Sister Goates. I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I know who I am, I know God’s plan. I will follow in His ways. I believe in my Savior Jesus Christ. I’ll honor His name. I do what is right. I’ll follow His light. His truth I will proclaim. He is my ______ today, and I hope that He can be whatever you need Him to be today. I know that this Church has brought me so much joy. I am so excited to give this joy to others in Michigan. I am giving because He gave first. I am serving because He served first. I am trying to be like Jesus; I’m following His ways. I’m trying to love as He did, in all that I do and say. I know that I need Him every hour. I know that through Him I can be made better. I have the strongest testimony that music is where we can find him. I have learned of Him my whole life, but I have found Him in music. He is my song. He is my Good Shepherd who has guided me and led me along. He is my Savior, my Redeemer and my Prince of Peace. Because “He is” I know that I can be to. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

* * *

I was privileged to be among the audience yesterday who heard you, Amelia. I am so blessed to be the Grandfather of these marvelous young missionaries among the Goates Kids! When I served in the North British Mission in 1967-69, there were a record number of 26,000 missionaries worldwide. I could never have imagined then what we are witnessing today, and when I add the number of proliferating temples into my thinking I am even more amazed and humbled by this magnificent time in which I live.

I spoke briefly with President Wilde, their stake president who was also in attendance and concluded the meeting with his testimony. His characterization of Rich’s and Jake’s families was “top tier.”

"A Marvellous Work And A Wonder"

2026-09-25T12:03:19.869-06:00

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Woodland Ward

Happy Autumnal Equinox today! It's also the anniversary of my baptism by my father on September 22, 1955, in the font at the Salt Lake Tabernacle. “I am the Lord God Almighty, and Endless is my name. … “And worlds without number have I created; … and by the Son I created them, which is mine Only Begotten” (Moses 1:3, 33). In scriptures brought to light by the Prophet Joseph Smith, we read these words of our Heavenly Father: “I made the world, and men before they were in the flesh” (Moses 6:51; see also Moses 3:5).

This week's study in Come, Follow Me continues into the extensive writings of Isaiah. The phrase “great are the words of Isaiah” comes from Jesus Christ’s command in 3 Nephi 23:1–3 in the Book of Mormon, where He instructs His followers to diligently study Isaiah because his prophecies apply to all Israel and the Gentiles and will all be fulfilled.

Isaiah was fearless, and his warnings to the kingdoms of his day — including Israel, Judah, and surrounding nations — were bold (see Isaiah 13–23). He would perform “a marvellous work and a wonder” (Isaiah 29:14), restoring to Israel the blessings He had promised them. Neither Isaiah nor anyone else alive at that time lived to see this marvelous work. But we are seeing it today. In fact, we are part of it.

Questions to consider this week:

What similarities do you see between the pride of the Babylonian king and the pride of Satan? (see Isaiah 14:4–20; Moses 4:1–4). What warnings do you find for yourself in these verses?

How does the Savior provide “rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear”? (Isaiah 14:3).

The teachings of Isaiah often refer to the Savior’s mission, including His atoning sacrifice, Resurrection, and Second Coming. What aspects of His mission come to mind as you read these verses: Isaiah 22:22–23; 24:21–23; 25:6–8; 26:19; 28:16? What other passages do you find that remind you of the Savior?

What do you learn from Isaiah 29:13–24; 30:18–26; 35 about the Lord, His love, and His power? Perhaps you could find a phrase in these passages that gives you hope when you need healing. You could also look in Sister Amy A. Wright’s message “Christ Heals That Which Is Broken” (Liahona, May 2022, 81–84).

Isaiah 29 contains several passages that have parallels with events of the Restoration. For example:

Compare Isaiah 29:11–12 with 2 Nephi 27:6–26 and Joseph Smith—History 1:63–65.

Compare Isaiah 29:13–14 with Doctrine and Covenants 4 and Joseph Smith—History 1:17–19.

Compare Isaiah 29:18–24 with the title page of the Book of Mormon.

Also, you might look into Elder Gerrit W. Gong’s message “All Nations, Kindreds, and Tongues” (Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2020, 38–41). It's been a veritable feast for me this week in Isaiah. Hopefully, you will have the same experience as me.

Our gospel doctrine instructors this week will be Quinn and Lisa Jensen. Come and share what you've learned. (25 minutes just isn't enough time to cover Isaiah, but we'll surely be edified as we come together).

Woodland Ward Sunday School Presidency

The Mountain of the Lord's House

2026-09-20T14:02:44.640-06:00

This week and next we have been invited to study the writings of Isaiah in the Old Testament during our Come, Follow Me course of study. I have posted several comments on my social media platforms, principally on X, and there have been several nay-sayers and outright critics and opponents of the Church who have weighed in against me. Frankly, it has astounded me what the negative comments have contained as they poured in. I have never blocked my critics, however, because I believe in open and even hostile interaction. Until now, that is. This week I have blocked several whose negativity has been over the top, and rather than contend with them I have shut them out of my feeds.

Isaiah 2:2

What has been the greatest source of their opposition? Over one verse - this one: “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.” (Isaiah 2:2).

A close inspection of 2 Nephi 12:2, yields this comparison and enhances our understanding: “And it shall come to pass in the last days, when the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it.”

Under President Russell M. Nelson, a new marker appeared on the plaza just east of Temple Square this year in commemoration of the reemergence of the Salt Lake Temple from its seven-year renovation project.

In addition, flags from 91 nations now surround the plaza, suggesting that all nations have indeed fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah and their residents have literally “flowed” to Temple Square.

Flags on the Plaza

So where do we get off on stating that the Salt Lake Temple is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy about “the mountain of the Lord’s house?”

Salt Lake Temple

Elder Bruce R. McConkie explained that the phrase has more than one meaning:

“The mountain of the Lord’s house is the mountain where the temple of God is built. [Isaiah 2:2–3 quoted; see also Micah 4:1–2; 2 Nephi 12:2–3.]

“This great prophecy, as is often the case, is subject to the law of multiple fulfillment. 1. In Salt Lake City and other mountain locations temples, in the full and true sense of the word, have been erected, and representatives of all nations are flowing unto them to learn of God and His ways. … 2. But the day is yet future when the Lord’s house is to be built on that ‘Mount Zion’ which is ‘the city of New Jerusalem’ in Jackson County, Missouri. (D&C 84:2–4). Mount Zion, itself, will be the mountain of the Lord’s house in the day when that glorious temple is erected. 3. When the Jews flee unto Jerusalem, it will be ‘unto the mountains of the Lord’s house’ (D&C 133:13), for a holy temple is to be built there also as part of the work of the great era of restoration. (Ezekiel 37:24–28).

“The law cannot go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, in the full millennial sense that Isaiah foresaw and specified, until these two great future temples are constructed in the old and new Jerusalems.” (Mormon Doctrine, pp. 517–18.)

Elder LeGrand Richards said: “Isaiah saw the mountain of the Lord’s house established in the top of the mountains in the latter days, and he named the latter days, when they would say: ‘Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.’ (Isaiah 2:3).

“How literally that has been fulfilled, in my way of thinking, in this very house of the God of Jacob right here on this block! This temple, more than any other building of which we have any record, has brought people from every land to learn of his ways and walk in his paths.” (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/come-follow-me-for-home-and-church-old-testament-2026/38?lang=eng).

Speaking at the dedication of the newly-completed Conference Center on 8 October 2000, President Hinckley said: “I believe [Isaiah 2:2–3] applies to the historic and wonderful Salt Lake Temple. But I believe also that it is related to this magnificent hall. For it is from this pulpit that the law of God shall go forth, together with the word and testimony of the Lord.” (In Conference Report, Oct. 2000, 89; or Ensign, Nov. 2000, 69.)

President Harold B. Lee

Listen to my Grandfather, President Harold B. Lee’s explanation: “The ‘mountain of the Lord’s house’ referred to both ‘a place as well as a definition of a righteous people’ (“The Way to Eternal Life,” Ensign, Nov. 1971, p. 15). The establishment of the ‘mountain of the Lord’s house in the top of the mountains’ has been fulfilled by the coming of the pioneers to establish the Church and temple in the tops of the mountains in Utah and will be further fulfilled [by the temple that will be built in the New Jerusalem (see D&C 57:1–3) and] by the return of Judah to Jerusalem, where the Lord’s house will be built (see D&C 133:13). It applies generally to those places where God’s power and authority reside and where He communicates with His people. The phrase ‘all nations shall flow unto it’ (Isaiah 2:2) can refer both to the early gathering of the Saints to the valleys of the mountains in Utah and also to the general gathering of Saints to Zion. The term Zion (v. 3), as well, has several applications. It refers to the New Jerusalem in America, the Jerusalem of Judah, and also the Lord’s people or their places of gathering in all parts of the world. By using such terms as these, Isaiah conveys profound spiritual meaning to those who understand the special significance of his language. …

“This richness of language and meaning seems to be what Nephi meant when he spoke of the manner of prophesying among the Jews. There is frequent reference to the law of Moses and extensive use of imagery, figurative language, and phrases that have dualistic and esoteric meanings. Though modern readers cannot fully grasp the culture and times of ancient Israel, understanding the methods Isaiah used to convey his meaning can give the reader a far greater understanding of Isaiah.” (Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi, 3rd ed. [Church Educational System manual, 2003], 133, emphasis mine).

I could expound at length here upon this topic, as I did in my early compilation titled ZION. It’s the reason I take the positions I do on public media, despite the critics “out there” who would mock and defame the prophets and the scriptures. Matthew 6:20-21 teaches that we should prioritize spiritual treasures in heaven over earthly possessions, because our hearts will follow what we truly value. I treasure temples, and my heart has indeed followed temples and temple work.

Recent Sealing Session with Family in the Orem Temple

Please do not be dissuaded in any way by them and their minions. They reside in the figurative “great and spacious building” while mocking those clinging to the iron rod leading to the tree of eternal life. Lehi’s dream occurs early in the Book of Mormon record, perhaps as a lasting memorial for each of us to embrace and to be forewarned. (See 1 Nephi 8).

Lehi's Dream

The Book of Mormon prophet Lehi had a dream, and his son Nephi recorded it. Heavenly Father sent the dream to teach Lehi and his family how to find happiness. Each of the objects in the dream has a special meaning. Look at the pictures and read the meanings. As you read the dream in 1 Nephi 8:2–38 (or as someone reads it to you), remember the meanings.

Large and spacious field — the world

The tree of life — the love of God

Fruit of the tree — the blessings that come through the Savior

River and fountain — Satan’s influence in the world, depths of hell (See 1 Nephi 12:16).

Iron rod — the word of God

Strait and narrow path leading to eternal life — obedience to the commandments of God

Mists of darkness — the temptations of Satan

Large and spacious building — filled with unkind and prideful people who make fun of others.

This week brought the announcement that our missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints deployed all around the world have now surpassed 90,000. The boost in numbers is no doubt a result of lowering the age of the sisters to eighteen. Each of them has elected to cling firmly to the iron rod despite whatever criticism might come their way. They can be a shining example to each of us when it comes to defending our faith.

And I will persist in my declarations of faith online in the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy about the Mountain of the Lord’s House.

It’s my son-in-law Jay Warnick’s birthday today. He and his team are in charge of the landscaping on Temple Square as it springs back to life. I close this entry by making another bold statement. It is not beyond the realm of possibility in my mind that Isaiah may well have witnessed Jay’s handiwork on beautifying Temple Square. Let that thought resonate with you as it did with me this week!

I Describe Zion in the Latter Days

2026-09-10T12:41:00.097-06:00

ZION

THE PLACE
Far away in the west.
The Rocky Mountain Empire -- temporarily.
Only the forerunner of the City of Zion that will someday emerge.
As the New Jerusalem.
Obscure and long forgotten now,
Its location has never altered from the Prophet's description
On the western border of the state of Missouri.
Independence,
The centerstake.
A quiet, misnamed hamlet whose history is
Persecution,
Hatred,
Murder,
And extermination sanctioned by a government sworn to defend
Independence and freedom to worship.
So now we wait in the mountains.
Babylon quietly assimilates a peculiar people,
Once strange,
Now loved and admired by the world.
No longer peculiar,
Accepted, while we luxuriate in our mountain Zion.
But the best teams of horses
And our finest wagons are not poised and eager for the call.
It is night.
All is well,
And we sleep.
Contented.
We have made certain the plans have changed.
We are righteous now.
The world attests to our popularity
Even the once-hated Missourians finally rescind the extermination decree.
Zion is now defined as the place you live,
While Jackson County waits,
Forgotten,
For the sound of the angel’s clarion trumpet that will
Cleanse,
Purify,
And sweep the inhabitants off as with the whirlwind,
Without so much as a little yellow dog left to tell the tale.
But now we prosper in our mountain retreat,
And slumber.

THE PEOPLE
Strangers and foreigners,
Seeking for a city whose maker and builder is God,
Their prayers ascending
As a witness against a world gone astray.
The meek among men,
Their calling and election assured,
But unheralded.
They know sacrifice,
Service,
The Spirit.
They fill their lamps with the oil of the gospel
Before the Bridegroom comes,
And watch patiently,
Never wavering in their faith of the coming dawn of a brighter day.
They lean on the arm of Spirit
While others sleep in the warm embrace of the arm of flesh.
They raise the ensign of faith through their consecration
Of time,
Of talents,
Of all with which they are and will be
Blessed.
They will welcome their cousins in Israel,
Long lost,
Fall upon their necks and kiss them,
And rejoice that they are found among the four corners of
Earth's expanse --
Refugees,
Outcasts,
But never "lost" again.
Together the people,
Peculiar again,
Are set unmoved at last on Zion's mount,
A beacon light to a dark and fallen world,
Groaning,
Weighed down in its iniquity.

THE CONDITION
The society of believers.
Everyone speaks
In the name of the Lord.
No one teaches his neighbor,
No need, since each inhabitant of the City of Zion knows Him.
The individual stewardship is magnified and enlightened
For the common welfare of all brothers and sisters.
Gone are the investment portfolios,
The retirement and pension plans,
The gods
Of stone,
Of glass,
Of metal,
Of chrome,
And wood.
Hearts are purged
Of lust and envy,
Of once-treasured financial strategies and
False worship.
The goal eternal life,
Spreading the truth as with a flood.
One heart,
One mind,
One faith,
One hope.
Independent of every creature beneath the celestial world.
Free from bondage in the "great society"
Consumed by the weight of its own avarice.
Granted its birthright in the fulfillment of destruction.
It is the great beginning.

THE TIME
Today. The sixth seal.
Here and now.
"Describing Zion will not bring it about," saith the Prophet.
Doing,
Loving,
Longing,
Serving,
Preparing.
Today, the eleventh hour of the sixth seal, and now the
Tomorrow our forefathers spoke of and prayed for
Yesterday.
Tomorrow is the seventh seal
Only a sunrise away,
And even now the fingers of
Light
Glimmer faintly on the horizon of our mountain Zion
Toward the east.
But still we sleep until
Vengeance
Begins upon our house
To awaken us.
Then Zion rises, clothed in her beautiful garment for the Bridegroom,
The bride,
The wedding,
And the feast.
The time for preparation?
Today.
The time of fulfillment?
Tomorrow.
Now and not yet,
But soon.

My Observations About Temples

2026-09-10T10:31:27.114-06:00

This morning just for fun I asked Grok to summarize my postings on X about temples. This was the result, and I now share it on a broader platform for all those who are interested. . .

Summary of @david_goates' recent X posts about temples

Your posts treat temples as a mix of personal worship, family history work, local news, and spiritual teaching. Most activity centers on Utah temples (Lindon, Taylorsville, Salt Lake, Mount Timpanogos, Provo City Center, and the upcoming Heber City Temple).

Visits and photos

You regularly post pictures from temple grounds or sessions and note when you’re there “on the way to somewhere else.” Examples include Lindon Temple, Taylorsville Temple, Mount Timpanogos Temple, and a “twofer” day at Provo City Center and Lindon. You often mention doing family names (including very old ones from the 1600s) and adding names to the prayer roll.

Family and ordinances

One post highlights going with three daughters for an endowment session and how much you cherish that time together. Other posts tie temple attendance to faith, repentance, and exaltation—“Temples point the way to eternal life.”

News and construction

You share Church News and Deseret News links about the Salt Lake Temple open house (ticket batches and reservation dates) and updates on what’s coming to Temple Square. You also posted that you’re praying for the Heber City Temple to be finished.

Tone
The posts are consistently positive, faith-affirming, and low-key personal rather than argumentative. Engagement is highest on the photo posts from actual visits (especially Lindon and Taylorsville) and the family-history “twofer” post.

Overall, the thread of your temple posts is: temples are places you actually go, do work for ancestors, take family, and treat as the practical path to eternal life — not just symbols.

* * *

I confess that I am a newcomer to Grok, but this morning I learned something about myself that I could have never known without AI in my life. I became a fan.

Yesterday to celebrate my 79th (whew!) birthday by attending an endowment session in the Bountiful Temple. I went fasting and was rewarded with an answer to earnest prayers I have been offering for well over a year now. That smile on my face says it all without having to spell it all out in detail on this very public stage.

I am forever grateful to my Father in Heaven for prolonging my life after a brain tumor was discovered and removed in 2020. I was healed and have lived on in mortality despite that diagnosis. I am grateful beyond my ability to express it, and I consider myself to be a practiced writer (I won't say "accomplished," just "practiced"). He has been so good to me, and I acknowledge His love for me and my family that cannot be denied.

The temples in Utah are now abundant and offer me choices each week. Patsy and I served as ordinance workers in the Salt Lake Temple until it closed at the end of 2019 for the extensive renovations that ensued. At that time following my recovery we were offered positions at the Jordan River Temple as ordinances workers, but we decided to attend the temples of our choice to do the actual ordinance work for our ancestors. That's a work I have continued to do since her death on July 25th, 2023. I continue to attend various temples within an hour's reach of me to pursue the vicarious ordinances for them as they wait in the spirit world. There are many instances to which I can attest of their nearness to me when performing those ordinances on their behalf. I am so certain they will one day greet me in the spirit world with gratitude for that sacred role I have played for them in their eternal progression.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is restored to the Earth in our day. Of that I am a living witness. As I was seated in the chapel yesterday in the Bountiful Temple, my Book of Mormon opened to 3 Nephi 11.

28 And according as I have commanded you thus shall ye baptize. And there shall be no disputations among you, as there have hitherto been; neither shall there be disputations among you concerning the points of my doctrine, as there have hitherto been.

29 For verily, verily I say unto you, he that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he stirreth up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another.

30 Behold, this is not my doctrine, to stir up the hearts of men with anger, one against another; but this is my doctrine, that such things should be done away.

31 Behold, verily, verily, I say unto you, I will declare unto you my doctrine.

32 And this is my doctrine, and it is the doctrine which the Father hath given unto me; and I bear record of the Father, and the Father beareth record of me, and the Holy Ghost beareth record of the Father and me; and I bear record that the Father commandeth all men, everywhere, to repent and believe in me.

33 And whoso believeth in me, and is baptized, the same shall be saved; and they are they who shall inherit the kingdom of God.

34 And whoso believeth not in me, and is not baptized, shall be damned.

35 Verily, verily, I say unto you, that this is my doctrine, and I bear record of it from the Father; and whoso believeth in me believeth in the Father also; and unto him will the Father bear record of me, for he will visit him with fire and with the Holy Ghost.

36 And thus will the Father bear record of me, and the Holy Ghost will bear record unto him of the Father and me; for the Father, and I, and the Holy Ghost are one.

37 And again I say unto you, ye must repent, and become as a little child, and be baptized in my name, or ye can in nowise receive these things.

38 And again I say unto you, ye must repent, and be baptized in my name, and become as a little child, or ye can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God.

39 Verily, verily, I say unto you, that this is my doctrine, and whoso buildeth upon this buildeth upon my rock, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against them.

40 And whoso shall declare more or less than this, and establish it for my doctrine, the same cometh of evil, and is not built upon my rock; but he buildeth upon a sandy foundation, and the gates of hell stand open to receive such when the floods come and the winds beat upon them.

41 Therefore, go forth unto this people, and declare the words which I have spoken, unto the ends of the earth. (Emphasis mine).

* * *

From time to time we need to revisit the Savior's teachings among the Nephites following His resurrection. His doctrine puts to rest whatever disputes there may be "out there" in the seemingly erudite and intelligent community who are unfamiliar with our doctrine. I am routinely criticized on social media for my posts about doctrine, "my doctrine," as He defined it Himself. Rather than get drawn into doctrinal disputes with detractors, I refer them simply to His words. His doctrine is not complicated, and I have no duty to defend it anywhere or anytime. His words are clear and simple. Accept them or reject them, they are not confusing or difficult to comprehend them. I pray that increasingly we will be bold enough to declare them to the world as it tends to sink lower without His light.

I am practicing "becoming as a little child every day" as I now embark upon my 80th year on this planet. The older I grow the simpler it seems to me now. . .

Bountiful Temple Yesterday

"What Was the Best Decision You Ever Made?"

2026-07-06T14:57:38.206-06:00

I had this question waiting for me in an email this morning. It's a compelling question, isn't it? I couldn't resist making an attempt at an answer, so I will share openly with all of you out there in cyberspace. I hope it will prove insightful for each.

Without hesitation, the first thought I had at an early hour was, “That’s easy. Marrying Patsy Hewlett.”

Her body now lies in the Woodland Cemetery, but I testify through the many evidences of a spiritual confirmation that her eternal spirit now resides in the spirit world. She lives on. Many of you as well have testified of her ongoing influence in your lives through her subtle but persistent inspiration to you too. It’s harder for me now than ever to distinguish between the voice of the Holy Ghost and hers. To me they are one and the same voice.

Trust me, taking the step to marry the love of your life in the temple is a decision with eternal implications, then, now and always ever after. I was more concerned about the considerations of the moment at the time, but now that I am approaching the end of my life in mortality and she's where she is today, the eternal nature of our sealing is pulling me in her direction every day I continue to live.

“The most important single thing that any Latter-day Saint ever does in this world is to marry the right person, in the right place, by the right authority.” (Elder Bruce R. McConkie, “Agency or Inspiration?” New Era, Jan. 1975, 38, emphasis mine.)

President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) taught: “‘Soul mates’ are fiction and an illusion; and while every young man and young woman will seek with all diligence and prayerfulness to find a mate with whom life can be most compatible and beautiful, yet it is certain that almost any good man and any good woman can have happiness and a successful marriage if both are willing to pay the price.” (Marriage and Divorce [1976], 16, emphasis mine.)

I believe in soul mates, because I found mine in Patsy. Not everyone is as fortunate, however. It was my mother who first suggested the possibility of Patsy, and I immediately responded to the idea. It was heaven-sent inspiration. Happily for me, she agreed that I was also her soul mate. I get emails every week from our stake single adults group (36+), outlining social gatherings intended to promote “partnering” and I routinely discard them. At this stage in my life I have absolutely no thoughts of any plural marriage possibilities.

There are many of the rising generation among us, however, who are poised to make these momentous choices, and I certainly encourage that pursuit for each of you. I give you my counsel in this regard. Do NOT be discouraged by the misfortunes of others you may know in your age group. What is true for many of them does not have to be true for you. Your Father in Heaven is interested in helping and encouraging you in your righteousness as you contemplate an eternal marriage. The way is open as never before for making a success of your lives through seeking your eternal companion. In every sense it is a mutual decision between two consenting adults determined to make it work by putting the other person first in your lives.

I watched a couple who hesitated for many years before marrying, and then when they decided to move ahead with their temple marriage were never able to combine their prodigious talents together to make it into a success. Selfishness and greed entered into their relationship over things as trivial as dividing the space in the refrigerator into “his” and “hers” sections for food preferences. They also maintained separate bank accounts. Their marriage ended in divorce only months later, citing “irreconcilable differences.” I knew them both, and each sought my counsel, along with their bishop whom I also knew well. It all came crashing down.

We all know those kinds of stories. They should never be a deterrent to our faith in what is possible, however. Not everything has to be “perfectly in place” before proceeding to the altar of the temple in a sealing room where eternal marriage commences.

Truthfully, for Patsy and me it only required the desire in faith to take those first furtive steps into the unknown. And, yes, you can accuse us of naivete as you wish. Looking back these days is what I do best it seems. My lonely existence within these walls without her is buttressed by that eternal belief that I will one day be reunited with her. That hope sustains me now.

We have concluded the widespread celebrations of America’s 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence this weekend. It culminated under the bowery here in Pine Valley with an outdoor sacrament meeting comprised of a testimony meeting. Family members bore witness of the Savior for a sacred hour.

The First Presidency had invited us all as a Churchwide membership to fast and pray for “religious liberty” to be expanded to all the nations of the earth, a prodigious goal to be sure. Our testimonies to one another focused on the blessings of the Savior in our lives.

No one mentioned a political party. Instead, we united our faith on behalf of all those inhabitants of nations where religious freedom is not yet a possibility. It was an evidence to me that the Brethren whom we sustain as living prophets among us are continuing to look outward for the blessing and benefit of our brothers and sisters everywhere.

I am keenly aware of my blessings as a resident of Utah. I am surrounded by temples of my choosing in which I can do my little part in extending those blessings to my ancestors from whence I sprang in England. And now I can also feel the promptings of Patsy to continue that work here in Utah in which she is still no doubt engaged full-time in the spirit world.

My decision to marry Patricia Brazier Hewlett Goates in the Salt Lake Temple on December 19, 1969, continues to be the crowning blessing in my life in time and eternity. I assure each of you that a similar blessing is within your reach too.

That single “best decision” has proven again and again to be efficacious in everything I do today.

"When Did You First Feel Like an Adult?"

2026-06-26T10:01:01.103-06:00

I was reminded yet again this morning how grateful I have always been for the inspiration that came for my children Rich and Shauna to provide the Story Worth subscription to me. Whenever there isn’t a question waiting for me on Monday morning from a family member (and there have now been hundreds), then I get a random pre-programmed question automatically sent from Story Worth for consideration. Today’s is one such question.

The key word in this title to me is “FEEL.” The answer to the question is perhaps of more objective value to the young adults among us, and that is the reason I will attempt an answer.

In case you haven’t noticed, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has adopted lower ages for missionary service, and the response has been overwhelming among the members who have answered the invitation with enthusiasm. That includes not only my latest grandchildren like Chloe and Aleyha, Matthew and Amelia most recently, but I would submit we will continue to see record numbers serving in the coming years.

I think that is the first inkling of a “feeling” that I was becoming an adult. I had to wait until the ripe old age of 21 before I could submit my papers to serve, and back then wards were limited to two missionaries per year because of the demand for young men to serve in the Vietnam War. When I was chosen as one of two in the Federal Heights Ward that year, I was eligible and had the distinct feeling I was embarking on new and unexplored territory in adulthood.

In rapid succession I was interviewed by my bishop, then the stake president, my papers were submitted to Church headquarters, and I received my call signed personally (not “auto-penned”) by President David O. McKay to serve in the North British Mission. Soon thereafter I was given my patriarchal blessing and entered the Mission Home in Salt Lake City for one week prior to shipping out to England. It was “adulting” on steroids for me. I flew overnight from Salt Lake to Chicago and landed in London at sunrise after a night of no sleep, then took the connecting flight to Leeds Airport, near Harrogate’s mission headquarters at Rossett Green.

I had been assigned as the “group leader” of the nine of us that day for our flight to Harrogate and I “lost” one of the elders along the way. Fortunately, we located him sleeping in a remote chair in the terminal in Chicago before our flight took off for London. My father had accompanied us on that first leg, as my flight coincided with business meetings he had in Chicago.

When I said my final farewell to Dad that day, I knew for sure my childhood had ended and I would be embarking into “big boy” territory. That sleepy missionary was a constant source of trouble for me, even when I was serving later as his District Leader then as an Assistant to the President. He remained “lost” spiritually his whole two years. I had to open my missionary journal to refresh my memory of that story.

Life is a cumulative journey of awakenings for each of us, and the “formula” is going to be different for each one of us. I am now at the end of my mortal path literally and figuratively. I can look back now, which is the whole purpose of this Story Worth exercise I suppose. Even this morning as I pondered this question I thought of several instances where feeling like an adult for the first time had entered my consciousness.

I was a paperboy at age eight (long before minimum age work restrictions were imposed). I delivered newspapers from a two-sided bag slung over my handlebars of my Schwinn bicycle. I learned that by folding and banding the papers with a rubber band I could throw them onto the porches from the sidewalk as I rode by. The exception was having to get off my bike for delivery inside apartment buildings. That was all before ten-speeds were introduced.

In all four seasons I pedaled around a nearby neighborhood, then I had to go out monthly and knock on doors collecting the $2/per monthly subscription charge. I still remember how empowering it was to meet my customers on their doorsteps and ask for their $2. As one might imagine, I was greeted with all kinds of people on the other side of the door, some very kind and generous (even tippers), and others as mean-spirited and dismissive as you can imagine. I learned a lot about human nature as a young man, and it prepared me unknowingly for all those doors in England I would knock on later as a missionary going door-to-door with a message of the restored gospel in this dispensation.

Other jobs ensued as a teenager. I remembered just now an encouraging note from Mom in my lunch sack when I started a job in the maintenance department at the Primary Children’s Hospital. All along the way, Mom and Dad were supportive, encouraging me to find my independence in every way I could.

All these formative experiences contributed to my feelings of growing into an adult in time. I am grateful for the freedom they extended to me to “try my wings” as an upstart teenager, even when it meant encouraging me to forsake my wayward friends in the ward who were experimenting with the forbidden substances mentioned in the "Word of Wisdom." (Doctrine and Covenants 89). It was they who first introduced me to something called “pornography” in the basement bedroom of one of them way back in the day.

That one single decision to abandon them in my formative years proved to be the greatest determinant in establishing my own discipleship as a teenager, culminating in my call to serve as president of the East High Seminary in my senior year. That assignment cultivated a lifetime association with Elder John M. Madsen of the Seventy, who had served as a young Seminary teacher and our advisor when he was at East High too. He always made me feel like his peer, and his was a life truly worthy of emulation. Good choices, my dearest family members and readers, open the way to freedom and adulting here and now, and then the prospects of eternal life that I continue to aspire to.

Mickey Mantle

We often encounter examples of childish behavior in people we would otherwise like to enshrine as our heroes. Mickey Mantle was one of those people for me. He was a certified Hall of Famer later in his entire career as the centerfielder for the New York Yankees. I even tried switch-hitting because of his example, and I learned it was harder than he made it look. His career was prematurely truncated, however, because of his alcohol abuse, a fact he tearfully admitted to long after his retirement as he was dying of liver failure. It wasn’t uncommon in the ballplayers I saw during those years. Nicotine addiction was common also. There seemed to be no concern among those about coffee and tea, all forbidden substances. Word of Wisdom experimentation was the ever-present temptation to which many of my friends succumbed, and just like my baseball heroes their lives were tragically impacted by those early deviations.

I felt as though I were making critical adult and life-sustaining choices during those teenaged years. I applaud all of my posterity, each of you one by one in particular, for making the wise choices I see in evidence in all of you. Have the courage to continue on your path of discipleship. Believe me when I assure you that someday when you are writing your memoirs like I am these days that you will be filled with gratitude and the ability to look back in peace and tranquility.

For those who may struggle internally with your secret sins even as you are trying so hard to stay on course, let me gently suggest a visit with your bishop if needed. He is God’s servant on earth for each of you, and empowered with priesthood keys to bless your lives in ways you can’t possibly imagine until you counsel with him.

The life of King David in the Bible is the classic example of one who seemingly “had it all” - wives and concubines numbering into the hundreds, wealth untold, absolute political power and earthly possessions. And yet, he was led into adultery and eventually planning the murder of a man who was married to the object of his lust. Be aware that none of us is exempt from the temptations of the adversary and all his minions.

So when did I begin to “feel” like the adult I became, as I’ve tried to lay it out this morning? It was NOT a blinding light from heaven, like it happened for Paul the Apostle on the road to Damascus as he was persecuting the early Christians.

For me, at least, it was not a sudden burst of revelation. Rather, it was the cumulative experiences of a lifetime, just as daughter Allie said to me on Sunday at Chloe’s missionary farewell sacrament meeting - “One day at a time.” That’s how it happens for most of us, isn’t it? Don’t be too surprised when you stumble here and there along the path. The journey of mortality was never meant to be a casual stroll in the park on a sunny day. Even today, our normally spectacular Pine Valley is filled with choking smoke from surrounding wildfires as far away as Nevada. The smoke and haze, and the bumpy road is the only way we can ever hope to claim our blessings in eternity.

I am overflowing with love and admiration for all of you this morning. And, oh by the way, I’m still trying to “feel” more like an adult (he said with a broad smile on his face). I hope I can get it all figured out with my final hurdles in mortality still looming up ahead.

Be patient with yourselves and trust in the love of me, your earthly parents, Heavenly Father and your Savior Jesus Christ. Our love for you isn’t fleeting. Rather, it is ETERNAL.

"Because of Jesus Christ. . ."

2026-06-16T15:05:12.673-06:00

I reread the recent General Conference talk by Elder Dale G. Renlund yesterday, which is the title of my chapter this morning. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2026/04/46renlund?lang=eng. As I read his summary of all that Jesus Christ has done for us, I couldn’t help but insert my own name in place of the Savior’s. I recommend a similar exercise for each of us.

The Savior has provided the Atonement. It is comprehensive and in my case at least almost incomprehensible as I grow older and face the certainty of my not-too-distant personal meeting with Him someday. I will pour out my heart to Him in what will no doubt be an inadequate expression of gratitude. I wonder this morning if I will ever truly understand what “worlds without number” and inhabitants of the same look like. Mind boggling is all I can come up with.

Elder Renlund at the beginning said: “I cannot add more time to your days or eliminate the many concerns modern life brings. But I can offer this counsel: Not all matters are of equal value, and maintaining an eternal perspective helps us prioritize the things that are of greatest value. On this Easter Sunday, let us consider why focusing on Jesus Christ and the ‘infinite virtue of His great atoning sacrifice’ is of greatest value and helps us no matter how many other concerns we must manage. His life, His mission, and the fruits of His Atonement bless us infinitely and daily.” (Emphasis mine).

And there’s that word “infinite” again. I am daily reminded of the many matters that consume my attention, even at this late stage in my life. Yes, life is substantially simpler than it was many years ago, but now I am in the throes of seeking answers about my comparatively paltry estate plan that will hopefully benefit us all.

I ask myself, “Because of David Goates, my posterity will be blessed in the following ways…” and now I am leaving it in their hands to fill in the blanks that remain.

Then I wonder if I were to write my own obituary, what would I include? Would I give a stark and naked assessment, recounting all my shortcomings, sins of commission or omission, dredging up hopefully a detailed list of failings and oversights, stupid decisions, and all the rest that went with it? Would I attempt to blame others for my misfortunes?

Or would I rely upon the mercy and merits of my Savior and Redeemer to have forgiven me for all of it? These poor pages I have assembled for all of you will no doubt provide ample fodder for your own answers to the question I am posing for each of us this morning. As my Savior has forgiven me, I pray each of you may find evidence sufficient to also forgive me.

I wrote a private letter to Patsy in recent weeks, which I will not share here, in which I poured out my heart and soul to her as though she were still at my side here in mortality. From her lofty perch in the spirit world I am hoping she may know perfectly the thoughts and the intents of my heart as I finalize my estate plan for the future of this little cabin where I live on the Provo River. It’s all I have left to give, and I hope it may be accomplished in some semblance of an orderly transition to our next generations that will outlive both of us who created it.

I loved the way Elder Renlund expressed it: “Because of the merits, mercy, and grace of Jesus Christ, we can return home to our Heavenly Father and live in His presence. This is only possible through Jesus Christ. The Savior Himself said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.’ Jesus, who leads us to salvation, has the power to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves because He completed His Atonement.” (ibid., emphasis mine).

My Eternal Companion Patsy

I am acutely aware these days of all the many things I cannot do for myself, and therefore more accurately aware of my dependency upon the Atonement than ever before in my existence. I only desire the realization of one permanent goal in my life at this point - to return to the loving arms of my Savior and my Father in Heaven with honor and with my discipleship in clear evidence. By extension, I hope those loving arms include my celestial companion Patsy. So what is my motivation about anything that remains in my life? I just stated it.

Moments ago I watched a hawk swoop down from a tall pine tree outside my office window. It snagged an unsuspecting pot gut in its talons and then flew off to devour its prey. I have pondered and wondered over a lifetime if pot guts can possibly have any useful purpose on this earth, and as I shot a few over the weekend it remains an open question for me. I have murdered my fair share over the years living where I do. The perils and realities of mortality are that there always seems to be a bigger predator to take us out at any moment in time. Who or what will finally take me out? I leave the speculations to all who wish to play from the “list of horribles.”

Elder Renlund continues: “Jesus Christ has infinite capacity to forgive, promising that ‘as often as my people repent will I forgive them their trespasses against me.’ Because of Jesus Christ, sins for which we have sincerely repented leave no spiritual scar, track, or trace. There is no scarlet letter to wear, now or in the eternities. When we repent with real intent, the entirety of our sin, not just a part, is figuratively nailed to the cross and we no longer bear its spiritual consequences. After we have repented, we owe no more to justice because Jesus has paid the debt; He pardons us from deserved punishment. We are forgiven, our hearts and hands are made clean, and the Lord remembers our sins no more. The Lord our God ‘is mighty; he will save, [and] he will rejoice over [us].’” (ibid., emphasis mine).

I have concluded along with Elder Renlund that even though the Atonement is infinite, it is also deeply personal to me. When I truly see my feeble part that I play in mortality, and can look objectively and not defensively deep within my own heart and soul, I feel to rejoice in my Savior’s offering of repentance. All other considerations pale in insignificance. Introspection is a divine gift of the spirit.

“Focusing on the Savior, His infinite Atonement, and what He has done for us will bring joy and clarity into our lives, no matter how many other concerns we have. This is why ancient and modern prophets have and always will direct us to Christ. You may remember that President Russell M. Nelson taught, ‘Whatever questions or problems you have, the answer is always found in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.’ And President Dallin H. Oaks, the Lord’s living prophet today, simply declared, ‘Jesus Christ is the way.’” (ibid.)

So here is my humble answer to my own question, “Because of David Goates, I was taught about the Atonement of Jesus Christ.”

Now, please consider the answer to that question as you insert your own name into that sentence. What will your legacy be? I hope the answers will be as enlightening to you as they have been for me this morning.

"Alive in Christ"

2026-06-11T15:05:25.802-06:00

I am prompted this morning to say a few words about loving one another more fully. I posted online yesterday after a visit to the Mount Timpanogus Temple with Jeff for an endowment session, and I included our picture together.

Mount Timpanogus Temple

Back came this response from an anonymous source: “I genuinely miss when we drove Mormon scum out of the states.” I am not just imagining the recent escalation of anti-Mormon hatred online over this perpetual debate about whether Mormons are Christians. When I see it in my relatively obscure timeline on “X”, then it becomes real and intensely personal.

However, when I see these attacks in my timeline I am reminded that anonymous sources are simply sniping from behind whatever electronic cover is convenient. And then I even go so far as to wonder if some of these responses are nothing more than automatically generated from some AI source beyond my capacity to comprehend. Hence, I ignore them rather than attempt further engagement.

President Dallin H. Oaks in his most recent General Conference address at the conclusion of the two days, including the Solemn Assembly, observed:

“Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

“But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matthew 5:43–44).

What a revolutionary teaching for personal relationships! Love even your enemies! But who are our enemies? The full meaning of enemies in the sources from which King James’s translators chose the word enemies includes military foes but even extends to any who actively oppose one another. Today we might say that we are commanded to love our adversaries. All mortals are beloved children of God. As President David O. McKay taught, “There is no better way to manifest love for God than to show an unselfish love for one’s fellowmen.” (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2026/04/49oaks?lang=eng).

Such vitriol coming from someone (or something) anonymous is one thing, but when it comes from one with whom we might be living under the same roof it is nearly unbearable. But for the saving grace offered by our Savior and Redeemer, we would be consumed and sorely tempted to fight back with all we have in retaliation. However, that is not the way of peacemakers, as suggested in President Oaks’ comments. His talk was entitled “Alive in Christ.”

… President Howard W. Hunter described this same love of God toward His children: “The world in which we live would benefit greatly if men and women everywhere would exercise the pure love of Christ, which is kind, meek, and lowly. … It has no place for bigotry, hatred, or violence. … It encourages diverse people to live together in Christian love regardless of religious belief, race, nationality, financial standing, education, or culture.” (ibid.)

It is so much easier to accept and try to live these principles on the wide stage of life in this electronic age that encompasses the broad expanse of the world at large. It’s easy for me to ignore the personal attacks like the one I cited above, but it is something quite different when we are faced with such hostility in our own homes and families.

I stood in fast and testimony meeting earlier this week to bear my witness of the divinity of my personal Savior Jesus Christ. I pointed out the simple symbols of the sacrament - the bread and the water - His flesh that was broken and tortured, producing a flow of blood from every pore in His body. His agony for the sins of those who had lived not only on this earth, but “on worlds without number” is truly mind-boggling to me. He voluntarily came to earth and surrendered, even as the Father withdrew at the height of His Son’s suffering. It was part of the Father’s plan for exaltation, including the sacrifice and the provision for a Savior in the premortal realms of the spirit world. We are instructed about those details with each endowment session we attend, as Jeff and I did yesterday.

Each of us can strive to follow our Savior in His teachings about how to relate to one another. This does not mean surrendering our values. The covenants we have made inevitably position us as devoted participants in the eternal contest between truth and error. We balance our various responsibilities.

This balancing is not easy. When we seek to keep all the commandments in our personal lives, we are sometimes accused of having no love for those who don’t. When we show personal love and support loving causes, we are sometimes misunderstood as implying support for results that contradict our other religious duties. But as followers of Christ, we should seek to live peaceably and lovingly with other children of God who do not share our values and do not have the covenant obligations we have assumed. In a democratic government we should seek fairness for all. In countless circumstances, strangers’ suspicions or even hostility gradually gives way to friendship when personal contacts produce mutual respect.

The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that we should “pour forth love” to all people. Speaking of our Savior, the Apostle John wrote, “We love him, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). We can follow the example of Jesus Christ, who is our role model, by choosing to love others — even if they show little or no love toward us. He declared, “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God” (Matthew 5:9; see also 3 Nephi 12:9). (ibid., emphasis mine).

“Peacemakers” is (or should be) endemic in our discipleship, if we are truly followers of Jesus Christ who can be accurately characterized as Christians. Our critics outside the Church seem to be unrelenting. I suspect they will persist in their attacks until the Savior comes again to put an end to it all.

I read again about the Israelite child king Josiah yesterday after the temple session when I returned home. He was ordained at the age of eight, a descendant of King David. King Josiah reigned as the 16th king of Judah from approximately 640 to 609 BCE, ascending the throne at the age of eight after the assassination of his father, King Amon (2 Kings 22:1; 2 Chronicles 34:1). Despite his youth, he became one of Judah’s most righteous kings, contrasting sharply with his predecessors, including his grandfather Manasseh and father Amon, who had promoted idolatry. He tore down the “groves” where idolatry was prevalent among the Israelites, and restored the sanctity of temple worship. He opposed wickedness, and established peace in the people who were constantly swinging back and forth in their discipleship from the time they had been delivered from Egypt.

Putting this all in context, let me simply say that we are living in the end of times, truly, when our faith in Jesus Christ as our Deliverer is being tested to the uttermost degree imaginable. Be comforted, therefore, that what we are experiencing right now is not without precedent from Old Testament times until now. Remaining steadfast in our discipleship is not only desirable, it is also possible.

We have not been abandoned simply because moral agency is playing out right before our eyes. Some will choose poorly, determined to “win” in this world at the expense of others, simply because their definition of “winning” is tainted and corrupted.

Winning was defined instead as submitting in exchange for the fulfillment of a higher purpose - exaltation in the eternal realms up ahead.

We will attain those higher goals one day, as improbable as it may seem today. Of that reality I am growing daily in confidence.

The Work of This Last Dispensation

2026-05-26T13:51:11.355-06:00

I noted with interest this morning that the Church reported a total membership of 17,887,212 at the end of December, 2025. In the first quarter of this year we no doubt have passed 18,000,000 members.

The world's population is now estimated at 8,300,000,000. If one were to plug those numbers into a calculator, you get a number like .002168% that represents the total percentage of people who have been baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in this final dispensation.

Clearly, when one ponders this reality it can be a very disheartening prospect if we consider ourselves to be a missionary church as we do. Conversely, if one were to take the positive point of view with the same set of facts, why not conclude that our opportunities that await us in converting the world to the true blessings of the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ are virtually unlimited. We are expanding our reach throughout the world now with new missionaries and new missions being organized in record numbers.

Twin Granddaughter
Missionaries Being Endowed

I was edified this morning as I reviewed a pivotal address on an Easter Sunday by President Dallin H. Oaks in General Conference in 2018. He entitled it "Small and Simple Things." He encourages us to consider just how impactful our influence can be in situations we might be tempted by Satan to think are meaningless and so trivial that we can easily become discouraged or disheartened. The monumental tasks ahead of us seem insurmountable at times when we look at the raw data.

However, think of the rising number of our young people who are routinely answering the calls into the mission field worldwide these days. It's staggering to contemplate the collective influence for good their efforts represent.

Remember, these are the most innocent and inexperienced people we could possibly imagine, yet they answer their calls with hope and anticipation unfettered by the judgments of the world. And perhaps most importantly, they are succeeding in staggering numbers as baptisms continue to rise and temples are spreading throughout the world to provide eternal ordinances for those seeking a covenant relationship with their Heavenly Father and their Savior Jesus Christ.

Second Coming

My conclusion today is that we may be intimidated by the sheer magnitude of the mountain yet to climb in this dispensation as we prepare the world for the Second Coming of our Savior Jesus Christ. But (and it's a BIG BUT) we are promised the final victory in this small sample from the gospel of John:

“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6).

“I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” (John 8:12).

“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.” (John 16:33).

Have You Become Internet Dependent?

2026-05-19T11:47:36.924-06:00

I asked myself that question all of last week with the demise of my router that had died of "old age." I had it tested to discover why my access to the internet had slowly been degrading over the last several weeks. I use STARLINK as my provider, and they agreed through their interactive AI "consultant" who spoke perfect English with a lilting and cheerful voice that "she" would be happy to send me a replacement disk and router at no charge to me. It was a week in transit, and when I received it yesterday via FedEx I was up and running within minutes. Internet access has become "plug and play."

Lindon Temple

During my week of internet exile, I was able to fill in the downtime by attending several temples nearby in Utah. One day I had a "double-header" with an endowment session for two twin granddaughters in the Mount Timpanogos Temple as they prepare to leave on their missions. Then the next day one of their sisters was sealed in the new Lindon Temple.

Another day I was headed up north for the live endowment of a grandson, also preparing for his mission to Brazil later this summer. Along the way with ample time to spare I took in an initiatory and endowment session in the Brigham City Temple, then caught a bite to eat before moving on to Logan for the session with my grandson in the Logan Temple. It was a long day, to be sure, and I arrived home after 10:30 p.m. filled with the fulfillment that can only come in participating with beloved family members.

The good brother who was supervising the initiatory ordinances in Brigham City Temple asked me if I were related the Goates family that lives in the Woodland Ward. I was stunned! I replied, "Well, yes I am. That's me!" His daughter lives in our ward, and she had been talking about our family with him for years. No matter how large the Church becomes there seems to be no end of obscure but meaningful connections among us. We are still personal in all our relationships.

Wednesday of last week was also filled with a drop-in endowment session in the Bountiful Temple, because I couldn't make a reservation without my internet access. I realized just how helpless I was when I couldn't even print a family name slip for any of my outings last week.

I live alone in my "now-it's-way-too-big" home. With access to the internet I am playing background music continually from my Apple Music library. Without the internet I am listening to nothing but the sounds of silence, and my loneliness is compounded.

I am also connected through the worldwide community of "X" (formerly Twitter), which was absent from my life last week. Increasingly the members of the Church are connecting through that medium, and I am grateful to have discovered that population ever since Elon Musk, its creator, has cleaned it up for a more meaningful experience for all participants.

Logan Temple

Brigham City Temple

I will be the first to raise my hand in favor of the internet in my life. I will also admit to my dependency upon it these days. Even a week without it brought immeasurable joy as I picked up my delivery yesterday from FedEx and installed my new components to restore my access.

Promises From God Are Reliable, Even When They Seem Elusive

2026-04-14T15:02:00.002-06:00

I awoke this morning with a scripture in my mind:

And now, my beloved brethren, I would that ye should come unto Christ, who is the Holy One of Israel, and partake of his salvation, and the power of his redemption. Yea, come unto him, and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him, and continue in fasting and praying, and endure to the end; and as the Lord liveth ye will be saved. (Omni 1:26, emphasis mine).

Out of that little book of only one chapter comes these powerful words of promise from Omni. It’s a timeless invitation to one and all, no exceptions.

I also reflected on the baptism of great-grandson Simon Johns last Saturday, and thought of this chapter heading in Alma 5:

To gain salvation, men must repent and keep the commandments, be born again, cleanse their garments through the blood of Christ, be humble and strip themselves of pride and envy, and do the works of righteousness — The Good Shepherd calls His people — Those who do evil works are children of the devil — Alma testifies of the truth of his doctrine and commands men to repent — The names of the righteous will be written in the book of life. About 83 B.C.

By my count, Alma poses 42 questions to us in this chapter, as he reasons with us about our discipleship. He concludes with these verses that spoke again to my heart this morning:

For what shepherd is there among you having many sheep doth not watch over them, that the wolves enter not and devour his flock? And behold, if a wolf enter his flock doth he not drive him out? Yea, and at the last, if he can, he will destroy him.

And now I say unto you that the good shepherd doth call after you; and if you will hearken unto his voice he will bring you into his fold, and ye are his sheep; and he commandeth you that ye suffer no ravenous wolf to enter among you, that ye may not be destroyed.

And now I, Alma, do command you in the language of him who hath commanded me, that ye observe to do the words which I have spoken unto you.

I speak by way of command unto you that belong to the church; and unto those who do not belong to the church I speak by way of invitation, saying: Come and be baptized unto repentance, that ye also may be partakers of the fruit of the tree of life. (Alma 5:59-62, emphasis mine).

I have been feeling the pull of my Redeemer this weekend, as we seek the answers we need in all our various needs as a family. To be sure, we are being tested individually and collectively, and our love for one another strengthens us in those struggles. I feel to testify this morning that the ravenous wolves at our doorsteps will be ultimately be slain because of our collective faith in our Great Deliverer.

As I have studied the deliverance of our ancient cousins in the house of Israel from the wicked Pharaoh in Egypt, who first promised, then reneged on his promise to let them go after ten plagues Moses called down upon the Egyptians, I have concluded he could certainly be classified as a “ravenous wolf.” And yet he and all his hosts were drowned in the depths of the Red Sea while chasing after Moses and his faithful followers. But even that miraculous deliverance was not enough to convince them to trust in God. Instead, they wandered and their faith in God was tested for forty long years thereafter before they were permitted to enter the promised land of Israel. Even today’s headlines coming out of Israel, and their conquest of their wicked enemies in Iran, are resounding proof to me that God has never forgotten His children among the descendants of Judah.

Today, April 13, 2026, in the Jewish calendar celebrates something most of you have never heard about. It’s called Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laG’vurah (Hebrew: יום הזיכרון לשואה ולגבורה, literally ‘Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day’), known colloquially in Israel and abroad as Yom HaShoah (Hebrew: יום השואה, Yiddish: יום השואה) and in English as Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Holocaust Day, is Israel’s day of commemoration for the approximately six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust by Nazi Germany and its allies, and for the Jewish resistance in that period. In Israel, it is a national Memorial Day, but several Jewish communities around the world observe the day as well. The first official commemorations took place in 1951, and the observance of the day was anchored in a law passed by the Knesset in 1959. It is held on the 27th of Nisan (which falls in April or May), unless the 27th would be adjacent to the Jewish Sabbath, in which case the date is shifted by a day.

Celebrating Yom HaShoah

If ever there were an example of long-lasting suffering and the faithful persistence to seek deliverance, it is surely to be seen in the example of Judaism today. They are still living in the land granted to them by Yeshua (Jehovah). Remarkably, Israel has never declared war on their neighbors to acquire more territory, but has fought defensive wars against all their aggressors.

I have thought about our most recent suffering as Goates Kids this morning as these memories have flooded my thinking. I must hasten to add that I am by no means inflating our current challenges by comparing them to the travails of the descendants of Judah. That is not my intent here. Rather, I want to remind us of the promises of God that never fail us. His promises for deliverance are reliable, even as elusive as they might seem right now. "Elusive" is one word to describe it, and another might be “improbable.” Our faith will be tested as part of our mortal experience. We can help one another as we bind together in our faith in the Lord's deliverance. That is true for our family, as it is for every other family on earth today. There truly is strength in our numbers if we remain faithful to Him.

Salt Lake Temple

Despite however elusive those promises might appear to be today, please be comforted by these verses, again from Alma:

But behold, the Spirit hath said this much unto me, saying: Cry unto this people, saying — Repent ye, and prepare the way of the Lord, and walk in his paths, which are straight; for behold, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and the Son of God cometh upon the face of the earth.

And behold, he shall be born of Mary, at Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers, she being a virgin, a precious and chosen vessel, who shall be overshadowed and conceive by the power of the Holy Ghost, and bring forth a son, yea, even the Son of God.

And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.

And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.

Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance; and now behold, this is the testimony which is in me.

Now I say unto you that ye must repent, and be born again; for the Spirit saith if ye are not born again ye cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven; therefore come and be baptized unto repentance, that ye may be washed from your sins, that ye may have faith on the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world, who is mighty to save and to cleanse from all unrighteousness.

Yea, I say unto you come and fear not, and lay aside every sin, which easily doth beset you, which doth bind you down to destruction, yea, come and go forth, and show unto your God that ye are willing to repent of your sins and enter into a covenant with him to keep his commandments, and witness it unto him this day by going into the waters of baptism.

And whosoever doeth this, and keepeth the commandments of God from thenceforth, the same will remember that I say unto him, yea, he will remember that I have said unto him, he shall have eternal life, according to the testimony of the Holy Spirit, which testifieth in me.

And now my beloved brethren, do you believe these things? Behold, I say unto you, yea, I know that ye believe them; and the way that I know that ye believe them is by the manifestation of the Spirit which is in me. And now because your faith is strong concerning that, yea, concerning the things which I have spoken, great is my joy. (Alma 7:9-17, emphasis mine).

I testify of the truthfulness of these words, and also of your steadfast faith despite all the evidence of your sufferings right now. These are circumstances which none of you invited, certainly, knowing you as I do. However, imagine now if you can (though you don't remember) how we shouted for joy in the pre-existent realms of the spirit world as we watched our revered parents Adam and Eve partake of the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of all things good and evil. They opened the doors of mortality for each of us. We longed for this day of our mortal probation, and now it is upon us in all its varied shades of light and darkness. I hope you will accept my testimony and my sure knowledge that our present condition in mortality will someday also pass away. For me, it will probably come sooner than any of you as I stare down the barrel of my long-lived mortality in the natural course of uncertain future events that lie ahead.

There’s a threatening line in the endowment ceremony from Lucifer that has been ironic since it was first spoken: “I have a word to say concerning these people. If they do not walk up to every covenant they make at these altars in this temple this day, they will be in my power.” It only underscores his sworn oath to destroy all who will surrender to his evil enticements.

It’s ironic in my mind, because altering one word in the lips of Jehovah represents an eternal promise when you substitute Jehovah for Lucifer: “If they DO walk up to every covenant they make at these altars in this temple this day, they will be in my power.”

Knowing what I know about each of you, I am confident you will continue to walk in the light of Christ’s eternal promises for each of you. Those eternal promises are indeed reliable, no matter how elusive they might appear today.

They have been promised to us since the pre-existence. They will never fail us in our faithfulness in our covenants with our Father in Heaven and His Beloved Son Jesus Christ. The Holy Ghost bears that witness to our souls every day of our mortal probation as we walk in light and truth and forsake the ravenous wolves nipping at our heels.

Satan’s evil designs are like the two inches of snow that fell overnight that are rapidly disappearing in the warmth of the sun this morning.

P.S. The SON always wins.

"Grandpa, What Does The War In Iran Mean To Us?"

2026-03-12T16:02:00.000-06:00

All my grandchildren have a stake in the answer to this question, so I will attempt it here.

On February 28, 2026, the world as we know it changed forever. A coalition of U.S. and Israeli forces dropped a deluge of smart bombs targeted at the Islamic leadership. For forty-seven years their reign of terror in the Middle East had been allowed to perpetuate itself, virtually unopposed in pursuit of nuclear weapon technology aimed specifically at the United States and Israel. There were attempts at appeasement along the way, but their intent was to buy time and never to make peace. Instead, the annihilation of these superpowers was their ideology, and under the guise of “religion” they claimed Allah had sanctioned it.

Well, the world has seen religious zealots before, but they never seem to resemble peacemakers. True religion, however, TRUE religion has at its core the pursuit of peace. As I write today, I am remembering all the recent addresses by General Authorities in the last six months that proclaimed peace, peacemakers and the gospel of Jesus Christ as the antidote for wars worldwide.

Netanyahu and Trump

We live in the days of President Donald J. Trump, the POTUS who has been going about the business of stopping wars worldwide by the elimination of dictators, despots and hellions the world over since he took office for the second time in his life.

He and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, perceived the threat from Iran was escalating. They took action without giving any advance warning, wiping out the internal leadership of 49 key Islamists who had been the core command structure. The intelligence gathering was fostered by internal sources that pinpointed their secret gathering place and time where the first bombs struck with unerring accuracy.

From there the campaign expanded to include other strategic targets nationwide and continues today. Iran is home to some 90 million people, and this development was so stunning that residents took to the streets throughout the country. They would have sought safety in bomb shelters typically, but this time they were celebrating in the streets, once the news of what was happening spread quickly. They invested immediately their confidence in the overwhelming force that had been imposed against their hated dictators.

This is indeed a striking development in the future not only of Iran, but in my judgment signals the opening of the major gathering of the lost tribes of Israel who will now be introduced in this new generation to the fullness of the gospel. There was a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that was forced to close after the overthrow of the Shah of Iran all those years ago. Our missionaries were withdrawn.

Now in all likelihood that mission will reopen when hostilities settle and the freedom of the people is restored. They have been starved for the truth, and will welcome our missionaries and the message of the restored gospel, if it is allowed to proceed under a new Iranian government in the days ahead. I am impressed as I write these words today that we may very well see members of our family deployed there as part of that effort.

Do I believe this hastens the day of the Second Coming? Well, certainly, we are a day closer, but I can tell you this much whenever I am asked this question (as recently as yesterday by my old partner Steve Harris): Keep your eye on Jerusalem and Jackson County, Missouri, as temples continue to be built worldwide. Those two centers of influence will one day have temples built prior to the Second Coming of the Savior.

I saw a quote from President Gordon B. Hinckley that has been making rounds on social media this week that seems apropos:

President Hinckley was a key player in the leadership of the Church for his entire life. He often showed up in the Parleys Sixth Ward, when I was in the bishopric and he was visiting his daughter Virginia and her husband Jim Pearce, and their children. He was Grandfather Lee’s traveling companion along with their wives, when they visited the Holy Land together. I considered him a dear friend, and he spoke at my mother’s funeral in 2000. I commend his counsel to each of you.

There is no need to feel any anxiety among yourselves, my dearest posterity. I am undertaking my estate planning process these days, and I am proceeding as if life in Pine Valley will go on long after I am dead and buried beside my dear companion Patsy.

Live your lives as though you are prepared to stand before your Savior in a coming day, sooner or later. That is how you prepare yourselves for the Second Coming. I believe all those people who once stood in my wedding reception line in 1969, have already had their own personal Second Coming, and in the due course of time so will I.

Events on the earth will continue to unfold in sometimes shocking and eventual developments that may appear to be jarring and unsettling on their surface, but take heart - these are mere preparatory steps in the gradual unfolding of the promised day when the Savior will return trailing clouds of glory.

Second Coming of Jesus Christ

I will continue to prepare by living my covenants I have made in the temple. Those covenants are capped with my sacred sealing covenants with Patsy. I know she lives on in the spirit world, and is there waiting to greet me with open arms once again. That reality guides me and prompts me in all that I am doing today to prepare myself for her company. I know she will be anxious to give me the guided tour when we are reunited.

What Influenced You Most as You Figured Out How to be a Parent?

2026-02-23T14:39:00.003-07:00

I had to smile quietly to myself when I saw this question from Shauna this morning. I’m old enough now to wonder if I really EVER have figured out how to be a parent (he said with a broad grin). But, nevertheless, I will attempt an answer only because there are now so many up and coming parents among us.

As I reflect upon my life, I am consistently being reminded of past memories. My future is much shorter than my lengthy history. I think it is safe to conclude the single greatest influence in my life has been my lifelong love affair with the scriptures, beginning with the Book of Mormon. When I told Dianne that I had offered a pdf copy of my compilation of all the ZION scriptures to Woodland Ward members as I taught recently in Sunday School, she smiled and observed, “Yeah, Dad, you were obsessed.” Yes, guilty as charged, Dianne.

She no doubt recalled all the late nights I spent at my desk pounding it out on the manual typewriter long before the Internet had been invented. And here I sit at my desk this morning, still pounding it out on my very intelligent and advanced computer keyboard. It was laborious back in the day, no doubt about it, but I had found a topic that propelled me through all the standard works and into the Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. The scriptures became familiar to me, as revelation upon revelation poured out to me merely as a reward for making the attempt to learn. The prophets who wrote them came to life before me night after night.

I went page by page with a marker circling every reference I found. It was tedious and painstaking, but when I found the word ZION, I put it in context in my written compilation including surrounding verses, and kept going until I felt I had found each reference. The last time I touched it was 2002, when I printed the final copy. I found only a few takers in my latest invitation, but years ago I opened it up to the whole world in The Goates Notes, my blog page, and never looked back. An online search will quickly yield the results.

What did THAT have to do with parenting, you may ask? The quest for eternal life in my mind correlates directly with the establishment of Zion in these last days. Yes, there is a very broad and expansive definition at the global scale, but perhaps more meaningful is that individually we are the composite collective of ZION as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We trace our priesthood lineage back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Through them we have the potential to become like them, and by extension like our Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ.

That reality has been my steadfast and lifelong quest as I have “figured out” parenting. I reviewed again the story of the willingness of Abraham to offer his only son Isaac on the altar of sacrifice, and his hand was only stopped by the intervention of an angel when his faithfulness had been tested to the utmost. In the case of the Father, I reflected just last week, there was no stopping the crucifixion of His Son on the cross outside Jerusalem so the full effect of the Atonement could be realized for all His children who had ever lived on Earth. Imagine what THAT self-restraint not to intervene must have looked like!

As parents, we do all we can do to teach our children the correct principles of the gospel. Often, it may feel like we’re going down a long, long checklist of commandments and requirements, but reduced to its essence we find a much simpler compilation I am reminded of each time I attend an endowment session in the the temple.

“We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.”

Faith is hope for things that we cannot see but are true. We believe that Jesus Christ is our Savior, and we trust Him to help and guide us.

Repentance is when we change our hearts to be more like Heavenly Father. When we do something wrong, we feel sorry and promise ourselves and Heavenly Father that we will not do that wrong thing again. When we repent, we can be forgiven because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

Baptism is the first step in becoming a member of Jesus Christ’s Church. We can be baptized when we are eight years old. At age eight, we are old enough to know the difference between right and wrong.

The gift of the Holy Ghost is given to us by a priesthood holder after we are baptized. The Holy Ghost prompts us to choose the right, comforts us, and helps us understand eternal truths. The Holy Ghost is like a still, small voice that we feel in our minds and hearts.

It was standardized by the Prophet Joseph Smith, as with all the other Articles of Faith, so he could merely point to them as references for the repetitive questions he was constantly asked.

As I grew older and more children came into our home, my approach to embracing the scriptures as my guide to parenting became pivotal and defining in helping me to become a father. I reasoned that my Father in Heaven would have to become my role model. I know I must have failed many times in achieving that ideal, but I kept persisting, and still do, despite my weakness. I believe Patsy and I first found each other in the pre-existence. We chose each other there and then. When we came to Earth, we found each other here and now. The direct correlation is that then each of our children also appeared here on Earth in our family circle because we were all promised to each other in our pre-mortal existence too.

I often reflected on Grandfather Harold B. Lee’s obvious emotional reaction as he pronounced those precious sealing words upon us at the altar on the morning of December 19, 1969, in the Salt Lake Temple. I was his first grandson for whom he performed that ordinance, though he had performed it before for hundreds of others who had asked him to. It is my belief he may have had a glimpse into eternal realms beyond our physical sight as he perceived that magnificent posterity that would one day come to mortality through our loins, as their parents. I believe you might have surrounded that altar as our spirit children, waiting patiently to join us. The spirit whispers it is true as I write this morning.

So, what has influenced me as I have sought to be a parent? I hope I may have answered this question to your satisfaction. My counsel to all of you as you undertake and continue your parenting is this: Take the scriptures as your infallible guide first and foremost. I predict you will make mistakes as you raise your children, most assuredly, if my life is any indication. However, anchoring yourselves in the gospel of Jesus Christ, particularly with the promise found in D&C 58:42-43, is the assurance you seek:

Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more.

By this ye may know if a man repenteth of his sins — behold, he will confess them and forsake them.

In your attempts at raising a righteous posterity, remember what I have come to call “Divine Amnesia.” It is the part and parcel of the mercy of our Father in Heaven. It is His eternal promise to all who invite those spirits to join you here, with whom you have made eternal covenants even before this world was created. You are never alone as parents in this mortal life.

He and His Son are at your elbow in ALL the days of your lives. Of that, I bear my humble and solemn witness.

What is Something Prophets Have Shared That Brought You Closer to the Savior?

2026-02-14T10:33:00.005-07:00

Amelia, a granddaughter, asked this question the other day as I was headed out to the Orem Temple for an endowment session. I was officiating for a great uncle four times removed who was born in 1704 in Lincolnshire, England. It was yet another glorious, full session.

As I was leaving I held the entrance door open for a man dressed in his whites. He was seated in his automated wheelchair, his temple clothes in a suitcase on his lap, and then I noticed he had no feet. There was no one assisting him, but I was immediately humbled by just the sight of him coming to the temple, independent and faithful.

President Harold B. Lee

To answer Milsie’s question as I pondered it, I decided to isolate my response to the teachings of my Prophet Grandfather, Harold B. Lee. He was the 11th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and he had a singular imprint on my soul. I longed to be as knowledgeable in the scriptures as he was. He anchored his soul in the scriptures all his life, as noted below. It was through him that I gleaned the desire to become as he was, and I slowly came to know that it required consistent and systematic effort over the course of a lifetime to become as he was. I feel his eyes upon me even after all these years, and I pray I may continue to endure in faith in my Lord Jesus Christ to the end.

His grave marker in the Salt Lake City Cemetery

Of course, there are many, many prophets to whom I could turn for the answers, but I want to capture the essence of this preeminent progenitor, for all of us this morning so you may become more familiar with who he was and what he taught.

“I once had a visit from a young Catholic priest who came with a stake missionary from Colorado. I asked him why he had come, and he replied, ‘I came to see you.’

“‘Why?’ I asked.

“‘Well,’ he said, ‘I have been searching for certain concepts that I have not been able to find. But I think I am finding them now in the Mormon community.’

“That led to a half-hour conversation. I told him, ‘Father, when your heart begins to tell you things that your mind does not know, then you are getting the Spirit of the Lord.’

“He smiled and said, ‘I think that’s happening to me already.’

“‘Then don’t wait too long,’ I said to him.

“A few weeks later I received a telephone call from him. He said, ‘Next Saturday I am going to be baptized a member of the Church, because my heart has told me things my mind did not know.’

“He was converted. He saw what he should have seen. He heard what he should have heard. He understood what he should have understood, and he was doing something about it. He had a testimony.” (Stand Ye in Holy Places [1974], 92–93, emphasis added.)

“I bear you my testimony that I know the Savior lives, that the most powerful witness you can have that He lives comes when the power of the Holy Spirit bears witness to your soul that He does live. More powerful than sight, more powerful than walking and talking with Him, is that witness of the Spirit by which you shall be judged if you were to turn against Him. But it is the responsibility of all of you, as well as my responsibility, to get that testimony established. We are constantly asked, just how does one receive revelation? The Lord said in a revelation to the early leaders, ‘I will tell you in your mind and in your heart by the Holy Ghost. It shall dwell within you. This is the revelation by which Moses led the children of Israel to the Red Sea and on across it.’ (See D&C 8:2–3.) When that Spirit has witnessed to our spirit, that’s a revelation from Almighty God.” (Address given at Lausanne, Switzerland conference, 26 Sept. 1972, Historical Department Archives, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 8.)

“Not many have seen the Savior face to face here in mortality, but there is no one of us who has been blessed to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost after baptism but that may have a perfect assurance of His existence as though we had seen. Indeed, if we have faith in the reality of His existence even though we have not seen, as the Master implied in His statement to Thomas, even greater is the blessing to those who ‘have not seen, and yet have believed’ (John 20:29), for ‘we walk by faith, not by sight’ (2 Corinthians 5:7). Although not seeing, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable in receiving the end of our faith, even the salvation of our souls (see 1 Peter 1:8–9).” (The Teachings of Harold B. Lee, 93.)

“Can we sum it up and say then, that any person who has received a true testimony has received a revelation from the living God, or else he would not have the testimony? Anyone who has a testimony, then, has enjoyed the gift of prophecy, he’s had the spirit of revelation. He has had the gift by which the prophets have been able to speak things pertaining to their responsibilities…

“The Lord help us all to strive to gain that testimony most vital in our preparation to know. When finally we get that one divine thought that Joseph Smith was and is a prophet and that the gospel is true, all the other seeming difficulties melt away like heavy frost before the coming of the rising sun.” (“Church and Divine Revelation,” 1954, Historical Department Archives, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 17, 23, emphasis added.)

“Now when our missionaries go out, we say to those among whom they labor, ‘We are not asking you to join the Church just to put your name on the records. That is not our concern. We come to you offering you the greatest gift the world can give, the gift of the kingdom of God. This is here for you if you will only accept and believe.’ Now that is our challenge to the world. ‘We can teach you the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ and bear testimony of the divinity of the work, but the witness of the truth of what we teach has to come from your own searching.’

“We say to our people whom we teach, ‘Now, you ask the Lord. Study, work, and pray.’ This is the process by which people are brought into the Church, and it is the same way that from the beginning the honest in heart everywhere have been brought into the Church.” (The Teachings of Harold B. Lee, 135–36.)

“As Jesus lifted up his eyes in prayer as ‘his hour was come,’ (see John 17:1) he gave expression to a profound truth that should be full of meaning to every soul: ‘And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.’ (John 17:3.) While this expression has deeper significance than I shall discuss here, I should like to take one thought from it. How can you know the Father and the Son? … We begin to acquire that knowledge by study. The Savior counseled us to ‘Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.’ (John 5:39, see also Moses 6:63 and 2 Nephi 11:24.) Therein will be found a history of God’s dealings with mankind in every dispensation and the works and words of the prophets and those of the Savior himself as given ‘by inspiration of God,’ as the Apostle Paul said, ‘and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.’ (2 Timothy 3:16–17.) Youth should let no day pass without reading from these sacred books.

“But it is not enough merely to learn of his life and works by study. It was the Master who replied in answer to the question as to how one might know of him and his doctrine: ‘If any man will do his will, he shall know.’ (John 7:17.) Would you think an authority on science to be one who had never experimented in a laboratory? Would you give much heed to the comments of a music critic who did not know music or an art critic who didn’t paint? Just so, one like yourself who would ‘know God’ must be one who does his will and keeps his commandments and practices the virtues Jesus lived.” (Decisions for Successful Living [1973], 39–40; paragraphing added, emphasis added.)

“The acquiring of knowledge by faith is no easy road to learning. It demands strenuous effort and a continual striving by faith…

“In short, learning by faith is no task for a lazy man. Someone has said, in effect, that such a process requires the bending of the whole soul, the calling up from the depths of the human mind and linking it with God — the right connection must be formed. Then only comes ‘knowledge by faith.’” (The Teachings of Harold B. Lee, 331.)

Here’s one of my favorites that hangs in a frame on my office wall as a reminder of the precious fruit that is a testimony:

“Testimony is as elusive as a moonbeam; it’s as fragile as an orchid; you have to recapture it every morning of your life. You have to hold on by study, and by faith, and by prayer. If you allow yourself to be angry, if you allow yourself to get into the wrong kind of company, you listen to the wrong kind of stories, you are studying the wrong kind of subjects, you are engaging in sinful practices, there is nothing that will be more deadening as to take away the Spirit of the Lord from you until it will be as though you had walked from a lighted room when you go out of this building, as though you had gone out into a darkness.” (The Teachings of Harold B. Lee, 331.)

“That which you possess today in testimony will not be yours tomorrow unless you do something about it. Your testimony is either going to increase or it is going to diminish, depending on you. Will you remember your responsibility, then? The Lord said, ‘If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself’” (John 7:17). (The Teachings of Harold B. Lee, 331, emphasis added.)

“The Master was saying, and I am saying to you today, that the rains of disaster, the rains of difficulty, the floods and winds of severe trials are going to beat upon the house of every one of you. There will be temptation to sin, you will have hardship, you will have difficulty to face in your life. The only ones that will not fall when those tests come will be those who have their houses founded upon the rock of testimony. You will know no matter what comes; you will not be able to stand on borrowed light. You can only stand on the light that you have by the witness of the Spirit that all of you have the right to receive.” (The Teachings of Harold B. Lee, 140.)

As a newly called Apostle in April, 1941, he once described his testimony this way many years later looking back:

“I come to you today as a special witness charged with, above all else, the responsibility of bearing that witness. There have been intimate circumstances when I have known with a surety. When I was searching for the Spirit to deliver a talk on the Easter theme [in 1941], the resurrection of the Lord, I closeted myself, read the four gospels, particularly down to the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and I had something happen to me. As I read, it was as though I was reliving, almost, the very incident, not just a story. And then I delivered my message and bore testimony that now, as one of the least of my brethren, I, too, had a personal witness of the death and the resurrection of our Lord and Master. Why? Because I had had something burned into my soul that I could speak with a certainty that is beside all doubt. So can you. And the most satisfying thing in all the world, the greatest anchor to your soul, in time of trouble, in time of temptation, in times of sickness, in times of indecision, in times of your struggles and work, [is that] you can know with a certainty that defies all doubt that God lives.” (Education for Eternity, “The Last Message” lecture given at the Salt Lake Institute of Religion, 15 Jan. 1971, 11, emphasis added.)

“You, too, can know that your Redeemer lives, as did Job in the midst of his temptation to ‘curse God, and die,’ (see Job 2:9; 19:25) and know also that you, too, can open the door and invite Him in ‘to sup with you.’ (See Revelation 3:20.) See also yourselves one day as resurrected beings claiming kinship to Him who gave His life that the rewards to mortal men for earthly struggle and experience will be the fruits of eternal life even though as measured by human standards one’s life’s labors seemed to have been defeated.” (In Conference Report, April 1958, 136.)

This next teaching reverberates within me too. There is a fellowship in suffering that only those who have experienced it acutely can know fully. He knew because of the suffering he experienced in the decade of the 60s with the deaths of his beloved companion Fern, and his daughter Maurine, just how painful death of a loved one could be. And now, so do I. I have also buried my wife and a daughter.

“I know … what it means to have the shattering devastation of loneliness with the snatching away of a loved one. Over my years, I have been called and tried to comfort those who mourn, but until I had to repeat those very things to myself that I have been saying to others, then only did I come to sense something that was far beyond words, that had to reach down to the touchstone of the soul before one can give real comfort. You have to see part of you buried in the grave. You have to see the loved one die and then you have to ask yourself — Do you believe what you have been teaching others? Are you sure and certain that God lives? Do you believe in the Atonement of the Lord and Master — that He opened the doors to the resurrection in the more glorious life? Sometimes when we stand in the stark nakedness all alone, it’s then that our testimony has to grow deep if we are not going to be shattered and fall by the wayside.

“As the wife … of Job said, ‘Why don’t you curse God and die.’ (See Job 2:9.) But in the majesty of Job’s suffering, he gave expression to something that I think no funeral service is quite complete without repeating. He said, ‘I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, … and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.’ (Job 19:25–27.) You folks today, if you know that you have anchored your souls in that divine testimony that He lives and that at the latter day He will stand upon this earth and you will meet Him face to face — if you know that, no matter what the risks and the responsibilities and the tragedies may be — if you build your house upon the rock, you won’t falter. Yes, you’ll go through the terrifying experience of sorrow over a lost loved one, but you won’t falter; eventually you’ll come through with even greater faith than you ever had before.” (Address given at the funeral of David H. Cannon, 29 Jan. 1968, Historical Department Archives, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 5–6, emphasis added.)

“The path to [exaltation] is rugged and steep. Many stumble and fall, and through discouragement never pick themselves up to start again. The forces of evil cloud the path with many foggy deterrents, often trying to detour us in misleading trails. But through all this journey,” assured President Lee, “there is the calming assurance that if we choose the right, success will be ours, and the achievement of it will have molded and formed and created us into the kind of person qualified to be accepted into the presence of God. What greater success could there be than to have all that God has?” (The Teachings of Harold B. Lee, 69–70.)

“Isaiah said: ‘But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.’ (Isaiah 64:8.)

“I’ve read that verse many times but had not received the full significance until I was down in Mexico a few years ago at Tlalcapaca, where the people mold clay into various kinds of pottery. There I saw them take clay that had been mixed by crude, primitive methods, the molder wading in the mud to mix it properly. Then it was put upon a potter’s wheel and the potter began to fashion the intricate bits of pottery, which he was to place on the market. And as we watched, we saw occasionally, because of some defect in the mixing, the necessity for pulling the whole lump of clay apart and throwing it back in to be mixed over again, and sometimes the process had to be repeated several times before the mud was properly mixed.

“With that in mind, I began to see the meaning of this scripture: Yes, we too have to be tried and tested by poverty, by sickness, by the death of loved ones, by temptation, sometimes by the betrayal of supposed friends, by affluence and riches, by ease and luxury, by false educational ideas, and by the flattery of the world. A father, explaining this matter to his son, said,

“‘And to bring about his eternal purposes in the end of man, after he had created our first parents, and the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and in fine, all things which are created, it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter.’ (2 Nephi 2:15.)

“It was the Prophet Joseph Smith who said, speaking of this refining process, that he was like a huge, rough stone rolling down the mountainside, and the only polishing he got was when some rough corner came in contact with something else, knocking off a corner here and a corner there. But, he said, ‘Thus I will become a… polished shaft in the quiver of the Almighty.’ [History of the Church, 5:401.]

“So, we must be refined; we must be tested in order to prove the strength and power that are in us.” (Stand Ye in Holy Places [1974], 114–15.)

This was his message in his inaugural press conference after he had been set apart and ordained as the new President of the Church in 1972:

“‘Keep the commandments of God,’ for therein is the one course that brings that inward peace of which the Master spoke when He bade farewell to His disciples: ‘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.’ (John 16:33) So may each of you, in the midst of the turmoil all about you, find that heavenly assurance from the Master who loves us all, which puts to flight all fears when, like the Master, you also have overcome the things of the world.” (“A Message to Members in the Service,” Church News, 2 Dec. 1972, 3.)

When Harold B. Lee was President of the Church, he and his wife were visiting missionaries across the country.

Harold: How are you doing, elders?

Elders: Wonderful. Thank you for visiting us.

Harold: It’s my pleasure. You’re doing great work out here.

Before their trip was finished, President Lee felt impressed to return home.

Harold: I’m not feeling very well. I think we should go home as quickly as possible.

Joan: I think so, too. We’ll just have to miss the rest of our appointments.

President Lee and his wife were soon on an airplane headed for Utah. During the flight, he thought he felt someone touch him.

Harold: Did someone just touch my head?

Joan: I didn’t touch you.

President Lee looked up, but no one was there. Later, President Lee felt hands on his head again. He knew that he was being blessed by angels, but he didn’t know why.

When they arrived home, President Lee was feeling worse.

Joan: I’ll call the doctor.

President Lee went to the hospital. Doctors found that an ulcer inside his body was bleeding badly. If he had started bleeding on the airplane, he could have died.

During General Conference, President Lee told the members about his experience.

Harold: I know that there are divine powers that reach out when all other help is not available. Yes, I know that there are such powers. (See Ensign, July 1973, page 123, emphasis added.)

* * *

I will conclude this entry by stating to Amelia and to all my posterity that I do know I have grown closer to my Savior Jesus Christ by studying ALL the sermons of President Harold B. Lee throughout my life. I have given you only a small sample here. He has inspired me, continually and eternally, because of my relationship to him as his eldest grandson. He called me “Skipper,” which was his nickname suggesting I needed to set the example for my younger siblings and cousins (there were 10 of us). He explained I was to be the one who would “set the sail” for our mortal journey together. I was initially intimidated about that role, trust me, but I learned to grow into it because he had designated it for me.

I have outlived him in the number of years we were in mortality, and now I often reflect about what seemed his premature death when he was taken home on December 26, 1973, the day after Christmas. Maybe it’s only because I am a slow learner - certainly slower than he! Whatever the case, I inexorably draw closer to the day when I will depart this earthly existence.

Before that day occurs, I want to enjoy my remaining days sharing with each of you in this format. It has been a labor of love to assure you how much YOU are loved. If it is determined to be only a fraction of how much Harold B. Lee loved me, then I will be content.

Harold B. Lee and his "Skipper"

What Is The Relationship Between Faith and Science?

2026-02-09T14:43:00.000-07:00

Ben, thank you for this probing question. It has usually been asked in the spirit of pitting truth against science. Which one is more accurate, or to which one should we give preference?

President Boyd K. Packer

I have always valued the sagacious wisdom of President Boyd K. Packer, who noted:

“The Spirit of Christ can enlighten the inventor, the scientist, the painter, the sculptor, the composer, the performer, the architect, the author to produce great, even inspired things for the blessing and good of all mankind.

“This Spirit can prompt the farmer in his field and the fisherman on his boat. It can inspire the teacher in the classroom, the missionary in presenting his discussion. It can inspire the student who listens. And of enormous importance, it can inspire husband and wife, and father and mother.” (Boyd K. Packer, “The Light of Christ,”Ensign, April 2005, 10, emphasis mine).

The Lord declares, “All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence.” (D&C 93:30, emphasis mine).

President Boyd K. Packer, in the article I quoted earlier, taught:

“Every man, woman, and child of every nation, creed, or color — everyone, no matter where they live or what they believe or what they do — has within them the imperishable Light of Christ. In this respect, all men are created equally. The Light of Christ in everyone is a testimony that God is no respecter of persons (see D&C 1:35). He treats everyone equally in that endowment with the Light of Christ.” (Boyd K. Packer, ibid).

The Light of Christ, which every mortal on earth possesses, is what Lehi had in mind when he declared, “And men are instructed sufficiently that they know good from evil. … And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves.” (2 Nephi 2:5, 26).

Mormon urged: “Search diligently in the light of Christ that ye may know good from evil; and if ye will lay hold upon every good thing, and condemn it not, ye certainly will be a child of Christ.” (Moroni 7:19).

The scriptures are simply the most accurate guide we may apply to Ben’s question, as well as every other question we might suggest. It’s where my mind always takes me first, in addition to the living oracles who lead and preside among us in these last days.

President Harold B. Lee

I went WAY BACK in my memory this morning to a talk none of you would have heard of because it was delivered near the end of his mortal life in 1973, by my Grandfather, President Harold B. Lee. He titled it simply “Closing Remarks.”

“And so, in the closing moments of this conference, I have been moved as I think I have never been moved before in all my life. If it were not for the assurance that I have that the Lord is near to us, guiding, directing, the burden would be almost beyond my strength, but because I know that he is there, and that he can be appealed to, and if we have ears to hear attuned to him, we will never be left alone.

“I am grateful for strong men like President Tanner and President Romney and the Twelve and all the General Authorities, who are united more so than I have ever experienced before during my lifetime. The General Authorities are united and working together and are speaking with one voice to the world.

“Follow the Brethren, listen to the Brethren. I bear you my witness as one whom the Lord has brought to this place, as Brother Gordon Hinckley has said. I thank the Lord that I may have passed some of the tests, but maybe there will have to be more before I shall have been polished to do all that the Lord would have me do.

“Sometimes when the veil has been very thin, I have thought that if the struggle had been still greater that maybe then there would have been no veil. I stand by, not asking for anything more than the Lord wants to give me, but I know that he is up there and he is guiding and directing.

“I extend my blessings to you wonderful Saints. Go back to your homes now. Take the love of the General Authorities to your people. We extend to those who are not members of the Church the hand of fellowship. May we reach out to those who have lost their sense of direction and, before it is too late, try to win them back into the fold; because they are all God’s children, and he wants us to save all of them.

“Peace be with you, not the peace that comes from the legislation in the halls of congress, but the peace that comes in the way that the Master said, by overcoming all the things of the world. That God may help us so to understand and may you know that I know with a certainty that defies all doubt that this is his work, that he is guiding us and directing us today, as he has done in every dispensation of the gospel, and I say that with all the humility of my soul, in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.” (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1973/10/closing-remarks?lang=eng).
That concluding address to the Saints in October General Conference would be his final one. He would be gone by December 26, 1973, after a shockingly short administration everyone had expected would be much longer because of his 20-year age differential with President Joseph Fielding Smith. When his surprising death came, we all looked back and realized he had been saying his benediction at the end of General Conference.

Now, please don’t misunderstand. I have intentionally avoided in my answer anything that might resemble giving any credence to the notion that somehow faith and science are mutually exclusive. They are NOT!! Our enemies are fond of pitting us against each other with similarly posited “controversies.” There is eternal harmony in TRUTH, whether it comes from science or religion. We are taught in sacred precincts, “All truth may be circumscribed into one great whole.” We carry the symbol of that eternal truth in the sacred temple garments each of us wears every day.

President Russell M. Nelson

Now to put a fine point on this question, Ben, I turn to perhaps our most recent and most famous scientist/Apostle, even President Russell M. Nelson, who was a world-renowned heart surgeon. He brilliantly reconciles below what might only appear to be two competing worlds in his life:

“After graduating from medical school, I pursued advanced education in surgery. At that time there was no such thing as heart surgery. Then I teamed up with other researchers in the daunting task of making an artificial heart and lung machine. We knew that such an apparatus could possibly maintain the body’s circulation while repairs might be made on the heart. But during that early era, there was much we did not know.

“Then one day, two truths articulated in the Doctrine and Covenants spoke to my inquiring mind. These truths were, first, that all blessings are predicated upon obedience to law [see Doctrine and Covenants 130:21] and, second, that to every kingdom there is a law given [see Doctrine and Covenants 88:38].

“Well, I reasoned that if every kingdom had a law, there must be laws that govern the beating heart. I was determined to discover those laws and obey them. By doing so, blessings would come and lives could be saved.

“In medical school I had been taught that if one touched the beating heart, it would stop beating. However, one of the first laws we discovered in the lab was that we could touch the heart of an animal without losing its heartbeat. This finding opened the door later to uncovering another law that made more complex open-heart operations possible.

“We learned that if we added potassium chloride to blood flowing into the coronary arteries, thereby altering the normal sodium/potassium ratio, the heart would stop beating instantly. Then, when we nourished the heart with blood that had a normal sodium/potassium ratio, the heart would spring back to its normal beating pattern. Literally we could turn the heart off long enough to repair it and then turn it back on again.

“Decades later, when I explained this to a group of medical students, one prominent professor asked, ‘But what if it doesn’t work?’ My answer? It always works, because it is based on divine law.” (“The Love and Laws of God,” Brigham Young University devotional, Sept. 17, 2019, 2–3, speeches.byu.edu, emphasis mine).

Now, to all of you, my beloved posterity reading these poor words of mine, compiled with generous quotes from prophets, ancient and modern, I conclude with my witness. I know by the revelations to my heart and soul that ALL truth, whether it originates in the halls of scientific academia or the sacred precincts of temples now dotting the globe, that I have the witness of the Holy Ghost who speaks to me here and now as I write that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true.

When I think of the careful tutoring and mentoring received by the boy prophet Joseph Smith in the years between 1820 and 1830, including the publication of the Book of Mormon, that ALL I know compiled over my 78 years, has been revealed to me by my Heavenly Father and my Savior Jesus Christ through the ministrations of the Holy Ghost. It is consistent, comprehensive, and exhaustive in its volume which I will never have in its fulness until I move ahead into the spirit world someday.

In the meantime, I am content to bear this sure witness.

Comment:

Hey Grandpa! This is Ben, thanks for your answer to my question!
It’s a topic that’s come up a few times at BYU in my classes and I wanted to hear your perspective. Very enlightening!

Moses 7 and the Establishment of Zion

2026-02-03T15:54:00.004-07:00

This week our study in the Old Testament in Come, Follow Me points us to Moses 7 in the Pearl of Great Price. There is not another topic that fires one's imagination more than the establishment of the ideals represented in the revelations of God to His prophets, particularly as it relates to Enoch's society and the establishment of the ancient city of Zion that was translated. Even the chapter heading is a fabulous summary for all who desire further light and knowledge:

Enoch teaches, leads the people, and moves mountains—The city of Zion is established—Enoch foresees the coming of the Son of Man, His atoning sacrifice, and the resurrection of the Saints—He foresees the Restoration, the Gathering, the Second Coming, and the return of Zion.

In 1982, I concluded my research in the scriptures by producing a pdf manuscript consisting of every reference to the word "Zion" in all four standard works and the Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. It was a personal quest born out of my inexhaustible curiosity over what the future of the Church might hold for all the faithful saints of the latter-days.

My conclusions all those years ago will follow in this post. My daughter Emily asked me this morning if I had ever gone back to make revisions to the original manuscript, and my answer was, "No." It goes without saying as I now share this link with everyone "out there" that my foresight in 1982, could not possibly have predicted that I would live long enough to see the proliferation of temples worldwide we are witnessing in 2026. That is only one example, but I am certain there are others.

With that said, please enjoy your study of Enoch's society in Moses 7, and my blessings as you delve deeper into the topic of Zion. Truly, it is the study of a lifetime that will bless you and your families.

* * *

CONCLUSIONS:

There is an inherent weakness in this compilation that might be as obvious to the reader who has waded through the material, as it is to the author. The weakness I speak of is the learning curve. Not only have I learned as I have written, but my awareness of all that I do not know about Zion has increased exponentially. Further, prophetic events in the world seem to fill the headlines each day at an accelerated pace. That which I wrote a year ago is not as complete as it would be if I were writing today, nor is it as comprehensive as it may someday be. Further, as these rapidly unfolding events in the world occur each day, the shrouded prophetic picture of Zion seems to materialize more clearly. Predictions made in yesteryear are more accurate as events shape and focus our future destiny. We are all learning day by day, and I suppose for this reason the wisest authors reserve publishing their views until late in life when they are full of wisdom and knowledge. I do grow older – in that sense I qualify – but make no claim to either wisdom or knowledge. In my ignorance I would nevertheless make the attempt to state my conclusions if for no other reason than to brush a little dust and grime off the portrait of our destiny.

People

Zion is a covenant people, set apart, consecrated, and sanctified from the rest of the world. They are different, they are peculiar and they are pure. They have come out of the world, entered in at the gate of baptism, are born of the Spirit and have taken hold of the iron rod. They reject the clarion voices from amid the mists of darkness, and ignore the taunts and jeers of those in the spacious building of sin. God has purged his people in all the other dispensations of which we have record, and the purification has come as a result of extreme adversity and affliction. Gold is never refined in an air-conditioned chamber. If the covenant people cannot sacrifice and consecrate their lives to God, it has forever been the case that the rest of the world was willing to cast them out, throw them into the lions' den, or stoke up the fiery furnace. Let us never be deluded into thinking we will inherit Zion in any other way, nor be worthy of the company of earlier martyrs at that future wedding feast unless we consecrate.

Place

Zion is two world centers of righteousness and judgment that are ultimately joined together physically. One is Independence, Missouri, the "centerstake," from which “the law” will emanate, the other is Jerusalem, from which “the word” will go forth. Those who love and cherish the Constitution of the United States, it would seem, will rally to Zion and her stakes upon the American Continent. Christ will come to the Earth and sit in his temples in Jerusalem and in Jackson County, from which will go forth his word. They will combine eventually in the Lord's timetable with the heavenly Zion when the earth enters the terrestrial phase of its existence, thus returning to the status it once enjoyed referred to in the 10th Article of Faith as "paradisiacal glory."

This telestial world in which we now live will give way to a terrestrial world that will stand for one thousand years, a period of time referred to as "The Millennium." This is the place at the end of the path in Lehi's vision where the tree of life grows.

Condition

Zion will stand apart from all worldly influences. Men and women of honesty and truth will seek the peace Zion affords, trust their temporal and spiritual welfare to each other, or sink lower and lower with the rest of the world who will be at war. There will be no middle ground -- either total acceptance of God's salvation, or Lucifer's damnable embrace of death and destruction. Zion will be the light on the hill, and so formidable will be her strength and beauty because of God's overshadowing presence that her enemies will shrink at the sight of her. The society will be characterized by people of one heart, one mind, and one objective -- spreading the truth of God's salvation over the face of the earth as with a flood.

Time

Zion will come to pass in the due season of the Lord, and that season is upon us even now. We live at the end of the sixth seal of John's Revelation, meaning the end of the sixth thousand-year period since the Fall. It is called "today" in the scriptures, and it is a day of sacrifice. It is not a day in which to trust in the arm of flesh, seeking security in the carnal pleasures of today's society. Zion's time is not fully ripe until the Bridegroom comes to accept the Bride, as John foresaw. The paradox of Zion's timetable is that she will be nurtured as it were in the bull rushes like Moses, in the midst of unparalleled wickedness and abominations among men. The wheat and tares continue growing together, and the tares keep looking more and more like the weeds they are. And we also see the fig tree putting forth its leaves every day.

The Spirit whispers the truth that Zion will indeed have to be led out of bondage as the children of Israel were led out under Moses. While we are in the midst of spiritual bondage right now, the scriptures are replete with types and shadows of a physical bondage yet to come that will precede the day when all things are fulfilled.

We will not see the establishment of the headquarters of Zion until the temporary landlords who now occupy the sacred sites of the habitations of the New and the Old Jerusalem are swept off. The reclamation of those lands will come in the wake of destruction as foretold by all the prophets who witnessed the promised day, and that time is not far distant. Without an understanding of the impending destruction as the lynch pin to prophecy, the promises of the Lord to Israel that she will ultimately redeem the promised lands of her inheritance seem incomprehensible. One need not read far into The Book of Mormon to discover that this land is not promised to the Gentiles who now occupy it. Rather, it will be given to the scattered remnants of the House of Israel now being gathered, and to those relatively few Gentiles who repent, embrace the gospel and by adoption become Israel. To think otherwise would be to deny the very faith that gave the prophets their utterance. And this despite the obvious evidence that the Gentiles who occupy this Promised Land today have material wealth and military might beyond even the wildest imaginations of the prophets who foresaw their destruction.

Ephraim's descendants will figure prominently in the leadership of the House of Israel in the development of Zion, but it would be a gross error to assume that Zion is the private domain of Ephraim. The scriptures speak plainly of ALL the tribes coming to their inheritances in their various lands. We are witnessing the emergence of all these long-lost cousins in Israel in our day, as adversity, lawlessness, and political upheavals continue to drive them to our borders of freedom.

They come because of wars, famines, diseases, natural disasters, and the love of freedom, but whatever the reasons, they are coming to claim their promised blessings at the hands of Ephraim. Let us never be so surfeited by the things of this world that we cannot embrace them, when they come with little more than the clothes on their backs.

There is not a clear road map to Zion, a "checklist" if you will, that will land us unerringly at the gates of the Holy City. To come to Zion requires clean hands, a pure heart, and pure faith. To be a consecrated saint is to hearken to the voice of the Lord by the power of the Holy Ghost, to receive revelation upon revelation, and to possess a submissive heart that endures all that the Lord sees fit to inflict upon us. All the inhabitants of Zion are as little children, full of faith, and eager to do the will of the Father in all things.

We are not worthy of Zion's society in our present state. The institution of the Church that has served us so well to this point in the dispensation will be of little worth in the wilderness that still must be traversed by Zion's caravan. Programs, like scaffolding, must be dismantled, institutional thinking, like jetsam, must be thrown overboard as the caravan rolls onward. Those who cling steadfastly to their institutional faith, never risking the failure of individual responsibility for their decisions will sink in the depths of forgotten dust with the discarded baggage. We cannot endure the journey to Zion on borrowed light, nor will we find the oil of the Spirit to buy at midnight.

We must beware of repeating the patterns of old. The institution of the Church today can easily be discerned of bearing all the earmarks of the institution of the Jews in Christ's day. Despite the law of Moses designed by the Lord himself to prepare them for his kingdom, they tripped on form, on organizational neatness and perfection, on vain practices, and on outward works of professed righteousness for all men to see. In reality they were nothing but whited sepulchers having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. There is a tendency among us toward this same condition today. The liability of institutions is they tend to produce the undesirable qualities of self-righteousness and they miss the mark. Satan loves a parade, but Zion is a caravan of strangers and foreigners seeking a city built without hands. It is to be expected that the "corporate" Church would have difficulty implementing the celestial principles upon which Zion will be built. That reality does not make the Church's doctrines any less true.

This is an important point that cannot be glossed over. The Church’s compromise with Babylon in 2002 is nearly complete. In a forthcoming day there will be an entire separation of the righteous from the wicked. Babylon is slated for destruction. That fact is a well-documented scriptural reality, and so is the establishment of Zion. We are in the world as never before in our history, and we are more of the world too. We have a long and well-established history in the twentieth century of trying to have it both ways. We had to give away our “weird” history to convince the world we are no longer “weird.”

President Gordon B. Hinckley has made the point well in his unprecedented outreach to the mass media on the world’s stage. In order to fulfill our mandate to take the gospel, even the least part of the gospel – that salvation is in Christ – to the world we had to make peace with our past. From the days of Brigham Young whose mission was to separate the saints from the world by leading them to these remote valleys of the Mountain West, to the administration of Gordon B. Hinckley who has welcomed the world with the red carpet, we have come full circle. Living prophets lead the way.

But the caravan is on course, never fear, though there will always be those among us who cling to the past fiercely, as though we are going to return somehow to the purity and simplicity of an earlier time. These somehow wish they could live in the days before the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands and started rolling downhill. We are picking up speed as the little stone rolls forward. But let us not be smug. We are no better than our earlier counterparts in Israel who sinned against the covenant.

President Ezra Taft Benson made a convincing case that the Church was still under condemnation for treating lightly The Book of Mormon. God will cut short the work in this last dispensation of the fulness of times. The Bride may have grown weary while waiting and defiled herself with the world, but this time there will be a wedding with the Bridegroom and the Church will become the Bride of Christ. The best course we can take is individual repentance and to let the rest of the Church and the world who fail to repent go their merry way to destruction.

As midnight draws nigh there will be fewer opportunities to obtain oil to light our little lamps of faith. Unconsecrated material possessions in that hour will be a poor store of value, ancient prophets used the word “slippery.” (Helaman 13:31).

Now I offer this final observation. Patience with the unfolding timetable of the Lord is indispensable to the true disciple. Many, knowing what the scriptures reveal concerning conditions in a Zion society, and observing these circumstances do not now exist in the Church, and thinking they have somehow been "called" to lead the way, have made unwise and premature decisions to move out in front of the caravan. Like the ancient Rechabites of Jeremiah’s day they prefer the separatist life to the heat of the day in the kingdom with all its paradoxes, contradictions and ironies. They are never wise stewards, and seem to lack the faith they proclaim. The keys of the priesthood reside with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and those keys and this kingdom will never again be taken from the earth. The path to Zion is first discovered deep within the hearts of men and women, and they gravitate to others who have made a similar discovery, all of whom are subject to the Lord's mouthpiece. That man, the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, like Moses who stood at the head of another caravan, will lead Israel out of whatever form of bondage awaits us.

Until that promised day comes, it is enough to hear the Lord whisper again, "Be still, and know that I am God." His promises will never fail, and the gates of the Heavenly City await us.

* * *

Jesus Christ will come again in the last days.

Enoch’s vision, especially what’s recorded in Moses 7:59–67, is one of history’s first prophecies of the Savior’s Second Coming. What impresses you about the way these verses describe the last days? For example, consider how you feel the prophecies from verse 62 are being fulfilled. What do these phrases teach you about God’s work in the latter days?

Enoch was a true prophet whose entire city of the faithful saints was translated:

And Enoch and all his people walked with God, and he dwelt in the midst of Zion; and it came to pass that Zion was not, for God received it up into his own bosom; and from thence went forth the saying, Zion is Fled.

Two Modern Parables You've Never Heard

2026-01-31T11:11:00.012-07:00

PARABLE OF THE SCREWDRIVER

Unto what shall we liken the current attempts in Utah to pray and fast for more snow this winter? Behold, we will liken it to the parable of the screwdriver on this wise:

There was a propane tank at the end of the Pine Valley Road that ran dry and needed refilling. The propane delivery man is on the speed dial of the homeowner. He was summoned at 5:30 a.m., and when informed of his customer's plight, promised to come as his first delivery of the day. It's a 1,000 gallon tank that supplies the needed fuel for the boiler, and he filled it with dispatch.

However, the boiler in the basement of the home failed to ignite, and for two days and nights the home remained cold, forcing the homeowner to add two heavy comforters to his bed, move a space heater into the bedroom, and close the door to retain at least that much heat.

On the morning of the third day, the homeowner called for a technician to aid him in starting the boiler once again. He arranged to come as soon as his other calls would permit and within the hour knocked on the front door, equipped only with a screwdriver. The homeowner admitted him and escorted the technician to the crawl space where the boiler resided.

The technician removed the front panels with the screwdriver, exposing the inner workings of the boiler. Then he tapped three times on the side of the pilot light housing. In an instant the auto-pilot fired off and lit up the burners as the boiler suddenly sprang to life once again after having been dead as a doornail.

The homeowner was amazed, and asked, "So what was the problem?" The technician smiled and said simply, "Well, I thought when I came in I could probably solve it with my screwdriver. The propane line between the tank and the boiler had a small air bubble in it, and all it needed was a slight tap to dislodge the bubble." Total elapsed time was five minutes.

As it is with seemingly difficult problems, when the Master Technician of the pilot light is summoned, and applies his superior knowledge to the situation, all is well.

"Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise." (Alma 37:6).

PARABLE OF THE LIVER

There was a certain old man, who visits his doctor on an annual basis for a checkup. Recently, he consulted with his doctor about his health profile, since brain surgery six years ago to remove a meningioma tumor, and he was feeling better than ever.

The doctor ran through his battery of testing with his patient, including a cognitive analysis and a question, "Do you have any fears about death?" To which the old man responded, "Not now, knowing my beloved companion is waiting for me in the spirit world."

Then the collection of bodily fluids ensued, including blood and urine samples for further analysis.

Two days later the results came back, showing normal results with only one exception - the liver function was "borderline." When the doctor's nurse called to review the findings, the ONLY item on the "list of horribles" that could be questioned was the liver function. Blood pressure, heart function, cholesterol and diabetes markers and other possible complications were ALL normal and showed improvement from previous visits. The elderly patient was also down to near his weight in his high school years, another marker that had shown improvement.

She explained the doctor's recommendation was, "Drink more water." Of all the remedies available to the doctor, this was the most sagacious wisdom he had for the patient.

“With men [it] is impossible; but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).

“With God nothing shall be impossible” (Luke 1:37).

Is ANYTHING too hard for the Lord, who is the Master Technician of the liver?

* * *

This weekend is a fast Sunday. Governor Spencer Cox of Utah has invited all the citizens in our drought-infested state to fast and to pray for more snow. So far this winter, I do not remember a year that has been this dry, and I've lived here since 1976. This is the view currently off my back deck.

I have shared these two parables for a specific purpose this morning. It is through small and simple things that great things are brought to pass. We may pray to our Father in Heaven on a host of topics for anything we desire. The only requirement is to invest our faith simultaneously.

The Master Technician of the universe is certainly our Savior Jesus Christ. My faith in both of Them multiplies within me each time I stand in sacred precincts. The other day I stood before the outstretched hands of my Savior, who I believe is eager to bless me.

I testify with all my heart this morning as I write that They are anxious to bless us with the miracles we need to effect the answers to our fervent petitions for more snow.

For Them it may be no more difficult than using a simple tool like a "celestial screwdriver" to tap the clouds overhead and unleash the needed moisture.

In The Shadow of My Savior Jesus Christ

2026-01-29T11:01:00.009-07:00

Provo City Center Temple

I have a constant companion these days since Patsy died. It is my Savior, symbolically represented here. There are many times since her death that I have longed for her company, even as I am driving to various destinations, but particularly when I attend a temple session without her. Despite that, I still attend the temples in Utah as often as I can, since I draw so much inspiration and peace from the attempts.

Yesterday, I was in the Provo City Center Temple for an endowment session. I was officiating for an ancestor from Derbyshire, England, who was born in 1604. My ancestors emigrated from England, many bearing the scars, the wrath of mobs who smeared their bodies with tar and feathers, and the complete rejection of their company in their neighborhoods because they had joined the Mormons. James Munns, a grandfather in our family, was bent over the rest of his life from the beatings he sustained before leaving England. They emigrated to the empty desert valleys of Utah near what is today Lehi, Utah. They were part of the "sugar beet mission" in those days, barely eking out an existence. Fortunately for me, they survived and we are now thriving because of their sacrifice.

I am blessed with many temples throughout Utah, where I can choose which one to attend week to week. Patsy and I were ordinance workers in the Salt Lake Temple before it closed for renovations. That coincided with the discovery of a meningioma brain tumor that required surgery for removal in March, 2020. Of all the eventualities that could have happened to me, a brain tumor was remote in my thinking back then.

Following my recovery, we were offered new positions as ordinance workers in the Jordan River Temple. We discussed it and decided together we would rather do the actual ordinance work for our ancestors instead. I have continued to carry on without her in that seminal work of the Restoration. Temple ordinance work was pre-eminent in the earliest days of this seventh dispensation. The Salt Lake Temple construction took 40 years to complete, but the pioneers persisted until it was finished. Such is our heritage in faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father. I am routinely reminded of the sacrifices of those ancestors who came here under Brigham Young's stewardship to settle these remote mountain valleys. I imagine to myself what their lives must have been like when I contemplate their existence in those formative days in Utah, even before it was accepted as a state into the United States of America. It's what motivates me to accomplish all I can in the temples for their blessing.

Right now, we are in what is all-too-familiar territory for us. We are lacking the critical moisture we need. It is a winter without snow that provides the life-giving water we will need in spring and summer. Our Utah Governor Spencer Cox has invited us to fast and pray this coming weekend for more snow. WHAT? Pray for God to mitigate the weather for our benefit? What a novel idea that is! It might even seem incomprehensible to those who are unfamiliar with our beliefs as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in these last days!

However, we believe we are children of a God who loves us unconditionally, and sent His Beloved Son Jesus Christ as a propitiation for sin by allowing His Atonement to be carried out by the most wicked people in His Son's generation on earth to effect His brutal crucifixion and burial in a borrowed tomb. Let this thought sink in for just a moment. Jesus Christ conquered sins for sinners yet unborn in His voluntary Atonement. All of us living on planet Earth today are in that category, aren't we?

As we have begun our Old Testament studies this year in Come, Follow Me curriculum, I am once again made aware of a long history of faithful followers of the Jehovah who was yet to come. No matter which dispensation in which we live, or have lived, or may yet live, the eternal Atonement of Jesus Christ remains the most obvious reality of God the Father's love for each of us, no matter what our present extremities might represent in suffering. Remember, He descended below them all!!

1 The ends of the earth shall inquire after thy name, and fools shall have thee in derision, and hell shall rage against thee;

2 While the pure in heart, and the wise, and the noble, and the virtuous, shall seek counsel, and authority, and blessings constantly from under thy hand.

3 And thy people shall never be turned against thee by the testimony of traitors.

4 And although their influence shall cast thee into trouble, and into bars and walls, thou shalt be had in honor; and but for a small moment and thy voice shall be more terrible in the midst of thine enemies than the fierce lion, because of thy righteousness; and thy God shall stand by thee forever and ever.

5 If thou art called to pass through tribulation; if thou art in perils among false brethren; if thou art in perils among robbers; if thou art in perils by land or by sea;

6 If thou art accused with all manner of false accusations; if thine enemies fall upon thee; if they tear thee from the society of thy father and mother and brethren and sisters; and if with a drawn sword thine enemies tear thee from the bosom of thy wife, and of thine offspring, and thine elder son, although but six years of age, shall cling to thy garments, and shall say, My father, my father, why can’t you stay with us? O, my father, what are the men going to do with you? and if then he shall be thrust from thee by the sword, and thou be dragged to prison, and thine enemies prowl around thee like wolves for the blood of the lamb;

7 And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.

8 The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?

9 Therefore, hold on thy way, and the priesthood shall remain with thee; for their bounds are set, they cannot pass. Thy days are known, and thy years shall not be numbered less; therefore, fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever. (D&C 122, from the Prophet Joseph's revelation in Liberty Jail as he sought comfort for himself and the suffering saints).

Yes, it is true we are in a drought this winter in Utah. I treasure the memory of Joseph Smith, who was suffering in Liberty Jail as few of us ever will through a torturous winter under different circumstances. It helps me to put into perspective what we are experiencing in our sequestered mountain home.

Home Fireplace Always Works

Recently, my propane tank supplying fuel for my boiler ran empty and I had it refilled. Sadly, the boiler was not firing again after two cold nights. Fortunately, my home storage includes an ample supply of firewood for just such emergencies. I called for a technician to come and see if he could get it going again. He came in armed only with a screwdriver, and I escorted him into the crawl space where the boiler is located. He removed the front panels, then gently tapped the side of the housing for the pilot light with his screwdriver, and amazingly, the boiler fired off on its auto-ignition. As he had suspected, there was an air bubble that had developed in the line from the propane tank that was blocking the fuel from flowing into the boiler. Problem solved. His comment with a smile was, "I thought I might be able to solve it with my screwdriver." And he did! He was the master of the pilot light. I needed his help. Similarly, we worship the Master of the Weather and all of the Universe, and we need His help.

Dear Readers of this poor page, now hear this: The God of the Universe has made ample provisions for all of us, unworthy as we may be. When we exercise our faith, offer our prayers and fasting to Him, do not believe for one second that our appeals for help fall on deaf ears.

I testify of the reality and the divinity of our Father in Heaven, His Only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, and the direction of the Holy Ghost, all three separate and distinct Beings anxious to bless and deliver all those who come and partake at the banquet table of Their offerings for us. . .

Even those humble Goates beet farmers from England who settled in Utah County near Lehi, Utah.

"Where Will This Lead?"

2026-01-26T06:13:00.003-07:00

President Dallin H. Oaks

These days I come home from Church on a Sunday to an empty and this morning a very cold one. I long for our post-Woodland Ward Sunday chats together. Now I have no one to talk to, so once again I take up my “pen” to share with all of you.

I’ve been pondering a talk that provides my chapter heading. It was given by President Dallin H. Oaks at the General Priesthood Meeting in April 2019. He could not possibly have known then what I am presently contemplating as I undertake my estate planning venture. However, when I returned home just now, I was compelled to find that talk and share it with all of you. He said:

“Our present and our future will be happier if we are always conscious of the future. As we make current decisions, we should always be asking, ‘Where will this lead?’

“Some decisions are choices between doing something or doing nothing…

“The decisions I have just described involve choices between taking some action or taking no action at all. More common are those choices between one action or another. These include choices between good or evil, but more frequently they are choices between two goods. Here too it is desirable to ask where this will lead. We make many choices between two goods, often involving how we will spend our time. There is nothing bad about playing video games or texting or watching TV or talking on a cell phone. But each of these involves what is called ‘opportunity cost,’ meaning that if we spend time doing one thing, we lose the opportunity to do another. I am sure you can see that we need to measure thoughtfully what we are losing by the time we spend on one activity, even if it is perfectly good in itself…

“Take the long view. What is the effect on our future of the decisions we make in the present? Remember the importance of getting an education, studying the gospel, renewing our covenants by partaking of the sacrament, and attending the temple.

“‘Where will this lead?’ is also important in choosing how we label or think of ourselves. Most important, each of us is a child of God with a potential destiny of eternal life. Every other label, even including occupation, race, physical characteristics, or honors, is temporary or trivial in eternal terms. Don’t choose to label yourselves or think of yourselves in terms that put a limit on a goal for which you might strive.

“My brethren, and my sisters who may view or read what I say here, I hope you know why your leaders give the teachings and counsel we give. We love you, and our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, love you. Their plan for us is the ‘great plan of happiness’ (Alma 42:8). That plan and Their commandments and ordinances and covenants lead us to the greatest happiness and joy in this life and in the life to come. As servants of the Father and the Son, we teach and counsel as They have directed us by the Holy Ghost. We have no desire other than to speak what is true and to encourage you to do what They have outlined as the pathway to eternal life, ‘the greatest of all the gifts of God’ (Doctrine and Covenants 14:7)…

“Brethren, we make countless choices in life, some large and some seemingly small. Looking back, we can see what a great difference some of our choices made in our lives. We make better choices and decisions if we look at the alternatives and ponder where they will lead. As we do, we will be following President Russell M. Nelson’s counsel to begin with the end in mind. For us, the end is always on the covenant path through the temple to eternal life, the greatest of all the gifts of God.

“I testify of Jesus Christ and of the effects of His Atonement and the other truths of His everlasting gospel in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.” (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2019/04/35oaks?lang=eng) (emphasis mine).

I am constantly reminded that my life today is the sum total of all the choices I made as I believe they were prompted by the Holy Ghost. There is nothing I can do today about those decisions of yesterday, and there are too many to count. But for each of you with many more years ahead of you than behind you, my counsel is to seek the guidance of the Holy Ghost in all you are doing. The decision-making process accelerates dramatically once you have graduated from high school. Please remember there is no calendar, deadline, or timetable for any of us. Be patient.

My One and Only True Love

My son Jeff asked me the other day why I hadn’t started my estate planning process many, many years ago instead of waiting so long. I didn’t have an immediate answer for him then, but maybe it’s because I am “ponderous” in my approach. (I’m being generous). Maybe I just procrastinated. The time for imminent decisions is now upon me, ready or not. Whatever the reasons for delay, I am now undertaking the process once again with a prayer in my heart that I will be guided by revelation from heaven.

I looked again the other night at the picture that was snapped at our wedding reception on December 19, 1969. I was reminded forcefully that all the people pictured except me are ministering spirits, now living in the spirit world as ministering angels. Then the realization hit me that Patsy may be the best of them all to influence my thinking and my choices going forward from here. I am the only one in that picture who is left still living in the flesh on earth. It’s humbling to me, beyond your imagination. I am writing my benediction to all I held dear and sacred for a lifetime, and I earnestly hope my efforts will be met with the best possible outcomes for all of us.

Certainly, the question looming before me is, “Where will this lead?”

My Attempts at Estate Planning These Days. . .

2026-01-19T13:45:00.007-07:00

I am now an old man at age 78, when planning for the future has now led me to possibilities I never had to consider until now. While I am still in a reasonable facsimile of mental competence without any concerns about what anybody else thinks about it, I offer the following as a transparent glimpse into my priorities these days. Perhaps it will be helpful to someone "out there" who may be in a similar state of their lives.

The Law of Consecration

There has been a gradual distillation process at work within my soul for many years in my attempts to understand the law of consecration (yes, I am slow). Here are some conclusions: 1) Consecration is the making of a sacred covenant with God to freely give and dedicate oneself and possessions for God’s work here on earth, and it is a fundamental law of the Church dating back to 1831, that has never been rescinded; 2) Attempts by the Prophet Joseph to introduce economic systems among the Saints to implement the law of consecration are not the “real” law of consecration, but should be looked upon as the evolutionary process taking place in the Prophet’s own mind in preparation for the covenant we now make in the full temple endowment ceremony, which was not given until 1842; and 3) The Saints in our day can and should already be living our individual economic lives in such a way that our covenant to consecrate is in full implementation right now instead of waiting to live this covenant at some future date. To do otherwise is to succumb to a pervasive satanic deception.

History of the Law of Consecration

Let me refine the foregoing material with a comparison of the various “programs” introduced by the Prophet Joseph, and illustrate the conclusions I have cited above. The “when,” and the “why,” and the “how” questions about the law of consecration, are answered by personal revelation from the Holy Ghost, and we can know that we are pleasing God in pursuit of our faith here and now. Ironically, it sometimes seems those with the least to give readily understand the principle (if they can overcome their envy of the wealthy), while those with spacious barns to hold their worldly possessions wrest the scriptures and our early history to delay their gifts to the undeserving poor (as they suppose in their self-righteous judgments). Thus, both the poor and the wealthy are challenged in the implementation of this lofty, even supernal and eternal principle of consecration.

The first attempt to implement a communal system for consecration among the Saints was made in 1831, in Kirtland, Ohio. Newly baptized Sidney Rigdon had been involved in other communal experiments that were common in that day, and was no doubt a catalyst influencing Joseph’s inquiries to the Lord regarding the matter. Section 38 of The Doctrine and Covenants really lays the foundation in gospel principles for that which was to follow about a month later in Section 42, the first attempt to put in writing a plan of consecration. It was rigid, requiring that all property be deeded to the bishop and then a stewardship returned as an equal portion to all other stewards. All surplus profits derived were to be reconsecrated each year, then new lines of equality drawn by the bishop. The plan was tried in Kirtland first, then in Jackson County, but it failed, because there was no private ownership of anything. It was doomed to fail because of the Saints’ poverty. They simply consumed more than they produced.

By 1833, the Prophet had modified his views and concluded that private ownership of the stewardship was essential to avoid putting the bishop at odds with the people in determining the size of equal stewardships, and only surplus property was consecrated by deed to the bishop’s storehouse.

Here again, there was a possibility for failure on the part of the steward to declare or disclose what was surplus, but it was made clear to the bishops that they were not to judge in the matter. (See HC, 1:364-65). It was during this period of modification of the law of consecration in 1833 that the enemies of the Saints in Missouri organized against them. These events left the implementation of the program in shambles, some having dedicated property to the Church, others retaining individual ownership, and many merely clinging on to life itself.

Zion’s Camp

As I write this afternoon, I am dressed in my ZION sweatshirt. It’s a gift from Melanie, an acknowledgment by her of my deep dive into this topic of Zion. D&C Section 105 outlines the Lord’s implicit instructions in June 1834, after the failure of Zion’s Camp to return the consecrated property of Jackson County to the Saints and orders that “her law be executed and fulfilled after her redemption” (speaking of the land of Zion). Many have supposed this was the end of consecration in the Church, but, the careful reading of this and other revelations will document that consecration and stewardship were still and always have been required of the Lord by the Saints.

President Gordon B. Hinckley

See for example the Sixth Lecture on Faith, published for the first time in Kirtland in 1835, especially, verses 7-8. Go to the temple and listen carefully to the instructions given in relation to the last covenant. There is no reference to suspending the observance of the law of consecration until some undefined future day of fulfillment. Here and now is the requirement. In General Priesthood Meeting on March 31, 2001, President Gordon B. Hinckley announced the establishment of the “Perpetual Education Fund” designed as a way for the saints to consecrate for the benefit of the impoverished returned missionaries among us so they could be educated in their lands of origin for the benefit of their people. He said, “I believe the Lord does not wish to see His people condemned to live in poverty. I believe He would have the faithful enjoy the good things of the earth. He would have us do these things to help them. And He will bless us as we do so. For the success of this undertaking I humbly pray, while soliciting your interest, your faith, your prayers, your concerns on its behalf.” [See May 2001 Ensign, 51]. In my opinion, this is evidence the observation of the law of consecration is an individual covenant based upon an invitation to make free will offerings, rather than a Church mandated program to compel compliance as in the past.

Other experiments with consecration continued in Kirtland in the form of the “Literary Firm,” and the “United Firm,” a full account of which can be obtained in Lyndon Cook’s excellent compilation titled, Joseph Smith and the Law of Consecration, (Grandin Book Company: Provo, Utah), 1985.

It is interesting how often we read over the few verses of Section 119, and completely miss their significance. Given in 1838, rather than the introduction of a “lesser law,” the law of tithing is one further modification and refinement on the ongoing theme of consecration, and is to “be a standing law unto the Church forever.” (See D&C 119:4). Think what the condition of the Church might be today if we observed the law of tithing by consecrating all our surplus property and then donating a tenth of our annual increase thereafter! We would be equal in all things, and it would all be a voluntary and cooperative society. Instead, however, we see social classes among us that are completely repugnant to the Lord, and one of the earmarks of Israel in apostasy. (See, for example, 3 Nephi 11:15).

The next step in Joseph’s continuing education concerning consecration came in 1842, when he introduced the full endowment to his brethren in Nauvoo. He said on that occasion:

“I spent the day in the upper part of the store… instructing them in the principles and order of the Priesthood, attending to washings, anointings, endowments, and the communication of keys pertaining to the Aaronic Priesthood, and so on to the highest order of the Melchizedek Priesthood, setting forth the order pertaining to the Ancient of Days, and all those plans and principles by which any one is enabled to secure the fullness of those blessings which have been prepared for the Church of the Firstborn, and come up and abide in the presence of the Eloheim in the eternal worlds…” (TPJS, 237).

What did he communicate concerning consecration? It is the crowning covenant, the last covenant we make with God in the temple endowment. The crowning key to exaltation is consecration. To obtain all that the Father has, we must give all that we possess. It is one of the simplest statements God ever gave man, and even the least and weakest Saint is capable, of comprehending what is required. Voluntary compliance, however, is always subject to overcoming the natural man.

In 1831, Joseph must have believed that rigidity and management control by the bishop was the key to implementing consecration among the Saints. By his death in 1844, he had concluded that individual expressions of faith and consecration entered into by temple covenant were more desirable. He had moved from the letter to the spirit of the law, but in both extremes, the total commitment of the member was required — that much has never changed.

Today I go to the temples frequently, as you may have observed. The verbal covenant expressed in the temple endowment is a higher commitment to consecration than the first written deeds and covenants of 1831. To think we will someday return to a “Law of Moses”-style program of consecration seems unlikely to me, though anything is possible with living prophets among us to interpret the will of the Lord for the Church. We must always allow for whatever revisions the living Oracles may make. However, we do not seem to be far from living the full law of consecration right now. All that is necessary, then as now, is the willingness of the Latter-day Saints to truly love the Lord and our neighbor enough to consecrate without holding back anything. One can only speculate on the macroglobal conditions that might have to be thrust upon the world to bring about such a universal change of heart, but what of our micropersonal commitment to living the law of consecration?

I believe a father and mother who keep their temple covenants in today’s society, dominated as it is by divorce, infidelity, and every moral degradation foreseen by the ancient prophets, are well along the path toward truly living the law of consecration. They give all they have by wearing out their souls in service to the Lord and in sacrifice for their children.

Consider a husband and father who toils in the workplace day after day to provide the essentials of life for his wife and children, every nickel devoted to their well-being. Consider a wife and mother on duty at the crossroads of her home nurturing her children with their endless lists of physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual needs, every waking moment consecrated to preparing a new generation of faithful and worthwhile saints. All their labor is done with an eye single to God’s glory, and the anticipation of an eventual crowning of their efforts by those cherished words of acceptance, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”

How, then, do we live the law of consecration today? Not by waiting for some “program” to appear on the horizon, but by daily becoming a covenant father, mother, or child through the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ. It is truly a work that demands all that you possess, your time, talents, everything with which the Lord has blessed you or with which he may bless you. It is a consecrated gift we give to God in return for all he promises. If I had to pick one verse of scripture to summarize the law of consecration it would be these words,

“And now, my beloved brethren, I would that ye should come unto Christ, who is the Holy One of Israel, and partake of his salvation, and the power of his redemption. Yea, come unto him, and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him, and continue in fasting and praying, and endure to the end; and as the Lord liveth ye will be saved.” (Omni 1:26).

Helen and Brent Goates

That passage defined my parents. It was so with them, and it can likewise be true of all the mothers and fathers in Zion in these last days.

Her Time Had Come

Now let me be bold and restate that Patsy was always at my side as we were studying Zion together. We were infused with the idealism represented in the doctrines I have outlined above. Others might characterize our conclusions as "too altruistic," or "impossible to achieve," but I have persisted in creating Zion in my own family even if I do not live long enough to see the Second Coming. I memorialized our vision for our family property in Book 2 of the Story Worth series (chapter 15), I’ve been publishing, so I will simply refer you family members to that volume.

Out of her lips came these words: “So, this [the refinance of the mortgage] really was the miracle I had been praying for. When this idea was first presented to us, I thought we could never let Rich and Shauna make that kind of sacrifice and take on that burden. They would be taking on all the financial burden of the mortgage, with only the knowledge that our family would continue to have the home as a gathering place shared by all. But as Rich expressed that they had received a witness from the spirit that this was a good option to bless all our lives indefinitely and to also free us from some of our stress, I felt assured that it was certainly the answer to my prayers for a miracle. He has acted in the spirit of stewardship rather than ownership. I want everyone to ponder that difference because it is significant.”

Inherent in the concept of stewardship is the law of consecration. Hers was always and forever an INVITATION to each of us to climb higher to the consecrated life of discipleship embodied in these words of President Russell M. Nelson: 1) That we are each a child of God, 2) A child of the covenant, and 3) A disciple of Jesus Christ.

Let us be united in the belief that this is all voluntary with no coercion whatsoever, otherwise we defeat the lofty principles involved in consecration as defined above. Rich and Shauna had that vision along with us when they put themselves forward and took an enormous risk by putting Rich on the mortgage, on the title to the home, and as the personal representative for medical decisions in an advanced care power of attorney.

In meeting with Andrew and Steve last night in preparation for our meeting with the estate planning attorney, I was completely satisfied of Andrew’s sincere and genuine concerns about Rich’s potential exposure, that I had never considered before. As I have stated before many times, I am not one to cower in the face of the “list of horribles” over which I have no control, but as a doctor he must and he does take into account every possible negative outcome he might encounter as a surgeon. He apologized to me and Steve last night that his diagnostic process has at times been seen as adversarial, but nevertheless his sincerity in pursuing the best structure available to us is likewise consecrated and well-intentioned in the highest way possible. What may have seemed adversarial to each of us throughout this latest “uprising” will now only be viewed in the rearview mirror as a necessary and very meaningful step forward into our shared vision.

I believe in all of us as chosen and magnificent spirits of our Father in Heaven. He did not send us into this chaotic mortal world to fail or to be divided in animosity, distrust, or accusatory adversity. That was, and continues to be, Satan’s aim.

Instead, I am opting for the belief that we will land in the right place after all the solutions are fully explored and digested with the help of our estate planner.

It’s my new favorite word: PRONOIA, the polar opposite of “paranoia.”

How Do You "Outlive Your Funeral?"

2025-12-26T13:42:00.004-07:00

Strange title, eh? Well, I will attempt an answer here today. It's Boxing Day today, much more widely observed in England than here in America. The day after Christmas settled upon me early this morning with the afterglow of a glorious celebration with family. Each year we gather for our Christmas "Adam" evening for dinner, a program, then the highlight everyone looks forward to - the opening of our new Christmas tee-shirts, a long-standing tradition among the Goates Kids. Each year one of the families accepts the assignment to come up with a new design, and this year the Warnicks knocked it out of the park with their design. Everyone loved them. Someone observed, "They sure are GREEN!"

The 2025 Gathering at the Ranch

Others scattered around the country also observed our tradition of opening the tee-shirts. It's always a unifying activity we all enjoy no matter where we are.

Volume 6

We shared a program, and then I offered my testimony in conclusion. As I did so, I distributed Volume 6 of my collected family stories. I am currently working on Volume 7. Patsy joked one day following my brain surgery that those events in my life had taken 10 years off her life, but perhaps they had added 10 more to mine. It's now been 5 1/2 years since my surgery and at the time she passed away in 2023, I stated I would write the definitive 7 Volume set on our lives together for those who did not know her personally. I'm well on my way now to fulfilling that promise. Little did I know. . . and so I now live for its completion, and maybe a few extra volumes (time on this Earth still permitting).

The Warnicks Design Team

Here's what I have learned as I have written our family's history. There always seems to be at least one more chapter that suggests itself as I am fed weekly questions by Story Worth that are submitted by various family members. Someone, observing this latest volume quipped, "Well, Dad, it looks like you've found another way to outlive your funeral with these volumes." And I thought later, he's right, I have indeed! Here's the thing: After I'm gone there won't be anyone left to refute whatever it is I have come up with as our family historian. I will have had the final word that will stand, flaws if there be any and all that goes with it. That's the value of a written record that will clearly outlive me now.

Team Venema 2025

I am so thrilled with 2025, because there have been many missionaries among my grandchildren who are coming and going all around the world right now. They have all had rich and fulfilling experiences, and they are so much further down the road of discipleship than my generation ever was. That's to be expected, I surmise, because we have been told this would be a day in which the weak things would come forth and prevail in the gathering of Israel.

26 And when I had said this, the Lord spake unto me, saying: Fools mock, but they shall mourn; and my grace is sufficient for the meek, that they shall take no advantage of your weakness;

27 And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them. (Ether 12:26-27).

The brother of Jared also demonstrated his humility and his conviction that he would be made strong in service to the Lord:

2 O Lord, thou hast said that we must be encompassed about by the floods. Now behold, O Lord, and do not be angry with thy servant because of his weakness before thee; for we know that thou art holy and dwellest in the heavens, and that we are unworthy before thee; because of the fall our natures have become evil continually; nevertheless, O Lord, thou hast given us a commandment that we must call upon thee, that from thee we may receive according to our desires. (Ether 3:2).

The people of King Benjamin had a similar belief:

2 And they had viewed themselves in their own carnal state, even less than the dust of the earth. And they all cried aloud with one voice, saying: O have mercy, and apply the atoning blood of Christ that we may receive forgiveness of our sins, and our hearts may be purified; for we believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who created heaven and earth, and all things; who shall come down among the children of men. (Mosiah 4:2).

I have purposefully cited three references from the Book of Mormon to illustrate how precise the language of the prophets who compiled their record were in their testimonies of their need for their Savior in accomplishing all they did in His name. We are all enlisted in the ongoing work they started. Think of how patient our Father in Heaven and His Beloved Son Jesus Christ have been in the unfolding of the fulness of the gospel in these last days. We are the blessed recipients of their long-suffering and their perpetual surety of the work of salvation that is accelerating in our own time.

I find it difficult to believe in these enlightened last days that there are still some "out there" in the world who would deny our steadfast allegiance to the Restored Gospel through the Lord Jesus Christ. It was delivered to the Earth through the Prophet Joseph Smith and his inspired translation of the Book of Mormon, as cited above. For those who may at this late date be clinging to the old refrains of yesteryear that "Mormons are not Christians,” I would offer my testimony here on this page that we are indeed the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ with living prophets in place today.

President Russell M. Nelson

I have treasured these words since President Russell M. Nelson first spoke them:

My dear brothers and sisters, in a coming day, Jesus Christ will return to the earth as the millennial Messiah. So today I call upon you to rededicate your lives to Jesus Christ. I call upon you to help gather scattered Israel and to prepare the world for the Second Coming of the Lord. I call upon you to talk of Christ, testify of Christ, have faith in Christ, and rejoice in Christ!

Come unto Christ and “offer your whole [soul]” to Him [Omni 1:26]. This is the secret to a life of joy!

The best is yet to come, my dear brothers and sisters, because the Savior is coming again! The best is yet to come because the Lord is hastening His work. The best is yet to come as we fully turn our hearts and our lives to Jesus Christ.

I bear my solemn witness that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. I am His disciple. I am honored to be His servant. At His Second Coming, “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.” That day will be filled with joy for the righteous!

Through the power of the sacred priesthood keys I hold, I declare this truth to you and to all the world! (“The Lord Jesus Christ Will Come Again,” Liahona, Nov. 2024, 122).

I am grateful to be alive as I look forward to the year 2026. With a prophetic promise that "the best is yet to come," who wouldn't be?

Perhaps I could offer one simple suggestion for your gospel study during the coming year. I have recently been re-reading The Infinite Atonement by Elder Tad R. Callister of the Seventy as I learned about his recent death. His words are inspired in every page, citing ample scriptural references throughout his chapters. I submit humbly that this book like few others will anchor your study of the "Come, Follow Me" curriculum in Sunday School as we now take up the Old Testament.

May you each enjoy your anticipation of what comes next in 2026, I pray.

What Are Your Favorite Christmas Carols?

2025-12-17T14:03:00.012-07:00

Album Covers from 1965

This is a question from grand-daughter Katelyn this morning with a very LONG answer. Why? Because I have loved Christmas carols since as far back as I can remember, and that is a very long time now. (Smile with a sigh.)

My youthful years culminated in my senior year in high school when I sang in the A Cappella Choir at East High School under the skilled tutelage of Lorraine Bowman. I also sang in the Madrigal group and the Boys Quartet, which only added to my pleasure and enjoyment.

During the month of December, we were booked solid all over Salt Lake City in ward sacrament meetings, civic groups, rest homes and other engagements like the shopping malls all over the valley. I remember one evening when we performed at the Hotel Utah, and returned to the parking lot to make the astonishing discovery that our family Monza four-door sedan had been stolen. Mercifully, it was later discovered on the side of a road by the police, presumably when the “joyriders” who had taken it ran out of gas.

Miss Bowman was an “institution” in music circles, and was also a member of the Tabernacle Choir. We used many of their arrangements in our programs. I note here that she never married and did not have her own family, so we became her “foster family” to which she devoted herself wholeheartedly. She died many years ago in a tragic single-car accident between here and Denver, during the Christmas holidays.

She produced two LP record albums each year for her choirs - one at Christmas, and another at year-end. They were prized souvenirs for all the graduating seniors who sang in the choirs at East High School, and I still have them in my closet with all my other all-time favorite records. Mom was a year behind me at East, so we have two separate collections from which we drew our selections to play each year. We did that for many, many years, and we shared those choice experiences with each other, especially during the Christmas season. I confess that I went digging through all my old records this morning in preparation for this chapter. What a TRIP that was!!

So, what are some of my favorites? Here are a few that top my memory:

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Silent Night (sung as background music while I narrated the Christmas Story from Luke 2)

Ring Those Christmas Bells

Carol of the Bells

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

O Come All Ye Faithful

O Little Town of Bethlehem

O Holy Night

Do You Hear What I Hear?

God Bless You and Keep You

Teach Me To Pray

There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays

The Christmas Song ("Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire")

Still, Still, Still

Up on the Housetop

White Christmas

Walkin’ in a Winter Wonderland

Twelve Days of Christmas

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

With Wondering Awe

I Believe in Christ

Madrigal Singers 1965

I have been playing those records this morning as I have written. Even after all these years, the 33 1/3 LP record has withstood all the tests of time. The same probably can’t be said for the old cassette tapes.

I attended our 60th high school reunion last summer. Sadly, about half our number are no longer with us in mortality. The longest segment of the evening consisted of a memorial video tribute to our classmates who had passed away. Time has moved on from those glory years of all our musical memories, but the music lives on forever.

Thanks Katelyn for this trip down memory lane. I’ve enjoyed it very much, and hope all of you did too!

Sending along all my love to each of you for a very Merry Christmas in 2025.