Leaders In The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints

"These birds and animals and fish cannot speak, but they can suffer, and our God who created them, knows their sufferings, and will hold him who causes them to suffer unnecessarily to answer for it. It is a sin against their Creator."

"The Church is more than the buildings and the ecclesiastical structure; the Church is us, the members. We are The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with Christ at the head and the prophet as His mouthpiece."

"Each of us can be the means through which others feel the love of God in their life. Through our righteousness, our sincere desire to follow the commandments, and our constant effort to minister to others in simple ways, people can perceive God's image in our countenance, and they can have the desire to follow Him."

"To receive revelation from heaven, we must look for it in divine sources."

"Relief Society is the covenant women of the Church; it is us—each of us and all of us. It is our "global community of compassion and service." Anywhere and everywhere we go, we are always part of Relief Society as we strive to fulfill its divine purpose, which is for women to accomplish God’s work in individual as well as collective ways by providing relief: "relief of poverty, relief of illness; relief of doubt, relief of ignorance—relief of all that hinders… joy and progress.""

"The Church is the members. They are the ones who willingly and joyfully give… to help those of us in need."

"As I look back, I realize that my life, as it happens with each of us, has not been a bed of roses. There have been bumps, steep stretches, unexpected bends, and scary downhills. However, I can say with certainty that God's hand has always been guiding me when I have had the humility to acknowledge that I need His divine help at all times."

"As human beings, emotions are just part of our soul. They are with us all day, every day."

"Like the monarch butterflies, we are on a journey back to our heavenly home, where we will reunite with our Heavenly Parents. Like the butterflies, we have been given divine attributes that allow us to navigate through life, in order to "[fill] the measure of [our] creation.""

"When we open up about our emotional challenges, admitting we are not perfect, we give others permission to share their struggles. Together we realize there is hope and we do not have to suffer alone."

"The Savior is always inviting us to bring to Him all of those who are afflicted in any manner, and that, in reality, includes all of us. We are all suffering from something, we are all healing from something. But He invites us to bring them hither, to bring ourselves hither. And the most beautiful thing about this, I think, is that as we bring others to Christ, He can see our faith and He can heal them, but He can also heal us."

"All I needed was to have a desire to reach for the Savior, turn my hear to Him, believe in Him, and act on that belief."

"When I was nine years old, I lost my older brother during a devastating earthquake. Because it happened unexpectedly, it took me a while to grasp the reality of what had occurred. I was heartbroken by sorrow… A few years after, I started thinking of my brother in a specific way. I would imagine him knocking on our door. I would open the door, he would be standing there, and he would tell me, "I am not dead. I am alive. I could not come to you, but now I will stay with you and never leave again." That imagining, almost a dream, helped me cope with the pain that I felt over losing him. The thought that he would be with me came to my mind over and over. Sometimes I would even stare at the door, hoping that he would knock and I would see him again."

"My greatest motivation and my greatest desire is to testify that there is hope. There is hope in the Savior. There is hope in His promises. There is hope in His Atonement and His ability to guide us and to give us healing and peace and hope in this life."

"I'm going to struggle. I have struggled. Christ struggled. When He died, He was struggling the most. Yet He is going to come in His perfection when He comes back the second time, and we can, too."

"You will be recognized as one who represents those beyond the borders of the United States and Canada, and as it were, an outreach across the world to members of the Church in many, many lands. They will see you as a representative of their oneness with the Church. We bless you that you may be free in speaking, that your tongue may be loosed as you speak to the people. We bless you that you may be wise in counsel, that you may be inspired in what you say."

"She knew the Savior — I sensed that even as a child in her schoolroom. I will never forget the image of her in front of our class with a flower in her dark hair. For me as a 7-year-old boy, she was a powerful presence, far beyond her size or dimension. It was the power of goodness. She taught it and she lived it."

"I have been called apostate; but I have never apostatized, nor forsaken the faith I at first accepted; but was called so because I would not accept their new fangled notion."

"No one but God, knows the reflections of my mind and the feelings of my heart when I left our house and home, and allmost all of every thing that we possessed excepting our little Children, and took my journey out of the State of Missouri, leaving you shut up in that lonesome prison. But the recollection is more than human nature ought to bear, and if God does not record our sufferings and avenge our wrongs on them that are guilty, I shall be sadly mistaken."

"I have many more things I could like to write but have not time and you may be astonished at my bad writing and incoherent manner, but you will pardon all when you reflect how hard it would be for you to write, when your hands were stiffened with hard work, and your heart convulsed with intense anxiety."

"We shall have sufficient difficulty from abroad without stirring up strife among ourselves and hardness and evil feelings one towards another, etc. … We could govern this generation in one way if not another. If not by the mighty arm of power, we can do it by faith and prayer. If we will try to live uprightly… we should not be driven."

"I know Mormonism to be the truth; and believe the Church to have been established by divine direction. I have complete faith in it. In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us."

"She accomplished that by being fearlessly honest about herself and the problems that members of the church faced."

"Her speeches were tightly woven masterpieces that she worked over for weeks and refined continuously. She then read and reread them, practicing each word so it sounded natural and fluid."

"Again she is​ here, even in the seventh trouble, undaunted, firm and unwavering, unchangeable, affectionate Emma."

"If there is anything in the world I am, or ever was proud of it is the honor and integrity of my children, but I dare not allow myself to be proud as I believe pride is one of the sins so often reproved in the good book, so I am enjoying the better spirit, and that is to be truly and sincerely thankful and in humility give God the glory, and not try to take any of it myself for it is true that He has led my children in the better way."

"Be spiritually independent enough that your relationship with the Savior doesn't depend on your circumstances or on what other people say and do. Have the spiritual independence to be a Mormon—the best Mormon you can—in your own way. Not the bishop's way. Not the Relief Society president's way. Your way."

"I remember very clearly the point at which I made the choice to be a bridge builder. On December 7, 1941, the day the Japanese Imperial Air Force destroyed the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, I was fifteen years old… we didn't know if a landing party was on its way, if the Americans would retaliate, or which side might pose the most danger to us as Japanese-Americans. My mother and I were terrified. We gathered everything in the house that had come from Japan and stuffed it into the incinerator… When we were through, I looked in the mirror, saw my face, and thought, I am Japanese. I have never set foot in Japan. I am not Japanese in my heart. If a Japanese submarine landed on our beach and Japanese soldiers came ashore, I would run away from them. But I cannot run away from myself. My eyes, my skin, and my hair are Japanese. I will always be Japanese. That realization cut through my confusion and fear. I realized then that there was no easy answer… But no matter what happened, I would have to deal with reality—and that involved being both Japanese and American. I would have to work out the answer to who I was a day at a time, doing the best that I could."

"The doctrines of the gospel are indispensable. They are essential, but the packaging is optional… The basket and the bottle are different containers, but the content is the same: fruit for a family. Is the bottle right and the basket wrong? No, they are both right. They are containers appropriate to the culture and the needs of the people. And they are both appropriate for the content they carry, which is the fruit."

"You tell anyone who has any problem with including Emma to come talk to me."

"Emma was called "an elect lady." That is, to use another line of scripture, she was a "chosen vessel of the Lord." Each of you is an elect lady. You have come out of the world as partakers of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. You have made your election, and if you are living worthy of it, the Lord will honor you in it and magnify you."

"Remember, our real calling to be a compassionate Christian came when we stepped out of the waters of baptism. The gift of the Holy Ghost is ours by right of confirmation. We don't need to check it out of the meetinghouse library. We don't need a bishop's assignment to be kind. We don't need to sign up to be thoughtful. We don't need to be sustained by our wards to be sensitive. Rejoice in the power you have within you from Christ to be a nucleus of love, forgiveness, and compassion."

"I have never seen a woman in my life, who would endure every species of fatigue and hardship, from month to month, and from year to year, with that unflinching courage, zeal, and patience, which she has ever done; for I know that which she has had to endure—she has been tossed upon the ocean of uncertainty—she has breasted the storms of persecution, and buffeted the rage of men and devils, which would have borne down almost any other woman."

"Her eyes were brown and sad. She would smile with her lips but to me, as small as I was, I never saw the brown eyes smile. I asked my mother one day, why don't Grandma laugh with her eyes like you do and my mother said because she has a deep sorrow in her heart."

"The answer of faith is a powerful one, even in the most difficult of circumstances, because it does not depend on us—on our strength to endure, on our willpower, on the depth of our intellectual understanding, or on the resources we can accumulate. No, it depends on God, whose strength is omnipotence, whose understanding is that of eternity, and who has the will to walk beside us in love, sharing our burden. He could part the Red Sea before us or calm the angry storm that besets us, but these would be small miracles for the God of nature. Instead, he chooses to do something harder: He wants to transform human nature into divine nature. And thus, when our Red Sea blocks our way and when the storm threatens to overwhelm us, he enters the water with us, holding us in the hands of love, supporting us with the arms of mercy. When we emerge from the valley of the shadow, we will see that he was there with us all the time."

"If you're doing the best you can, that's good enough."

"I personally believe that the growing awareness of and resistance to sexual abuse in the fulfillment of the scripture which says, "There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known. Therefore, whatsoever ye have spoken [and I would add, have done] in darkness shall be heard in the light, and proclaimed upon the housetops." Each survivor who tells her or his story, each individual who reports abuse, each police officer who arrests a perpetrator, each judge and jury who enforce the law, and each person who teaches children to protect themselves and to report abuse are part of fulfilling this prediction of Jesus Christ about the last days. This evil must be exposed before it can be repented of, and it must be repented of."

"Hooray for differences! Without them, there would be no harmony. In principles, great clarity. In practices, great charity."

"The women of the world were her friends. She will live on because of the profound effect she has had on people throughout the world through her words, her example and her service."

"Hearken unto the voice of the Lord your God, while I speak unto you, Emma Smith, my daughter, for verily I say unto you, all those who receive my gospel are sons and daughters in my kingdom. A revelation I give unto you concerning my will, and if thou art faithful and walk in the paths of virtue before me, I will preserve thy life, and thou shalt receive an inheritance in Zion. Behold thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou art an elect lady, whom I have called."

"I would crave as the richest of heaven's blessings would be wisdom from my Heavenly Father bestowed daily, so that whatever I might do or say, I could not look back at the close of the day with regret, nor neglect the performance of any act that would bring a blessing. I desire the Spirit of God to know and understand myself, that I desire a fruitful, active mind, that I may be able to comprehend the designs of God, when revealed through his servants without doubting. I desire a spirit of discernment, which is one of the promised blessings of the Holy Ghost."

"I shall not attempt to write my feelings altogether, for the situation in which you are, the walls, bars, and bolts, rolling rivers, running streams, rising hills, sinking vallies and spreading prairies that separate us, and the cruel injustice that first cast you into prison and still holds you there, with many other considerations, places my feelings far beyond description. Was it not for conscious innocence, and the direct interposition of divine mercy, I am very sure I never should have been able to have endured the scenes of suffering that I have passed through, since what is called the Militia, came in to Far West, under the ever to be remembered Governor’s notable order; an order fraught with as much wickedness as ignorance and as much ignorance as was ever contained in an article of that length; but I still live and am yet willing to suffer more if it is the will of kind Heaven, that I should for your sake."

"We are going to do something extraordinary. When a boat is stuck on the rapids with a multitude of Mormons on board we shall consider that a loud call for relief. We expect extraordinary occasions and pressing calls."

"No one need feel delicate in reference to inquiries about this society. There is nothing private. Its objects are purely benevolent … , its objects are charitable: none can object to telling the good, the evil withhold."

"My sisters, let us cultivate ourselves, that we may be capable of doing much good. We are daughters of our Heavenly Father, and our position as Saints of the Most High is at the head of the world."

"Women had much more to do in moulding Society than men had We want to be living monuments of the character of our Heavenly Father and Mother and if we lived up to the priveliges we had we would all meet in their presence and have a good time together, if we could only get through without a spot on our Garments without speaking against the Priesthood or the principles of the Gospel Then what a Glorious thing it would be, how pure how holy and how enobled we would feel be if we could live thus."

"Woman must save her self. I would not risk my salvation to any man or being I must stand before my God and be judged If I act as a priestest [priestess] unto my God I must earn my position[.]"

"Eliza R. Snow arose and said that she felt to concur with the President, with regard to the word Benevolent, that many Societies with which it had been associated, were corrupt,—that the popular Institutions of the day should not be our guide—that as daughters of Zion, we should set an example for all the world, rather than confine ourselves to the course which had been heretofore pursued."

"E. R. Snow offer'd an amendment by way of transposition of words, instead of The Nauvoo Female Relief Society, it shall be call'd the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo—Seconded by Prest. J. Smith and carried."

"I want you to instruct the sisters."