I encourage you to seek the help of the Savior to resist temptation and to refrain from behavior that would cause you to have to repent or to have your Church membership called into question.

The gospel of Jesus Christ challenges us to change. “Repent” is its most frequent message, and repenting means giving up all of our practices-perso nal, family, ethnic, and national-that are contrary to the commandments of God. The purpose of the gospel is to transform common creatures into celestial citizens, and that requires change.

God's love is so perfect that He lovingly requires us to obey His commandments because He knows that only through obedience to His laws can we become perfect, as He is. For this reason, God's anger and His wrath are not a contradiction of His love but an evidence of His love. Every parent knows that you can love a child totally and completely while still being creatively angry and disappointed at that child's self-defeating behavior.

We need to remember the purpose of our service to one another. If it were only to accomplish some part of His work, God could dispatch 'legions of angels.' . . . But that would not achieve the purpose of the service He has prescribed. We serve God and our fellowmen in order to become the kind of children who can return to live with our heavenly parents.

If people want to legalize a particular relationship, we need to be careful if that kind of relationship has been disapproved for millennia.

Though we disagree, we should not be disagreeable.

I am unpersuaded that relative poverty and hard work are greater adversities than relative affluence and free time.