We are making our appearance on the stage of mortality in the greatest dispensation of the gospel ever given to mankind, and we need to make the most of it.

On that very night, the night of the greatest suffering that has ever taken place in the world or that ever will take place, the Savior said, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you... Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." (John 14:27) I submit to you, that may be one of the Savior's commandments that is, even in the hearts of otherwise faithful Latter-day Saints, almost universally disobeyed; and yet I wonder whether our resistance to this invitation could be any more grievous to the Lord's merciful heart.

The race we are really in is the race against sin, and surely envy is one of the most universal of those.

And if those children are unresponsive, maybe you can't teach them yet, but you can love them. And if you love them today, maybe you can teach them tomorrow.

In a world of unrest and fear, political turmoil and moral drift, I testify that Jesus is the Christ—that He is the living Bread and living Water—still, yet, and always the great Shield of safety in our lives.

I suppose it goes without saying that negative speaking so often flows from negative thinking about ourselves. We see our own faults, we speak--or at least think--critically of ourselves, and before long that is how we see everyone and everything. No sunshine, no roses, no promise of hope or happiness. Before long we and everybody around us are miserable.

What we are shines more brightly than anything we say or do. If we are to fill the world with light, we must first face any tattered remnant of darkness that remains in our own souls.