Missionary work isn't the only thing we need to do in this big, wide, wonderful Church. But almost everything else we need to do depends on people first hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ and coming into the faith. ... With all that there is to do along the path to eternal life, we need a lot more missionaries opening that gate and helping people through it.

There is not a single loophole or curveball or open trench to fall into for the man or woman who walks the path that Christ walks. When He says, "Come, Follow Me" (Luke 18:22), He means that He knows where the quicksand is and where the thorns are and the best way to handle the slippery slope near the summit of our personal mountains. He knows it all, and He knows the way. He is the way.

He has, He reminds us, "graven thee upon the palms of my hands" (1 Nephi 21:16). Considering the incomprehensible cost of the Crucifixion, Christ is not going to turn His back on us now.

I am convinced that missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation never was easy. We are the Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head. How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him?

When life is hard, remember - we are not the first to ask, 'Is there no other way?

I testify of the renewing power of God's love and the miracle of His grace. His concern is for the faith at which you finally arrive, not the hour of the day in which you got there.

Brothers and sisters, one of the great consolations of this Easter season is that because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so. His solitary journey brought great company for our little version of that path…This Easter week and always, may we stand by Jesus Christ ‘at all times and in all things, and in all places that (we) may be in, even until death,’ for surely that is how He stood by us when it was unto death and when He had to stand entirely and utterly alone.