I hope I have a few years left in my 'last days,' but whether I do or do not, I want it absolutely clear when I stand before the judgment bar of God that I declared to the world, in the most straightforward language I could summon, that the Book of Mormon is true, that it came forth the way Joseph said it came forth and was given to bring happiness and hope to the faithful in the travail of the latter days.

Live the gospel as conspicuously as you can. Keep the covenants your children know you have made. Give priesthood blessings. And bear your testimony!

We are not diminished when someone else is added upon.

In a world of discouragement, sorrow, and overmuch sin, in times when fear and despair seem to prevail, when humanity is feverish with no worldly physicians in sigh, I too say, Trust Jesus. Let Him still the tempest and ride upon the storm. Believe that He can lift mankind from its bed of affliction, in time and in eternity.

Whatever else the Book of Mormon makes clear, it makes clear that every soul in every dispensation is precious to God, and therefore no age or era was-or is-left without its witness of Christ.

The Church is not a fast food outlet. We can't always have it our way. Some day every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ, and that salvation can only come His way.

In this long eternal quest to be more like our Savior, may we try to be “perfect” men and women in at least this one way now—by offending not in word, or more positively put, by speaking with a new tongue, the tongue of angels. Our words, like our deeds, should be filled with faith and hope and charity, the three great Christian imperatives so desperately needed in the world today.