A patient willingness to defer dividends is a hallmark of individual maturity.

The Book of Mormon is to be feasted upon, not nibbled.

Trying to observe the slow shift from self-centeredness to empathy is like trying to watch grass grow.

Listening is one of the forms of love.

Some find it easier to bend their knees than their minds. Exciting exploration is preferred to plodding implementation; speculation seems more fun than consecration, and so is trying to soften the hard doctrines instead of submitting to them. Worse still, by not obeying, these . . . lack real knowing. Lacking real knowing, they cannot defend their faith and may become critics instead of defenders!

Thus it is that our faith and trust in our Heavenly Father, so far as this mortal experience is concerned, consists not simply of faith and gladness that He exists, but is also a faith and trust that, if we are humble, He will tutor us, aiding our acquisition of needed attributes and experiences while we are in mortality. We trust not only the Designer but also His design of life itself, including our portion thereof!

Brigham Young observed, "Man's machinery makes things alike" (JD 9:370), while God gives to seemingly like individuals pleasing differences. Secularism is no friend of righteous individuality.