It is not how you start the race or where you are during the race-it is how you cross the finish line that will matter.

It is not how you start the race or where you are during the race-it is how you cross the finish line that will matter.

To hope and trust in the Lord requires faith, patience, humility, meekness, long-suffering, keeping the commandments and enduring to the end.

Your Heavenly Father needs you. His work, under the direction of our Savior Jesus Christ, needs what you are uniquely prepared to give.

By choosing to be in His kingdom, we separate—not isolate—ourselves from the world.

There is nothing that we are enduring that Jesus does not understand, and He waits for us to go to our Heavenly Father in prayer. If we will be obedient and if we are diligent, our prayers will be answered, our problems will diminish, our fears will dissipate, light will come upon us, the darkness of despair will be dispersed, and we will be close to the Lord.

As Latter-day Saints, we need not look like the world. We need not entertain like the world. Our personal habits should be different. Our recreation should be different. Our concern for family will be different. As we establish this distinctiveness firmly in our life's pattern, the blessings of heaven await to assist us.