Mormon Musings

“You can change anything you want to change and you can do it very fast. That’s another Satanic sucker-punch—that it takes years and years and eons of eternity to repent. It takes exactly as long to repent as it takes you to say ‘I’ll change’—and mean it. Of course there will be problems to work out and restitutions to make. You may well spend—indeed you had better spend—the rest of your life proving your repentance by its permanence. But change, growth, renewal, repentance can come for you as instantaneously as it did for Alma and the Sons of Mosiah.” Elder Jeffrey R. Holland -“For Times of Trouble,”  New Era , Oct. 1980, 11–12; quoted in  Ensign , Feb. 2008, 57

At Adam-ondi-Ahman, 20-year-old Benjamin F. Johnson was spared a similar fate at the hands of a Missourian who was determined to shoot him. Benjamin had been arrested and kept under guard for eight days in intensely cold weather before an open campfire. While he was sitting on a log, a “brute” came up to him with a rifle in his hands and said, “You give up Mormonism right now, or I’ll shoot you.” Benjamin decisively refused, upon which the ruffian took deliberate aim at him and pulled the trigger. The gun failed to discharge. Cursing fearfully, the man declared that he had “used the gun 20 years and it had never before missed fire.” Examining the lock, he reprimed the weapon and again aimed and pulled the trigger—without effect. Following the same procedure he tried a third time, but the result was the same. A bystander told him to “fix up his gun a little” and then “you can kill the cuss all right.” So for a fourth and final time the would-be murderer prepared, even putting in...

Elder Holland, General Conference April 2013: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/04/lord-i-believe

“The first step on the path of discipleship begins, luckily enough, in the exact place where we stand!  We do not have to prequalify to take that first step.  it doesn’t matter if we are rich or poor.  there is no requirement to be educated, eloquent, or intellectual.  We do not have to be perfect or well-spoken or even well-mannered.  You and I can walk in the path of discipleship today…. It is always the right time to walk in His way.  It is never too late.” President Dieter F. Uchtdorf -”The Way of the Disciple,”  Ensign,  May 2009, 77, 78

HUGH NIBLEY, “The Atonement of Jesus Christ,”  Ensign,  July, Aug., Sept., Oct., 1990:                                                                                                PART 1: http://www.lds.org/ensign/1990/07/the-atonement-of-jesus-christ-part-1 PART 2:  http://www.lds.org/ensign/1990/08/the-atonement-of-jesus-christ-part-2 PART 3:  http://www.lds.org/ensign/1990/09/the-atonement-of-jesus-christ-part-3 PART 4:  http://www.lds.org/ensign/1990/10/the-atonement-of-jesus-christ-part-4

“The sacrament renews the process of  forgiveness . Every Sunday when the sacrament is served, that is a ceremony to renew the process of forgiveness. … Every Sunday you cleanse yourself so that, in due time, when you die your spirit will be clean.” President Boyd K. Packer - Mine Errand from the Lord  (2008), 196; quoted in  Ensign,  Nov. 2012, 105 see Mosiah 4:3

"We cannot go to heaven in a feather bed. The Savior of the world entered after great pain and suffering. We, as servants, can expect no more than the Master. Before Easter there must be a cross. While we walk these paths which bring forth bitter sorrow, we can also walk those paths which yield eternal joy." President  Thomas S. Monson, " The Paths Jesus Walked ",   Ensign, Liahona , May 1974