Mormon Musings

With frightening speed, a testimony that is not nourished daily "by the good word of God" can crumble.  Thus, the antidote to Satan's scheme is clear: we need daily experiences worshipping the Lord and stying His gospel.  I plead with you to let God prevail in your life.  Give Him a fair share of your time.  As you do, notice what happens to your positive spiritual momentum. President Russell M. Nelson, April 2022 General Conference

"God is never surprised." Neal A. Maxell

Oliver Cowdery, previous to his apostasy said to President Joseph Smith: "If I should leave the Church it would break up." Joseph said to Oliver—"What, who are you? The Lord is not dependent upon you, the work will roll forth do what you will." Oliver left the Church, and was gone about ten years; then he came back again, to a branch of the Church in meeting on Mosquito Creek, in Pottawattamie County, Iowa. The body of the Church had come off here to the west, but there was still remaining there a branch of about fifteen hundred or two thousand people, and when he came there he bore his testimony to the truth of the Book of Mormon and the divine mission of the Twelve Apostles, and asked to be received into the Church again, and said that he had never seen in all his life so large a congregation of Saints as the one then assembled. We loved to hear brother Oliver testify, we were pleased with his witness, but when he passed off and went among our enemies he was forgo...

Joseph Smith once said that the Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion. Why is the Book of Mormon the keystone of our religion? What is the Book of Mormon? Whatever else it is, it is revelation. In fact, it is a revelation about revelation. It is the basic document by which we would begin to testify to the world, with a copy in our hands, that the heavens are opened and that God lives and that he speaks and that Jesus is the Christ. That is a basic message of salvation. And the process by which that message comes is revelation. And Joseph Smith taught that that is the characteristic of this Church, a characteristic by which it will always be known and recognized. Jeffrey R. Holland, BYU Devotional 1976

“Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the co...

“To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.” ― Sir Winston Churchill

Work is more than the residual requirement of the expulsion from Eden. The gospel of work is tied, therefore, not only to human circumstances in which work is an economic necessity, but to human nature in which work is a spiritual necessity. It has been said that work is love made manifest. For us to develop and to employ our talents requires us to be employed both vocationally and in the service of others. Our instincts for service would be frustrated if idleness were pervasive. Thus, the curse of idleness is not some arbitrary penalty imposed upon man, but arises out of our very nature. There are both  observable reasons  why we must be especially careful about idleness (along with wealth and power), and  transcendental reasons  why these conditions are a special challenge for “almost all.” It is important to distinguish between the basic principles involved in the gospel of work and the frantic, heedless busyness that some engage in, which crowds out contemplation...