Charity - the everyday kind

Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other, when we don’t judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet. Charity is accepting someone’s differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down; or resisting the impulse to become offended when someone doesn’t handle something the way we might have hoped. Charity is refusing to take advantage of another’s weakness and being willing to forgive someone who has hurt us. Charity is expecting the best of each other.

Marvin J. Ashton, Ensign May 1992

As Thy Days Shall Demand

How Firm a Foundation is my favorite hymn. On bad days in college, I would call my mom in the middle of the night and make her sing it to me. I'd whisper it to myself all night on bad days in the mission field. And I think of it still whenever I have a bad day and need some comfort. My favorite part is this: "As thy days may demand, so thy succor shall be." However badly you need comfort, that's how much you'll get. Whatever you need, that's what will come your way. It's such a lovely, beautiful promise of constant looking-after which really is exactly what we need and crave when our days are hard.

"It is simply a truism that nothing very valuable can come without significant sacrifice and effort and patience on our part... I am asking you this morning not to give up 'for ye are laying the foundation of a great work.' That 'great work' is YOU - your life, your future, the very fulfillment of your dreams. That 'great work' is what, with effort and patience and God's help, you can become. When days are difficult or problems seem unending, I plead with you to stay in the harness and keep pulling."*

*Jeffrey R. Holland - BYU Devotional Jan 1983, "However Long and Hard the Road"

Evidence Of...

The Book of Mormon is here to be handled and to be

read with prayer and earnest inquiry...

The evidence for the truth of the Book of Mormon is found in

the lives of the millions, living and gone, who have read it,

prayed about it, and received a witness of its truth.

Carol C. Madsen, New Era Nov. 1975