Sometimes the Only Way to Help Others Understand Our Concerns About Their Use of Profanity is to Tell Them Directly

Keeping Our Language Clean

“The words we use can lift and inspire, or they can harm and demean. In the world today there is a profusion of profanity with which we seem to be surrounded at nearly every turn. It is difficult to avoid hearing the names of Deity being used casually and thoughtlessly. Coarse comments seem to have become a staple of television, movies, books, and music. Bandied about are slanderous remarks and angry rhetoric. Let us speak to others with love and respect, ever keeping our language clean and avoiding words or comments that would wound or offend. May we follow the example of the Savior, who spoke with tolerance and kindness throughout His ministry.”

President Thomas S. Monson, “Be an Example and a Light,” Ensign, Nov. 2015, 86.

Tenacity with Goals

• JUNE 2016
• TENACITY AND DISCIPLESHIP

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Tenacity and Discipleship

By Elder David F. Evans

Of the Seventy

From a devotional address, “Tenacity,” delivered at Brigham Young University on November 4, 2014. For the full address, go to speeches.byu.edu.

One online dictionary defines tenacity as “persistence, perseverance, and stubborn determination.” It also states, “Tenacity is the quality displayed by someone who just won’t quit—who keeps trying until they reach their goal.”1

We need tenacity in order to become true disciples of the Savior and to achieve the truly good goals—becoming a great missionary, completing our education, finding an eternal companion, and starting a family—that our Heavenly Father knows we need to achieve to prepare for eternity. Our ability to be tenacious in all good things will determine whether we become the sons and daughters of God that He knows we can and must become...

Great promises are made to faithful, persistent, and tenacious missionaries who open their mouths with boldness and love and who work with all their might in the ways the Lord has set forth (see D&C 31:7). But some missionaries become fearful of rejection and let their fears overcome their loving boldness.

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• JUNE 2016
• THE WHAT AND WHY AND HOW OF BEARING A TESTIMONY

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UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN

The What and Why and How of Bearing a Testimony

By President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985)

Twelfth President of the Church

From “President Kimball Speaks Out on Testimony,” New Era, Aug. 1981, 4–7; capitalization standardized.

Testimony meetings are some of the best meetings in the ward in the whole month, if you have the Spirit. If you are bored at a testimony meeting, there is something the matter with you, and not the other people. You can get up and bear your testimony and you think it is the best meeting in the month; but if you sit there and count the grammatical errors and laugh at the man who can’t speak very well, you’ll be bored, and on that board you’ll slip right out of the kingdom. …

Don’t you ever worry about triteness in testimony.

A testimony is not an exhortation; a testimony is not a sermon (none of you are there to exhort the rest); it is not a travelogue. You are there to bear your own witness. It is amazing what you can say in 60 seconds by way of testimony, or 120, or 240, or whatever time you are given, if you confine yourselves to testimony. We’d like to know how you feel. Do you love the work, really? Are you happy in your work? Do you love the Lord? Are you glad that you are a member of the Church?

You bear your testimony. And one minute is long enough to bear it.

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