1 year ago

104

Legacy of Encouragement
By President Henry B. Eyring

Second Counselor in the First Presidency

I encourage you to continue striving to qualify to return to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

My dear brothers and sisters, I am grateful to be gathered with you in this general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We have felt your faith and your love wherever you are. We have been edified by the inspired teaching, the powerful testimonies, and the magnificent music.

I encourage you to continue striving to qualify to return to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Wherever you are on the covenant path, you will find a struggle against the physical trials of mortality and the opposition of Satan.

As my mother told me when I complained of how hard something was, “Oh, Hal, of course it’s hard. It’s supposed to be. Life is a test.”

She could say that calmly, even with a smile, because she knew two things. Regardless of the struggle, what would matter most would be to arrive at home to be with her Heavenly Father. And she knew she could do it through faith in her Savior.

She felt that He was close to her. In the days she knew she was about to die, she talked with me about the Savior as she lay in her bedroom. There was a door to another room near her bed. She smiled and looked at the door when she spoke calmly of seeing Him soon. I still remember looking at the door and imagining the room behind it.

She is now in the spirit world. She was able to keep her eyes on the prize she wanted despite years of physical and personal trial.

The legacy of encouragement she left for us is best described in Moroni 7, where Mormon encourages his son Moroni and his people. It is a legacy of encouragement to a posterity as was my mother’s to her family. Mormon passed that legacy of encouragement to all who have a determination to qualify, through all their mortal tests, for eternal life.

Mormon begins in the first verses of Moroni 7 with a testimony of Jesus Christ, of angels, and of the Spirit of Christ, which allows us to know good from evil and so be able to choose the right.

He puts Jesus Christ first, as do all who succeed in giving encouragement to those struggling upward on the path to their heavenly home:

“For no man can be saved, according to the words of Christ, save they shall have faith in his name; wherefore, if these things have ceased, then has faith ceased also; and awful is the state of man, for they are as though there had been no redemption made.

“But behold, my beloved brethren, I judge better things of you, for I judge that ye have faith in Christ because of your meekness; for if ye have not faith in him then ye are not fit to be numbered among the people of his church.”1

Mormon saw meekness as evidence of the strength of their faith. He saw that they felt dependent on the Savior. He encouraged them by noting that faith. Mormon continued giving them encouragement by helping them see that their faith and meekness would build their assurance and their confidence of success in their struggle:

“And again, my beloved brethren, I would speak unto you concerning hope. How is it that ye can attain unto faith, save ye shall have hope?

“And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise.

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