It's wonderful for me to be able to be with you. I feel as though I'm among friends. I have never served in the military, but my father served during World War II in the army, and my father-in-law had an entire career in the air force. His grandson, my nephew, is now teaching at the Air Force Academy. And so it's wonderful to look out and to see you here and to know the good that you're doing in your ministries all over the world. I just think about the number of people that each of you influence in your circles. And it's just amazing to consider the influence of the group that's sitting here today. So thank you. It's an honor to be standing here in front of Elder Renlund and Elder Kacher. Elder Kacher didn't speak in general conference, but Elder Renlund did. And this morning as I taught my Book of Mormon class at BYU, I always do a review of general conference. And Elder Renlund will be glad to know that they're talking about burying your weapons without the handles sticking out. And they're talking about throwing their bad habits into a waterfall. And they're just all about it. So you definitely knocked it out of the park, as far as those BYU students are concerned. Now, earlier in your conference, you heard from Dan Judd, who is the dean of Religious Education at Brigham Young University. And he told you about a study that he's done recently. He told you the results of that study, so I won't go into much depth. But you'll remember that in a study of 635 Latter-day Saint university students, they found that the relationship between grace--and as these young people understood grace and felt like they had seen it work in their lives, it led to lower levels of depression, anxiety, perfectionism, scrupulosity--the feeling like you always need to confess--and shame. This isn't a drug we're talking about. This is a doctrine. And as President Packer taught us, a doctrine understood can change behavior even more quickly than a study of behavior can change behavior. And Dr. Judd is seeing in his research that that is the case as young people do grasp an understanding of this wonderful doctrine of grace. Now, I have a friend named Brian Rhodes. And Brian wrote a beautiful song about being saved by grace. And I asked him to please come and share it with us today because the lyric of the song--the lyrics just touched my heart so deeply. And the music that he's put it to just is very meaningful to me. So I asked Brian if he would come. He said he was coming anyway for general conference, so I'm glad he stayed a little extra and was willing to stay here and sing this for us. Brian, go ahead.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

(SINGING) There is a gift offered to you and to me.

It's free to all, but one I must choose to receive.

It was meant to save me, open my heart and change me, all through the price Jesus paid. It's His grace that strengthens me down the covenant path and into eternity.

Perfect and pure, His grace is sufficient; of this I am sure. I know as I walk in His ways, I'm saved by His grace.

This special gift, greater than I've ever known, helps me do things that I cannot do on my own.

It perfects my weakness until I become like He is. I won't give up on my faith in His grace that strengthens me down the covenant path and into eternity. Perfect and pure, His grace is sufficient; of this I am sure. I know as I walk in His ways, I'm saved by His grace.

Sometimes in life, burdens seem too hard to bear.

I feel alone, but I know my Savior is there.

He can heal what's broken.

He hears my needs unspoken.

All of my trust I will place in His grace that strengthens me down the covenant path and into eternity. Perfect and pure, His grace is sufficient; of this I am sure. I know as I walk in His ways, I'm saved by His grace.

I'll walk with Him all of my days, singing and shouting His praise. Forever I'll stand all amazed. I'm changed by His grace. [MUSIC PLAYING]

Thank you, Brian. Don't leave too quick. I brought something you can take to your kids. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Wasn't that beautiful? I just love that song that he's written. Thank you for sharing that, Brian. Well, not too long ago, I was asked to speak about grace to a group of Primary children, and I was a little nervous because I usually teach teenagers or young adults or adults about this topic. So I didn't quite know what I should do. And then all of a sudden, I had a bright idea. I thought, I'll pass them all a hymnbook, and I'll have a little contest and see who can find the word grace the quickest in the hymnbook. So I passed out the hymnbooks. I said, "On your mark, get set, go." Everybody dove in. And pretty quickly, one of the boys said, "I found it! I found it!" I said, "Wonderful. Which hymn did you find it in?" And he said, "Called to Serve."

(SINGING) Called to serve Him ... [HUMMING] I said, "I've sung that hymn a lot. I don't remember grace being in that hymn." He says, "Well, it's right here." And he holds up the book. And he points to the bottom of the page, where we all found out that the hymn was written by Sister Grace Gordon. [LAUGHTER]

One of the teachers said, "Well, that puts a whole new twist on being saved by grace."

But I don't think little kids are the only ones who don't understand what we mean when we say grace or when we use the phrase saved by grace. So today, let's just talk for a few minutes about trying to understand that a little better. Grace is one of those crazy words in English that has multiple meanings. It can mean elegance and beauty. It can mean kindness and courtesy. It can mean a prayer--we're saying grace. It can be a title--your grace. It can be a salutation, like we read in the New Testament: "Grace be unto you." With all of those different definitions, it's no wonder that people struggle to understand it. If we go back to the original Hebrew word that was translated as grace, the word means goodwill or compassion--favor given with compassion. Goodwill or favor given with compassion. No wonder Christians grabbed that word to describe God's goodwill, God's favor, given with God's compassion. But Latter-day Saints are unique in that we understand that grace is not just a description of God's attributes. It's also how He engages with us, how He invites us to engage with Him as we strive to make those attributes our own. I love the definition that was given by Elder Uchtdorf several years ago when he spoke on grace. He said grace is "the divine assistance"--nice phrase, divine assistance--"and endowment of strength"--beautiful phrase, an endowment of strength--"by which we grow"--key word, grow--"from the flawed and limited beings we are now into exalted beings." So grace is the strength He offers us to make us strong. It's the divine help He gives us to literally make us divine. Now, for many years, when I was younger, I always believed that grace was waiting for me at the finish line. I had to be crawling on my hands and knees. I had to have dirt under my fingernails. I had to just be scraping across the finish line. And then somehow, grace would be there for me. Now I understand that grace isn't waiting at the finish line. It's the power that surrounds me here and now. It's the power that helps me get to the finish line. Listen to what Elder Christofferson said: "We do not need to achieve some minimum level of capacity or goodness before God will help--divine aid can be ours every hour of every day, no matter where we are in the path of obedience." Now, when I was younger, I used to think that grace somehow supplemented my works or that my works somehow supplemented Christ's grace, as if I had to meet some sort of minimum height requirement to get into heaven. But now I understand that it's not about height. It's about growth. And with that understanding, then suddenly I'm not thinking so much about His part and my part. Instead, I'm thinking about His heart and my heart loving each other and being conformed to the same image. Where once I saw Christ making up the difference, I now testify that Christ makes all the difference. Now, in a Christian world, grace has become synonymous with everything. It means every interaction that we ever have with heaven. But for us, it's wise to remember that grace is not synonymous with the Atonement. The Atonement is Christ's suffering in Gethsemane, on the cross, His rising from the empty tomb. But because of the Atonement, then He is able to offer us this gift of grace, His enabling power. Sheri Dew said, "Grace is the power that flows from the Atonement." Now, grace is not synonymous with answers to prayer. And it's not synonymous with tender mercies. And the reason that's important to point out is because sometimes we can see grace in our lives, shaping and changing, transforming, even when we don't see answers to prayer, and even when we don't see tender mercies. My son Russell, when he was 16, would always lose the keys to the car. My wife was brilliant. She made another set. Well, one day, he came home and said, "I just lost the keys to the car." I said, "Don't worry. Mom's got another set." And he said, "No, those are the ones I just lost." So I said, "Get over here. We're going to say a prayer." And we knelt down, and we prayed. And sure enough, Russell was led to find the keys in a place he'd already looked. And we recognized an answer to prayer. Now, that kid grew up and became a nurse anesthetist, which is kind of scary, if you think about it. "I know there's a body around here somewhere. Where did I put that body?" "Don't worry--Mom's got another." [LAUGHTER]

When he was in his training, they put him in a hospital five hours away from where he and his wife lived in California. And that made my little daughter-in-law panic because it meant she was home with two toddlers and a brand-new baby who wasn't eating well and wasn't sleeping well. And she thought, how am I going to deal with this with him gone for days at a time? The minute the rotation started, then the baby started sleeping through the night. The minute the rotation started, the baby started eating better and holding down food. And we recognized a tender mercy. We couldn't even call it an answer to prayer because we weren't smart enough to pray for it. I mean, who prays, "Please, knock out the baby"? I don't even think that's legal. So oh, your husband prayed for that. OK, yeah. See, we weren't even that smart. We weren't as smart as your husband. But God saw a need. And he just sent tender mercies. And he just took care of that need. Now, it's a little different from grace. We see grace in our lives as we see the interactions from heaven that change us--that change us, that change our hearts, that change our desires. Sometimes that can be an answer to prayer. Sometimes it can be a tender mercy. But grace is those moments that make us better than we were before. I know a young man who joined the Church in Las Vegas. When he was a teenager investigating churches, his stepfather said, "What are you doing? You're young. You're supposed to be smoking pot. You're supposed to be drinking. You're supposed to be sleeping around. What the heck are you doing going to churches?" Well, when the young man joined The Church of Jesus Christ, then his stepfather kicked him out of the house. You know the drill. A family in the ward took him in, helped him get ready for his mission. He was called to go to Japan on his mission. And he wrote me from the MTC. And these were kind of the words that he wrote: "Some General Authority just came." I mean, he's just a recent convert. He said, "Some General Authority just came and told us we're supposed to love our parents. That's a hard one for me. How am I supposed to love a man I don't even like, I don't even respect? How am I supposed to love a man I hope I never see again?" And then he wrote this: "I guess for me, right now, love is going to have to mean that I feel sorry for him and that I won't give up hope that he can change." That's grace, when your heart says, I can't love, and heaven says, Yeah, you can. When your heart says, I can't forgive, and heaven says, Yes, you can. When your heart says, I can't break this bad habit, I have tried a million times, and heaven says, Let's try one more time. That's when we see grace. As Brian said in his song, grace is a wonderful gift, but it's a gift that must be received. Listen to what we read in Doctrine and Covenants, section 88, verse 33: "For what doth it profit a man if a gift is bestowed upon him, and he receive not the gift? Behold, he rejoices not in that which is given unto him, neither rejoices in him who is the giver of the gift." So it's important for us to receive the gift. The gift is unearned. The gift is undeserved. The gift is not merited, but it must be received. Or, to quote a very wise Apostle, you've got to strike the match.

You've got to strike the match. We've got to receive this gift that's been given to us. We sing a hymn in the Church: "I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me, Confused at the grace that so fully He proffers me." When Charles Gabriel wrote that hymn, the word confused didn't just mean baffled or bewildered. It also meant standing in awe, standing in awe of the grace, this enabling power that so freely He proffers me. That's another word that we don't use that often. We use offer. If I offer Frank this--a copy of Dan's article, then he would have to come forward to get it. But if I proffer it to him, I'm putting the prefix pro onto offer, and that makes proffer. So it means I'm proactively offering. I'm literally putting it in his hands. I'm making it almost impossible for him to refuse it. And by the way, you'll be glad to have a copy of that. [LAUGHTER]

Think of the emblems of the sacrament. In many congregations, those are offered to the people. They come forward to receive them. But not in our Church. In our Church, those emblems are proffered to us. They are literally placed in our hands, even when we're late and standing in the foyer. And don't ask me how I know that. But even then, the emblems are proffered to us. That says so much about how Jesus is proffering us. He's putting in our hands this gift. But He must stand a little amazed Himself at how few people there are in the world who are willing to pick up those emblems and internalize that gift. He must stand a little amazed Himself. Sometimes when I'm talking to students, I compare grace to a scholarship. It's not a student loan--you don't have to pay it back--but it is a gift that is given with an expectation that it is received and used. The one donating the scholarship doesn't want the gift to be wasted. He wants the gift to be utilized. He wants the kid to learn, to grow, to be educated. Now, a scholarship doesn't guarantee learning, and it doesn't guarantee graduation. It facilitates it. And that's the blessing we have in this gift that we call grace. It facilitates our learning. It empowers. If we will choose it, it will empower our growth and our education.

Elder and Sister Bruce Hafen have written that if the Atonement had come to us without the mercy and without grace, then it would have immediately condemned us. If we didn't have the Atonement, we would be condemned by the mistakes we make in life. But because of the Atonement, because of grace, because of mercy, then we can be educated by those mistakes rather than condemned by them. And He wants us to be educated. He wants us. Many Christians in the world are just thrilled about being born again, but we understand that that's only part of the goal. The goal is not just being born again. The goal is to be reared to spiritual adulthood. I saw a young man at BYU with a T-shirt on that said, Don't grow up. It's a trap.

And I gave him the thumbs-up--I thought it was funny--but it's also wrong, because God's desire for us is that we grow up. And His grace is what makes that growth possible. Now, when my little grandkids come to me and read a book, the first thing I do is give them another book. They know that I love to read to them. I've done it since they were born. The first thing I do when my grandkids are born, I plunk them in my arm and I read them a book. And all the nurses laugh because they think it's funny that I'm reading a baby a book. They think it's funny, but it's not funny. It's smart. I want that baby surrounded by love and language and books, even if the book is bigger than the baby. I want that baby surrounded by books from day one. And as they read books, then I give them more books. That helps me understand just a little bit about how Christ and God are giving us their gift of grace. My daughter Whitney said to me one day, "Dad, I was reading in Matthew about the parable of the talents. And I think it's about grace." I said, "No, honey. I know these things.

It's about money. Talents were money." She says, "Dad, read it again." So I did. And with a lens that my daughter had given me, suddenly I saw that parable in a new light. Unto one servant, he gave five books. Unto another, he gave two books. And then to another, he gave one book. The first two read their books. And so he said, "Well done. Because you have been faithful over a few books, enter into my library."

Now, to the servant who had been given only one book, he took the book away. Why? Because the master was being mean? No, because the servant had already tossed it aside. What good is a book to someone who refuses to read it? Everyone in this room knows the pain of giving away a copy of the Book of Mormon only to have it rejected, a choice that says so much more about the person making it than it does about the book and the missionary. So even if God loves this servant--oh, I love you so much; enter into my library anyway--does she even want to go? What good is a library to somebody who can't handle one book? So it's not so much that God doesn't want to give her more books. It's that she has limited what He can give her by not using what He has already given.

I know a lady who went to the temple for the first time, and when she came out of the temple, I was anxious to find out her reaction. I said, "How did you feel about it?" She said, "Actually, I was very disappointed." I said, "Why?" She said, "Because I really thought it would be more focused on the Atonement."

I mean, I felt like she was saying, "I just walked through a forest, and I wish I'd seen a tree." But then it dawned on me. She wanted to see portrayals of Christ suffering in Gethsemane. She wanted to see His passion on the cross. She wanted to see Him rising triumphantly from the tomb. And instead, she saw the story of Adam and Eve. And that's when I needed to explain to her something that Elder and Sister Hafen wrote in a book called The Contrite Spirit. They said the endowment is not a story of how Christ gave us the Atonement. It's the story of how Adam and Eve received the Atonement and how all of us receive the Atonement in the same way. We receive it by covenant--by covenant. That's how we receive. Maybe you've talked to young people who say, No way, I don't want to get baptized because I don't want to sign that contract. I don't want to say I'll do things, because I know I'm not going to do them. Maybe some of you have talked to young Latter-day Saints who say, No way, I'm not going to the temple, because it's actually better. I'm showing more integrity if I don't go to the temple because I'm not going to promise to do something that I'm not going to do. As young people say these things, they're thinking of a covenant as only a contract. And we can rightly define a covenant as a two-way promise, but Truman Madsen said a covenant is not a cold contract between party A and party B. A covenant is a warm relationship between two friends who are--think of the temple--on a first-name basis.

As we think of a contract, we so often postpone the engagement because we feel like we can't live up to our part. When we think of a contract, we forever feel like we're putting the help of heaven outside of our reach because we can never do everything that we should do before we can get heaven's help. As we think of a covenant as a relationship, as we've been taught so beautifully in this recent general conference, as we think of a covenant as a relationship, then who is better off by postponing a relationship with Christ? Who is better off without a relationship with God? When we think of a relationship, then suddenly we realize that it's as we make and keep covenants that we receive the power to keep the covenants. As we make them, we receive power to keep them. The minute someone is baptized, hands are extended, and we're given the gift of the Holy Ghost. The minute we make promises in the temple, hands are extended, symbolizing Jesus's grace, His willingness to help us so that we can keep those covenants and, within that covenant relationship, be changed, become more like Him. We had an interfaith conversation at Brigham Young University a year ago, and there was a man representing the evangelical point of view. He was from North Carolina. And as he stood in front of a group of students in the BYU Wilkinson Center ballroom, he said this: Jesus didn't come to show us how to live. He came to save us no matter how we live. Now, I think he probably meant it to be a comforting thought, but I was so grateful that the teacher representing the point of view of Latter-day Saints said, No, Jesus did come to show us how to live. And He said, Come follow me. Do what you have seen me do. He promised to give us the grace, the help that we need, so that we can become more like Him. I was so grateful that that teacher was willing to stand up and explain that that's what grace is about, is so that we can become more like Jesus Christ. So have we been saved by grace? Boy, I hope everybody here in this room knows that the answer is yes, yes, yes, and absolutely, and yes, and gratefully, and thankfully, and wholeheartedly, yes. I hope we know that's the answer. If we're going to have discussions with those who are not of our faith about that phrase, the word we should be discussing is not grace. They feel totally dependent on Jesus Christ for their salvation. We feel totally dependent on Jesus Christ for our salvation. That actually is common ground. The word we should be discussing is the word saved. That's where we're different. Their salvation is very small compared to what we are thinking of when we say salvation. I met a sister in the South, and she said, "I'm going to slip St. Peter a $20 and slide on through." And that's her idea of salvation, just getting to the other side of the wall of heaven. But for us, that's just a very small view of salvation. For us, salvation includes not just getting to heaven, but becoming heavenly. Not just returning to God, for we were already with Him before we came to this earth. Why did we leave? Our salvation includes becoming more like Him. And that's the salvation that's huge, and upon which we are so dependent on grace--grace after grace, after grace, after grace. I was once reading in the Doctrine and Covenants a scripture that clarified some things for me. Because for a long time, I couldn't understand where one of the powers we talk about in the Church and other powers we talk about in the Church, where they begin and end. We talk about the power associated with the Light of Christ. We talk about the gift of the Holy Ghost as power. We talk about priesthood as power. We talk about being endowed in the temple with power. So I could never quite understand where one ended and the other began, especially when we define grace as power. But this scripture helped me a lot. Doctrine and Covenants 8:7: "There is no ... power, save the power of God." Suddenly, it clicked in my mind that all of God's power is just that: God's power. But He gives it to us in levels. He gives us a little, and as we utilize that, He gives us more, and as we utilize that, He gives us more. So while many people who are not of our faith believe that Latter-day Saints believe more in faith--no, in works than in faith, we say, No. Our faith is strong enough that it's manifest by our works. Many people say, You believe in making covenants and ordinances and works more than grace. And we say, No. Making covenants, renewing covenants, performing ordinances, keeping commandments--that's not what we do in place of grace. That is how we appreciate grace. It's how we utilize grace. It's how we acknowledge grace. And it's how we invite more and more and more grace into our lives. And then just as we're taught about Christ, we grow grace to grace. We grow just as the Savior grew. And we can work with Him as we become more like Him. We just have to remember that the process takes time. Sometimes we get frustrated because we want change, and we want it quickly. We want it right now. We want to break a bad habit, and we want to do it right now. We want to start a good habit, and we want it happening right now. I read a letter from a young man in the MTC--an email--and he said, "Where's God? Where's God when I need Him the most? Why has He abandoned me?" And I wrote him back, and I said, "You are in the MTC. God lives there. What are you talking about, where's God?" He writes me back, and he says, "I have been here for three weeks, and I still don't speak Spanish." Oh, three whole weeks. I wrote him back, and I said, "Look, you didn't learn English as a baby in three weeks. So just give yourself a break and hang in there. Keep trying. You're going to be fine." And he writes me back, and he says, "Don't we believe in the gift of tongues?" Do you see what he wants? He wants Espanol, and he wants it Harry Potter style. Poof. Taco. Burrito. Enchilada. Poof. He wants it now. I wrote him back and I said, "Yes, we believe in the gift of tongues, and sometimes, that's a gift that people have received instantly. But usually, it's a gift that takes time." Why? God can't change us in an instant? Well, of course, He could. He changed water to wine in an instant. But water doesn't have free will. Water doesn't have to want to change. And we do. He knows that strength too easily won is not strength, and change without challenge is not change. So time becomes the medium through which the power of Christ's Atonement is made manifest in our lives. Time becomes the medium through which the power of Christ's Atonement is made manifest in our lives. Do you remember when Elder Holland spoke in general conference several years ago and compared us to a big choir? And he said, there's sopranos and altos and baritones and basses. And my friend sings tenor in the Tabernacle Choir, and he got all mad because Elder Holland forgot the tenors. But in that talk, Elder Holland said this phrase: Come as you are, but don't expect to stay that way. Now, why could Elder Holland make that promise? Because of grace. Come as you are, but don't expect to stay that way, because you will receive grace upon grace upon grace. You will grow grace to grace to grace. And you will be changed. Gratefully, happily, you will be changed. But that change sometimes takes time. Let me conclude by just sharing an experience that happened when I spoke at a young single adult conference in Kirtland, Ohio. It was so wonderful because the young people had their dance, and they had their food, and everything you typically have, but then they got to go to the historic sites, and they got to hear the missionaries testify of the miracles that happened in those places. And we ended up having a sacrament service on Sunday morning right in the Kirtland Temple. We don't own that temple anymore. So I don't know who knew somebody, who knew somebody, who knew somebody, who knew somebody, but we got permission to have a sacrament service there. And it was amazing. We sang "The Spirit of God like a fire is burning" in the very place that it burned.

And we were right there. And it was great. And we saw the woodwork. And when I spoke, I said, Look at the woodwork around the windows. Look at the woodwork around the pillars. Look at the woodwork on the pulpits. Look at that woodwork. These saints gave their whole hearts to this building. But they weren't professionals. They didn't know how to build a building that size. And they were poor. They were scraping right down to their socks to build that building. So I said, They made some mistakes. Earlier in the conference, they had taken me down into the basement of the Kirtland Temple. And they showed me the original support beams, which were laid incorrectly. If you lay a two-by-four, you're going to lay it the two way because that supports more weight than the four way, which can bow. They had laid all the support beams horizontally and not vertically. And then there were no support beams under the heaviest parts of the building where the pulpits were. No support beams. Now they're there. Now they've got these steel beams and these hydraulic lift things. I mean, now, it's there. But in its day? Oh, they're lucky they didn't just stand there and say, "The Spirit of God like a fire is"--whoosh, and just fall right through the floor. But here's the point I made for the young single adults. I said, "The flaws did not keep Jesus from coming.

The flaws did not keep Jesus from accepting that building as His. And where there was weakness, He gave strength. And He turned that flawed building into a holy temple." There were so many themes that surfaced in conference--joy, the plan of salvation, holiness, avoiding Satan's deceptions, so many themes that surfaced. But I loved that theme, the theme of holiness, for that is what Jesus can do with us because of His grace. Now, we have just sat through a beautiful conference where we've heard testimony after testimony from special witnesses of the Savior. And actually, standing here in front of Elder Renlund, I almost feel apologetic for adding my testimony to theirs. But I do. I testify that Jesus is not a painting, and He's not a sculpture. He's real, and His Atonement, His suffering, was real. It's not a myth. It's not a legend. It's not a story, a folk tale. It's real. And the power that flows from that suffering, the power that that suffering made possible, His grace, is real. It's not a lucky charm. It's not like Mulan's lucky cricket. It's not self-fulfilled prophecy. It is real. I have seen it change so many. You have seen it change people. And I see it changing me. Grace to grace to grace, I see it changing me. And for that I will forever be thankful. And I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. Amen.