2/18
Transcript

The world is crumbling at our feet. The skies are filled with gray.

The Savior’s calling to His sheep. And He will lead the way.

We know His voice. We’ve heard it before. We know the words he says. He is the light. We’ll follow Him to the end.

Fire’s may burn, and storms may rage. When darkness comes, we’ll find our way back home. We will trust in the Lord.

Though tears may fall and friends may leave, we see His light, and that’s where we will go. We will trust in the Lord.

We will trust in the Lord.

We won’t be blinded by the rain. The path we’re on is clear.

There may be mountains on the way, but we choose faith, not fear.

He opens our eyes, fills us with peace, lifts up our weary souls.

He is the light and

we’ll never be, we’ll never be alone. The fires may burn and storms may rage.

When darkness comes, we’ll find our way back home. We will trust in the Lord

Though tears may fall and friends may leave, we see His light, and

that’s where we will go. We will trust in the Lord. We will trust in the Lord with all of our hearts. We will trust in the Lord,

We’ll trust in the one who made us all.

The fires may burn, and storms may rage. When darkness comes, we’ll find our way back home.

We will trust in the Lord, the Lord.

Though tears may fall and friends may leave, we see His light, and that’s where we will go. We will trust in the Lord.

We will trust in the Lord. We will trust in the Lord. Hallelujah!

Dear Heavenly Father,

we are grateful that we are able to gather today.

We are thankful that you have given us the resources to do so.

Please help us feel the Spirit today

and always as we navigate this difficult world around us.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the 2022 Face to Face event.

We're so glad you've joined us. My name is Joe. And I’m Kaylee. Our theme today for the whole year is “Trust in the Lord.” It’s part of our ongoing effort to strive to be like Jesus Christ in every part of our lives. Just like we’re invited to do so in the Children and Youth Program. That’s right! The phrase “Trust in the Lord” comes from a scripture in the Book of Proverbs. But today we're going to do more than read a scripture and talk about it. We're going to find out what it looks like in your life and mine to trust in the Lord.

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart. [Non-English speech]

Hi, I’m Brother Wilcox. The other members of the Young Men and Young Women General Presidencies and I are on a mission. We want to find out how you are trusting in the Lord.

I'm here at an early morning seminary class. You can tell they're just getting out of bed. Hey, come here, you guys. How are you trusting in the Lord? Um, reading my scriptures every day, prayer, the sacrament. Are you reading your scriptures every day?

Okay, yeah, not every day, but most days.

So what helps remind you to read the scriptures?

Um, an alarm on my phone, like, my mom asking me to.

For me, it's following the promptings that the Holy Ghost gives me every day and trying, even if they're not something that I quite understand why it's given to me. Actually, I didn't do it myself. It was my mom. Even though— Gotta love moms!

Gotta love moms! I gotta love my mom. She’s the one that actually said, “Okay, just—it will come. Just have patience. I know this is a trial. Everybody has trials.” I want you to look right at the camera and say, “Thanks, Mom.”

Thank you, Mom.

For me, a big one is praying. I pray every night and every morning, and just having that constant communication is really big, I think, for always being able to trust the Lord. Because if you don’t—if you know him, you can trust him.

Oh, I love what you said. If you know him, you can trust him.

Oh, great insights. Okay. How do you trust the Lord with all your heart?

Well, throughout my life, I’ve learned that it’s okay to not know, and it's okay to not know what's going to happen next in your life.

My favorite hymn is “Where Can I Turn for Peace?” And one of my favorite

phrases in that hymn is “reaches my reaching.” Well, for me, the past couple months have been really difficult.

It’s almost felt like He hasn’t been there for me, occasionally, but it was back in December when I got a text message from one of my friends, and it was a Light the World. And she was telling me how much she loved me. And I realized that that’s what I was missing, and that’s what I needed. And that’s kind of like how I knew He was there for me. And so it's just kind of the little things in my life that I've noticed that He’s—that He’s there for me, that I can trust in Him. So.

Thank you. So we're in a time in our lives in high school where you have to make a lot of big decisions. And so obviously you want to let the Lord help you make sure that you're on the path that He wants you to be on.

And so for things like college, I was like, “Where am I going to go? I don’t know what to do. I have a plan.” That’s big. Yeah. And so I was praying one time and I was like, “Where should I go?” And I just got this voice in my head that was like, “Why are you asking where you should go when you haven’t even researched it yet?” Like, I just think it’s interesting when you, like, rely on the Lord, He actually trusts you a lot more than you think, and He wants you to try and learn for yourself what you should be doing with your life. So He trusts you as you trust Him.

I’m here with Alina, I’m here with Alanna, and I’m here with Aidan.

All your names start with A. That means we have got the A team right here.

Aidan, you’re from Missouri, and Alanna, you’re from Kansas, and Alina, you’re from California, but you all have one thing in common:

FSY. Let’s talk about your FSY experience. What were some of the activities that really got you excited?

Oh my goodness, definitely the dances. Those were so fun, just being able to hang out with everyone and dance with the leaders. I have, like, videos of my phone of the leaders dancing, and I like them a lot. They're so funny. Yeah.

Those counselors can–can bust a move, can’t they? Yeah.

What about you, Aidan?

Pizza night was where it was at.

We, you know, we'd been having all these spiritual experiences and also the fun ones, and then we just got to go, and we got, like, several pizzas. We didn't actually eat all of it, which was surprising between 11 guys. It was such a cool experience.

Oh, that’s fun. Alanna, do you remember game night?

Yes. I was going to say, that was probably one of my favorite moments was Game Night, which—

Now we're not talking electronic games. We're not talking board games.

Tell them a little bit about the games we're talking about.

Yeah. So I love these games, because they were outside and they were very active, and you were able to run around and so fun. But then I loved how our counselors were able to tie that into the gospel. With each game, they would teach it to us, and we would go through the game, and then they would explain to us how that pertained to the gospel. And I thought that was awesome.

Alina, how did FSY help you learn to trust in the Lord?

I feel like for me, FSY helped me realize that when I’m going through trials and when I’m going through temptations, just to have faith. The testimony meetings and all like the lessons that they taught, that the leaders taught, there were some pointers that they said that

really did mention trusting in the Lord. So it was really amazing to go through all these classes and all these different devotionals and to be able to grow my testimony and learn more about myself and my relationship with my Savior and Heavenly Father—and to understand that I’m a daughter of God, and He loves me, and He’s aware of me. And He has a plan for me, and He’s going to place me where He wants me.

It seemed like every personal gospel study, every devotional, every talk, everything was about why we're here, who we are.

And I gained a really deep testimony of my relationship with my Heavenly Father that—I think about it every day since FSY, because it’s had such a profound impact on how I’m able to trust in God, because I know Him and I know the relationship I have with Him. And because of that, everything else that I think I need to know, I don’t really need to know, because I can trust in that relationship until this is all figured out.

Love that. So many people say, “Oh, the youth of today are horrible. The youth of the day, the youth of today have problems. The youth of today are all messed up.”

But they’ve never had the chance that I’ve had to stand at an FSY and watch you play games and watch you dance like maniacs

and watch you sing,

and to just feel the hope. The hope of the world, the hope of Israel, the hope for the future. Looking at you,

there’s just not a better feeling in the world.

Wow. Those experiences really make me want to go to FSY.

I agree.

If this is your year to go to FSY, sign up and show up.

You’ll definitely come to know the Lord better at FSY.

And like one of those seminary students said, if you know Him, you can trust Him.

Lean not unto thine own understanding.

[Non-English speech]

How do we trust in God? How do we—

we’ve talked about several ways, but how do you guys trust in God, like in school, for example?

Benjamin? Well, if I’m having a hard time at school, like an exam or something,

then I pray and I trust in God, because I know He’ll be able to help me.

He'll be able to help me get an answer, even if it's not right there. I know He’ll be with me and that He’ll help me. Very good. President

Oaks always teaches us to trust in God, and that trust is powerful.

What else? When you trust in God...maybe at school...

Yes, Sam?

There’s a lot of things that—a lot of bad things at school, like drugs, maybe,

people that smoke and all that stuff.

And it’s more about thinking about what’s right than just being with them,

so that people can see you're with friends

and stuff like that. And there are also many other people at school that are like that. And where it's not so much about the friends, it’s more about what others think, what they believe,

in order not to do those things.

Well, like many have already said, one of the problems we have at school is the people that are around us,

and for the most part, the one we should be closest to is the Holy Ghost.

He guides us where we need to go and who we need to be with and all of that. And we need to seek for the gift of hearing Him all the time at school or wherever. We need to hear Him where He is.

He guides us in all of that. Wow, so you’re talking about revelation.

You guys can all receive revelation, you know?

You guys know you can all receive revelation, right? Very good.

I am here with my wonderful granddaughter, Jacey.

Jacey and I were raking leaves one day, and she told me an amazing experience that she had had concerning trusting in the Lord and how that played a pivotal role in her life.

So would you be willing to share that with us? I would.

So recently I heard some things at school,

especially from some of my friends that had some doubts about the church. I was kind of curious and started to research some things like online,

and I've learned that there's a lot of information out there, good and bad.

And I started to question my faith in Jesus Christ and in the church. But then I remembered a seminary lesson that we had had a couple of weeks back, and it was about Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail. And we talked about how he had been through this really hard time, this kind of depressing time. And something that he did was he started to pray instead of turning away.

And he prayed to the Lord, and he said, “Where art thou?”

And that's kind of how I felt right then. And so I prayed to Heavenly Father,

and I got this feeling from the Holy Ghost that the Church was true and that I needed to find better sources.

And so I went to some smart people I knew, such as grandparents and the bishop.

And something the bishop said that really meant a lot to me is, he said, “Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith.”

What would you tell the youth that are watching right now? What advice would you have for them about trusting in the Lord?

You can't just go off what your parents say or what your church leaders say. You have to really pray for yourself and to read the scriptures, because there’s so much good information and good things that— and the Holy Ghost—that can testify to you that the Church is true

and that you can have a testimony even if you don't know everything.

So what you’re saying is that if you want to know something,

you’re going to have to do something. Exactly. Is that right? Yes. Well, thank you for sharing that experience, because I think so many people can relate to your experience. So, anyway, I love you. Love you, too.

I honestly can relate to what Jacey and those young men were talking about.

Isn't it interesting how often things things like prayer and scripture study keep coming up?

Yes, I've noticed that, too.

There such simple things, but they make a huge difference in building our trust with the Lord. I agree. Check out this song by Gabrielle Lorenzo from Brazil that captures that idea beautifully.

MUSIC PLAYING - “TEACH ME TO WALK IN THE LIGHT”

In all thy ways, acknowledge Him. [Non-English speech]

I'm Sister Craig, and I'm here with two adorable sisters, Giovanna and Sophie.

Thank you so much for letting me come to your home.

Yeah, I'm so excited to be here.

Giovanna, you had the wonderful opportunity of participating in the filming for the Book of Mormon movies,

and you were in one of my very favorite scenes when Jesus Christ visits the Nephites in the Americas.

Can you tell us a little bit about the role that you were playing and the experience you had? Yeah, I was playing the role of the blind girl,

the blind girl that gets healed by Jesus Christ.

This character, it shows her hardships and her journey to finding Christ.

And so that was very emotional for me and very touching.

Three days before the healing scene. Sophia here? Yeah. Yeah.

She was diagnosed with cancer, and so I went to the Book of Mormon video set, like, kind of like,

a little off. Like I was still myself. I was still having a cheery attitude. Like it felt a little off, knowing that my sister was in the hospital.

So then we got ready, I went up with my blind contacts in, and we went up.

Christ held my head, and all I could think about was Sophia, like,

Jesus Christ not coming up to me, not coming up to the blind girl, but Christ coming up to little Sophia and Him healing her. I think that Sophia is very blessed to have you for a sister. And you, of course, are very blessed to have an angel sister. Yeah.

After that first hour of filming,

we went to lunch, and I came back. And I couldn’t get emotional. And I kept thinking, “Well I’m supposed to do this, I’m supposed to be emotional for this scene to touch people’s heart.”

I tried to think about her again, and I was thinking about Sophia.

And the first thing I heard in my head is, “What about you, Giovanna?

What about you? You're special. You can do it. Be strong. Giovanna, you got this. Giovanna.”

And all these thoughts about loving myself, letting God love me.

That was the most incredible experience of my life. And I feel like that’s when I started, like, feeling better, started healing.

And I think it's so important that all of us realize that Heavenly Father, like you said, knows us, and He loves us. Yeah.

It really strengthened my testimony that God cares about everyone, that He cares about you. Like He wants you to take care of other people, but He wants also—He wants you to also take care of yourself. You know, there's going to be moments where you're going to feel very uncomfortable or very uncertain of the things you should do. But if you let Him lead the way— the more you do it, the more you’ll feel Him,

and the more you’ll feel His love and His compassion

and His will to help you. You always have to look at the big picture.

We want to talk to you today to talk to you about having, you know,

trusting in the Lord. So how do you know each other?

We're cousins.

You're all cousins. And what else do you have in common?

I’m a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

And we trust in the Lord.

And. And you trust in the Lord? Of course. Yes.

Are you going on missions? Yes. Do you have mission calls right now,

that you’re going to go serve?

We’re waiting for our mission calls, president.

You're all waiting for your mission calls. Yes. And do I understand that you have other members of your family that are serving missions already? Yes. How many more?

We have three cousins. Certainly, sir.

So you have three cousins now who are serving missions, and you are four more. So seven members of your family will be serving missions at the same time.

Can you tell us of a time when you have trusted in the Lord?

My experience is when this pandemic came.

It's been so hard, my studies affected and also our family income.

But I know and I prayed that if I trust and if you trust in the Lord,

He will provide our needs. So that's all I can do in this time of pandemic, is to pray, read the scriptures, and go to church regularly.

That's beautiful. I know that, too.

I love Him and I want to show Him that I love Him by sharing the gospel and do what He commanded me to do. And in this pandemic,

all I can do is to trust God and do His will.

Trusting in the Lord means you have no doubt. You’re not doubting.

So you have a firm testimony that God is there, that He will lead the way.

I know it’s hard, but Heavenly Father helped me feel that He is there.

I know because I have this family that He loves me. He loves all of us.

And for that testimony, I can share with others that amid the difficulties, the struggles that we are facing today, He is there, that He loves us.

Thank you so much. It sounds like your family shows a tremendous amount of trust in the Lord.

You have to fall in love with the process of becoming great. I would say I have fallen in love with this process of getting better every single day. And now it’s just like, when I wake up and I'm excited to do that.

My name is Olivia Moultrie.

I'm 16 years old and I'm a midfielder for the Portland Thorns in the National Women's Soccer League, and I’m the youngest player to play in the League. I've been a professional since I was 13 years old, but I made my debut this year at 15 years old.

I had my first goal and my first assist at 15, which is the youngest in league history.

Olivia, tell us about your journey. Tell us about your life right now. You're 16 years old. Tell us about Olivia.

Well, we can just start from totally the beginning. I mean, first and foremost, I’m always a daughter of God,

obviously. We’ve always had this list, and it goes our faith, family, and then soccer. So, I mean, no matter how important my goals are to me and just what I do every day, that—those two things will always come first for me.

I love that you said, “Obviously I’m a daughter of God.” Yes.

That is powerful to know—obviously— that that’s who you are.

In terms of just balancing life, considering how young I am and being a professional, the first thing I would say is just I always have this grounding presence of knowing that I always have somebody to pray to, somebody to talk to, and our Heavenly Father. And that's the thing that can always bring me back down from being nervous or feeling like I have a lot of things to juggle. And I pray before every game. Like, before the kick-off happens, I’ll be standing on the field, and I’ll just say a quick prayer like in my heart. And I have done it since I’ve been like ten years old, and I'll continue to do it forever. And it just gives me this one last, like, deep breath of, like, I know this is going to be okay.

Okay. So the Prophet invited all of us to gather Israel.

And the first group he invited were the youth.

Why do you think he invited the youth first?

I think he knows and the Lord knows just how big of an impact that the youth can have on each other, but also just that the youth have on the world, just our light and energy. And I think we kind of just bring this like real excitement. So good. I think you're absolutely right. I think the youth have an energy and a power within them that makes a huge difference. The influence is enormous.

When you continue to do the right things, when you go to church, when you read the scriptures, listen to the prophet, and just try to make yourself as close to God as possible,

He reaches out to you. He sees the effort you're putting in. And some of the apostles have said it and the Prophet said it recently in an Instagram post, just saying that like effort counts with the Lord and us trying to do the right things over and over again eventually leads to blessings. And so I just think continuing to do the things we can to be the closest to Him, He’ll tell us what He needs us to do.

That's so cool. You can really tell those youth gain a lot of strength from knowing that they are children of God.

Totally. I think I learned from them that part of trusting in the Lord is making Him the most obvious part of our lives.

I agree. Mackenzie Hatch and Eli Nelson are from Colorado, USA.

They had a chance to talk to Garrett Bowles, a professional American football player,

who learned that when you trust the Lord, He directs your path—sometimes to unexpected places.

Eli, what would you like to ask me? One of my favorite stories that you tell is when you’re standing outside on the curb with all of your belongings and nowhere to live. And a family took you in and gave you three rules. What were the three rules that they gave you?

One of the biggest rules is to go to church, because church is a place where you can fellowship, you can feel the Spirit. Another one was turning in my phone at night. It eliminated those distractions, right, with social media and all those things that we deal with these days.

I look back, and I say, well, I didn’t have those distractions. Those were the times where I could really dig into the scriptures. I could really find out what my testimony was. Another one was paying my tithing.

I think that's been a huge blessing in my life to this day. So what are the type of like day-to-day things that you started doing or implementing into your life that actually brought out your trust unto the Lord? I really think it started where—when I was at home,

when I would turn in my phone at night and I would really just have a couple of hours before I go to sleep of really focusing on

reading my scriptures. During that time, I would meet with my bishop, one on one.

You know, a bishop is not somewhere that we should feel afraid to go talk about our problems. He's going to give you things to push you, because that's what the Lord wants you to do. And I remember going in there,

and I've told them everything that I've done in my life, all the bad things, all the good things I've done, all the things that, you know, that I wasn’t proud of doing. But I knew I needed to do that so that I can have a clean slate with the Lord.

And I remember looking to the left, and it was

Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. And...sorry.

And I remember that Spirit hit me like it is right now of how much He does love and care for us and how much He felt all the pain and suffering that we’ve ever done. Anything that we felt, that we’ve hurt,

He’s hurt. Anything that we felt sorrow, He felt sorrow. That moment, when He did that, He did it because He loved us.

And I knew if He’s going to love me, I need to love Him. Not just one foot in and one foot out like I’ve lived my life for so long, or one foot off the edge and one foot on the edge. I have to truly love Him.

And when I did is when I knew I needed to serve a mission. And any time I struggle or any time I go through something, I always reflect back on that picture because that's what the Lord wants us to know, that He does love us. How about you guys? What are three things that that reflect in your life to trust the Lord?

I feel like the three things that have made me who I am today is church, family, and sports. Yeah, I’m very similar on those things as church, family, and sports. I’m a recent convert, so coming to the church has saved my life.

That's so cool. It's only that us three, we share so many similar things, and I think it’s because of what we found through the Church, and what we found through our testimonies of being a member of this church, because being a member of this church is a special thing.

But one thing I want to tell you all is if you learn to trust in the Lord

and you learn to keep His commandments,

He’s going to put you guys in places that you never thought before. And that’s what He’s done to me. And like I remember, there’s multiple times where my teammates was sick,

and I got to bless them, and I got to talk to them about my church. And everyone knows I don’t drink or smoke.

And before they used to bug me about it, but now they don't. Because I know I’ve trusted in the Lord, and I’ve stuck up for what is right. And I know when I do that, He’s going to bless me and He’s going to prosper me and put me in places where I never thought I would ever be. I know if you guys do that, you're going to feel the same love that I feel for the Savior.

And He shall direct thy paths. [Non-English speech]

If you had a minute to speak to the youth of the church, what would you say to them?

Trust doesn’t have to be perfect.

None of us are perfect, and a lot of the time, it’s really scary to trust. And even if you don't get it exactly right,

Heavenly Father will reward your efforts in trying to get it right. I've had to show faith in the Lord throughout the whole process of going on a mission so far.

Tell me about that. What was so hard about coming on a mission?

I'm pretty scared of people.

I'm not one to go out and talk to people, which is a little contradicting to what I'm going out to do on a mission.

And so just trusting that I will be enough, my abilities will be adequate, and that the Lord will strengthen me in my efforts.

So I play basketball at the Air Force Academy, and I’ve been there for a few years. And then going into my sophomore year,

I received a strong prompting to go on a mission. It was a little frightening.

It was a little bit at first, but it was kind of a relief, too, I think— Covid, and just being in the last days, the world can get dark and dreary, and it’s so beautiful that the Lord gives us promptings and personal revelation that's meant just for us.

If you had a minute to talk to the young women, the young men in the church about trusting in the Lord, what would you say to them?

I would say,

“Don’t tell Heavenly Father or Jesus Christ how to help you,

because we really don’t know what we need until we receive those blessings.”

We hope you enjoyed hearing these faithful disciples of Jesus Christ talk about what it means to trust in the Lord. Now it's your turn.

How have you learned to trust Him?

Share your experiences on social media and with your friends and family, and look for additional opportunities to share

coming soon on the strive to be media channels.

Now we'll hear some concluding thoughts from Young Women General President Bonnie H. Cordon, and Young Men General President Stephen J. Lund. Then we’ll have a final musical number, “Be Thou My Vision” sung by full-time missionary serving in San Diego, California.

Thank you, Kaylee and Joseph.

I’ve been deeply moved by the examples we’ve seen and your heartfelt answer to the question, “How do we trust in the Lord?” I wish we had time to hear from each one of you,

but I hope you've been able to see a bit of yourself in some of the people we met today. We've heard, for example, that trusting the Lord with all your heart sometimes means stepping out of our comfort zone and finding strength and courage in the Savior's comfort.

It means that even though we don't understand everything, we can know and trust the Lord loves us.

It means acknowledging Christ during good times and bad,

trusting His wisdom, His love, and His power to heal,

and it means letting Him direct our paths. I testify His way is the way to peace in this life and eternal joy with our Heavenly Father.

As we’ve seen today, it’s one thing to say, “Trust in the Lord,”

but it's another to actually live it.

Thank you for showing us all what it looks like to live by trust in the Lord. I want to share my personal witness that Jesus Christ is worthy of our complete trust. He is the Son of God and the Savior of the world.

He knows you perfectly, and He loves you perfectly.

His power is available to all of us, no matter where we are or what our challenges may be.

The more completely we trust Him,

the more completely we receive His power in our lives.

After the musical number, our closing prayer will be offered in American Sign Language.

It's okay to keep your eyes open and watch as he offers the prayer.

Thank you for trusting in the Lord. And please know how much we love you.

“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart;

[Non-English speech]

and lean not unto thine own understanding.

[Non-English speech]

In all thy ways acknowledge him, [Non-English speech] and he shall direct thy paths.” [Non-English speech]

MUSIC PLAYING - “BE THOU MY VISION”

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for the opportunity to listen

to different messages and experiences

in trusting the Lord.

We’re thankful for the Prophet to help us and guide us.

We’re thankful for our leaders.

Please bless them as inspiration.

We’re thankful for Jesus Christ and His atonement for us.

Help us to have the courage to choose the right and follow the Holy Ghost.

We love Thee. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Face to Face for Youth: Trust in the Lord

Description
During the March 2022 Face to Face for Youth, members of the Young Men and Young Women General Presidencies spoke with youth about trusting in the Lord.
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