Speaking Today

Elder Oaks Advocates a Life of Tranquil and Steady Dedication

During a Church Educational System fireside broadcast, Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles admonished young adults to seek for a life of steady and tranquil dedication and to pursue dating relationships. The broadcast originated from a stake center in Oakland, California, on May 1.

To teach a formula for living the gospel, Elder Oaks quoted Adlai Stevenson, former U.S. Democratic presidential candidate in 1952 and 1956. Stevenson said, “What we need are not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the steady and tranquil dedication of a lifetime.”

This steady, tranquil dedication, when translated into gospel living, means living the gospel by becoming a 100-percent Latter-day Saint 100 percent of the time, Elder Oaks said.

Elder Oaks used several examples to teach how carrying righteous goals, ideals, or doctrines to excess can be spiritually harmful. “An intense focus on goals can cause a person to forget the importance of righteous means,” he said. “When this happens, a frenzy of excess can occur.”

During the one-hour fireside, Elder Oaks also addressed a growing apathy among young adults toward dating and accepting family responsibilities such as marriage. He expressed concern that dating has been replaced by “hanging out.”

“Unlike hanging out, dating is not a team sport,” Elder Oaks said. “Dating is pairing off to experience the kind of one-on-one association and temporary commitment that can lead to marriage.”

He pointed out that the average age of marriage among young adults in the Church has increased and that the average number of children born to Latter-day Saint couples has decreased. Elder Oaks attributed the indifference toward dating and adult responsibilities to cultural tides and television.

Elder Oaks encouraged young adults to follow simple dating patterns. He suggested that young adults define a date as to whether the male partner planned the date, paid for the date, and paired off with his date.

“My single young friends, we counsel you to channel your associations with the opposite sex into dating patterns that have the potential to mature into marriage,” Elder Oaks said.

He concluded by inviting the congregation to act upon these correct principles by governing themselves.

Elder Holland Counsels Graduates to Put God First

During a commencement address on April 23, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles challenged Brigham Young University—Idaho graduates to be grateful, to have faith in the future, and to put service and God above worldly things.

“I want to leave with you, from the bottom of my heart, just three items, even though there is so much more I would like to say,” he said.

First, Elder Holland asked students to be grateful to God and then to others who help them. “There is nothing you have that He doesn’t already have a lot more of. The one thing He may not have—but certainly deserves—is your gratitude and loyalty, your appreciation and devotion, in short—your love.”

He quoted Doctrine and Covenants 59:7 to describe gratitude as the third great commandment behind “love the Lord thy God” and “love thy neighbor as thyself” (see D&C 59:5–6). “Gratitude is something that costs you nothing and means everything to those who receive it,” he said.

Next, Elder Holland said he was troubled by dismal opinions from others within the graduates’ age group. Some, he said, ask why it is important to seek an education, get married, or start a family if the world is so uncertain. He responded to these opinions by saying: “We must never, in any age or circumstance, let fear and the father of fear (Satan himself) divert us from our faith and faithful living. There have always been questions about the future.”

Instead, he said, young adults should have faith to keep moving, living, rejoicing.

“God is anxiously waiting for the chance to answer your prayers and fulfill your dreams, just as He always has,” Elder Holland said. “So pray on, dream on, and move ahead, ‘with faith in every footstep.’”

He concluded his remarks by relating William Shakespeare’s lament of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. Counselor and confidant to Henry VIII, Wolsey was on his way to success, wealth, and power when he slowly forgot what was important in his life.

Elder Holland said that Wolsey’s downfall happened “when ambition became more important than conviction, when corruption transcended fidelity, when power and wealth created a thirst for material goods that honest living could not satisfy.”

The story, he said, has an “absolutely essential lesson” for the graduates.

Elder Holland said: “As you stand on the threshold of your bright and beautiful future, may heaven strip you from this very hour, this very instant, any budding taste you may be acquiring for unseemly wealth or authoritarian power or worldly acclaim. … I ask you not to be lured by the siren song of avarice and greed, or the quest for unrighteous dominion over your fellow men and women.”

Urging the graduates to exert a righteous influence during their lives, Elder Holland closed by emphasizing the importance of putting God first.

“Remember that in the end, surely God will be looking only for clean hands, not full ones,” Elder Holland said.

Elder Uchtdorf Tells Women That the Gospel Lightens Life

Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and his wife, Harriet, closed Brigham Young University’s annual Women’s Conference on April 29 by telling the women in attendance to let the gospel lighten their lives.

“The gospel light has the power and purpose to bring blessings into your life and into the lives of those waiting in your path,” Elder Uchtdorf said. “You are here to facilitate those blessings. I urge you to bloom where you are planted.”

Elder Uchtdorf spoke about how women had steered the course of his life toward the gospel. He said most of the defining moments in his personal development were positively shaped by faithful daughters of Heavenly Father.

Elder Uchtdorf spoke of the influence of his mother, his grandmother, and his mother-in-law in his life. “They went before and ventured into new spiritual territory,” he said. “They had faith. … The light of the gospel, bright as the sun, lighted up their lives, and in return the warmth of their love helped me to feel secure and well-marked in the principles of the gospel.”

Illustrating the faith of his mother, Elder Uchtdorf retold an experience his family encountered as refugees from Czechoslovakia during World War II. During a brief stop, his mom left the train to look for food. Upon returning, she could not locate the train and prayed for help. After the prayer she noticed her family and the train on a parallel track.

“Some of my memories of these days are of darkness and cold, but with the help of God, we were moved into days where a light was shining forth to all who came out of that darkness and coldness and were willing to accept the Savior,” he said.

Elder Uchtdorf’s family found those brighter days in Zwickau, Germany, while living with Elder Uchtdorf’s grandparents. It was Elder Uchtdorf’s grandmother who introduced his family to the gospel. An elderly woman invited his grandmother and parents to attend a sacrament meeting. From this invitation his entire family would eventually be baptized.

“This act of kindness might appear small and not too hard to do, but it changed our lives forever,” Elder Uchtdorf said.

Elder Uchtdorf closed his address by urging women to be faithful. “If thou art faithful, thou needest not fear,” he said.

Church News and Deseret Morning News contributed to this report.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf