TTS:
Things They’re Saying

Fasting is twofold; it gives rest to the body and feeds the soul.

Herman Pollock
Tropic, Utah

Our Savior emphasized the importance of sexual purity when he taught that it was sinful for a man to even look upon a woman to lust after her. That teaching leads me to say a few words about the kind of material we read and the kinds of movies and television we view. We are surrounded by the promotional literature of illicit sexual relations, on the printed page and on the screen. For your own good, avoid it. Pornographic or erotic stories and pictures are worse than filthy or polluted food. The body has defenses to rid itself of unwholesome food. With a few fatal exceptions bad food will only make you sick but do no permanent harm. In contrast, a person who feasts upon filthy stories or pornographic or erotic pictures and literature records them in this marvelous retrieval system we call a brain. The brain won’t vomit back filth. Once recorded, it will always remain subject to recall, flashing its perverted images across your mind and drawing you away from the wholesome things in life.

President Dallin H. Oaks
Brigham Young University

I am pleased with the Latter-day Saint youth. I am pleased with them for being different without having to do stupid things and wear stupid clothes to prove it. And as Latter-day Saints, we rejoice in the fact that we have the gospel here on this earth to guide us to do what is right. We are different from the world because we accept the gospel and maintain the principles and standards therein. And people do look up to us and admire us because of the example we set.

Lorna Croucher
England Southwest Mission

Recently I traveled to Mexico City with the Northern Wasatch Youth Orchestra for a series of concerts. While there we all stayed in one hotel. There was an intellectual, refined old lady who lived in the hotel alone, and each night she and a few others would come to the lobby and watch the funny, loud American kids. By the time the orchestra had been there a week, she said to my mother in broken English, “Oh, please take these young people all over our country so our young people can see how they behave, for before this we have had little but bad examples from the United States for our children to follow.” And she begged to learn where she could go to hear our symphony play.

After we played a concert with the Ballet Folklorico, some of the performers came to the hotel to visit and learn more about what they called “those clean-looking, talented American kids.”

Later as we came through customs at Dallas, Texas, at 3 A.M. on our way home, they informed us that every piece of luggage must be removed from the plane, including all the instruments—even the large percussion pieces—as many drugs were being smuggled into our country from Mexico. As tired as we all were, each one began helping others, calling out the names of suitcases coming down the belt ramps. Everyone cooperated and willingly lined up for inspection. While the plane was being unloaded and this was taking place, several of the customs inspectors stood together watching us, and suddenly the man in charge came over to some of our tour leaders and asked if we were LDS. He had noticed that no one smoked or used bad language, and when they told him that all but three or four of us were LDS, he said that he had great respect for the members of our church. He remarked to his fellow workers that kids who didn’t smoke wouldn’t be carrying marijuana. They opened very few of our cases after that and hurried us through with dispatch.

Martin Steed
Logan, Utah

The best and easiest preparation for a mission is the early preparation. Start young to build the ideals and finances. I’ve had a mission savings account since I was baptized. My parents always encouraged me to go on a mission. They taught me and read me the scriptures.

Spencer Chatfield
Arlington, California

There are many reasons to read the Book of Mormon, and I feel the most important of these is the unique opportunity it presents to learn from the mistakes of the past. Here is a book that gives heretofore unknown history that is not propagandized or slanted and is told in a religious light. A good example of a mistake we can learn from in the Book of Mormon can be found in the story of King Noah.

Michael Chase Crowley
Plainview, New York

A genius is a crackpot who makes a screwball idea work.

Greener pastures may turn out to be a patch of weeds. You can read some people like a book, but you can’t always shut them up as fast.

Lucille S. Harper
Cheverly, Maryland

As we learn more and more about God’s universe through space exploration, the more deeply we become impressed and humbled by its orderliness and unerring perfection. It is as difficult for me to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationale behind the existence of the universe as it is to comprehend a theologian who would deny the advances of science. Space astronomy is teaching us that the universe is much larger than we had thought. And God, its Creator, is a much greater God than we had believed.

I have always believed in the possibility of other inhabited worlds in the universe. Direct proof of this, however, is still somewhat tenuous.

I base my belief in the possibility of life on other worlds on a combination of two things—faith and scientific reasoning.

To me life, in the broadest sense, is God’s ultimate purpose in the cosmos. It is impossible to find a drop of water or a spoonful of soil anywhere on the face of the earth that is completely sterile, that does not contain some living organisms.

Science has good reasons to believe in the existence of certain universally valid ground rules under which life can exist on this planet or anywhere. Our sun is one of 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is one of billions of galaxies populating the universe. I cannot believe that the Power that created life and order confined all sensible organisms to this comparatively tiny planet. It would be the height of presumption to think that we are the only living things in the enormous immensity of the universe.

Regarding space exploration, it seems to me that if God does not want man to explore space, he could very easily close the door to us.

Dr. Wernher von Braun
Vice-President of Engineering and Development
Fairchild Industries
Germantown, Maryland

A concerned mother pleaded with her son to stop smoking, and his only reply was, “I can’t. It has gotten to be a habit with me.”

Early the following morning the son was awakened by a stinging willow striking his feet. He was so startled at what his mother was doing that he didn’t ask for an explanation. This happened again the next morning, and the next, and finally the boy asked, “Mother, what has gotten into you? Why are you hitting me?”

The mother answered. “I don’t know. See, I have this habit and I can’t quit.”

Dorothy Winder
Las Vegas, Nevada