President Henry B. Eyring said that as he prepared for general conference he read the messages of the Lord's servants in the scriptures and in past conferences.
"My errand for today became clear," said President Eyring, first counselor in the First Presidency. "God sends messages and authorized messengers to His children. I am to build trust in God and His Servants enough that we will go out and obey His counsel. He wants that because He loves us and wants our happiness. And He knows how a lack of trust in Him brings sadness."
Speaking Sunday morning, President Eyring said that lack of trust has brought sorrow to Heavenly Father's children from before the world was created.
"We know through the revelations of God to the Prophet Joseph Smith that many of our brothers and sisters in the premortal world rejected the plan for our mortal life presented by our Heavenly Father and His eldest Son, Jehovah.
"We don't know all the reasons for Lucifer's terrible success in inciting that rebellion. However, one reason is clear. Those who lost the blessing of coming into mortality lacked sufficient trust in God to avoid eternal misery.
"That sad pattern of lack of trust in God has persisted since the creation."
President Eyring said he would be careful in giving examples from the lives of God's children, since he does not know all the reason for their lack of faith enough to trust Him. "Many of you have studied the moments of crisis in their lives," he told the worldwide congregation. "Jonah, for instance, not only rejected the message from the Lord to go to Nineveh but went the other way. Naaman could not trust the direction of the Lord's prophet to bathe in a river to allow the Lord to heal his leprosy, feeling the simple task was beneath his dignity. The Savior invited Peter to leave the safety of a boat to walk to Him across the water."
Peter, at first, hesitated and then walked on the water. But he became fearful and began to sink. "'And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?' (Matthew 14:31).
President Eyring, "We can take courage from the fact that Peter came to trust the Lord enough to stay faithful in his service all the way to his martyrdom."
The young Nephi stirs a desire to develop trust in the Lord to obey His commandments, however hard they appear. Nephi said, "'I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they make accomplish the thing which he commandeth them" (1 Nephi 3:7).
President Eyring said that trust comes from knowing God.
"More than any other people on earth, we have through the glorious events of the restoration of the gospel, felt the peace that the Lord offered His people with the words; 'Be still and know that I am God' (Psalm 46:10). My heart is filled with gratitude for what God has revealed about Himself that we might trust Him."
President Eyring said each time he reads the account of Joseph Smith walking in a grove of trees on a farm in the state of New York in 1820, his trust in God and His servants expands.
"The Father revealed to us that He lives, that Jesus Christ is His Beloved son, that He loved us enough to send that Son to save us who are His children. And because I have a testimony that He called that unlettered boy as an Apostle and Prophet, I trust His Apostles and Prophets today and those they call to serve God.
"That trust has blessed my life and the lives of my family."
President Eyring recounted an experience of hearing President Ezra Taft Benson counsel Church members to get out of debt and stay out. He said it seemed impossible to eliminate their mortgage, but he and Sister Eyring trusted God and sold property to accomplish the task. "And our family still listens for any word in a prophet's message that might be sent to tell what we should do to find the security and peace God wants for us."
He said such trust can bless communities as well as families. He shared the example of a immigrant Relief Society president in New Jersey who gathered old clothes and shared them with those in need during the great Depression. "The Lord did not run the city, but He changed a part of it for the better. He called one tiny woman alone who trusted Him enough to find out what He wanted her to do and then did it. Because of her trust in the Lord she was able to help in that city hundreds of Heavenly Father's children in need."
That same trust can bless nations, President Eyring said. "God does not rule nations but He is mindful of them. He can and does place people in positions of influence who want what is best for the people and who trust in the Lord. I have seen it in my travels across the world."
President Eyring told members of the congregation that they can show their trust in the Lord as they "listen with the intent to learn, to repent and then go and do whatever He asks.
"If you trust God enough to listen for His message in every sermon, song, and prayer in this conference, you will find it. And if you then go and do what He would have you do, your power to trust Him will grow and in time you will be overwhelmed with gratitude to find that He has come to trust you."
— Sarah Jane Weaver